Sobriety

I stopped drinking 6 months ago.

I've known I had a drinking problem for about five years, I think. "Known" is a fiddly word to use because it implies that I was confident that I had a drinking problem, which isn't accurate.

For me, "known" was five years of wondering - am I drinking too much? Going from days in which I felt confident this was fine, this was normal - to feeling whether or not this is normal, I don't like it.

Society seems to bifurcate sharply into people who rarely or never drink, and people who actually drink quite a lot. Men who've had a drink in the last 12 months in the UK consume an average of 17.6 units a week (link). This is notable for two reasons:

• The NHS suggests you shouldn't have more than 14 units a week (and from my conversations with GPs, most feel even that is too much), and:
• A distribution with a mean of 17.6 units a week means a lot of men are consuming a lot more than 17.6 units a week.

I think most people who drink don't like admitting how much they drink because it makes them feel bad about themselves and/or because they don't like being told by other people [e.g. their GP] that they're drinking too much.

I didn't track how much I was drinking, and I don't really think it matters. What matters is:

• I often felt bad about how much I was drinking, and:
• I found it very hard to stop drinking.

Both of these combined to make me feel generally bad about myself a lot of the time, and sometimes physically bad.

The catalyst for me to really grasp the nettle was my son growing up. It is important to me that I am a role model to him in all things, and I didn't want him to see me engaging in a behaviour that I wasn't proud of myself.

I sought help initially by pursuing medical / pharmaceutical aid - specifically trying to get a prescription for either nalmefene or naltrexone. My starting position was that I thought actually stopping drinking entirely would be too difficult, and drugs would help to suppress my desire for alcohol to a point where it would be manageable.

A prescription was not offered by my GP, who referred me to Horizons in Bristol. While I was able to procure a prescription from Horizons, a condition of their program was that I also engage in counselling, which I did by speaking to a woman called Bea every other week or so.

I resisted counselling a lot - I was already in therapy and had discussed my alcohol problems with my therapist and didn't feel that further counselling would be helpful.

I was wrong.

I don't know if it was just having conversations that were so much more targeted towards my alcohol use, or Bea's - frankly quite awkward - style, but she just kept asking questions and I just kept answering them and one day I found myself not drinking. And then I didn't drink the next day. Or the next. Or the next.

I didn't end up getting the prescription filled.

After about a month of this I started telling people that I wasn't drinking anymore. Family. Friends. Coworkers. Some people were surprised that I felt the need to stop drinking as they hadn't picked up on a problem, but alcohol is an easy addiction to hide in modern society.

Everyone was supportive.

Before I stopped drinking, I found it easy to imagine that people would judge me. In reality, the people who care about you just want what's best for you - and the people who aren't that close to you have their own things going on in their lives and your problems are just not something they spend time thinking about.

I did find humour initially helpful in telling people - saying you've just "chosen to raw dog real life" is usually good for a chuckle - but at this point I don't feel the need to deflect and am just very blunt that I don't drink anymore as I do not have a healthy relationship with alcohol.

Not drinking has left a bit of a gap in my life, which is filled with...boredom. Which is okay! Boredom is actually quite motivating, I find - it gives me the itch go to and find something to do that is not boring, and while I am not always successful it is better than filling that gap with alcohol.

Otherwise, I find life is better. I sleep better - though my sleep generally is still pretty odd (I wake up 4-5 times a night). The biggest thing I have noticed is just that I have so much more energy during the day. And when I get tired, I just get tired and accept that the day is over and it is time to be lazy and get ready for bed rather than trying to extend it artificially by drinking.

I occasionally get the desire to drink now but it's pretty low, and the upsides that I get from not drinking (energy, a vastly improved sense of self-worth) are so compelling that I don't expect to go back to it.

There's no zealot like a convert, but I also find proselytising disinteresting and annoying and I have enough problems of my own to bother trying to force this on anyone else.

However, I do feel a certain obligation to make myself available to talk if, reading this, you see something of yourself in me and are thinking about making a change in your life. I may end up regretting this for the spam, but you can drop me a line at djsobriety [at] proton [dot] me.