Happy (sober) birthday to me

Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash

Today is a celebration for me.

Seventeen years ago today I ended one of the longest relationships I’d ever had. By that point, me and alcohol had been on and off for some time, so this wasn’t a dramatic, flouncy break up. There were no doors slammed, no tears shed. It was a sputtering, surrendering, acceptance that it was over. We both knew it.

Like any relationship, there had been good times.

I’ve got some FANTASTIC stories, things I’ve done, places I’ve been, people I’ve kissed, all because alcohol held my hand, took away my awkward self-consciousness, dulled my sense that I was ‘too much’ and gave me freedom from myself. It quite literally kept me warm at university, when I lived in a house with no heating, and used Guinness as a layer of insulation, like a Ready Brek kid.

But the cracks began to show pretty early. Blackouts. Panic attacks. Losing things. Losing other people’s things. Losing other people.

Over the years, I tried to make it work. Lord how I tried. My last three years of drinking were a series of stops and starts, trying all kinds of tricks to allow me to keep the relationship going. Promises like ‘I’ll only drink on weekends… and maybe Fridays’ ‘I’ll always wait until 7pm before I have a drink,’ and ‘I’ll stop after two’ that always ended up broken, and me, tearful, confused and drunk. Alcohol was like the worst boyfriend, always promising to change, never delivering.

When I poured what was left of my last bottle of wine down the sink (it was a crisp, cold, expensive Sauvignon Blanc, my favourite) seventeen years ago I really thought my life was over. It was the worst kind of heartbreak. I believed that without alcohol, the rest of my existence would be in black and white, without colour. I couldn’t imagine finding things funny, or dancing, or loving, without it - though by that stage there wasn’t a lot of any of those things in my life anyway - the drinking had become solitary, and so had I.

I couldn’t see beyond my grief and loss.

I didn’t know then that in the next seventeen years I would have the greatest love affair of my life, I would run two marathons and climb a mountain, I would write a novel that would be a Sunday Times bestseller, I would mourn the loss of my dad and I would fuck up in a million ways, and would be able to live with those fuck ups without anesthetic.

What I know now, is that I was about to start another life. One with the volume and brightness turned up. One where I would have to feel ALL my pain, but I would also get to experience pure, unadulterated joy for the first time as an adult. One where I would find freedom in being myself, instead of trying to escape from it.

I am more grateful than I can express.

ODAAT