A few weeks ago, I awoke one morning with a sore, dry throat. I felt sick. I had a headache. I was ill.
The illness didn’t need a doctor to diagnose though. I knew what the problem was, I knew how to fix it, I thought it would be hard (it wasn’t). I had been drinking daily for the previous two weeks, and to excess. Living as I do in Manchester (England), pubs are open until the early hours all over the city and it’s not hard to find enjoyment in the high life. I had been over-doing it though, and had been binge-drinking myself to sleep most nights.
This wasn’t the first time I’d ever “gone on a bender”. It was just the latest episode in a decade of heavy drinking. I certainly didn’t consider myself an alcoholic – I wasn’t drinking before four or five in the afternoon, and rarely alone – I just felt I was drinking heavily at this point. I was fed up of feeling down and wanted to feel better, and started thinking about why I was using alcohol the way I was. I knew, deep down, I needed to get it back into check.
Some years ago when giving up smoking I had read Alan Carr’s “Easyway to give up Smoking” which had helped no end – I gave up almost immediately, and everybody I let have a read of it, also gave up. At the time I made a mental note he had also produced a book on “Controlling Alcohol”. I ordered it from Amazon, it turned up a few days later and I started reading.
After the first few chapters, as it was with the smoking book, I could feel the scales starting to fall from my eyes. I have read half of it so far, and already I know I never really want to drink alcohol again. A new chapter in my life is opening, and I figured I may as well share some of the journey with you.
Firstly, let me explain to you I am not a “lightweight”. I can happily put away a half dozen pints in an afternoon, have some curry and set myself up for a night out of serious drinking. I often didn’t stop drinking before midnight – usually later – and sometimes might have had a bottle of wine on top of it all.
Nor am I “completely out of control”. I can happily put it all down and go sober for weeks at a time – I normally give up booze for a few weeks once in a while anyway. I just sometimes let my occasional bouts of depression and stress get to me, and let the booze have a free run for a couple of weeks.
This is all behind me now though thanks to this rather odd little book. What I now realise is that alcohol isn’t something that helps me relax: it just numbs the pain. It’s not trendy and cool: it’s just peer pressure telling me I should behave a certain way. It’s not something I enjoy the taste of: the other stuff in the glass used to mask the flavour of alcohol is what I’m really enjoying the taste of. I don’t enjoy getting drunk, I actually dislike that bit quite a lot: it’s the friends I’m hanging out with I like. I certainly don’t enjoy the hangover the next morning: my body is reacting to a poison that my liver hates, dehydrates me, and leaves my stomach feeling awful.
Will I say I’ll never drink again? No. Because I’m only half-way through the book, the deal is that I carry on drinking until the book tells me to stop, but I doubt I’ll enjoy the drinks I have this weekend whilst finishing up and moving on to the next – more sober part – of my life. I can’t right now think of a reason as to why I would want to drink alcohol again in future. That doesn’t mean I never will drink again, just that I can’t see the point. It’s not about ‘giving up’ or ‘I’m one drink away from oblivion’ – I just now think alcohol is a trap, propped up by views of most of Western society.
