Why mummy gave up drinking

Day 105. This is a continuation of my previous post – the first five of ten stages of quitting alcohol, as experienced by me. Of course, not everyone will have the exact same adventure, but I’ve definitely picked up some common themes from all of the ‘quit lit’ and social media I’ve read and it’s great if people can find comfort in the phases that do resonate.

If you missed the first five phases you can access my previous blog below:-

https://whymummygaveupdrinking.co.uk/2022/02/25/the-ten-phases-of-quitting-drinking/

6. The grieving phase

I expected to feel a little sad after giving up wine and Prosecco. I had visions of turning up to various live-music bars, weddings, parties etc, and feeling a touch of jealously that everyone else would be fucked-up on fizz, dancing and having a great time, whilst I would become the quiet, boring one. I figured I could mange this by avoiding large social gatherings and generally keeping out of the pub. I could only be jealous if I was witnessing other people having fun. I could save myself from envy if I didn’t see anything related to alcohol. Mmmmm….not so much.

During my first hundred days I avoided pubs and I didn’t happen to have any wedding or party invites over that time; but I still felt a heavy sadness; so intense I can only describe it as a feeling of grief – a fierce aching and longing for the life I had before. I had no idea how monumental a life change giving up alcohol would be. Not dissimilar to the boredom phase, much of this is attributed to the brain having forgotten how to produce dopamine, but similar to grief, much of my emotional state felt like a deep and poignant type of distress. It wasn’t alcohol per se that I was mourning for; but the lifestyle that came hand in hand with booze, and the laughter. It doesn’t take long after quitting to start having memories of the good times, the great nights out and the stories which result in raucous belly laughing with friends. All I could think about was what I was missing. Much like when we grieve for a person, we focus on all the good times and forget the bad.

Undeniably I have had some great nights out after a shed load of wine. I’ve got funny stories spanning twenty-five years, that when told now, still bring a smile to my face. We romanticise the past and look for the good stuff, but it doesn’t change the fact that there was a bad side too. For every fun time, for every laugh, for every fond memory there is the trade-off – stupid decisions, broken relationships, ruined friendships, injuries, embarrassment, disturbed sleep, anxiety, depression, health issues, financial issues, lost employment, guilt, violence and shame. Just remember this – if an absolute arsehole dies, nobody talks shit about them at the funeral – but that doesn’t change the fact they were still an arsehole. Alcohol is exactly the same. Like a domestic violence perpetrator who beats their partner black and blue then buys a gift to apologise and showers their victim in compliments and affection. The good doesn’t even come close to outweighing the bad, so overall, it’s just never going to be worth it. Remember the good times with fondness, but don’t forget the bad – they are the reason why you quit in the first place.

7. The project phase

This phase is probably more to do with my personality that anything else, but I’ve absolutely noticed a seismic shift in my levels of creativity. Not necessarily productivity – I did a huge amount of procrastinating in the sleeping stage – but I’ve had more ideas and written down more plans than a bridezilla organising a wedding. My brain is waking up like a fairground ride that’s been in storage over winter. Slowly but surely the lights and the music are starting to fire up and I’ve been getting faster and faster; so much that my mind now looks like a multi-coloured blur. My first project was ‘Operation Quit Lit’. As already mentioned, I read an extraordinary amount of literature in the earlier days, and this consumed a vast amount of my free time. My second project was ‘learn how to bake everything’ – much to the delight of my two boys. My third project is ongoing – ‘set up a new business’ – which consists of designing a website, writing a book, producing an online course and becoming a millionaire before I’m 45. Ambitious? Unrealistic? Maybe. But I figure whatever I learn along the way is positive and almost anything is better than spending my hard-earned money on killing myself slowly. Literally any project at all is an opportunity to focus and learn something new. You just have to work on what excites you, what you enjoy and focus on your amazing new future.

8. The nightmare phase

This phase was an interesting one. Having spent years with disrupted sleep cycles and waking at 3am with alcohol guilt, it was an absolute treat to be able to sleep solidly through the night again. Since week one, my sleep has 100% improved. If I ever crave a glass of wine I remind myself that I will wake up in the middle of the night with crippling anxiety – it’s a really good incentive to stay off booze – because I now LOVE getting decent shut-eye every night. When we drink, we supposedly miss the necessary REM phase for restorative sleep. I never used to dream. I would drink, hit blackout, pass out and then wake up with a startle.

Since I’ve been sober, I’ve found that I dream – almost every night. Sometimes I dream about nice things, sometimes its random weird stuff by brain conjures up whilst it’s working overtime. More often than not, I dream that I’m drinking wine. When I wake up, I’m so relieved that I’m not back at day zero, but I am perplexed as to why I keep having the same dream – my brain lives in my head – you would have thought it would be on my side!! Anyway, I’ll happily tolerate a drinking dream – they’re not the end of the world and there are far worse – the nightmares.

I recall getting night terrors as a child, and the odd nightmare as an adult, but in the first few weeks of sobriety I found myself having nightmares akin to horror movies; terrors that were difficult to separate from real life and woke me up with a shock, shivering, shaking and in a cold sweat. I’m astounded at the complexity of the stories my mind can conject whilst I’m asleep. Multiple characters, plot twists, extreme violence, most of which I couldn’t begin to dream up in reality – I certainly don’t have an imagination that vivid ordinarily. Heavy drinking reduces the amount of REM sleep we get, so when we stop, it’s like REM sleep rebounds and our brains go into overdrive. There isn’t a great deal you can do about this phase. Actually, my boyfriend would disagree, he would recommend that you sleep alone…..

The other night I woke up and got a fright. My boyfriend was sleeping next to me and there was an absolutely humungous hairy fat spider on his head, so big, that in that split second I was concerned it was poisonous (I’m terrified of tiny spiders so this once was beyond horrifying). It was definitely some type of tarantula. I screamed at him to wake up and in a sleepy haze he foolishly whispered to me in his dulcet Italian tones “Go back to sleep amore”. Just at that moment the spider crawled onto my boyfriend’s face. I punched it as hard as I could, and my boyfriend woke up with a shouting startle.

“What the fuck are you doing?!”

“Saving you from that tarantula you ungrateful bastard!”

….Or at least I would have done if I was awake and there actually was a spider. Turns out it was just a nightmare hallucination. My boyfriend woke up irritable and with the beginnings of a black eye. Oops. Morale of the story – if your man pisses you off over the next few weeks, then you can thump him in the night and blame it on the hallucinations.  Mwah ha ha. On a serious note, nightmares can be truly frightening – but as with everything else – this is a phase that thankfully, settles and passes within a few weeks. In the meantime, if you do get nightmare hallucinations – maybe sleep on the couch until they stop!

9. The ‘who am I?!’ phase.

This one I didn’t expect. The ‘who am I?!’ phase is akin to a mid-life crisis. As it happens, my divorce absolute was granted last week, and I will turn forty this July – so maybe there is a little aging panic mixed in within my newfound sobriety. Either way, this is the most significant of all the phases so far and certainly the most impactive.

I started drinking when I was 14. I have literally never been an adult who doesn’t drink. What I didn’t realise, is that meant that I had no idea who I actually was. I was a stranger to myself. Drunk me was outgoing, loud, confident and sexy. At least that’s what I’ve thought for the past twenty-five years. Looking back at some of the cringeworthy things I’ve said and done over two decades, I was brash, obnoxious, arrogant and whatever the opposite of sexy is. My life, my personality and my self-perception have all been an illusion. I have lived my whole adult existence through an ethanol filter. I’ve lost hundreds of hours of time in blackouts. I’ve lost even more time in a fuzzy delirium. I’ve lost countless mornings to hangovers. I also had no idea who I was as a person.

In the first few weeks, this discovery was very unsettling. It was like listening to a new voice in my head. It sounded like me, but I’d never heard someone talking in this way before. A way that was exempt from chaos, drama and trouble. I discovered that surprisingly, I’m more of an introvert. I think I used alcohol to become loud in spite of myself – because now I really enjoy my own company. I like to write instead of binging on Netflix, only to forget what happened the next morning. Most days I couldn’t even remember what movie or series I’d watched. I like the peace and quiet now. Once my children are asleep, I don’t feel the need to drown out the incessant negative internal chatter. I don’t need to silence the voice that berates and ridicules me. The voice that tells me I’m a terrible person who doesn’t deserve happiness. Now I’m starting to get used to this new voice. The one that is proud of my 105 days. The one that is grateful for my dedication to my children. The one who tells me I am good enough and I can achieve far greater things.

If you’re questioning ‘who am I?’, I may not know you personally, but what I can tell you is that the sober version of you is better. Smarter. Nicer. Sexier. Happier. Braver. Healthier. Kinder. Think of quitting alcohol as the removal of your evil twin – your good side is only just getting started. Now is the time to find out who you are and what you are truly capable of.

10. The zen phase.

This is a phase I hoped for. Longed for even. At the very beginning of my sobriety, I started to journal. I had one relapse after the first five days. When I picked up the bottle of red, I decided to write down how I felt after every glass. It was surprising that when I paid attention and concentrated on the actual feelings and thoughts going through my mind, they weren’t actually positive. This is an extract from that journal entry:-

“5 days sober and opened the wine – because it’s there, I’m home alone and I’m bored…..tastes terrible. No feeling of relief. Just guilt. Second glass – feel disgusting. Tastes awful. Feel sick. Disappointed with myself. Slightly numbing sensation but it doesn’t even feel like a benefit.”

I don’t remember writing this next line. It was the last thing I wrote. I’ve never touched a drop of alcohol since:-

“One bottle down. I feel sick, sad and generally discontent. This does not feel good.”

Whenever I feel like I want a glass of wine I read that line – a simple reminder that after one bottle I will not feel better. It will not help me.

At the time I wrote this entry and for all the entries before that, I documented my anxiety levels on each day. Always 10/10 or 9/10 and some days an 11/10 – just to highlight how extremely stressed I felt. Within seven days of being sober my anxiety levels reduced significantly – to 3/10. For the past 90 or so days I’ve not scored myself higher than a 3/10. I’ve not had a period of sustained calm like this since I was about 13 years old. It begs the question, have my last twenty-five years of anxiety been caused by alcohol? Quite possibly, I think. All I know is that since I’ve quit drinking, I’ve felt a whole lot less stressed. No heart racing, palpitations, constant worry, fretting about my health, catastrophising or a general sense of panic. After a lifetime of anxiety, the absence of this feeling is hard to believe. It’s like walking around in a bit of a bubble, in some sort of parallel universe where extreme stress can’t reach me anymore. I react better to problems. I keep things in proportion. I feel Zen!

I wonder if everyone with anxiety quit alcohol as a first line treatment, what would happen? I suspect it would be an utter revelation. If you’re still having moments of relapse, write down how you feel when you’re drinking. Even better, film yourself and watch the video in the morning. If you need a deterrent, you won’t need to look much further than that. It takes a few weeks for the Zen phase to begin – but mark my words – it’s there waiting for you in abundance.

Thank you for reading! Please check out my previous blogs and follow me for more to come. My next blog will be out in a week.  If you have any suggestions about what you’d be interested in hearing me blog about, then let me know in the comments!

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