Want some reasons?
2. I’m sick to death of hangovers- I’m too old for them, they last too long, and I can’t afford the expensive makeup you need to cover them up because I’ve spent all my money on expensive wine and disgusting kebabs (a pointless combination may I add.)
3. I want to get fit and whichever way I look at it, I can’t build wine into that equation- ‘it’s liquid, its grapes, it’s basically fruit?’ Spin class is no fun on a hangover, and carb fest 2015 has taken place this summer, with a new job in the city that has seen me spend the price of a small car in various bars and restaurants around town.
4. I threw up on the train on Sunday morning into a small, blue sandwich bag after an extortionate night out. I’m 27 years old. This CANNOT happen again.
5. I want to know the difference between an alcoholic and socialite. The line, I imagine, is finer that we like to think. Alcohol is socially acceptable, available, legal; so what makes some people abuse it and others not? Does it come down to luck, circumstance, genetics, social attitudes? Will power? Do we define where that line is, or does alcohol?
6. I grew up with an alcoholic, it wasn’t much fun. I’ve had 4am phone calls from A&E, I have visited him in hospitals, been to court with him, fixed his finances, let him live with me. I have looked after him, loved him, abandoned him and everything in between. Living with someone with a drink problem feels like living with acid in your stomach- it rots away at you, slowly, but on the outside no one sees the injury.
Not to kill the mood or anything. My instinct is to joke, but my instincts also tell me that nearly everyone reading this will relate to this in one way or another. It's why 'Sober for October' is a popular fundraiser- so many of us have complicated relationships with alcohol.
Clichés cut; no over-used Frank Gallagher prototype can articulate the mark left on a family such a figure leaves, because the worst part, the part that creates the suffering, is the fact you love them. To love an addict is to grieve for them simultaneously, because you loose them, over and over again.
Clichés cut; no over-used Frank Gallagher prototype can articulate the mark left on a family such a figure leaves, because the worst part, the part that creates the suffering, is the fact you love them. To love an addict is to grieve for them simultaneously, because you loose them, over and over again.
It took a very long time to negotiate a social life for myself as a result. (One that judging from my overactive Instagram account, has swung in the other direction, making up for lost time...) As an early twenty-something I struggled with anxiety and depression, had never been to a gig, hated nightclubs, crowds and went through bouts of being completely tee- total. I couldn’t even bring myself to go into a pub. I cringed when someone slurred their words at me, hated drunk and loud people, and never felt a part of the scene that everybody else seemed so enjoy with ease. I’d see guys with the blue plastic bags coming out the off-licence and would wonder if we were all just living the same evenings, a world we made so big and fast we need something to slow it all down again.
Resolve and forgiveness are things earnt with time, and as a more self-assured adult, it's left me curious;
I’m going to stay sober for 31 days because I want to know what it really feels like to want a drink, badly, and say no. I want to know what that feels like.
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