I would say that I have spent the last decade depending upon drink to calm my nerves. From soothing my 25 year self from mania and misery thus uncorking a bottle of red at 11 am and drinking myself into oblivion, to the later more disguised and manageable bottle of wine an evening, melting the seeming hardships of psychological, personal dislike of life.

It's only been seven days since my last recoil into drowning my sorrows: three pints of beer and two half pints of wine in quick succession last Monday night, and since then I've had a social 'small' glass of wine and otherwise sustained myself in the evenings with chamomile or Valerian tea and bountiful reading.

My sister died two years ago this February and I find myself thinking of her in my sober moments for example when I open a cupboard to get a packet of food out, I think of her busying about her kitchen or gratefully thanking me for a vinegar cleaning spray I put together for her and using it with glee, or her keeping a little perfume bottle of homemade perfume I made her on her special shelf.

I think of her avid cleanliness in the time leading up to her diagnosis and then beyond,  almost a reaction to the immunity destroying disease that was to claim her. How she would disinfect and clean so scrupulously her cosy and beautifully decorated and laid out flat. I think then of the sizzling fish cakes she made me, or the perfectly fried egg she'd present me, or vegetable bake next to a sea of baked beans. Somehow even the most meagre meal would be presented and proffered so kindly and thoughtfully that it would always taste delicious.

I think of her plans to start a degree in psychology just as she discovered her illness; and her new round table to dine at with her little boy and plans for all the things she planned to do for her and him.

I sometimes find myself questioning why? of course. But the disbelief reigns strong. That so solid a sister, so real and so a part of the very fabric of the very streets  she walked in Greenwich where she lived, has gone.

The streets where as children we walked together past the 1980's waste land which has now become the Hotel Ibis and Greenwich Picture House.

I am craving a large deep glass of red right now, but will persevere. My head is still not utterly clear.
Rest In Peace my beautiful sister. 1974-2011 xxxxxxxxx

please catch me god. dry January continued.

despite not having alcohol for five nights i have woken up with a headache.

i am wondering if alcohol disguises a multitude of other sins in which case i am missing it.

However, there is some difference in my waking up.

I feel tired and actually do have a headache but i feel an incentive to continue and my body seems to be asking me to carry on as it hasn't even started to heal yet!!

part of me fears that drinking has been effectively pickling me and now i will start to deteriorate

but i guess that is one of the oddest voices persuading me to drink drink drink

(tho secretly i think stopping drink will really unleash a miserable fact of life, that life is boring. life is painful.
and i don't want to be a goody goody stuck with the responsibility of sobriety. No fun. almost cuckolded....................................???

i can see how far this voice has been taking me.
not to drink, to be part of a drinking culture, like being the cuckolded one...?
train of thought most peculiar.

i think i have been drinking for a very long time through fear.

i am metaphorically falling backwards and essentially trusting that i can get through the fear and still be safe.

i am really gonna strive to keep this January dry! very good incentive for a break!

post thought> i suppose not drinking isn't really gonna change much. its all still  there.
all of it.

still i may feel a little more improved, lets say.
lets see.

Friday: weekend with no alcohol challenge!

so i haven't had an alcoholic bev pass my lips since desperate glugging of mulled wine on Monday night. that is a big wow for me who couldn't imagine getting through an evening without anything at least 5 %.
today is Friday, usually the day to relax and kiss goodbye to another week in the form of cold glasses of white, moody glasses of red, or crisp rewarding beer. however, i want to see how clear i can get my head and i am challenging myself to a dry January. to wake up sat morning clear and fresh and centered? not in my dictionary for as long as i can remember. but here's to getting through Friday night. fingers crossed.

forty eight hours or so since last drink!!! feeling empowered but can't lay off the fags at the same time!
thinking about the cracking open of a cold beer, but isnt as alluring right now since i think i've been at a sort of rock bottom for some time.
perhaps i will notice a few extra pounds $$ here and there, and my head is a little clearer though i am a bit fuzzy and my senses are heightened.
a bit clumsy too. but look forward to different mornings.
trying to keep January dry!

reasons to drink. not very good ones.

having consumed one drink on not dry January 6th and now on my second and so far damned again it's easier to carry on than stop, i think of why i drink:

• the self is infinitely more interesting once it has consumed a drink 
• the self allows itself to be selfish once having had a drink and other concerns fade away, like bedtimes.
• the resolve is weakened and the self allows the self to be weakened at the expense of other more mind rewarding things like reading fabulous books or making children laugh
• the self atones the self for shitty addiction
• the self wallows in humorous self pity and comes up with multiple reasons for continuing in the same vein as the self is powerless it tells the self. 
• the self says maybe tomorrow you can get back on the straight and narrow and ultimately rewarding
•  the self is fucked. 

nearly dry January 6th

the more i decide not to drink, the more its pull grows.
I managed to get through the entire evening with aching teeth (ew) irritating feelings of annoyance and general distemper.
I read my books, i read to my children, i made supper and got the daughter to bed without a single drop.
Then at the stroke of nine pm (3 hours later than usual) i cracked open a cold can of beer.
i feel slightly defeated that i can't even manage one damn day.
i logged on to blogs in general of abstainers and the more i read of how wonderful they feel, the more wretched i began to feel.
is the beer making me feel better?
not really, though i think it sort of represents closure for me of another day.
the reasons i wish to stop drinking...

• to treat the week in a business like fashion up on time and in bed on time (a routine)
• to reduce groggy hellish hungover mornings 
• to reduce earth shattering tiredness during the day
• to improve health - skin and body and inner bits i can't see
• to be more present with my children 
• to find proper purpose for living 
• to live without alcohol
• to face life without this damn drug
• to live

and yet, here i am glass of cold alluring beer diminishing beside me. 

moderation moderation moderation.

perhaps if i can utterly reduce the nights i crawl to my pillow in oblivion then i may start recovering from this blight. 

i can allow two pints of beer and then bed.

but you see, i think i am desperately miserable and the gulping down of slightly sweet yeasty beer seems to stifle the discontent and sense of self failure. 

and yet i deeply don't want to go there completely which would explain the night time issue.

i am all to well aware of the hundreds of thousands of drinkers especially mums who see the night form 6 pm stretching off into miserable awareness of nothingness. 

yes there are board games and stories to be read, books to read and films to watch, but somehow after the grime and grit of another day, sipping or swallowing an alcoholic beverage seems to be the only thing that satisfies emotional and almost physical misery.

and now as i finish that first can and reach for my second, the dreadful cruel shit heap of self pity reaches out its devilish hand to wrap its claws around my shoulders and comfort me. 

'bad mother' it suggests, then 'no of course not dear, you are struggling...' try harder' it calls. 'but no, you can't try any harder. it's too hard, isn't it my dear...' 

how can i possibly go to bed now? i think. two beers and i am still sober. i will have to be alive while i go off to the land of sleep. i can't face that.... knowing i am losing consciousness.... 

oh fuck. does it really matter. you've done it before, woken up feeling like road kill and dragging your body through the day till eventually till it feels ok again. you can do it again, and again. 

shit shit shit. 

 

Dry January! God help us all.

Can I please blame my children for my desire to drink? That and other members of my family, Please?
I have left the comfort of my bed to heat up some pre mulled wine left over from a very fast and now receding Christmas period of festivity (it's all the alcohol I have left!). I have, in post Christmas resolution, started reading Ackroyd's history of England, London etc to improve my mind and harpoon my interests, however, it is thirty minutes past eleven night time and still the little child like harpies festoon the sleeping quarters and deprive me of peace.

Dry January. God Help us all. I may yet be a useless parent, my children should now be wrapped in cloths and sleeping but my powers are clearly minimal and the little vikings do stop me from altering the course of my ways. They sleep till 11 am and retire 12 hours later or more.

 I will drink this wine then try again, and I hope that by Sunday night, I can sleep without need of alcohol. I plan to visit my doctor and profess that in giving up drink that I need Valium or some such potion to curtail my desire to obliviate myself.

They have of course followed me and pester me, though when I tried to sleep they played.
God help me 2014.

In the words of my little one at my arm right now 'mummy, i want a drink!'

God help me, so do I.

On the Morrow I will wake them early and tire them all day then I will sink to sleep with them at nine hopefully avoiding drink and wake up fresh on Monday, back to school, hangover free with redeemed children.