Alcohol and Driving

So, the mayor of London has put Uber on the naughty step. 

I imagine that they will stay there for a couple of months, thinking about what they've done, then they'll proffer an apology and promise to start treating their drivers properly, report serious incidents in their cabs to the police and, you never know, maybe even pay some tax.

Then they'll be given their license back (thereby saving the jobs of 40,000 drivers - hurrah!) and told that they'd better keep getting smiley faces on the reward chart, or else.

A while back, the thought of living in the capital with no Uber would have been rather terrifying, but not now, because I am my own mini-cab!

One of the very best things about giving up booze, (along with the fact that, having lost the muffin top, I can now see my feet! And I can afford to buy great shoes to put on them!) is being able to drive ALL THE TIME.

If Mr SM and I have a 'date night' in a fancy West End restaurant, I don't need to book an expensive taxi to get us there and back. Oh no. I just drive and park right outside. Because nobody drives into central London at night time, so you can park anywhere. For free.

If I go to a party, when I decide it's time to go (usually in the middle of someone telling me a 'hilarious' story for the third time), I don't have to find the host to ask for the number for a cab firm, then try to sound sober while I book the cab, then try to look sober when I climb into it.

Oh no, I just leave surreptitiously, find my car (which is usually right outside) and drive home.

I even offer lifts around to all my drunk friends. It's a great way to stock up some brownie points, (or maybe make up for past misdemeanours). It's amazing how popular being a 'designated driver' can make you.

And one of the real joys is being able to sail past police cars confidently, knowing that there is absolutely no way that you are over the limit. 

In fact, I have been known to deliberately drive 'erratically' around police cars in the hope that they will breathalyse me, so I can watch with huge smugness while the light remains stubbornly on GREEN.

Even if you are incredibly responsible about drinking and driving, and always take a taxi or public transport home, there's always the niggling fear that you might just still be over the limit in the morning. On the school run. Or driving into work. 

Give up drinking, and that's totally impossible.

So, yet another fine reason to quit the booze.

In other news this week, the makers of Jaffa Cakes, in their wisdom, have decided to cut the number of biscuits (cakes?) in a pack from twelve to ten. It's a disaster.

During my early days of not drinking I mainlined Jaffa Cakes. Ten would not have been enough, would barely have touched the sides.

New this week on the SoberMummy Facebook page: some fabulous women talking to the BBC about giving up booze, the stories (and before and after pictures!) of fifteen celebs who have gone sober, including Angelina, Adele, Samuel L. Jackson and Drew Barrymore, and the funniest video I've seen in ages.

For inspiration, information and a few good laughs every weekday at wine o'clock, join the SoberMummy Facebook page. CLICK HERE, and 'like' to stay updated.

Love to you all, 

SM x

Police Cars and Cashiers

When I started this blog I thought I was fairly unique. But not in a good way.

I didn't think there were many 'ordinary mums' like me who were wrestling on a daily basis with the wine witch, or whose lives were secretly out of control.

I quickly discovered that I was wrong - I really wasn't alone.

I found out that were many women (and men!) out there, just like me. They mailed me their stories, and they were all spookily similar to mine.

But the funny thing was, not only were we alike in the reasons why we started drinking, the way it escalated, how it was making us feel and our inability to moderate (I still can't type that word without gritting my teeth), but many of my quirks and neuroses, it transpired, are terribly common.

That's why youboozeyoulooze (find her blog here) asked me to post a link to a piece I wrote a while ago on Police Cars and Cashiers (click here).

I still remember vividly the times I spent fretting about being judged by cashiers, and how much effort I went to to avoid seeing the same ones. And I still get a thrill now when I drive past police cars late a night knowing for certain that the breathalyser holds no fear for me.

But quitting booze is hard, which is why I'm sharing an article sent to me by an Australian (male!) reader, w3stie. (In my fevered imagination, he's just like Mike Dundee, all rippling six pack, great sense of humour and able to take down a crocodile with his bare hands).

The article is by Felicity Ward, an Australian comedian and columnist, who talks about why she quit drinking and what's happened to her life since. Here's a taster:

I wondered how I'd ever have fun again. I wondered if I'd be boring for the rest of my life. I wondered how people would know I was a wanker if I didn't order a Penfolds 389 with my dinner.

So initially I just shut the world out for a bit, went cold turkey and kept a low profile. Oh, and I cried. A lot. Sometimes I'd walk around my apartment and have to lie on the floor all of a sudden because the sadness was too heavy. That's something they DON'T tell you about giving up alcohol.

When you stop drinking, you find all these things you'd forgotten about for years ... like FEELINGS. You know: fear, insecurity, self-loathing.

Oh, that's why I was drinking. I seeeee...

To read the whole article (which I heartily recommend and which does - spoiler alert - have a happy ending) click here.

Lots of love to you all, and thanks to w3stie!

SM x

Fear of Cashiers and Police Cars

I find these days that there are some ordinary day-to-day things that give me a huge thrill. Like waking up on Sunday mornings with a clear head, no guilt, and loads of energy. Like being able to do my belt up on the third notch. And like being able to go into any shop without fear of the cashier...

Until I started this blog I thought I was the only person in the world with Cashier Fear. In this, like many things, I quickly discovered that I was not alone.

I used to buy wine on rotation from several different shops because I was worried that the cashiers would clock how much I was buying and judge me.

There's a small Sainsbury Local near the children's school that I use quite a lot. I made me really, really cross that the same cashier seemed to be on duty whenever I went in. I would say to the children, really loudly, as I hauled my bottles of vino up to the till, "mustn't forget Daddy's wine!" or "Godfather Billy's coming for supper!" with an eye roll.

Needless to say, the children thought I'd gone slightly mad. They weren't wrong.

Every time I go into that shop now I get a buzz. I put my alcohol free beers on the counter and find myself, yet again, talking too loudly as I say "why is there an age restriction on these when they are alcohol free? Isn't that funny? It's not as if there's any alcohol in them! Ha ha!" Still acting like a mad lady.

I would love to know whether cashiers ever give a toss about who's buying what, and which of the Mums they serve are secret lushes. I suspect that the only person judging me was myself...

Another thing that gives me a vicarious thrill (I have to get my kicks somewhere these days) is police cars.

Now, I never thought I drove drunk. Whenever I got into my car I convinced myself that I was totally sober. Looking back, this can't have been the case.

If you drink a bottle of wine in the evening (10 units) it takes ten hours to leave your system. Given that I'd usually pass out before 10pm, I'd probably by ok to drive in the morning.

BUT,  if I'd gone out to a party mid week it was likely I'd have drunk up to 20 units and gone to bed at 1am. There is no way that by 8am I'd be under the limit.

Plus, towards the end of the dark drinking days I'd often have a glass or two of wine at lunch time. Then drive at 3pm. I felt totally fine - I had a very high tolerance by this point - but I'm sure the breathalyser would have said different.

People with alcohol problems are notoriously adept at convincing themselves that they are perfectly safe to drive. This is what killed my friend Juliet (see When the Wine Witch Wins). But, the giveaway that, in my heart of hearts, I knew I wasn't really okay to drive was my fear of police cars.

I loathed driving past police cars, at any time of day. And if a police car just happened to be driving behind me (bound to happen in central London) I'd be riddled with paranoia. Why are they following me? What have a done? Am I driving too fast? To slow? Weaving? Aarrggghhh!

But now I love driving past police cars! I wave at them like a lunatic (are you seeing a pattern here?). I'm desperate to be pulled over so that I can say "Oh no officer. Not me! I don't drink."

To read more about my first year sober, read my book The Sober Diaries. Click here (UK), or here (USA)

Love to you all,

SM x

Related post: 5 signs that you're a problem drinker

When the wine witch wins

When I was twenty-six, a friend of mine introduced me to his new girlfriend - Juliet. Juliet and I immediately fell in (platonic) love.

Juliet had wild, untameable red hair and freckles, and she crackled and fizzed with an energy which was tangible. She was fiendishly clever, and fiercely loyal and, like me, she smoked like a chimney and drank like a fish. When I was with Juliet I felt more. More attractive, more witty, more alive.

I should have known then that a flame that burned so brightly would inevitably die young.

Juliet and I would go to smart restaurants and talk until the waiters started putting chairs on the tables around us. We'd finish the first bottle quickly and Juliet would wave it at a waiter crying "excuse me, my man, could we please have one exactly the same as this, but full?" and she would tip back in her chair and guffaw with laughter.

We would spend long nights at her flat or mine, dancing like no-one was watching to the anthems of our youth: Duran Duran, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Toyah Wilcox. We read poetry to each other. One of Juliet's favourites was John Betjeman's 'Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough.'

We'd promise that we would never end up as grey faced automaton's like those in the poem, rather we'd be eccentric old ladies dressed in purple velvet and mink, terrorising youths with our walking sticks and drinking Martinis with abandon.

Juliet was ferociously fearless (when drunk. When sober she was riddled with insecurities), and persuasive. She would always manage to convince someone that she was 'perfectly able to drive'. She was, she'd say, a brilliant driver and, in fact, even better after a few drinks.

One day, after we'd all been to a wild weekend country house party, she decided she was perfectly able to drive home rather than stay the Sunday night like the rest of us. We let her. She crashed her car on the M1.

Mercifully, no-one was hurt, but it shook her up big time. She realised she wasn't invincible. She ditched the high powered consultancy job she hated and moved out of London, away from temptations, to live more soberly and follow her dream of writing. She wrote the way she lived - with great gusto, originality and humour. Her e-mails were side splittingly funny. My husband read some of them out at her memorial.

I'm ashamed to say that, wrapped up in the self-obsession of youth, I didn't speak to Juliet as much as I should have done after she left town. In the year that she was away I never once went to visit.

One night Juliet had a friend over. He wasn't yet a boyfriend - I think they were just 'testing the water.' They got drunk. She wanted to buy some cigarettes, but - having holed herself up in the countryside - the nearest shop which would be open was several miles away. She spun the usual line about being an even better driver when drunk.

Juliet's car careered off an empty country road and ended up upside down in a ditch. The bloke was trapped for hours, dressed in his pyjamas, next to her corpse. She wasn't even thirty years old.

Many years later, the husband and I were driving in Africa with #1 and #2 (who were then a toddler and a baby) in the back. The visibility was terrible - lashing rain and fog. I fell asleep. In my dream I saw Juliet, as clear as day. She shouted at me "WAKE UP!" I woke to see that the road was splitting into a dual carriageway. The husband hadn't noticed and was heading straight towards two lanes of oncoming traffic. I yelled. He swerved. I honestly believe that Juliet saved our lives. I wish I'd been able to save hers.

That's the thing about the wine witch. She cuts brilliant lives short, and ensures that others are only half lived. She makes children grow up thinking it normal for adults to drink all evening, every evening. She fixes it so mothers are woken up in the middle of the night by a stranger telling them their only child was found dead in a ditch, next to someone she barely knew.

So, I'm not just doing this for me. I'm doing it for my children, and I'm doing it for my feckless, fearless, flame haired friend - Juliet. I will never forget you.

Love SM x

If you have a friend, or relative you'd like us to remember, please do post in the comments section.

Related posts: When the wine witch wins. Part 2