The Day I Was Attacked

I’ve not written much on the blog for months now and a lot has happened since then, which I will update on in due course.

It’s now less than a year until I turn 40.

However, one thing that did happen is that I went back to drinking. Annoyingly I was on like day 97 when it happened.

Not majorly bad, not every day like I used to. I suppose you could say, weekend binge drinking. And, to be quite honest, I was enjoying it. Even my partner didn’t seem to mind too much.

I started the business in March and drinking wasn’t having a detrimental effect. Indeed, I was far less likely to drink more than I could handle because I was aware that I had client meetings.

But, I have now quit again, today is day 1. Why have I made this decision?

On Thursday 1st of December 2022, I was at the Christmas night out of a networking group that I am a member of. It was filled with merriment. Indeed, I even agreed to join an offshoot group which is centred around going to the pub.

It was a great night! We started in the pub, and then went for a meal before heading off to a late night cocktail bar where we danced the night away.

At some point, I was bundled out the door by one of my networking colleagues, who tried to get me into a taxi. I don’t know what happened with that but I was no doubt belligerent in my refusal.

I ended up (I think) chatting to some of the randoms I was chatting to in the bar. I don’t believe I was being an arsehole or anything.

Then, 3 guys came up behind me and hit me over the head with a metal bar or pole.

It seems that I was not at fault. The police have confirmed that they literally just came up behind me and did it, this is based on the CCTV footage.

So, why, then, given that it’s not a drunken scrape I’ve got myself into, has it spurred me on to just quit again.

Well, there are two main reasons:

I’m furious that I’ve not been able to give the police much information – when they are treating it extremely seriously. Now, part of that could be due to the blow to the head, however, I think it’s more likely because I was really, very drunk. This will limit the chance that they’ll catch the fuckers in my view, and will certainly stop me being able to identify them nor give a coherent account in court as to what happened. I can almost feel the cross-examination now. “I put it to you, sir, that you were too drunk to know that it was my client who hit you” – and the barrister would be completely correct. I can now only rely on CCTV footage.

I’d say that, while I didn’t bring this on myself, it is undeniable that I wouldn’t have been in that situation had I not been drinking. I wouldn’t be out at 4am on a Thursday chatting to randoms. I’d have been in bed, asleep, probably for a number of hours by that point in the morning.

So, that frustration I feel is driving me forward. I was very lucky, it could have been an awful lot worse – but it is a fact that in a different scenario, I could have died. I could be one of those men who was killed on a night out by one hit.

Now, I actually decided to stop drinking the morning I got out of hospital. However, I’d forgotten to prepare myself for it and last night, after a choir rehearsal, I was asked “are you coming for a drink?” and my instantaneous, pavlovian reply was “yes”. Work, and preparation, is now required.

So, while I could today be on day 4, I’m actually on day 1. However, this is the end, I’ve signed up again to One Year No Beer, and this time gone the whole hog and bought the full 365 day membership – which I’m pretty sure will be the best early Christmas present I’ll have even bought myself.

The Day I Attended a Recovery Meeting

Yesterday I joined a SMART Recovery meeting online (https://smartrecovery.org.uk/).

I liked the idea of SMART as it provides behavioural tools to enable you to manage your behaviour better, rather than re-living war stories and undertaking 12 steps etc. as offered by AA.

It was a bit of an eye opener.

I’ve never been able to reconcile whether or not I’m habitually addicted to alcohol. I know I’m not physically addicted, but addiction comes in many forms and I guess that was my big question – are my issues stemming from a form of addiction.

It’s one of the greatest questions out there in the sobersphere I guess too.

Having attended the meeting, I’m pretty certain that I am actually a problem drinker who could become addicted. Indeed I felt like a bit of an imposter at the meeting.

Everyone there was either in the throes of active addiction with their lives crumbling around them, or is in recovery having hit absolute rock bottom and nearly losing everything.

Indeed, there was a chap there who had had a drink before joining the meeting and he just reminded me of my mother, from the things he said to his flat in the background, it was very, very similar to my mother.

To be honest, I’m not quite sure what to think. I very much admire each and every one of them for the effort and courage they are showing and I actually felt a bit ashamed that I was there.

How dare I conflate my problem drinking with the issues these people are facing?

I almost felt like I’m not taking their issues seriously enough by me having the self-indulgence to believe that this is the right support for me.

At the end of the day, my choice to stop was in recognition that alcohol could ruin me in the future, but it hasn’t yet. While I feel that perhaps I need support, maybe full alcohol support programmes and groups are not the right fit for me – and perhaps I just need to be brave and have the discussion with myself that, actually, I’m just not going to drink.

Unfortunately, I don’t think there are groups or services out there for problem drinkers who are not facing addiction issues, but who potentially have maladaptive behavioural patterns and coping mechanisms, for people who could become addicted but are not there yet – well, unless I were to pay a shrink, I guess.

So, again, I don’t really know what to think or whether I’ll go back. It was fascinating, and I am seriously proud of everyone on that call,

However, frankly, I don’t want to detriment their experience with any self-indulgence on my part.

Need to think a bit more.

The Day I Went Back to Day 1

On Thursday night, I was faced with a choice after 16 days of sobriety.

My other half had gone to visit family for the weekend and I was alone with nothing to do.

Really, I should have mentally prepared for this. I know that, previously, I have ALWAYS indulged when I’ve been alone, even if I haven’t for the most part been drinking. I’m alone, nobody will know and it’s when the wine witch/warlock or whatever I’m going to call her/him goes absolutely mental.

I started cooking to divert my attention and it was “cooking is better with a glass of wine”. I watched telly and it was “telly is better with a glass of wine”. I watched “28 days” to try and snap myself out of it “you can have your last glass of wine while watching this, the film will snap you out of it and you’ll have still got to have your ‘treat'”.

I did try to fight it with logic, but ultimately I was primed to listen and after about 2 hours of fighting (whomever says that a craving lasts a few minutes is talking shit btw) I hot-footed it to the shop and bought some wine. 2 fucking bottles of it.

I’ve always found this. If I’ve had a period of abstinence, if I get the opportunity to drink, I’ll make damn sure I have enough to get pissed. It’s also how I reasoned with myself that I should start again – “if the option is always there, you won’t go mental with it like you do when you feel it’s prohibited”.

Anyway, the rest is history.

Friday was just a write off and thank God my boss was on holiday – and to be honest, it was in this knowledge that I also went for it.

In my first post on this blog I said that I’d asked for help. I self-referred myself to a local alcohol service. Now, you see, I wasn’t particularly keen on this idea and, despite them saying they’d get back to me within 5 days, they haven’t. I have been quite glad about this, I was finding it easy, I didn’t need help, I’d just carry on as a non-drinker. But, I clearly lack tools to get over things like this, especially when I’m alone.

So, on Saturday I did some research and found SMART recovery. I’ve never been drawn to AA, I’m not religious despite a lot of my life being spent around the church, even now. I also don’t like the idea of going over and over the bad things you’ve done in the past. I question how that is healthy. Additionally, as I’ve mentioned before, I am so averse to labels such as alcoholic that I just don’t think AA is the right fit for me.

However, SMART recovery seems to be more present and forward-looking with a recovery approach focussed on behaviour and psychology, that’s far more up my street. So, I have enquired as to whether I can join one of their online meetings this morning.

Now, all this being said. There are a few things to note that are actually extremely positive. All this happened Thursday night. I had a busy weekend ahead as I was singing in a concert on Saturday and at mass and then evensong on Sunday. I didn’t drink for the rest of the weekend, even around my Sunday choir colleagues whom I spent the whole day with and whom I fell in love with originally due to our shared love of drinking (nobody drinks like church choirs and doctors I have found). They drank all day and I had water and an alcohol free beer and then was fully able to drive from Tottenham to Croydon sober to enjoy a few hours at home chilling before bed.

Despite me noticing that my confidence was through the floor again all weekend, I still managed to salvage a great weekend that was sober, and I’m already at 3 days sober again. I did that on my own, while alone and with nobody to guide me. I’m proud of that.

I watched another film as well over the weekend, “Beautiful Boy”. It’s about a teen who gets addicted to Crystal Meth and how his dad tries to help him. One line stuck out for me. “Relapse is part of recovery”.

Taking that line on board, I think it’s important, therefore, that I take this weekend as a learning experience to build from and not an excuse to throw the towel in.

Learn from the negatives, reinforce the positives, and grow from the experience.

The Day I Celebrated 7 Days

Today I reached the 7-day mark in sobriety.

I think, because I’ve done it before and know that I can, I haven’t found it difficult because I know that I can do it. I also think it’s also because I have a lot of other cool things happening that make me feel really positive – such as starting my new venture.

Or, maybe it’s because, being 7-days free of alcohol, my mood has improved anyway, so I just feel happy regardless. I’m not quite at the stage where I would be experiencing the “pink cloud” that’s discussed in sober circles, so I don’t really know what it is – long may it continue, though!

I’ve been thinking a lot about why this time maybe feels different to the last time I quit.

I said in a previous post that I stopped for 2 years. That isn’t quite true, I mostly stopped, but had blow outs and – because I wasn’t so used to alcohol – I would get very drunk very quickly. After each occasion, I would tell myself what a great time I had had, which further re-enforced the subconscious and sometimes conscious belief that I would one day return to the fold of intoxicated (non)bliss.

This time, my conscious decision is to stop for good. Last time, I only initially committed to a period of 3 months and, therefore, always felt uncomfortable about the fact that I didn’t drink after that point. I hated social events sober – my friends are all caners – and I found them exhausting and felt that I missed drinking with them and having those deep conversations that nobody remembers in the morning.

Back when I quit before, there were two books that I really loved and I’ve been re-listening to them again.

The links above take you to the relevant websites for each book.

Before, in sobriety mark i, let’s say, my favourite book was the former, the brilliant Unexpected Joy of Being Sober by Catherine Grey. I loved this book because I was relatively new at the sober thing and while the majority of the book is spent extolling how great life is sans booze, at the beginning is a really raw description of the predicaments Catherine got herself into as the result of drinking.

I identified with it, because it was me and the very recent me. I never ended up in a jail cell, but nearly every scenario Catherine has described, I have done.

I wasted a holiday in Cape Town by sitting drinking wine reading a book, telling myself that I was “enjoying just watching the world go by”. Sure, I went up Table Mountain and went to see the Penguins, but in 10 days there, I did nothing else bar drink, smoke and go out to bars and clubs. Catherine describes a similar story about Washington DC.

There are many more things that I have done, similar to Catherine, but I can tell you about them in future posts – more fun that way!

I’m still very proud that, during early sobriety, Catherine responded to an instagram (or maybe twitter) message I sent her asking for advice when I was about to meet with some university friends, with whom I’d spent 3-months abroad with one summer in Swaziland; a time which consisted of hard work and extensive drinking and pot smoking. I was worried I’d want to drink with them again given that our relationship was founded on alcohol.

She gave great advice, and I didn’t drink that weekend.

This time around, sobriety mark ii, I find more affinity with The Sober Diaries by Claire Pooley. I loved her book before, but I suppose didn’t always identify with Claire’s life. Claire, even before giving up booze, seemed to live a pretty adult life (she lives in Fulham for Christ’s sake, I’d LOVE to live in Fulham) – whereas, I didn’t.

However, my life became far more “adult” in the 2 years when I previously (mostly) gave up. I got a mortgage, I got a dog, I had an unblemished absence record in work, I went to the dentist etc. etc.

And I still live that life now.

So, now, Claire’s book probably more accurately represents where I am now and scenarios I’ve more recently found myself in, such as attempting to cook Christmas dinner while completely sozzled – it took me 5 hours and we ate at 10pm and there’s only 2 of us.

One thing I like about Claire’s book is that she describes the fact that, even after 10 months, she still didn’t really enjoy going to alcohol-driven events as a sober person – although I think had pretty much cracked it after a year.

That was my undoing previously. I told myself, finally, that I just didn’t enjoy socialising when sober, so I am going to drink. I now realise that this was actually my own “wine witch” which I still have to name and intend to do a separate post on once I have. Indeed, when realising this my own wine witch had been piping on about how I could drink on special days like my Birthday and Christmas.

This thinking took me to reflection. The latter stage of 2021 was spent with me feeling utterly overwhelmed.

I sing in choirs, play in bands, I have an allotment, I do Crossfit, I work, I’m a school governor and, I suppose, a bit of a yes man. I always seem to end up doing more because people ask me to and I say “yes”.

Everything opened up again in September 2021, so suddenly my diary went from being completely empty to being completely full in the space of a week and I honestly felt unable to cope and kept asking myself “how on earth did I do all this before covid”.

On top of that, I was dealing with my Father in Law’s deteriorating health from cancer, a re-mortgage and a dog that had just had cruciate ligament surgery.

Fair enough, there was a lot. However, I used to be able to deal with my commitments and then some without feeling utterly overwhelmed and unable to breath.

The only thing that had changed between the before-covid time and the end of last year, is that I was drinking. Generally a bottle of wine a night. I sit here now, almost slapping my head.

Of COURSE I felt overwhelmed. If I wasn’t dealing with a hangover or generic brain fog, I wasn’t doing the added little bits in the evenings I needed to do to keep up with my commitments. This quickly progressed into an ongoing cycle of me not performing at my best, and that knowledge making me depressed and overwhelmed, which led to – you guessed it – drinking!

Viscous circle indeed.

In sobriety mark i, I didn’t reflect. The focus was on simply not drinking for as long as possible. In sobriety mark ii I believe the key will be reflection on thoughts, actions, feelings, past lives, past wishes, present loves and achievements, and future hopes and, I suppose, this is why I’m writing.

Stay happy folks.

The Day I Visited my New Opportunity

This post discusses both my new venture and some thoughts on alcohol culture here in the UK.

Yesterday, the other half and I travelled to the North of England to visit the offices of the franchise I am about to invest in.

What a great day! It was great to see them all in person and, through the spin, there was real clarity on where I could go and options I might have to scale my business in the future.

What’s great is that, the image proposed to me previously was quite a centralised operation – which it still will be. However, they are hoping to create regional hubs as well and my full intention is to become one.

Previously, I’d been concerned that I would essentially be just a freelancer operating a franchise. However, I began to see a clear picture of a scalable business which is ultimately what I want to do.

Feeling very positive about it. Indeed, at some stage, I’ll probably reveal who I am and what my franchise does – but I’m not there yet.

Moving on….now….this was a meeting full of sales people, we’re all in sales and that’s what the franchise does.

Therefore, it wasn’t long before the mention of “beers” was brought up…”oh, this place is good for a beer” – “oh, we’ve spent many a night in there” – “oh, we’ll have a few beers when you come up for training” – “oh, we’ve had a few beers with clients here, there and everywhere”

Not saying that they were wrong to do this. British culture is centred largely around alcohol and the pub. It’s a way of bonding, of showing you’re alright, of being social and I understood why it was brought up. They wanted me to feel at home and comfortable and that they were approachable people considering the massive life-leap I’m about to take.

However, I must admit, it caught me off guard a bit. I’d forgotten how much conversation revolves around drinking which you only notice when you’re actively not drinking. I got used to it when I was previously abstinent, but it’s the first time I had encountered it in my new phase of sobriety.

I’m not really looking forward to the point where I have to explain that I don’t drink.

People are just simply flabbergasted, it’s rarely just an “oh right, cool”. You end up spending so much time talking about the fact that you don’t drink, why it is you don’t drink, what it is you do drink and the various merits of alcohol free drinks.

Quite often you end up dealing with people justifying the amount that they drink (If I had a pound for somebody feeling the need to tell me “oh I don’t really drink that much nowadays”). I just want to say. “listen, mate, I really don’t care how much you drink”.

Sometimes you have to put up with the people who’ll swear blind that a glass of red wine is good for your heart. I used to challenge them and say; “yes, and the studies that found that were commissioned by the alcohol industry” but I now don’t engage with it and simply nod and go “oh, right”.

Frankly, it’s tiresome, and I don’t really enjoy it. There are far more interesting things to talk about (although the irony is that I’m writing about it).

But that’s where we are and I’ll go through it all again until people are used to it and stop asking.

To be quite honest, I was actually really craving a beer by the end of yesterday. I’d have quite happily gone to a nice warm pub and had a pint, which would have ended up in 2 pints, then beers on the train etc. etc. etc., it’s the sort of habitual thing I’d do after a long day and a very intense meeting, especially when I have to wait for a train.

But, I didn’t.

So, the positives are that I didn’t embarrass myself going for drinks with my new business associates, I didn’t roll home pissed as a fart, I have a potentially very exciting new business and I woke up this morning with a clear head and a sense of optimism.

Gotta be better than the alternative!

The Day I Looked for Help

Today I woke up with the most horrendous hangover with vague memories of angrily stomping around the house, tripping over things (our house is tiny and very cluttered because we don’t have enough space) and slugging my partner’s nice whisky.

Not a good look and, needless to say, I had a pretty angry message waiting for me from said partner on my phone.

I’ve always enjoyed a bevvy. I grew up in the 90s and 00s where drinking culture was huge and was hugely promoted. I loved clubbing and pubbing and, at some stage during my student days, I brought the frivolities home with me to the point where I had a drink pretty much every day whether I was going out or staying in.

Back before lockdown I actually gave up, a period planned to be only 3 months but which continued for around 2 years. Definitely during that time my life was better.

However, in the first lockdown in March 2020, I was furloughed, the weather was nice and I began to enjoy wine in the garden again and I’ve carried on ever since.

I’m not an alcoholic in that I’m not physically addicted to the stuff, but unfortunately, I’m a terrible drunk. I get angry, I get mean, I get nasty and I get horrible hangovers and can lose an entire day to one.

I also never stop at one drink which means I nearly always end up drunk anyway.

Sure it does help me socially, I find it easier to chat to folk but I’m no longer convinced that that merits the other damage drink causes such as heightened anxiety, a beer belly, lack of motivation and the dreaded fear.

I just don’t appear to have the physical constitution to deal with it and it’s most certainly not going to help me be living my best life beyond 40.

So, I’ve decided to stop again. However, this time, I’ve decided to get help along the way and today I referred myself to my local alcohol service.

It’s not something I particularly relish doing and I will not continue if, at any point, I get labelled an alcoholic because:

I don’t believe I am one – though you could say I have a problem with alcohol
I feel the label has such negative connotations, I’m not particularly keen to live under that cloud
I grew up with an alcoholic and am determined that I am not going to be one

So, from this point forwards, I view myself simply as a non drinker and, if there’s help to be had with this, then I will gladly take it.

I look forward to updating you on my progress.