False Memory

Our memories are much less accurate than we believe them to be.

Rather than a frame-by-frame photographic reflection of our past they are riddled with holes, like a swiss cheese. Whole chapters are re-written as we, unwittingly, cast different lights on what actually took place.

Two recent events have bought this home to me. The first was, last weekend, a thirty year reunion of my old boarding school friends. THIRTY YEARS! Where did all that time go?

Now, I lived with these women for seven years, through all those turbulent teenage days, and yet there were a few of them who I swear I had never, ever, seen before.

Even when I heard their names and looked up photos of how they looked back then.... nada. They'd been swallowed up by one of those many memory black holes.

But even much more recent memories are playing tricks on me.

I've been editing the book I've written about my first twelve months sober - the year when I also found and, hopefully, dispatched with breast cancer.

Reading back over that year is like reading a novel written about a character who has nothing whatsoever to do with me.

Whilst I know I had cancer - I have the scars to prove it, and I have to take tablets every day for the next decade at least - the detail of it all is a blur. It feels like it happened to a different person in a different age.

Even more so, the drinking days. When I look back on those I can remember drinking more than I should have, but the implications of that, the details of how it affected my life, my moods, my family... all burred.

There's good reason for this. Our subconscious minds have a built in protection mechanism. It's not good for us to remember all the bad stuff vividly, for there lies post traumatic stress syndrome, depression and anxiety. So they, helpfully, allow us to forget the detail.

Who would give birth more than once if this were not the case?

It's only because of this blog that I am able to remind myself, in all it's gory detail, what that time was really like. And reading back over it, then writing about it, is painful. I had to do it in small chunks. It made me cry, quite a lot.

But the reason for telling you all of this, if you're still reading, is that writing it all down at the time is really important. Because that's what stops us doing it all over again.

I can honestly tell you that if I did not have this record of those dark days I would be drinking again now. Because when I search through my memories I see only the good drinks. The rose on a hot day. the champagne at weddings. The single glass of fine red with a meal in a restaurant.

I don't see the bottle of wine drunk every evening by myself.

I imagine that if you don't quit drinking until you hit a spectacular rock bottom, then it is less easy to forget. You have drink driving offences, broken relationships and a lost life to remind you.

But, if you - wisely - quit before that point, you only have your unreliable memories to rely on. The memory bank that it all easy to rob of its treasures.

So please, write it all down. Before you forget. Start a blog. A diary. Tell someone.

If you'd like to read my story from the start, then click here (or wait for the book!)

Love SM x

Full Circle

Day 80! There's something beautiful about round numbers. This one reminds me of one of the children's jokes. Q: "What did the zero say to the eight?" A: "Nice belt!

Appropriately, given that I'm already on the topic of zeros and circles, this post is about coming full circle.

This is my 68th post. Eighty days ago I never would have imagined that I'd be able to find so many topics to ramble on about. I keep a list on my iPhone called 'blog posts', and whenever a relevant thought pops into my head I stick it on the list.

The list items are a bit like fish in an aquarium (spoiler alert: another analogy approaching). They swim around for a bit. Some of them get bigger and stronger and more acrobatic. Some die, end up floating belly up and have to be fished out. Some cannibalise  friends who are just a bit too similar to them, and end up an amalgamation of two or three different fish.

Each morning I open up the aquarium, peer in and see which fish is throwing itself out of the water with enthusiasm, and that's the one I write about.

About three weeks ago I wrote 'full circle' on the list. I wasn't sure quite what that fish was all about yet, but I thought I'd let it swim around and see what happened to it. That fish kept bugging me. I knew it was important, but couldn't quite work out why.

Then I read one of Anne's brilliant posts (see Ainsobriety). Anne had taken my tiny little common old garden goldfish and turned it into a gorgeous, tropical Angel fish! Suddenly the 'full circle' thought made sense!

The reason I'd become interested in the full circle idea was that, yet again, I'd been thinking back to my pre drinking days. I remembered that when I was at boarding school I started THE DIARY.

THE DIARY (that's a JOURNAL in American) was a huge lever arch file into which I wrote religiously every day. I added photos, letters and news clippings.

THE DIARY wasn't private. I let all my friends read it. I also encouraged them to add their own news and comments. In fact, it was - in those pre-interweb days - a rudimentary blog! And I loved it. We would all gather round it reading back over our antics from the previous year "Weren't we all so immature and pathetic!" we'd shriek about our antics in the lower sixth.

Not only did I have THE DIARY, but I was constantly writing. I wrote most of the end of year comedy skits, taking the mickey out of all the staff. I wrote 'odes' for all my friends - long, comic poetry - on birthdays and for other significant events.

Over the years I stopped doing all of that. Until about 6 months ago (when I started writing a book) I hadn't written a thing except e-mails, thank you letters and work stuff for twenty years. In fact, it was probably starting the novel that got me thinking about quitting the drink.

So, here I am, full circle. Back to writing THE DIARY every day, and sharing it with my friends, encouraging them to add their comments.

Here's what Anne wrote on her blog a couple of days ago. She'd heard Wayne Dyer, self help guru, speak at a conference, and she said: "What stayed with me from his talk was the idea that at the end of our journey we will recognize it as the place we started. The circular path of life. The returning to source."

She, and Wayne Dyer, had blinged up my little fish!

Then I thought, if I've come totally full circle, does that mean the last twenty years were a complete waste? Where would I have been if I'd gone in a straight line???

But, you know what? I reckon that everyone comes full circle eventually. It wasn't the drinking that created the circularity. It's the self analysis caused by the stopping drinking that allows you to see it.

Big, circular, hugs to you all. SM x