So that’s it. I’m making the decision. Right here. Right now. In my dressing gown with my sore head. This is it. No more farting around trying to moderate and control. I’ve been doing that for a good number of months now—years even. And I’ve proved to myself time and time again that when it comes to alcohol I just cannot win. I’ve wrestled and fought and tried and tried and failed and failed to be a normal, moderate drinker and I just can’t be her. So that’s it. From this day forward I am never going to touch alcohol again.
Holy fucking shitballs. It actually feels like a giant anvil has just dropped from the sky and landed in my hungover lap. It feels monumental, mind-blowingly scary and completely unknown, but also entirely possible and somewhat exciting. Other people do this, why not me? Why not tragic, secretly boozy housewife me?
I manage to get my shit together enough to take the big boys to school (stay in car, sunglasses on, quick dash into the chemist on the way home for painkillers). Once home again I set up our youngest with some toys, take a piece of A4 paper out of the printer, find a pen and sit down to write another letter to myself. It’s not yet 9 a.m. and Break fast is still on air. Corin is interviewing a fashion expert about trends for summer. He’s trying on hats. I can’t even muster a giggle at knowing how uncomfortable he’ll be feeling. I’m on a mission. I take the biro—it’s red—and I write a letter to myself:
I am going to stop drinking forever.
I am not going to lose anything by removing alcohol from my life.
I am going to gain a lot!
I cannot control alcohol, it controls me.
I don’t even have joyful + fun drinking anymore.
I cannot moderate.
Every time I drink alcohol I binge.
I suffer the next day and as a result the kids suffer.
Alcohol stops me being the best mother I can be.
Alcohol makes my life harder and increases negative thoughts.
I will be 40 soon and I need to stay in good health.
Today is September 6th 2011.
Today is Day One.
Go Lotta!
xxx
At 11 a.m. Corin arrives home from the TVNZ studios. I’m sitting at the dining room table, an exhausted, hungover, emotional wreck.
‘Hey,’ he says as he walks into the kitchen and drops his stuff on the bench.
‘Hey,’ I answer back glumly. There’s a pause and then I start crying.
‘What’s wrong?’ He looks concerned.
‘I . . . (sniff sniff) . . . I have to stop drinking,’ I say.
‘Really?’ he says. He looks a little taken aback but also not entirely surprised.
I blurt out the truth about last night. ‘I lied to you,’ I admit. ‘I actually bought two bottles of wine and drank most of the first one before you got home. I hid it in the pantry.’
Corin looks at me for a while and then says quietly, ‘You know, I kind of knew. You seemed quite full of wine when I got back.’ Then he confesses: ‘I actually had a sneaky look in the recycling bin to see if there was another empty bottle in there.’
Oh holy hell. What life of deception and secrets are we building for ourselves here? I have to stop this madness from going any further.
Something has changed in me, this time it’s different. I can tell. My whole internal landscape has shifted. And so has my outlook. The world feels different. It feels monumental.
Corin and I talk for a bit and then he heads off for a nap. My brain is fizzing madly, thinking about what I’m intending to do and how exactly I’m going to do it. I head to the playground with our youngest (sunglasses still firmly fixed to face, pushing the swing in a lacklustre fashion) and on the way home, sitting at the traffic lights, I start thinking about the notes and letters I’ve been writing to myself recently. I decide it would be a good idea to keep going with that—to chart my thoughts and feelings, to help keep myself honest and on track. I still feel largely alone in my resolve. Corin is, as he always has been, unwavering in his love and support but, really, what can he do? Love and support is the best he can do and he does that wholeheartedly and unconditionally. The rest I need to do myself. I’ve always been alone in my concern about my drinking and now I’m alone in my newfound grit and determination. I need to constantly hear from myself as I head down this non-drinking road.
I ponder buying a notebook to keep beside my bed so I can jot down my feelings at the end of each day. A nice big journal that I can fill with letter after letter written to myself. As I’m planning this move and imagining what sort of notebook to buy, I think, ‘Actually I can touch type really fast, so it would make more sense to type it up on the computer.’ I imagine opening a Word document and hiding it in a file somewhere on the hard drive so that it’s tucked away in a private place just for me. Then one thought turns to another and I think that if I’m going to type it on the computer I might as well use one of those blogging templates that are freely available online. No one need know I’m doing it. And if a random person in the world stumbles across it they won’t know it’s me, it can still be private and personal and just for me. I won’t say who I am or offer any identifying details. It will be a personal journal for me, a private online diary to chart my progress.
I like making this plan. I like that I feel determined and focused. I don’t particularly like that I feel quite alone in this monumental ambition but I can’t see any other way forward. This really is just about me talking to me. Me fixing me.
My hangover fades and I get through the next two days in a low-key, glum state but with no alcohol passing my lips. Not-drinking hasn’t been too difficult so far. I know I can live dry for periods at a time and I’ve just recently had three-and-a-half weeks entirely off the booze. It’s just that this time the dry period will never end. That’s how I’m going at this. I’m not thinking, ‘Just for today I won’t drink’; I’m thinking, ‘I’m now a non-drinker.’ It’s a bit mind-boggling but that’s my attitude. I’m expecting there to be a period of adjustment and I know that I’ll have to be strong at times to resist urges but I’m determined that I’ll be able to manage it. I’ll just white-knuckle through the urges until the urges fade away and stop altogether. Surely they will. It’s got to be that simple, right? Breaking a habit, that’s what I’m doing. Removing alcohol and breaking a nasty little habit.
In these first few days I find myself doing unfamiliar things like buying energy drinks and iced coffees during the day and little bottles of soft drinks to pour in a wineglass at 5 p.m. (Well, why not? I don’t want to suffer stem withdrawals.) I’m very focused on liquids. I’m not fighting any strong cravings but I’m also trying to head them off at the pass by having other drinks around me. And I go to the local library and grab all the books I can on drinking and living sober. I feel a little bit awkward at the front desk getting all these books on alcoholism but I tell myself that for all the librarian knows I could be doing my Master’s research on alcohol (I’m not—it’s on ethics in reality TV!). And anyway, I’m not an alcoholic, just a problem drinker.
By Thursday I have figured out how to set up a blog using the free service Blogger. It’s incredibly easy to navigate around their site. I choose a URL that makes plain my goal—www.livingwithoutalcohol.blogspot.com—but the title of the blog I make more direct, more about me (although nice and enigmatic): Mrs D Is Going Without. I decide on a typeface (jaunty), a background (gritty), colours (bold) and I pinch a couple of images off the internet to liven up the page (feminine and boozy). It’s my third day sober and I quickly write my first ever blog post to me. In it I tell the full story of my final night of drinking and express how I’ve had enough of this boozy madness. I’m honest and I’m direct. I’m talking to myself and I end it with a sign-off and kisses like I would any letter to a loved one, using my newly selected, enigmatic nom-de-plume.
Mrs D Is Going Without (Day 3)
I’ve reached a tipping point and from now have decided to remove alcohol from my life. I’m scared, it’s going to be hard. Our family all drink. Our friends all drink. And I’m going to try and do this without any outside support. Just this blog. So stay posted and I’ll let you know how
I get on.
Love, Mrs D xxx
The act of setting up the blog, fiddling around with the template and making decisions about how it’s going to look feels very satisfying, very active, like I’m doing something positive. I know that I’m going to have to retrain my brain to live without alcohol. I know that I’ve got a nasty habit to break and it will take some effort. Setting up the blog feels somehow like it’s going to support me in that. And writing the first post feels great! I enjoy the process of telling the story, letting the words flow out of me. I type it out quickly then get on with the day knowing that the blog is there like a support net for me to fall back on.
Friday dawns and I wake up immediately thinking about my big decision and my exciting secret online journal. While the new sober lifestyle feels scary and overwhelming, the blog on the other hand feels treat-y, special and fun, like my own cool, online hideaway. I haven’t told Corin about it yet, it feels too precious to share even with him. I hop online as soon as I can and read over my post from the day before. My own words on the screen stare back at me, spelling out the story of my last, sad evening of drinking. I launch straight into typing out a new post without too much planning.
Mrs D Is Going Without (Day 4)
Jeepers, reading that story in black and white does just the trick I hoped it would. It sure does read ‘dysfunctional’. I think I might write out a couple more sad, unhealthy, dysfunctional facts about my drinking to ram this mission home. Because right now I’m thinking it’s going to be a doddle to give up booze! But it’s only been a few days and the memory of recent binges looms large in my brain. I’m sure as the weeks go by I’ll be lulled into thinking I can start again, pressure will come on, and the pull, the incredible pull of the booze will call to me . . .
I fill out the rest of the post by confessing to some of my secret sick drinking habits (fixating on how much I can get in me, filling glasses to the rim and slurping the top down immediately, obsessing about how much others are drinking and how much is left for me). Some of the twisted drinking behaviours that have been my guilty secrets for so long come out of the dark corners of my mind, travel down my arms, into my fingers and through the keyboard to take shape on the screen. It feels really good to be getting it out. Empowering. Freeing. I close the post by looking at what’s facing me for the night ahead.
Mrs D Is Going Without (Day 4 continued . . .)
Today is the opening of the Rugby World Cup and New Zealand is going nuts. We are heading down to the waterfront with the kids to soak up some of the Opening Party atmosphere then home to watch the All Blacks play the opening game. Usually I’d have a good bottle and a half of red wine to accompany that . . . but not tonight . . .