My relationship with you has broken down.
I love you so much but I know that you’ll just keep hurting me and driving me into an early grave and so it’s time we parted ways. I miss your company while I cook. I miss pressing you against my lips. You always made me feel so happy, but you just won’t stop hurting me.
I’ve been sober for 65 days now.
Turns out, I’m very good at drinking all the beer and very good at drinking no beer. It’s drinking SOME beer that I struggle with. Some beer is always just one more beer. One night off from drinking is always tomorrow night off. Science says that drinking a glass and a half of red wine is better for you than drinking no wine at all.
Of course, that’s
not true because, of course it isn’t. It was such a wonderful justification for something we all suspected was just a little too good to be true. So every drink was doing me damage. But a couple of glasses of scotch is a just reward for a hard week’s work. When I woke up the next morning I was blindsided to discover I’d drunk half a bottle. It was time. I’d had two decades of enjoying a drinker’s lifestyle, but if I want to keep my health there needs to be a cutoff point. Moderation isn’t an option.
I’m not giving it all up though. I don’t want to give up a night out drinking with pals. Those are always too much fun and worth the chipping away at my telomeres. It’s the constant, night after night that is out. And it’s been hard. I enjoyed home brewing so much. And when I gave up I had dozens of litres of beer in the house. There are many litres of spirits in my cupboard.
It didn’t help that my little brother came around just when I’d started to gift me a litre of home brewed ginger beer. Or that my mother wanted to chat about all her new favourite beers. And pop culture!! I never realised just how often imbibing poisons are glorified on our TVs. Everyone is having a sneaky tipple and it’s fun and silly and fine but this shit results in more hospital admission than smokes. There are alcohol lobbies pulling thread in the darkness making sure it stays that way.
I’ve had to stop rewarding myself for a hard day with drinks. Perhaps the reward is simply never having to nurse a hangover again. That’s what
Ricardo celebrates. And like him, I’ve found so much more time in life. When I don’t pour my first drink at 4:30, 10pm comes around five an a half hours later rather than… immediately.
I miss the taste, and the thrill of my muscles gently going slack with my first mouthful. I miss always having something to sip. My mouth keeps getting bored. I bought a Soda Stream which seems to be doing some of the heavy lifting. But the thing I miss the most, is the heft of my favourite glass. I’d reserve it for my first gin and tonic of the day. It was solid and warm. It felt like forever.
And that’s why I’m breaking us up. You promise me forever, but you’re a god damned liar.
Cheers.