Those sober nights.

(Another break from routine) In August 2022, I decided to stop lying to myself.

Lunchtime walk, trees on my right, fields and hills to my left, dog trailing, sniffing and happy, we walk without each other, a peaceful potter. On the familiar valley path, I try to shift my thoughts back to the children, to the view, to the dog, to the work — “Maybe should I – if I have wine tonight, then, then that means I can’t have a drink on Sunday. But if I buy a bottle today, then that means I’ll have half – surely I’ll have half left, I’ll definitely have half left…”  

If the bargaining has started, it’s a Thursday. I know enough I am educated enough — I used to work in mental health for fucks sake, I know what it means to self-identify with mental-health questionnaires — I know that these bargains I make, these trips I plan — I know what these mean.

Since the end of my marriage, I’d promised I would stop lying to myself. That I wouldn’t allow more self-induced fogs, those head-banging drains of cognitive dissonance that left me irritable, irrational, unkind.

The two am heart-racing wake-ups. Followed by the six am wake up, eyes pinched against the skylight, scrawling in my diary, walking the dog, back into bed to nap, in hopes the fug would clear but never would, get up again, thick headed and furious , another Saturday working.

One day, I realised that I couldn’t magically stop the one or two or three or four hours of school morning fights, couldn’t magic back those hours to then try to fit in a day of work, couldn’t stop the world from moving when the phone rings and it’s CAMHS or kids or school and my brain is hot again and fast from another crisis but there are still five hours of work to somehow somewhere there is work to do and money I need to earn.

Rare photo of me + my forehead, in the weeks after giving up the booze. I’m in a toilet, holding up a coffee in a glass keep-cup, and smiling.

I couldn’t rewire or remove ADHD from my brain. Couldn’t make myself a nicer sunnier person.

But, on weekends, the days I allow myself the wine or gin or cider, I could try to rest. I could turn my broken, sweaty nights into restorative sleep.

I could stop putting alcohol into my body.

One Saturday, bold awake at 2am, pillows flat under my sticky hair, heart racing after two warm white wines left over from the Eurostar and drained as I unpacked the bags and missed one of my children, I realised I was doing it again. I had felt compelled to drink. That I hadn’t wanted to. But I had.

So, I stopped.

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Two months.

In my first two months of sobriety, I felt a scramble in my brain as it looked for the sugar rush, the switch off that hit as my mouth filled with red wine or white wine or gin. The thrill of release that day the week was over and I could kitchen dance or cook and sway and rock out my bizarrely loud, deep laugh to Liza Tarbuck, fairy lights on, sing along. 

Ahead of me, the looming void of an evening without alcohol. So many hours, from five until eleven, a whole third of the day, too tired to leave the house, too aware of what normal people do on a weekend, I didn’t know what to do with myself.

But now no need for a pint of squash or half a pint of pastel pink Nesquick gulped over the sink, the unmixed powder trails sliding down the glass like shooting stars while the dog pees over the same stinking block of concrete.

Waking without a hangover confusing, my body reading the prompt to mean it’s a weekday. After waking at four thirty, five am, I climbed the hills around my home, wrote more, read more. I tried lighting candles, deep bubble baths, reverting to the rhythms of my pre-drinking teenage weekends. What was the weekend without a deep red merlot or three, some single-variety cider followed by a heavy tumbler of whiskey. Without waking up on the sofa at ten o’clock, dishes still waiting to be washed, dog waiting to be walked, washing dumped on the kitchen table.

Image description: a misty cemetery, an early weekend morning. Grey headstones are lightly shrouded in mist, and trees line the landscape.

Yet, it felt as though my brain was changing, recalibrating. It itched with its new-seeming sobriety, its longest sober patch in fifteen years. Its name is hyperkatifeia, I can’t know if that was happening, but something was, and it was not nice.

But I slept all night, and I did not have hangovers. I had the incredible gift of time, of movement, of escaping my bed and wanting to and being able to move my soft body through the misty morning valley, warm hat on, hands in my pockets, eyes scanning over the horizon, stories in my headphones, home for a hot breakfast.

That was enough.

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Nine months.

The rhythm of nights, the length of days and the clarity of hangover-free mornings was now my normal. When I read a story, felt seen, and learned the character was an alcoholic, I didn’t need to hide from myself. 

Driving to my childhood hometown for a Saturday night, singing my heart out to ‘Rock the Boat’ or ‘D-I-S-C-O’ or ‘Le Freak’, I realised my life was so easy now. One quick drive. Not driving to the station to catch two trains, to walk to the pub, then watching myself not get bitchy, or getting bitchy, trying to leave on time for the train, missing the train, hopefully not falling asleep on either train, walking home for 40 minutes in the dark, getting to bed at 1am, all for three glasses of pub red.

Another early morning shot, made possible by hangover-free mornings. A winter’s morning sky, blazing orange and purple, with bare trees behind a river. Rob Dog may be having a wee.

I was skipping it all!

A done deal, a forever changed!

That’s when the dreams started.

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One year.

A glass of champagne to toast one of my children. Necking it, feeling the sway as the booze bites my blood.

Crap pub wine, chilled to flavourlessness, glass beading, everyone is there, the wine is there it’s sitting there just there I pick it up, swallow.

I wake, sweating. I check — no hangover. No dry mouth, never with the fear of hurting someone’s feelings, or worrying about too much money spent. I am okay.

At End of the Road, I relax into a tree for the book readings, tuck into a quiet spot, and I feel the softness of the breezes, with an aliveness I’ve never experienced before.

I watch people crack open tins of beer and cider, and I feel so grateful that I am opening myself up to the sound of the wind, the feel of it, the light. That I’m somewhere beautiful and I’m not choosing to dull my senses.

I want to buy myself something — a small jewel, something to celebrate. But work is thin on the ground. I wait.

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Two years.

I’m sitting in a friend’s kitchen. She’s roasting a leg of lamb, busy at the hob, her children buzz in and out, full of energy and discoveries. We are on holiday — more accurately, I’m a guest of her holiday. It’s my third visit to this farm near the top of the world.

On the deeply varnished, dark wood dining table, in between peanut butter jars, urchin shells, pencils, mushrooms of questionable varieties, toast crumbs and dropping flowers, through my crochet and radio four and the endless miles of sea stretching over my right shoulder, a glass of red is the centre of my attention.

I’m tired. It’s been a long two days, of trains, overnight ferries, conversations, hiking, coastal winds. 

The wine is a vortex. Everywhere I try to look, it’s square in the centre of my vision.

I can taste it. Imagine how delicious how right it will be with the lamb, the green veg. The weight of the glass between the pads of my second and third fingers. How I could relax my neck into the high-backed wicker chair, stretch out my tired legs, feel its richness and warmth reach to my finger tips and toes. The nights we’ve spent drinking, here, her home, nights out. Those memories so close.

Some Shetland; a rocky path and some rare grass in the foreground, and lots of water. In the near distance, an isle rises, and it’s covered in heather; in the distance, a darker isle.

I walk away, quietly push the ceramic door handle of my bedroom door until the catch reluctantly clicks. The scrontch¹ of the horsehair fibres, loved woollen blankets and well-washed sheets feels like my childhood bed. For that moment, life is simple and dreamlike again.

In the peace of this familiar unfamiliar space, I consciously remind myself how I hated, really, the loosening of my joints and my tongue as the alcohol mixed into my bloodstream. That I’m a little irritable, and me and red wine could mean I drawl on, or, frankly, be a bit of a cunt. And I do not want to be a cunt.

And, I remind myself that this one glass would mean I’d forever be back in the push-pull. I made a clean break. One glass would change that simplicity. And I need simplicity. I don’t want the fucking conversation in my busy-brain.

I close my eyes. I list off every last thing I do because I’m not drinking: writing, exercising, and sewing a quilt and making and reading and learning French again. The one am pick-ups, and early-morning chats. Writing here. Cleaning my house in the evenings. Keeping forty seven house plants alive. Managing my ADHD. Not unnecessarily pissing off my kids.

I have headspace and I have more time. I get rest.

Tonight, after the trains and the boats, the wind and seals and hiking and good good food that was cooked with thoughtfulness and love, I will sink into the dense mattress under a pile of feathers and blankets. I will sleep, all night, at the top of the world.

I took deep breaths, stood up, made myself a mint tea, and chose myself again.

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Some further reading

Since Covid, the UK’s problematic drinking rates have risen. If your curiosity is piqued by my piece, please take a look.

Not sure if your drinking is a problem? Check here or here.

Cutting down doesn’t mean stopping.

Thinking about drink all the time? Regularly changing your plans so you can drink, or having to change plans again because you’re too hungover? You might be becoming dependent on alcohol.

Want to start cutting down? It’s imperfect, but the NHS Drink Free Days app helped me see my patterns, start cutting down, and eventually stop drinking. Yes, earning little gold stars helped a lot. Here’s more about the app.

1. This word might be made up, but I think you know what I mean. And if Anthony Burgess, Lewis Carroll, James Joyce and Gerard Manley Hopkins can make-up words, then I too can make up words :)