Let me take you there

So, we created a blog site to run parallel to the group - although the group will always be the main hub - so as to share blogs and such. We're always open to sharing other people's blogs, just email them over and we'll sort that. thehampshiresoberconnection@yahoo.com

The following blog is something I wrote in the very early days of my sobriety. It was the first "proper" blog that I posted on Soberistas . I decided to share it here also so understand that some of the details are out of date now. 

I’m not sure why I want to write this. Maybe it’s catharsis I don’t know. But I thought writing down the kind of days i use to have would help realise how drink had such a grip on me and therefore begin to move on from that. It helps to write - as it does to talk - so here goes.

My attitude towards drinking was terrible. I mean really terrible. Any day for any reason. I just felt like I needed it to function mentally. I still feel this way but I’m dealing with it better than I ever have. Day 27 as I write so I’m not going to think I’ve “made it” or that I’m any kind of expert. I know I’m just starting out on this scarily big journey. But it’s a journey I need to make. It’s also a journey I WANT to take. No more of the old me. Hopefully He’s gone and he’s never coming back. 

So, I’d get home from work about twenty past 5. Five minutes later my wife leaves for her job. In one of the biggest chunks of irony you’ve ever heard, she works in a pub!!!! Anyway, I’d eat dinner with my kids then blitz all the tidying up and get the children ready for bed. My youngest is only 2 so I’d get him to bed at 7 then come downstairs have the quickest cup of tea anyone in the world has ever drank then on the beer. 

I’d sit there until well after my wife returns from work. Way past midnight having consumed close 12 cans of strong lager. Sometimes less but more often than not at least that amount. Maybe even more. My messed up head would tell me after I’d reached a certain point that being even more drunk wouldn’t really make a difference at that point!!! How stupid and selfish is that? I feel embarrassed to be telling you all this. But I’m confident nobody here will judge me.

Fall into bed at about 1 in the morning, sometimes later. Bearing in mind I’d still have to get up for work a few hours later!!! Up at 7 feeling embarrassed and stupid. A Failure. I’ve never suffered with hangovers so I didn’t even have that to put me off the night before. The guilt though? Oh my the guilt. 

Walking to work thinking things like “I have to stop, I can’t keep doing this to myself and my family” and “ Why can’t I grow up?” As the day wore on and it got to lunch time where a bit of food soaked up some of the alcohol from the previous night, I’d start to convince myself that the thoughts I had earlier were just me “ Being stupid” and “Overreacting”. By the time I’d leave work I would have convinced myself that a few beers that night would be ok. I’d even spend a portion of the afternoon thinking of ways I could get more drink in the house for that night!!! 

And so the pattern repeated. Over and over and over again until it’s the weekend and I may as well write it off and start again on Monday. Except I didn’t. Ever. Week after week would tick by with me just being able to function. Maybe squeezing in a couple of AF days but nowhere near enough. As for the weekend? Much the same except I’d start to drink earlier and I’d go to bed later. Even going to buy extra when I had plenty at home already. I’d even start drinking when my wife would leave for work. sometimes as early as 4 in the afternoon. Drinking in front of my children. I didn’t even feel the shame that I should have done as any half decent parent - or even half decent human being - I just didn’t care. I wanted to drink so I was going to drink and nothing and nobody was going to stop me. 

Just to be abundantly clear here, I never was so drunk that I was incapable of looking after my kids. So before anybody bangs that particular drum you can put that thought straight in the bin mate, ok? 

I’ve rambled on a bit here. Sorry. It was upsetting to write that but at this point there’s no point lying anymore. It is what it is. Hopefully it’s what it used to be. I don’t want to go back. Ever. 

Thanks for sticking with this. Everyone on here is unbelievably kind. We’re all in this together. Thank you all. 

Phil.