So I'm 61 days sober! Yay! And feel like shit! Boo! That's only because I had an off the scale dream last night and woke up with a raging hangover this morning. Well, fake hangover. Fangover? What is WITH them?
I've nearly finished Clare Pooley's book, The Sober Diaries, and I absolutely bloody love it. Despite Clare being a little older than me I can relate to her on so many levels. Except she has kids, is solvent, and hit the top of her career ladder aged 30. I'm 31 and launched my own business 2.5 years ago - so I'm still absolutely skint and remain embarrassingly tucked under the tax threshold (for now - PMA and all that). There are so many 'Ah me too!' moments in her book though and I love her for that reason.
So since returning from holiday a few weeks back I've made a pact with myself. Instead of scrolling through social media for hours on end (literally) gawping at nonsense before dropping off to sleep, I will read. Proper, papery, reeking of intellect books that will enrich my life and give me purpose. And the whole cosy-cup-of-tea-in-bed-with-a-book thing makes me feel infinitely more intelligent than my husband who prefers to play football manager in his pants.
I haven't been able to put Clare's book down since I bought it a week ago. And without giving too much away, the pages document her journey of sobriety from day one through to 365 (I think, I'm currently on day 270 something). It's Christmas day and Clare is at church with her daughter. She's debating taking the communion wine and that's all I'll say as I don't want to be sued for copyright or anything! But if you're new to sobriety or simply enjoy reading other people's accounts of it (I can't get enough) then buy Clare's book and check out her blog Mummy was a Secret Drinker. Both sources have really helped me through some dark days.
Anyway, deciding to put the book down after reading about communion wine turned me into a crazy person last night. And I had two, very vivid dreams. The first was about cheese. My mum and I were eating blocks of it in my kitchen and it was laced with black pepper. It was some new peppery cheddar hybrid and she told me to tell me brother as he loves peppery cheese (?!) Is peppery cheddar even a thing? If not maybe it should be, it tasted really good in my dream! My kitchen cupboards were made out of the same cheese and my mum was also dressed as a mouse. Okurrrrrrrr.......
And the second dream felt like it was happening on an entirely different day. Rob and I were in our kitchen (no cheese this time) and I was perched on the work surface drinking a huge glass of red wine like I used to. He was asking me why I'd given in as I was doing so well, and I told him that it was communion wine and that it's OK as Clare 'drank it'. He then asked how I got it and I confessed I'd stolen it from our local church (the same one we got married in), so he called Father Richard and said I'd broken in and the next thing I knew I was being carted off by the fuzz in the back of a police car! Rob was shaking his head in disappointment as the sirens took me away.
All very odd, and not the first time I've dreamt about booze, but this morning I felt absolutely rotten, like I'd had a bottle of the stuff. I woke up at 6.00 a.m. with a hot foggy head and was gasping for water.
I've been doing some reading today and apparently there are a variety of reasons why addicts will experience drunk dreams even though they're ecstatic about their recovery success. So it seems my necking red wine was inspired by events that had happened to me that day. Yup. A trigger.
But instead of feeling like 'Oooooh, that tasted good. You enjoyed that didn't you? Why not have a drink tonight, it's Friday after all' I felt very uncomfortable and panicky - like I'd let myself down and I'd been stripped of my purpose.
My biggest fear at the moment is actually drinking accidentally. Halfway through our holiday I left Rob at the hotel bar to order a nightcap while I nipped to the ladies. When I came back he handed me my sparkling water and I went to take a sip. It occurred to me that the glass was half full and very flat. So I sniffed it and went wide-eyed - like...terrified Ainsley Harriet wide-eyed - when I realised it was alcohol. By complete accident Rob had poured his mixer into the empty glass reserved for my sparkling water and gave me his double Bacardi. The fool was drunk and got his glassware confused. We laughed it off but my gut was doing somersaults. What if I had necked it? After all I was super thirsty - it would have been a large gulp! Would I have stopped there? As I'm yet to disclose my full dependency to Rob I couldn't point out just how big a deal that could have been for me. So when my water actually arrived I smelt it, hard, finished it very quickly and ran away to bed to be away from the temptation.
So, constant fear of accidentally tasting booze and slipping back into my old ways is very much part of my day-to-days now. And of course, reading about wine and tales of drunk behaviour before bed is pretty much gold dust for Blix, worming his way into my dreams and playing with my insecurities like a master puppeteer. Hopefully, and in the not too distant future, Blix will be too weak play. Clare writes about her voice, the wine witch, becoming frail and comatose over time. I'm too excited for that day to land and will try my bloody best to get there.
And as I haven't been able to stop thinking about peppery cheese since waking up I am absolutely going on a cheese hunt today and may even treat myself to shopping at the Windsor Farm Shop on my way home from work. Posh cheese sounds like a very fair reward which I will enjoy with some alcohol-free red wine left over from last week's dinner party :) Dine out on that, Blix, you whopping creep.
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