Some Great Reading

I'm madly packing this morning for our annual trip to Cornwall. Buckets and spades, surfing and ice-creams, cliff walks and caves. Can't wait!

(The three children aren't being much help on the packing front. They are horribly overexcited about having found a Special K which looks exactly like Ukraine, and are busy posting photos on Instagram).

I thought I'd leave you with some of the best things I've read this week....

The first, sent to me by lovely C, now 7 months sober, is for anyone who was interested in last week's debate on the word 'alcoholic'. It's a fabulous piece from Holly at Hip Sobriety entitled: My name's Holly and I'm not an alcoholic (because no-one is). Click here to read it.

I also have two blog recommendations.

Anyone who hasn't already met Lily at alcoholfree2016.com should check her out here, and here is a fabulous new blog from mommyisaquitter who is currently wading her way through Day 5. Pop on over and give them both a virtual hug.

Finally, I had an e-mail from J, which she said I could share.

J tells a story about accidentally taking a sip of real booze and how much it messes with your head, which I can relate to. I vividly remember getting my Beck's Blue confused with a real beer back in the early days.

Here's J's story:

Dear SM
I just thought I would contact you to recount an event which may be of interest to others on the sober journey : My reaction has  rather staggered me ….

We were last week on a river cruise (40 years married) I had thought through my strategy to resist temptation and to have a fab sober time.

All was going well (harder work that I had expected with lovely elegant wine glasses laid out each lunch and dinner and waiters/waitresses constantly topping up chilled whites and ruby reds:  However they served Becks Blue on request, so that was lunch sorted and Fever Tree Ginger beer with lots of ice was working with dinner.

Part of my strategy was to enjoy a non alcoholic cocktail at the pre dinner drinks - and credit due, there were 4 to chose from.  ‘Virgin Mary’ was very nice (don’t know that the stick of celery added anything :-) ‘Shirley Temple' also very nice.  Then I thought to try a ‘Cucumber Fizz’ - well it took a while to arrive and when it did one sip shouted out GIN!! 

I gave it to my husband to confirm and we sent it back ….. then the strangest thing … I thought ‘Shit I am going to cry’ !!!  I took a walk round the deck really struggling.  I rallied for dinner with the new friends we had made (interestingly no comments had been made that I always had soft drinks and I didn’t say anything either).

The next morning I woke up weepy and was so for the most of the morning and typing this am filling up a bit.  My husband said that one sip didn’t spoil my record of 325 days.  I hadn’t thought of that but was a bit scared the one sip had let the wine witch reassert herself.  However logic told me that the one tiny sip was not enough to let her back. 

So my only conclusion is that some sort of mental switch was thrown - a grieving process??  I don’t know.  I do feel a bit cross that this happened but don’t know if I am cross with the bar staff’s error or my reaction.

So my reasons for emailing - I guess just to share the event, maybe others have had similar and are just as confused and this 63 year old Granma who is actually thoroughly enjoying every minute of being sober.
Oh well there we have it - onwards and upwards (my younger son is taking me on a trip up the Brighton 360 to celebrate my first year sober) how wonderful is that!!

Huge congratulations to J on 40 years of marriage and on 325 days sober. What incredible achievements. You rock, J.

And so do all of you.

Love SM x

New Beginnings

Thank you so much for all your comments on yesterday's post. As you gathered, I was feeling a bit bleurgh.

In fact, I'd resolved to give blogging a rest for a bit. It struck me that most normal bloggers post once a week, or thereabouts, not every day.

It's time, I thought, to cut down. Moderate.

(Can you see where this is going...?)

This morning, instead of heading straight for the laptop with my cup of coffee, I picked up a novel.

But I felt scratchy. Ill at ease. My hands had nothing to do, and all these words were buzzing round my head like bees trapped in a jam jar, desperate to get out.

So, here I am. Typing away. Once an addict, always an addict.

(But there are worse addictions to have. I should know.)

It's difficult to remain in a grump when you're in Cornwall in the springtime. Which is where we are.

Family SM upped sticks from the big smoke for a few days blowing the cobwebs away by the sea. Just in time for Storm Katie (don't you love how they've started giving them names? It's difficult to feel so cross when you've been introduced to the thing that's drenched you.)

But now the clouds are clearing, the clocks have changed, the sun and the daffodils are out. It's a time of new beginnings, and summer is just around the corner.

This time last year, I was not at all excited about the summer. I'd done four weeks sober and was very much in the 'one day at a time' phase.

I couldn't look ahead more than a few hours, let alone a whole season.

And when I did think about the summer, it was with a terrible sense of loss. All I could picture was summer scenes past, which always involved me clutching a chilled glass of rose, or some fancy cocktail.

If that's where you are now, then listen up. Because there will come a time when you can look months, even years, ahead again, and with a sense of optimism and excitement. More than ever.

Back in the drinking days I'd started to lose that wonderful anticipation, about anything. Everything seemed silted up with a general feeling of ennui, a sort of here we go again. Same old, same old.

No longer, my friends. Now I'm thinking SUMMER! Long, lazy days filled with sunshine, salt, sand and ice cream.

Yesterday we spent two hours playing Pooh sticks.

This was no ordinary Pooh sticks, is was the SM version which, obviously, involves no moderation of any sort. Rather, it requires a lot of shouting (and barking), running, and a smidgeon of cheating.

You need three drinking straws in different colours (we send #3 into the pub to get these because she's seriously cute and no barman can say 'no' to her. Just as well she doesn't order a vodka...)

You then drop the drinking straws into the fast flowing stream way up by the car park and run really fast down to the beach, quite a way down the hill.

The stream flows under the road, and pops out through a bridge onto the rocks above the beach. We station a look out at this point to check progress, and to make sure nothing's got stuck. There are two more lookouts lower down the stream as it tumbles over rocks, down mini waterfalls and round whirlpools.

Eventually, the stream reaches the sand, and one of the straws is declared the winner.

Who needs the Caribbean and room service when you have three plastic straws and a Cornish stream? The simplest things are the best, and really do not need artificial stimulants to make them any better...

The only thing freaking me out, is that last time we were here - back in August - I was surfing the waves, doing long cliff walks and feeling really, really healthy, with absolutely no idea that I had a ticking time bomb of a tumour nestling under my left boob.

How could I not have known? How is it possible to feel so healthy, yet be quietly self destructing, let down by your own rapidly mutating cells?

(To follow this story, start with this post: I Need Help)

So, my friends, grasp this Spring, this new beginning, with both hands, for none of us know what is round the next corner.

Love to you all, and thanks again,

SM x

Blogging Saved my Life

Exactly a year ago I started this blog.

I'd stopped drinking three days previously, and I was in a mess.

I'd quit before, for days, or sometimes weeks, at a time. It wasn't easy, but I'd just focus on the day when I could drink again.

Giving up for good was different. I couldn't stop thinking about drinking (or not drinking). And the more you try not to think about something, the more difficult it is. So my tactic was to indulge.

I read and read. Novels about drinkers, autobiographies of drinkers and self help manuals. I found Soberistas.com, and the sober blogosphere.

Whenever I could, I'd disappear into my room and read about someone like me who'd turned their life around, and dream about being them.

When I quit smoking (fifteen years ago), I told everyone. "I am a non smoker!" I'd announce, and they'd all cheer. I told no-one (apart from Mr SM) that I'd quit drinking, and I felt the need to be accountable.

So I decided to start my own blog. To feed my obsession. To give my hands something to do. To make a written record of what I was doing and why, lest I forget, and to make a declaration to someone - anyone - that I meant it (this time).

Blogging also tapped into my other secret: I'd always wanted to be a writer.

I imagined myself, like Carrie in Sex and the City, hunched over a laptop, fingers flying. I pictured myself at 4am, in a deathly quiet house, secretly sharing my hopes and dreams.

(Little did I know that, now I'd quit, the insomnia that had plagued me for years would disappear - almost overnight).

So, I wrote my first post (click here).

I didn't expect many (if any) readers. I was writing for myself. But I remember the thrill when I saw that one person had read my stuff (it transpired that it was only me. I'd not learned how to not track my own page views).

Then I, shyly, left my web address on Soberistas, and a couple of other sites, and - slowly, slowly - people started to visit and leave comments.

I WAS NOT ALONE!

And my readers stopped being just anonymous numbers, and started being virtual friends - Kags and Tallaxo (where are you now? Hope you're okay), and Laura from Belgium.

And the sober blogging community started dropping in and giving me a virtual hand - like Anne (Ainsobriety), Wendy (Tipsynomore) and Kary Mary (God walked into this bar).

Then, some of my readers set up their own blogs, and I subscribed to them - my family - Wine Bitch (now Sassy, Sober Life) and My Time to Shine, for example.

Now I really had to keep going. If ever I felt like a drink I thought about all those people willing me on, and those relying on me to show them the way. I couldn't do it.

Gradually, over time, the blogging morphed from helping myself to helping other people.

Then, in October, I found The Lump.

I couldn't tell anyone - not even my husband. I was too scared. All I wanted to do was to drink until I passed out and didn't have to think about it any more.

I didn't. What I did instead was to blog about it (see here).

Writing it all down kept me sane. It enabled me to stay 'normal' in front of the kids, who were on half term. And that's how Mr SM found out his wife had breast cancer - he read it on my blog.

I will never forget the waves of love and support from all of you through that time. Several readers mailed me with their own cancer stories, for which I am hugely grateful.

I remember one night, when I was waiting for the results of my latest scan to see how far the cancer had spread, I couldn't sleep. It was about 4am. I was reading cancer sites (I stopped doing that pretty quickly) and scaring myself stupid.

An e-mail popped into my inbox from a lady called Linda in Australia. She said you will be okay. I know this because I am a nurse, and because I've been there too. She added a smiley face.

Then, the next morning, a lady posted on my blog telling me that her whole congregation - around two hundred people - had prayed for me. I cried.

So, to all of you who left me wonderful messages on my Soberversary saying that I'd helped you, the truth is not as much as you've helped me.

Without this blog, and all of you, I would not be where I am now. There is no way I would have got this far, and through the whole cancer thing, without drinking, on my own. And since I started this blog I have never felt alone.

So, if you're just starting out, why not start your own blog? I'm a technophobe, but Blogger and Wordpress make it easy. Just start typing - one word at a time - and leave us your web address so we can come visit.

Happy Birthday, Mummy Was A Secret Drinker! 295 posts, and half a million page views later. And thank you.

SM x