It’s a Saturday night and I am sobbing, snotting and screaming in some boujee North London boozer loo. Seconds earlier, I was making eyes at the wine list, flirting with the fancies that the Reds had to offer. If I order the most expensive bottle it won’t count as a relapse. I can act a cunt. Because the money backs it. My alcoholic riddles mind convinces me of these false promises. This is how I used to drink. Alone. With the most expensive bottle. In hotel bars. Sometimes a stranger might join me. If I were to let him. With the promise of an empty fuck, if he was to foot the bill. At times I would have relationships but only with other alcoholics that accompany me by being as emotionally unavailable as I. Sometimes we would kid ourselves that we loved each other. But we always loved the booze or to use more. That always took president. Fuck everyone else. But most importantly fuck ourselves and our true values. So let’s bring this story back into the room. Or the loo. Should I say. My eyes are puffy. They are redder than the devils dick. An expression I used to love when I was blazed out of my innocent teenage mind. “When am I going to be fucking normal?” “Why can’t I just have my old life back?” I choke down the phone to my best friend. And the short of that is. Because I wasn’t living a life. I was in an empty vapid excuse of a ‘life’. Barely even struggling to get by. I wasn’t living. I was barely even existing.
Now comes the real question. That I half sob. Half scream down the phone. “Why am I in a pub on a Saturday night, surrounded by wine?”. Now that is the real question. Why am I in a pub? On a Saturday night? Surrounded by wine? I am four months into recovery. Yet I still seek opportunities to self sabotage.
In my meeting that morning, I am being asked how I am. As you do. As is polite. But these people. This family. This unit. They really fucking care. They aren’t asking it to be courteous. I am good. I am happy. I don’t feel all that healthy. I am eating a pizza every day right now and chaining a pack of twenty. So that is hardly surprising. But that will come. In time. I don’t remember the last time I felt truly happy. Recovery is working. I feel safe. I finally feel a sense of belonging. I feel a little, like I found home. I am starting to understand peace. Especially within myself. I should not put myself with people, or places, that jeopardise that. I managed to block and delete somebody who conflicts any thought of happiness I hold for myself. On Valentines day of all days. He is a sick man. ‘Stay away’, I was told from the very beginning. Did I listen? No! Did I get burnt? To a crisp. I didn’t want to leave. At the thought he may die. But it doesn’t matter if I am there or not. I can’t save him. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want to save himself. He chooses using over me. As he will forever and always. The ego is bigger. The malady is louder. So I removed it. Cut it like cancer. Why now am I choosing not to remove this? Why am I sat here alone in the boozer? No mans land. Dangerous territory. Convincing myself because I can’t join in, because I can’t drink. That I am a loser. I am PROUD to be in recovery. I am BLESSED to have found a solution. For years upon years. I have felt in isolation. POWERLESS to where that first drink takes me. “Why can’t you just drink normally?” Another alcoholic ex once questioned by drinking “Nobody else I know behaves like you when they drink”. This was a time I had no idea I had a problem with drinking. Though it was blindingly clear. I deflected by blaming all the drinking on the fact he was an alcoholic and it was his drinking that drove me to such extremities. Oh the denial was bad. The denial was real. But that denial is no more.
I realised this weekend that I am no longer a ruin. I am now rebuilding, reviving, remaking, the life that I always wanted and was very much able to achieve. I don’t want the world. I want small things. I want happiness. This past week, I have found happiness. I have been lucky enough to practice it not just for pockets of time but whole day stints. The old me would have relapsed. Hated myself for days. Reeked havoc. Left a wreckage. Blamed everyone but myself for my behaviours. I had no part in it. It was you that triggered me. Not I. If I had it my way. In my inebriated mind. I would be here writing these words today. But I realised I do not want to die. I really don’t. I guess I am now fighting that part of my brain that wants to kill me. Thinks I am better off dead. I am fighting for my life. And what a beautiful life it is shaping out to be, I’ve just now got to come to terms with the fact, I have to let go of people, places and things, that are no good to me and my recovery.