Why mummy gave up drinking

Day 232. I’ve been thinking about my health a lot recently. It’s playing on my mind more than usual. It started a few weeks ago when I was chain smoking Marlborough Gold cigarettes like they were going out of fashion. It’s been a really tough few weeks. I don’t actually smoke. I did many years ago, but not since I’ve had children, other than the occasional drunken cigarette over the years just to feel that wicked sense of teenage rebellion instead of the responsibility of motherhood. But after a couple of weeks of stress on a plate, I foolishly decided that tobacco was the answer.

It was pretty evident I don’t smoke when I approached the kiosk and asked for a pack of Marlborough Lights (they haven’t been Malborough lights for many years apparently). The twenty-something-year-old cashier gave me a puzzled look, accompanied with a brief furrowed brow, that almost immediately bounced back not leaving a hint of a wrinkle – something which has become increasingly fascinating to me as I fast approach 40. When I frown, my skin goes back the same way a puppy’s does when it’s picked up by the neck, slow and steady – I admired the cashier’s forehead and made a mental note to book my first Botox appointment. The cashier said she had never heard of Marlborough Lights, although she needn’t have spoken, I had already gathered that from her expression. I asked her to show me all the packets and I went for the option that most resembled Marlborough Lights as I knew them, so I took a pack of Marlborough Gold and went on my way.

As I sat on the swing in my garden, puffing away and thinking about the multitude of stressful dramas that week, I thought about the damage I was doing to my lungs. One pack won’t kill me. Two or three packs probably won’t do that much damage if it comes to it. I quit smoking eight years ago. Surely by now, all of the damage I’ve done from smoking before should be gone by now? This is just a little blip. You don’t get lung cancer from one or two packs of cigarettes. Do you? I pondered this and my mind wandered to my other organs. My heart is definitely ok. That was scanned recently to make sure I don’t have the same problem as my mum did. I was fine. But my liver. Mmmmmm. Shit. That could still be a problem. Even several months after quitting, I still have that fear of what will happen in the future and how much permanent liver scarring I may or may not have.

I used to drink a lot. When I started consuming alcohol regularly (at 15 years old), I would drink until I either vomited or blacked out. Every time. It wasn’t a conscious decision to keep going until I passed out. I just didn’t have an off switch. I didn’t have any internal clock or mechanism to tell me to stop, and unfortunately, that continued into adulthood. By the time I quit, aged 39, I had matured to a degree. I would never drink to the point of vomiting post 35 years old, but I was so accustomed to consuming wine that I could easily decimate two bottles in quick succession, drinking until I eventually fell asleep. I would never recall the last 3-4 hours each evening and would wake up feeling anxious with a side order of self-hatred, often on the sofa, still dressed in my clothes from the night before.

So, for over 25 years I’ve been drinking heavily. How much damage have I done to my liver? How much has it repaired since I quit drinking almost 7 months ago? How much of the damage is permanent? If you’re in early sobriety, still drinking, or have quit for many months or years, I’m sure these questions plague you the same as they do to me. It’s natural, after all – without our health, we have nothing, and our deepest most overriding, fundamental instinct on this planet, is to survive.

The liver is an amazing organ that can heal itself and regenerate. Even if left with only 25% function – a liver can use its own tissue to rejuvenate an entirely new liver. Incredible! Once there is over 75% damage however, the liver can no longer repair itself. This is when liver cirrhosis is diagnosed. Wouldn’t it be great if we had some way of knowing before we got to 75%, so we could keep drinking until we knew if was a real problem with no solution. Unfortunately, our bodies do not have this ability. Far from it. Worse than that, we often don’t know there is a problem with our liver until it is too late and we are way past the point of return. Why? Because whilst your liver is a truly amazing organ, but there is one thing it can’t do – It can’t tell you when it’s fucked.

When you have a headache, you get a thumping sensation that indicates you need to run and grab some paracetamol, drink water and sleep it off. When you fall and cut yourself, you get pain where the wound is, and you bleed. It’s easy to work out how to treat this – clean it up, shove a plaster on it and wait until the skin heals. But the liver? The liver has no nerve endings. The liver can be battered, twisted, bruised and drowned with alcohol, but it won’t tell you it’s suffering. It will keep quiet and endure the pain. Imagine that your liver is a very small, frightened, physically abused young child – every time you take a drink, this child takes another punch to the face and says and does nothing. This might seem like an extreme analogy, but it’s actually very comparable. When a small child is physically abused, they’re generally scared to say anything. They stay quiet. But the damage is still there. It grows and grows until one day; the damage will become insurmountable. By the time the child eventually speaks out, they are often beyond the point of repair. They’re mentally and emotionally scarred for life – just like liver cirrhosis.

By the time your liver produces symptoms, by the time you start to feel pain, by the time your liver is able to ‘speak out’ – it is too late. Like I said, your liver can’t tell you when it’s fucked. It can only tell you AFTER it’s happened. So, in answer to the question posed by this blog, if you’re asking yourself ‘when should I quit alcohol to make sure I don’t damage my liver beyond repair?’ There is only one answer. Now.

If your liver can’t tell you it’s in trouble, and you know you have a problem with alcohol, the only way to ensure your health for the future, is to quit as soon as possible. If you’re waiting for a sign, if you’re hoping to keep drinking for as long as possible until you really need to give it up, your liver doesn’t work that way and it certainly won’t warn you. By the time your liver is so destroyed that it kick-starts a whole bunch of nasty symptoms in your body – it is too late.

The wonderful news is that your liver can fully regenerate in 6 weeks’ time. Amazing. I imagine that my liver has probably fully healed by now and I needn’t panic about the future. I’m young enough that I’ve given myself a fighting chance. The human body is incredible. Think about when you get a nasty cut or scrape to your skin, how quickly your body heals the damage. I love to mentally think about my liver healing like a skin wound. How after 8 months of no alcohol, it will be immeasurably heathier than it was this time last year. The fear of liver damage was certainly one of the reasons I chose to quit, but the benefits have far exceeded anything I could have imagined.

I had no idea of the life change I was going to embark upon. How becoming sober would shape my world into something completely new. How putting down the glass would improve just about every single aspect of my life, and more importantly, for my children. I was terrified about not being around for my children in the future, when what I should have been far more scared of was what alcohol was taking from them at that time. I simply wasn’t even close to the best mum I could be. To the mum I am now.

I think of the countless mornings I was hungover, impatient, bad-tempered, sharp-tongued and annoyed with my children. How many times I blamed them for being disobedient. I think about the conversations I had with other mums; the general consensus that kids are difficult and wine is necessary to deal with motherhood. The sad fact is that much of society thinks this way. Mothers are expected to reach for the wine after time with our children. It’s considered funny when mums go wild and get hammered. I was one of these women. I considered that drinking was a necessary component to coping with parenting; what it actually did was make it 10 times harder.

I’ve noticed a huge change in the way I speak to my children now, the patient way I now deal with tantrums (school run excluded – there you will find me screaming bloody murder like an banshee!), the way I put them to bed and the way I appreciate them so much more. I feel guilty as hell for the way I was, but I refused to admonish myself anymore. I just focus on doing things right now. I think the biggest changes are the morning and bedtime routines. I wake up rested, feeling great and with lots of energy. As a consequence, the mornings start earlier, run smoother and the school run can even sometimes be enjoyable! Not all the time. Giving up alcohol is amazing but it’s not a fucking miracle.

The difference in the bedtime routine is my favourite transformation. I used to be desperate to get the kids to bed, so I could be left alone to drink my Pinot Grigio in peace and waste the evening watching Netflix and scrolling through my phone. Now we do ‘story stones’ every night before bed. I hand-painted 24 stones with a picture on each side. The idea is that you take it in turns to select a stone from a bag and start to tell a story using the picture for inspiration. Each person involved takes another stone and carries on the story. This has become our nightly routine before bed, at a time I used to be running way from my kids to reach for a glass. It’s truly wonderful to listen to the crazy, often brutal and very funny stories that my children make-up. We giggle together, snuggle in bed and afterwards they go to sleep without a fight – likely because I’ve given them my time, patience and affection. They don’t cause issues because I’m not trying to be anywhere else. I want to spend time with them. I want to hear what they have to say.

I look back at the way I was, and I don’t feel disgust at myself anymore. I’ve long lost the dreaded morning self-hatred. I just feel sorry for her. For the mum I was. I made life so hard for myself without even realising. Make no mistake, I still tried to be the best mum I could, but I felt like I was failing all the time. Everything felt so God damn hard. And it was. I feel sadness for anyone who is in the grip of alcohol addiction. It’s a hideous place to be and it can feel like you’re at the bottom of a giant well with zero hope of escape. But it can be done by anyone. You only have to Google to read the millions of stories from people who have escaped the depths of despair, closely avoided death and have turned life around. Read these stories. Each and every one is so inspiring. There is no person who is beyond help.

So, is your liver beyond repair? I can’t answer that for you. But quitting now will give you the very best chance of a happy and healthy future. Don’t wait for the symptoms – remember they come too late. Your liver can regenerate in 6 weeks but just as importantly, so can your relationship with your children. Make now about the wonderful memories your children will have in the future. Memories of you being your best self, living your best life.

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