Look up "alcoholic" in the thesaurus (www.thesaurus.com) and you'll see that "dipsomaniac" is a synonym, along with some of the other descriptions mentioned in the "About Me" sidebar on the right of this page. You see, I am an alcoholic, a dipsomaniac, and this post is the first in a series which will make up this blog, a running diary of my journey to become alcohol free in 2018, one of a number of big personal goals I'm setting for the new year.
The first of January 2018 will be day one alcohol free!
No doubt day one will be with a severe hangover from New Years Eve, a proper send-off, if you will, a painful start to a new life without the ball & chains of alcoholism, the fog of booze will be lifted and my new year will be clear-headed, healthier, happier and with extra cash in my pocket!
The immediate goal for this mission is 100 days alcohol free. There's a Facebook group which I'm active on where quite a few of us are going to embark on this mission together, 100 days AF. It makes a big difference having support by like-minded people in the same sinking boat, all our lives affected by this poison, because for an alcoholic to go sober is an incredibly difficult thing to do and can be horribly lonely if attempted alone. Support and encouragement from other folks fighting the same battle makes the end goal far more reachable. Alcohol is a legal and accepted norm in society, to consume alcohol is socially expected, yet alcohol addiction is ignored by most of society, making alcoholism an incredibly dark and lonely place to be, as is trying to avoid consuming alcohol. Breaking the most powerful addiction in humanity is not for pussies! This is exactly the end goal - to break free from this deadly addiction!
For those who don't know, this will be my second serious attempt to do this booze free thing. The first attempt lasted a whopping 54 days in July & August of this year (2017). The first few weeks of that was also captured on another blog, The Daily Drumroll, have a read if you like. That went very well, it was difficult, challenging, often frustrating, but I did not touch alcohol the full 54 days. I did the research, read the books (This Naked Mind by Annie Grace was a life changer!) and stuck to the plan, I socialised without alcohol which was awkward at times but I persisted. What broke me was sitting at a restaurant with friends one evening, I was drinking the usual imported non-alcoholic beer, I decided in a moment of weakness that I was sick of that shit tasting beer, it was expensive and pointless, so I decided to drink my regular old lite beer, I just planned to have one, for old times sake. That drink hit my lips and I did not stop chugging until the bottle was empty. I had awoken the monster in an instant! I ordered another 2, then snuck off to the bar and threw in a few tequila's. That was the end of my AF period, much to my family's disgust and my friends delight! Since then it's been 4 to 6 hangovers a week. It was like the floodgates of FOMO opened up and I almost felt the need to catch up on my drinking from the 54 days without booze in my body, I went crazy and drank hard every day that I did not have a running race the following morning, I even did run a few races hungover. All control was lost, alcohol once again had me in it's grip, I was (still am) brainwashed and completely manipulated by the booze as if it's a living demon inside my head in full control of my life! Well that demon is about to get kicked out...
For all the same reasons as before, I'm once again sick of this darkness of alcoholism, off the top here are a list of reasons to convince myself why I want to lose the booze:
- Firstly, as before - my daughter! I have become quite good at concealing my drunkness from her much of the time, I suppose I'm a good actor, but she still sees it, she still craps on me when she catches my drinking whiskey out the bottle, and she sees me get blind paralytic drunk any and most days of the week. It's not healthy for her to see, I know it hurts her that I get so shitfaced even though she's only 10, and of course it's the worst possible influence I could be showing her as her father and role model. My kid and I have an awesome relationship, I know she adores me, so for her sake I need to quit the booze, before I do something that will lose her respect for me. She gets very upset if I'm driving anywhere where I'll be drinking, she actually begs me not to, and I feel so bad but I do it anyway! She understands that I will go to jail if I get caught and that terrifies her. And being the only driver in the family that would be catastrophic, I suppose I'm just lucky for not being caught until now, or worse caused a serious car accident while intoxicated, and ashamedly there have been a number of occasions in this year where I don't even remember driving home, with my family in the car. The hindsight thought of that is frightening, thinking of the "what if's". I love my child more than life itself, which is why I am so ashamed to be so hopelessly addicted to alcohol, because the thought of hurting her should be deterrent enough to not drink!
- I cannot handle my alcohol anymore! Maybe that's a result of my fitness from running, but it seems to take less booze these days to get blackout drunk, and almost every time that I drink these days I don't remember the end of the night. It's literally a complete memory loss and it's embarrassing. I don't remember conversations or things that I do, or behaving like a moron. That point is usually reached around half a bottle of whiskey, whereas in the past I could consume a full bottle of whiskey and still remember going to bed. (Not a fact I'm proud to admit!) I am really sick of this blackout drunk state all the time and waking up realising that I've done it again and then start panicking about what shit did I get up to again, while being partly grateful that I'm waking up in my own bed with my balls still connected to my body. That's actually a good sign! I don't want to be like that anymore, I want to be able to remember clearly everything that I do. Moderating is not an option, once I start drinking I've lost complete control and I systematically drink to get drunk, that is a subconscious action, I don't deliberately choose to drink myself into mental oblivion, it just happens that way and all understanding and reasoning is lost, every time, after just one drink!
- Hangovers. Day after day, often 4 or 5 in a row, I wake up feeling like I've been pounded on the head with the bottle I drank! I get up and function almost normally, concealing the suffering inside. Hangovers are horrible, it's an uncomfortable, unpleasant and often painful way to live, day after day. Yet by the evening when the hangover has worn off I hit the next bottle and start all over again! It makes no sense, there is zero pleasure derived from drinking, the whole experience is unpleasant in every way, except for that brief buzz when that first swig of whiskey hits the brain. That's what I look forward to, mostly subconsciously, is that initial buzz, which soon transforms me into a slurring, incoherent, idiotic asshole, which leads me to my next point:
- Hate being drunk! I hate it! I hate everything about being drunk! I hate myself as a drunk, I'm a stupid, blubbering embarrassing twat when I'm drunk! I don't enjoy anything about being drunk, I do NOT like the taste of alcohol! Even beer, it doesn't actually taste nice, and the whiskey I drink out the bottle is actually vile! Yet before starting to drink, all day I look forward to a "delicious ice cold beer" or a wonderful chugg of whiskey after a long hard day of suffering through another work day with a hangover. This is the brainwashing of alcohol, makes us think we want it and love it, but the truth is alcohol tastes shit. Coffee, or Creme Soda tastes much nicer, but I don't fantasize about drinking a coffee, instead I look forward to drinking something disgusting which transforms me into a dimwitted prick and writes off most evenings from memory and turns the following day into hell!
It makes no fucking sense, and putting it into words like this actually infuriates me that I'm so weak! Why do we do this to ourselves? An addiction to something that is only destructive with zero positives... we really are an idiotic species, for the ones with the most advanced brains on the planet! Being self-aware clearly makes us self-destructive! - Conversations lost. I've already touched on this. Having a conversation with me when I'm drunk is pointless, and my friends and family know this. Another reason that alcoholism is a terribly lonely place. Usually people don't speak much to me when I'm drunk, and conversations are unimportant when they do. Most people at parties and functions are drinking too, often they're drinking quite a lot too, but somehow I am always the one who seems to get the most drunk and can never remember what happened. It's embarrassing to ask somebody a question to be told we had that discussion last night, and I can't remember anything that was said! In my adult life, if it were possible to add up all the time that I've been so drunk to the point that memory is lost, it would probably amount to years. That is years that I may as well just die early because that time is gone! So I am tired of missing out on lost information from conversations I cannot remember, and being told by my wife how "out of it" I was again! Right now, as I type this blog with today's hangover, I still feel a bit dizzy from last nights drink, like my brain is not 100% functional.
Besides conversations lost in person, I often wake up to reactions on Facebook to things I said and posted online that I have no recollection of doing or saying, often with gross embarrassment when I realise some of the things I said. I swear a lot when I'm drunk, and do so openly on Facebook. I've had some horrifyingly embarrassing moments when I woke up and saw what I did. I should really be banned from the internet when there's alcohol involved, but try telling "drunk me" that and it becomes unpleasant! - Temper and moods. Quite simply, I'm an asshole when I'm hungover. Quite the opposite when I'm drunk - as a drunk I'm usually cheerful and friendly and (I think) quite sociable. I'm not an aggressive, abusive or destructive drunk. But I'm like a bear with a sore tooth with a hangover; grumpy, short-tempered, impatient and unpleasant. This is what my wife and daughter have to deal with on an almost daily basis. It's actually become quite the norm, because I'm hungover most of the time if I'm not actually drunk, the foul moods are just how it is. Conversely, if I did not drink the day before I'm actually quite a nice guy, fun and cheerful and energetic.
- Running. The other big obsession in my life is running. I'm a serious marathon runner. I have a personal rule, if I have a race in the morning I do not drink (much) the night before. Running hungover is horribly unpleasant, so the running does keep me out the bottle to some extent. If I run on a Saturday and Sunday then I don't drink on Friday or Saturday night, but sure as shit I will be at work on Monday with a killer hangover. Consistently!
But, in 2018 I have big goals for my running, I am going to work on intense training programmes to increase my speed, strength and distance endurance significantly and lose a lot of weight. This CANNOT happen if I drink the way I have been lately, my running goals in 2018 are a big motivator to do this complete alcohol free mission! If I continue to drink then I may as well quit the running. There is no longer place in my life for both. For the last month I've done very little running due to an injury, so you can imagine how the alcohol consumption has increased in this time, apart from the 5 days I was at my dad's place over Christmas (although I did get blind drunk on Christmas eve, rendering my Christmas day a long, unpleasant, miserably hungover day! Massive regret!)
So from the 1st Jan, concurrently with going 100% AF, my running training steps up a few notches, with technical training at least 6 days a week. One thing I haven't mentioned yet is that this AF mission was originally intended to continue until the Comrades marathon on the 10th June. But, if I can make it that far the next goal will be to keep it going for the whole of 2018. I have no idea yet if I have it in me to last an entire year. It would be awesome if I could, but that's not a commitment I'm prepared to put in writing just yet. First goal is a week, then a month, then 100 days, then Comrades. Baby steps... - Expense. This is an obvious one - alcohol is expensive, and an addiction to alcohol costs a lot of money I can't actually spare. For example, I currently drink around 3 to 4 bottles of whiskey a week, at around R120 (+/- $10) per bottle, that's around R480 just for the whiskey. Throw in a few beers and drinks at pubs and bars and that figure rises substantially. Effectively I drink well over R2000 per month in alcohol. I actually can't afford that at all, so quitting the booze is going to free up a lot of money that can be better spent elsewhere, eg. studying, which I still hope to be able to do this year (2018). If I can afford it I plan to start working towards a degree through a distance learning university (UNISA). Really, quitting the drink for financial reasons is a no brainer. It makes no sense to waste so much money on something so destructive, which I hate anyway!
- Health. Another no brainer! See I know all this already, I know that alcohol addiction is killing me, or it will kill me sooner or later, directly or indirectly. Alcohol causes all kinds of cancers, liver disease, brain damage, etc... it destroys and weakens the body and mind in many ways. I don't know how my liver still functions. I often joke about my long ago pickled liver, but the truth is I know that if that were true, my liver became "pickled" with cirrhosis, I would die. Yet these frightening facts never cross my mind when I'm looking forward to my next drink, or consuming said drinks, sucking that disgusting poison out the bottle because I can't be bothered to dilute it with a mixer. How fucked up our brains are from this addiction, the many negative reasons not to drink never factor over the zero positive reasons to drink, yet in our wasted minds we will find any pathetic excuse to poison ourselves, embarrass ourselves, endanger ourselves and anybody around us and drink ourselves back into a mindless stupor, every drinking session causing massive destruction within our bodies! What a waste of life it would be, the absolute feeling of shame, to be told I'm dying of cancer or liver cirrhosis caused by alcohol abuse and there is no avoiding a imminent painful death! I don't want to go that way! So why does that thought not cross my mind when I'm chugging that shit down my throat in dangerous volumes! Health reasons alone should be motivation enough to not consume ANY alcohol EVER, let alone 4 bottle of hard spirits a week! WTF is wrong with us that we allow ourselves to become so mindlessly addicted to a poisonous substance that provides no benefit whatsoever!
One other point that needs mentioning, because it is a real concern, is social pressure and the expectation to drink socially or the associated stigma and ridicule for choosing not to drink. Pretty much all of my social life revolves around alcohol. During my last alcohol-free period many of my friends were clearly uncomfortable with my choice to not drink alcohol, and I was noticeably excluded from a number of events. This was quite upsetting and demotivating, I'm a social creature. So I need to change my approach this time, somehow, to still continue with the social life that I enjoy without feeling the pressure to drink and avoid making my friends feel uncomfortable for drinking around me when I'm not chugging down pints of beer at a rate of 10 per hour like we did so many times before, to be able to sit in a pub drinking something non-alcoholic while they get merrily shitfaced in front of me. I need to learn to continue with life as normal around an alcohol fueled world without the need to drink any myself.
That brings up another dilemma which I found to be an issue the last time - WHAT to drink in social drinking environments. I know that SA Breweries have recently launched Castle Free, an alcohol free version of our most popular beer, Castle Lager. All no-alcohol beers here in South Africa were imported until now. I haven't tried Castle Free yet, but I will soon, pending availability, that might just be my new regular "social" drink. But besides that, what else is there. Water! I don't like soft drinks and I need to avoid drinks with sugar, that pretty much leaves only water! The choices for a health conscious non-alcohol drinker are ridiculously limited, which highlights the sad fact that we live in an alcoholic, alcohol controlled society. Alcohol is everywhere, drinking alcohol is the norm. Drink it or don't drink anything! Even my beloved running club has the slogan "The drinking club with a running problem". It's impossible to avoid alcohol, therefore I know that my own mindset needs to change to be able to accept going on with life around alcohol and being strong enough to not want to consume any. To accept that people around me will continue drinking booze and I will not regret or resent other people who are drinking in front of me, to be happy with myself as a non drinker, reminding myself of the reasons I no longer drink and learning that the new normal is alcohol free.
All the above said, I still have one more drinking session to get through - New Years Eve. A bunch of us are going to a beach party in Langebaan up the West Coast. It's going to be a blast, I will drink, consciously aware that it's my last. On the countdown I will finish my final drink (if I'm coherent enough to be aware of this) and start the new year with one last hangover, another final reminder of why I choose to lose da booze! I'm not going to drink today because early tomorrow the wife and I are going to a sunrise dance party in the city (no alcohol will be involved) then we have lunch with my mother, I can't do that hungover and it's far to drive so no drinking there either. Then on the 31st I have a 15km run with friends, so no drinking tomorrow night either. So it's only NYE, one more pissup!
Thank you to my friends on the LDB Facebook group, the camaraderie and support with that bunch of people is fantastic. I'm the only one from Africa on the group (I think), most are in the USA, strangers in life all with individual stories and drama's about how alcohol has negatively affected our lives, but friends with a common interest - to ditch alcohol from our lives. Many of us kick off 1st January with a 100 days AF, some of us hope to go further. It's an all or nothing approach, for those of us addicted to alcohol, moderation is not an option! To share this journey with people on the same journey, despite being so far apart geographically, is invaluable in self-motivation to get through this battle and win this war against alcohol!
If you have read through this entire longwinded post, I thank you, and I hope you will be back to follow my blog as my new life's story unfolds...
