26 days and still on that wagon!

How do I feel? Calm. I feel strangely calm and I feel that I'm feeling everything more deeply. I know, it sounds like I've gone a bit mad. I see the red and golden trees of early autumn against the vivid blue sky and I feel euphoric. I've also joined a facebook sea swimming group and am trying - and succeeding - to sea swim at least four times a week. Is it this that's making me feel so contented, or is it the lack of booze in my system? I've also joined a choir. That's definitely uplifting, but it's very hard to sing along correctly when, as I do, you struggle with sight reading.

Enough is enough

I haven't had time to post for a while, but here I am: 14 days in and not missing the booze one little bit. I guess I'm lucky, as I've had no cravings at all and no desire to fall off the wagon. That said, I have been waking up with the most hideous throbbing headaches that seem to last up to an hour. Not this morning though, today was different. I awoke naturally at seven after a pretty good night's sleep and with a lovely clear head. Yay! Shame it's too damn rainy to play tennis.

I think there's an expectation from other people that I will at some point return to drinking, given that consuming ethanol in its various forms has played such a big role in my life. While my mantra has always been 'Never say never', I'm not sure that I will relapse. Back in 2003 when I decided to quit smoking, I knew I'd never touch another cigarette again and indeed I haven't. It's as if something inside me decided it had had enough and I never had the urge again to smoke.

I feel it's the same with drinking, although next summer's sunny evenings on my vine-draped balcony might prove challenging. Alcohol and I have had a long tempestuous relationship and I feel that we've at last come to the end of the road. I genuinely don't feel deprived that I've given something up, rather I've gained something instead. Call it control of my own life, call it sobriety, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that I've significantly reduced my chances of developing a number of horrible diseases, I feel a whole lot better about myself, I'm looking better (people have commented) and I appear to have a lot more time to do the things I like to do. And the money: my Sober Time app says I've save almost £60, which is indeed sobering! More importantly though, I think I'm now a much better role model for my children.

However, there is a downside, and it's one that makes me feel both sad and guilty. While P has cut out drinking during the week (hurray!) he has, on the occasions we've been out together since I quit drinking, got far drunker than anyone else. He is thankfully a benevolent rather than belligerent drunk, but still talks over people, slurs his words and looks like he's having a stroke. Now I do realise that this didn't bother me quite so much when I was still drinking, as I was invariably too drunk myself to notice or care. Now though I find his behaviour embarrassing and downright annoying. I tried explaining how I felt and he said my comments were like a red rag to a bull i.e. by remarking on his drinking I was somehow baiting him to drink even more than he normally does.

I know it's mean, but I've declared that from now on we're going to have to socialise separately if he's going to drink to excess.

A rude awakening

It's Saturday and I'm up early for my usual park run. Last night's dinner was great fun, terrific food and company and great encouragement (and admiration) for my new non-drinking stance. Despite not drinking in the usual sense, however, I've woken up with what feels like a stinking hangover! So, there's a lesson: no more 0.5% alcohol wine for me. It tasted pretty foul anyway, so no great loss.

I'm a assuming P drank his "normal" amount, which was, pun intended, sobering. I wasn't counting too assiduously, but he consumed at least 10 glasses of wine, white then red, preceded by a large G&T and followed by two glasses of port. Needless to say, he was completely pissed - much more than anyone else in the room - and I found him both annoying and embarrassing. It was good to be able to drive home as I doubt a taxing driver would've allowed him in their car.

Just behind the zeitgeist!

Day 4 and I'm still determined to stick to my new alcohol-free life. There's a potential problem on the horizon, however. We're having dinner with friends this Friday; friends who love good food and good wine, and who frequently tease P and I about our predilection for downing huge volumes of the latter. I decide to warn my friend J (Friday's co-host) that I'm trying not to drink alcohol. I was expecting a raised eyebrow and incredulity, but was shocked when said so are ..... and ...., naming two of our mutual friends. She also asked if I'd read The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober: yet again, it seems I'm just behind the zeitgeist!

Biting the bullet...

Ok, here goes. After many years of thinking about it - and a few, desperate half-arsed attempts - I've given up the sauce. It's early days - three days, 11 hours, 19 minutes and 13 seconds in to be precise - but according to my Sober Time app I've already saved £19.10.

My tipple of choice was wine. Not necessarily the most expensive stuff, but not the cheapest rot gut either. I'm talking the semi-decent supermarket claret or Malbec that I, and millions of middle-aged middle class women like, me buy most days as part of our grocery shopping. Nor would I necessarily drink the entire bottle. Between Sunday and Wednesday I'd typically have "just" a couple of glasses ie half a bottle - shared with my husband. Thursdays, we'd frequently imbibe a couple of bottles (more if it was book club, of course) and Friday and Saturday, we'd invariably binge - and who knows how much I'd knock back. Occasionally I'd drink so much that I wouldn't remember the end of the evening and, even at the advanced age of 53, I'd sometimes wake up fully clothed. Oh yes, and we'd always share at least one bottle with our Sunday dinner.

So what's changed, you might ask, what's brought on this latest attempt to cut out the booze? Well, several things actually. Firstly, I'm sick to death of hangovers, not to mention the feelings of shame and self-loathing that invariable accompany them. And then there's the expense: I'm shocked and appalled at how much money I must have spent on alcohol, money I could ill afford. In fact, I'm not yet ready to face the implications of this, but do intend to address it in a later post.

I've also just read Catherine Gray's inspirational book The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober and I'm two-thirds of the way through Clare Pooley's The Sober Dairies. I also watched Clare's excellent TED X talk, which really hit home, given that we had remarkably similar "drinking histories".