Just one or two is fine...right?

It's Sunday, 23 September 2018 and I'm 77 days sober, reflecting on what has been one of the busiest working weeks of my year culminating in a very boozy dinner party last night.

I've previously talked about situations I seem to find more pressured than others - for example I'm actually pretty fine navigating weddings sober (which I thought would be the most difficult) but cosy dinner parties at home seem to be the worst.

We hosted two couples last night so there was six of us including Rob and I. As opposed to the dinner party I tackled a few weeks back (which had been planned well before I went sober) this night had been organised only a few weeks prior. Rob had asked me if I fancied hosting a get together and I said yeah, absolutely! What I should have said was I'd prefer not to babe as I'm finding dinner parties exceptionally tough at the mo and they kind of make me want to curl up and die. Hurrah!

But I don't want to be that sober person who irrationally ruins everyone else's fun (I am totally living in fear of that right now), so I suck it up and pretend another dinner party off the grog is well within my skill set.

A few hours before kick-off I received a message from one of our friends asking what my favourite wine is. I read it and thought you know what, I'm just going to drink tonight. It'll be much easier to drink and I wont have to endure the raised eyebrows and pregnant whispers. After the week I'd had juggling difficult work events and a visit to see my poorly Nan I wasn't in the mood to play hide-and-seek with my drinking.

So despite being fully determined to pack in my sobriety I decided to (out of habit) implement a little trick to add weight to my decision making. If I'd pass this test I'd be back in the drinking game.

I began to hypothetically predict the night's events should I delve into the vino - just to see what the outcome would be and the fun I'd have along the way! After all, I've nailed over 70 sober days, I can handle my booze now and I know when to stop! Yeah I'd never managed it before but it's different now, I'm different now. Now I'm in control.

Here's what would have happened:

5.30 p.m. I open a bottle of red and pour myself a glass while getting ready. Oh how I've missed thee sweet nectar.
6.30 p.m. I continue drinking through dinner prep. Red wine on the go and simmering home-made paella, how fab is this! I'm sophisticated again!
7.30 p.m. Guest arrival - I'm 3/4 of my way through my first bottle. Loose and relaxed, welcome one and all to the best dinner party of all time.
8.00 p.m. We sit down to dinner. I'm a bottle in and loving life. But everyone's drinking tonight so it's A-OK!
8.30 p.m. I'm free pouring wine to myself and my guests. We're all drinking, lets get on it. Everyone is having wine too so my personal consumption is unnoticeable. Win. I love dinner parties.
9.00 p.m. My teeth are purple and I'm drunk. Probably two bottles in by now. But it's OK, Rob's down the other end of the table and hasn't noticed any of this.
Side note: He has noticed and has been noticing all night.
9.30 p.m. I'm slurring and don't know I am, but I'm loving the fact I'm on great, drunk form and everyone's drunk too!
Side note: I'm a bottle of wine ahead of everyone else and I'm by far the most drunk at the table. I can't hold a coherent conversation and I haven't checked my make-up since our guests arrived. I look and act pissed and my sophisticated self begins to unravel, quickly.
10.00 p.m. We move to the snug to watch the boxing. Anthony Joshua is fighting so we pour more drinks, this night is going great!
Side note: My brain starts to flicker and prepares itself for black out. I have roughly half an hour left of consciousness before the night turns black. 
10.30 p.m. I'm three bottles in by now and I'd like to say I'm loving the fight and looking after our guests needs. But I'm 100% sure I fall asleep on the sofa in a ball of dribbling mess. 70+ days of sobriety have lightweighted me into oblivion.
Side note: I won't remember anything past 10.00 p.m. when I wake up now. 
11.30 p.m. Our guests leave. I wake up and take myself to bed. Despite my impromptu nap it's been a great night, right?
Side note: Rob has to wake his crumpled heap of a wife and drag her off the sofa to bed. I attempt to start a fight about how judgemental he is when I've only 'had a few' and probably lay into him for letting me undo all my hard, sober work. We then fight and I pass out.
03.00 a.m. Wake up dazed and gasping for water. Throbbing headache. No recollection of the night ending.
08.00 a.m. Wake up fully with a stinking hangover. 76 days of sobriety erased. Apologise to Rob - have no idea what for but he's mad and disappointed.
11.00 a.m. Dominos Pizza opens. I order my weekend calorie allowance in one sitting. I haven't had pizza in nearly three months! I deserve this!
Side note: I am so bitterly upset. I'm back to square one and I'm a fucking failure. 
12.00 p.m. I'm drinking again now, so I may as well have a hair of the dog to cure my hangover?
Side note: I need alcohol. I can't do life without it. May as well get pissed again to deal with the self loathing. My name's Em and I'm addicted to booze. 

And so it starts again. The dark tape on repeat. The merry-go-round of doom. A life controlled by Blix and his soul-crushing advice.

My predictions shook me and I was quickly 'back in the room'. I decided to ignore the text about the wine - and I know that sounds rude - but I simply didn't know what to say. I didn't have the power to muster a reply so I closed the screen and left it.

Fast forward to 8.30 p.m. in reality and our guests are having a great night. The paella is a huge success and I'm on my second glass of non-alcoholic red wine and no one has noticed. I didn't announce it when people walked in, I just simply poured them the real deal and looked after myself. I know my obsession with people judging my non-drinking is irrational but tonight...I'm kind of realising that my sobriety is far from the focus. We're talking, laughing, eating...no one knows my wine is fake and I'm loving it.

To get through the group dinner top-ups I make my wine last and ensure I add a little more when I nip out to the kitchen to get beers for the non-wine drinkers. So when our friends come to pour more wine at the table my glass is pretty full and I politely decline as I wouldn't want to mix reds.

We move to the snug to watch the boxing and everyone is merry and in a great mood. I'm fully present and decide to switch drinks to Becks Blue (yet to find an AF red wine that still tastes good after two glasses). I do get a few strange looks but I say I'm really trying to cut down and no one bats an eyelid. I even get a few 'good for yous!' and again, people just carry on with the night.

It gets to midnight and our friends receive a text from their cabby saying he's broken down and can't collect them. So I mention I'm fully capable of driving and we pile in the car - laughing about the last time we were all in a taxi and I ended up breaking Rob's hand by slamming it in the door (a tale for another time!) - but it's lovely. My head is clear and I'm helping my friends get home. It sounds so stupid to say...but sobriety is making me so much more capable.

I return home and it's 1.00 a.m., Rob heads straight to bed and conks out in a drunken haze but I decide to give myself a head start in the morning. I head to the kitchen and put on some jazz music as I clear the plates and load the dishwasher. The house is now so peaceful having been a buzzing ball of good energy little over an hour ago. I finish the final inch of my non-alcoholic wine, kiss the empty bottle goodnight and pop it outside to be recycled.

I feel warm and fuzzy from the exhaustion and so happy I've accomplished yet another high pressured dinner party situation (which was entirely different to the first, and in a good way).

There were two big-time sliding door moments on Saturday night and I am so glad I stayed strong and remembered the outcome of scenario one which was drenched in booze. No matter how many times I try and convince myself I can handle just one or two I know, deep down, this is not the case any more.

This is why I've tried so hard, on so many occasions, to kick the habit but have never managed to escape the tightening grip of alcohol. I simply can't dip in and out, so now it has to be out. All out.

I love you Sunday, 23 September. You are my 77th day of winning and I am so, so happy to have you.

Day 58: Thank God for DIY.

I never thought I'd say this but I am so, so grateful to live in a shit hole at the moment. Let me explain why.

In September 2017 my husband and I bought a house which essentially needed bulldozing. The sizeable bungalow used to be a property filled with bedsits for lodgers and having failed to sell at auction (even property developers didn't want to touch the thing) we snapped it up as our 'forever home' project. Potential/location blah blah blah. 

Having gutted half the house over Christmas and New Year we're now living in a sort of semi-finished shell with beautifully decorated rooms together with random stud walls and the unfortunate remains of the original squatters den. My dad calls the hallway toilet the 'Trainspotting bog', and yes it really is that vile. I assume he calls it that from its appearance in the movie however I imagine he's attempted to climb down it while wasted at some stage. Both my parents are heavy drinkers but my dad is a different breed entirely. The man drinks like a fish yet has never had a hangover in his life. A medical miracle defying the odds of science. A human cat with never ending lives. A total liability yet devastatingly lovable. A man who buys a limited edition Jaguar for his 60th yet doesn't have a pension. 

So yes, the house is going to keep us occupied for a number of years as we don't have the money to do it all in one go but as of late we've had a burst of progress and I *finally* have a new room to decorate, hurrah!

This one is special too as it's going to be my very own space of serenity. For the first time in my life I will have a proper grown up office and I'm insanely excited about it.

The reason why I'm thankful for living in a tip is that it gives me something to do. Despite juggling a busy work and social life I am finding it incredibly hard to spend time at home and not drink. For so many years my home has been my refuge, my base camp, my hidey hole. A place for me to stash booze and guzzle as much of it as I liked - with no one watching and casting a judging eye. 

Even when Rob and I would stay in and drink 'together' I was still able to put away more than he ever realised. In my final months of fuckwitery I had resorted to only buying white wine in green or brown bottles so that I could leave them half full in the fridge door...of water, not wine. Thing is I'd neck all the wine in one sitting - likely starting on a Tuesday - and top up the finished bottle so it would only look like I'd had two glasses. I'd then pour a little bit down the sink every other night until the weekend so I looked like a sensible, respectable and controlled drinker.  

Rob only drinks beer and has always hated wine (he doesn't even like smelling it), so he never cottoned onto my brazen stunt which disguised the fact I was swigging from warm bottles I'd hid at the back of a disused cupboard Wednesday to Friday. He once queried where a jar of Moonshine (a novelty purchase from the States) had gone and I told him I was having a burn up of old wood in the garden and needed it for lighter fuel (OK Bear Grylls). In real life I had buried the bottle in the bin a few weeks prior as I found the 60% proof substance mixed very well with slimline tonic and got me sloshed very quickly. 

I digress. But yeah, my home has always had my back when it comes to drinking. "Look, Em, a dark and disused cupboard that would be perfect for stashing a few bottles. Rob will never know!". If Blix, my inner booze demon, didn't live in my head he'd definitely be at home in the trainspotting loo. 

So now the option to slump on the sofa with a larger than large glass of Sauvignon Blanc is no longer available I'm desperately trying to fill my time with distractions. 

As I settle deeper into sobriety at 58 days sober I'm realising that my hands need to stay busy. Be it blogging, cleaning, eating (eeeesh, so much eating), I can't possibly let my hand rest on the fridge and reach for one of Rob's beers (they still occupy the entire lower chiller compartment and I'm considering asking him to banish them to the garage fridge as I find myself staring at them. A lot).

But now we have a new room to decorate and I'm buzzing. In February when I last decorated I hated every minute of it. The dust from sanding would get in my wine glass, the paint would clog up my nails which would look gross on a night out - gripped around my wine glass - and evenings spent doing DIY would inevitably chip in to pub time. Now it's a different story. 

I can take my time over the sanding, ensuring the base coat is perfectly smooth and really drag out the fiddly yet therapeutic process - knowing every minute I spend focusing on improving my home is another side-step away from drunk old Em on the sofa.  

Yes the house has a bloody long way to go but I'm so grateful it's giving me things to do as opposed to being perfect and clean and tempting to drink in. Don't get me wrong, I'd love for the bastard to be finished (!) but instead of viewing the renovations as an inconvenience I'm going to embrace them as a very welcome distraction from the wine witch.

And I can't think of anything better than squirrelling away in my cosy new nook - documenting my sobriety within freshly painted walls (I've always loved the smell) and googling countless stories about recovery and self-help (yes I am absolutely obsessed with other people's journeys and reading at the moment)!

Before we started to turn the room into an office it was an ex-lodgers manky wet room, covered in mould, damp and other horrific remnants that I'd rather not think about. Ewwww. The tiles would squish down into rotten floorboards as you stepped on them and the toilet was practically falling off the wall. If old drunk Em was a room in our house she would have been this wet room. Ruined by years of neglect and cracking under the slightest bit of pressure. State of her!

Now the space is being transformed into a haven of productivity and good energy at exactly the same time as I decide to go sober. Coincidence, non?! I think so :)