Will I Lose all my Friends?

This is the question that haunted me when I first quit drinking. In fact, I posted with this same title back on day 13. (To read that post click here).

And the truth is that I didn't lose any friends, in that no-one called me up to say Good God, you are SO BORING that I never want to see you again. (I really had expected that to happen).

What has happened, though, is that there are some friends who contact me a lot less. Needless to say, generally the ones who can't contemplate the idea of a night out without getting totally hammered, and don't want a sober person there pouring rain on their parade.

I'm not angry about this. I get it. I would have done the same, back in the day. I would have justified this to myself as being 'because they're no fun any more', when actually I was just worried that it would shine a light on my own out of control drinking.

This slight negative is, however, totally drowned out by the positive, which is that I have made lots of new friends. 

I hadn't made many new friends for years. It felt like too much effort. I was also somewhat aware that my old muckers would be more forgiving of any wayward antics than brand new, shiny friends.

But now I have a much wider social circle, including several women who hardly ever (or never) drink, the ones I would have written off in the past as being 'not my type.'

Then yesterday the lovely people at Go Sober for October sent me these fascinating statistics from a survey by Macmillan Cancer Support.

7 MILLION BRITS DITCH THEIR FRIENDS FOR DRINKING TOO MUCH

Apparently, 13% of adults (6.7 million people) have stopped going for a drink with at least one friend because they believe they drink too much.

And a Go Sober survey found that one quarter of UK adults avoid drinking with certain friends because of the way they behave after a tipple. 54% say their friend gets too aggressive, and 47% say they get too loud.

This is all driving a trend towards 'soberlising' - socialising without the booze - which is particularly popular amongst the young.

So, don't fret about losing your friends when you STOP drinking, worry about losing them if you CARRY ON!

And if you need some fabulous help and encouragement, then join my friends over at Go Sober for October.

(You'll also be raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support who were a huge help to me through the whole breast cancer thingy).

In other news, are any of you called Nigel? Apparently NOT ONE baby was named Nigel last year in the UK. This makes me sad, as my first ever snog was a Nigel. On a school trip, aged eleven. Just saying.

Love to you all,

SM (Clare)

Alcohol, Relationships and Happiness

There are, I think, three main phases in the sober journey.

Phase 1, The first 100 days, is all about physical detoxing, grit, determination and a rollercoaster of emotions.

Phase 2, the next six months or so, is all about introspection. We spend hours, days even, thinking about ourselves.

We ask questions like how did I get here? Am I happy? Am I an alcoholic? Am I a good mother?

Then, at some point, we stop looking inward and start looking outward. We start becoming fascinated by the really big things.

The questions I've started asking are along the lines of: what makes a good person? What are the most important things we can do for our children? Is there a God? And, my current obsession: what makes us happy?

So I found a TED talk by Robert Waldinger called 'What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness.' (Click here to see it for yourself).

Robert's talk is based on The Harvard Study of Adult Development which studied 724 men and over 2000 of their children over 75 years, asking them about their work, home, health and happiness.

The study found that wealth did not make people happy. Nor did fame. Nor did Leaning In.

What made these men happier and healthier was good relationships.

The study concludes that the more socially connected you are to friends, community and family, the happier and healthier you'll be, and the longer you'll live.

Lonely people (and 20% of the adult population of the USA describe themselves as such) are less happy, their health and brain function declines at an earlier age and they die younger.

The single biggest predictor of a happy, healthy life aged 80 was being satisfied with your relationships at the age of fifty.

This is really important for us, because if you are addicted to booze it becomes increasingly hard to maintain strong, happy relationships.

Over time we alienate more and more of our friends and family, avoid spending time with anyone who doesn't drink enthusiastically, and spend increasing amounts of time drinking on our own.

If you let yourself get to the classic 'rock bottom' you can find that your family and friends have, finally, given up on you.

This is one of the many reasons why alcohol does not make us happy. In fact it makes us lonely and miserable.

I didn't get this when I first quit. In fact, one of my biggest fears was losing all my friends. I thought I'd never be invited anywhere again.

(see my post: Will I Lose All My Friends, written on day 13)

This isn't what happened.

Looking back now I realise that I hadn't made many new friends for years. I used to say I have far too many friends to keep in touch with as it is. I really don't need new ones.

And the only really old friends I saw frequently were the really big drinkers. My other friends had gradually drifted away, probably because I made very little effort to nourish those relationships.

Now (with the possible exception of my friends who, like me, are 'problem drinkers') my old friendships are way stronger. I've taken time to see them, to help them, to listen to them. I've remembered birthdays. I'm making up for lost time.

And I've made a number of really good new friends. One of my best new buddies hardly drinks. Never has. Doesn't like it. There is NO WAY I would have wanted to be friends with her in the Old Days.

Then I wondered how much of this is in my imagination? Am I fooling myself? Is it all self justification?

So - right now - in real time, I am going to do a scientific experiment.

Every Christmas for the last ten years I have bought myself a present: a traditional, leather bound Smythson's desk diary. It lives in the kitchen and details the whole family's social, school and work commitments.

I'm going to look at June 2014 (towards the end of the Drinking Days) and June 2016 and compare the number of social events in both. I'm going to include any pre-arranged event like parties, date nights, dinners, meeting a friend for lunch, coffee or a dog walk, and exclude anything child related (like class parties, sports days, speech days etc).

I'll be back in ten minutes....

Right, scores on the doors are:

June 2014: 12 social events
June 2016: 19 social events

That's a fifty percent increase. Scientific proof that quitting drink improves your relationships and therefore, according to Robert Waldinger, makes you happier, healthier and live longer.

So, go be happy!

Love SM x

Sober Dinners

The thing we all seem to struggle with initially when we quit drinking is socialising.

It doesn't take too long before you're pretty comfortable staying in, dressed in your comfiest PJs, watching the latest box set and clutching a hot chocolate, BUT venture out to a dinner or a party and you're all.... ill at ease and scratchy.

This bothers us a lot, as often we enthusiastic imbibers are outgoing, sociable types. That's partly what got us into this mess in the first place, right?

Well, last night Mr SM and I were invited out to a smart Italian restaurant with seven others for dinner. The sort of evening that would have filled me with horror six months ago.

Dinners, for ages, made me feel twitchy. I'd worry that I was being really boring. I'd be obsessed by how much everyone else was drinking (not a lot, as it turned out. Who knew?).

I didn't know what to do with my hands which had spent ten years constantly clutching a cigarette, then the next fifteen wrapped around a wine glass.

But, last night, I realised that I was feeling rather.... relaxed. Comfortable. Not 100%, but well over ninety.

One of the issues with dinners down my way is that the conversational topics are often confined to (1) Idle gossip (2) The housing market and (3) Which schools you're trying to get your children into. This drives me quietly insane.

Then last night I realised that I'd been as big a culprit as any.

Back in the drinking days, after a few glasses, when my brain had gone all numb and sleepy, I'd fall back on the tired old topics, and reel out some boring old anecdotes. Plus, I'd completely fail to listen to anyone else.

Last night, down my end of the table, we talked about all sorts of stuff - none of it related to our children or house prices.

We discussed the terrible situation in Brussels. We talked about the 'fight or flight response' and whether we would be the hero on a sinking ship, or freeze and drown.

We laughed about how Stalin, in the second world war, thoughtfully sent condoms to the British troops (whose rubber factories were busy making tyres for army vehicles), but made them all extra large and labelled them 'medium,' which got us onto a random (rather x-rated) conversation about penis size.

We moved onto Madonna, and her custody dispute over Rocco, and if Jon Snow really was dead, or whether he'd be revived by the witchy woman with red hair in time to deal with the White Walkers.

It struck me that, being completely sober, wide awake and relaxed, I was firing on all cylinders.

By that point in the old days I'd have passed through the overly loud and domineering stage, and would have moved onto bored, tired and desperate to leave.

I'd done my usual trick of accepting a glass of wine at the beginning of the evening, then leaving it in my glass. No-one notices you're not drinking it, but it just avoids all the 'why are you off the booze' conversations.*

(I'm perfectly happy now with people knowing I'm not drinking, but often they're not. It makes them really uncomfortable, so I just try to avoid the issue.)

So, at the end of the meal, everyone's wine glasses were empty apart from mine. The guy on my right leant over and said, quietly, "Are you going to finish that, or would you mind if I did?"

Oh what joy!

Firstly, it reminded me how crazy I would have been driven by someone else's full glass of wine in the past. How I would have agonised over whether to say anything, or whether they'd notice if I just grabbed it.

Secondly, imagine, I was seen as the person who didn't feel the need to finish a glass of wine - who would just stop when she'd had enough, even if her glass was full. Ha ha ha. How wonderfully ironic.

As we left, I offered a lift home to two of friends who lived near us, much to their joy and amazement. ("You drove?"). As pretty much no-one else drives to dinner in central London, I'd nabbed a (free) parking space right outside the restaurant.

Sober dinners - I think I may have cracked it....

HAPPY SOBERVERSARY to Jennifer from Canada, who's been with me since the early days. Huge congrats Jennifer - you rock!

And so do all of you.

Love,

SM x

* Please DO NOT try this until you have read the cautionary tale and caveats here.

Overdoing it

Day 85.

It's a bank holiday weekend, and the beginning of half term, here in the UK. In an effort to prove to myself that life still goes on without alcohol - I appear to have overdone it. Rookie error.

We had two families round for a barbeque lunch on Saturday. In typical UK Bank Holiday fashion as soon as we fired up the Barbie it began to rain. We moved inside and started eating at around 2.30pm.

They didn't leave until 7.30pm.

In the old days this would have been a result.  A valid excuse for a whole afternoon of non stop drinking! Not now.

We must have finished eating by 3.30pm. Unlike back then (when, by this stage, I'd have given up any pretentions of 'proper hosting') I remembered to offer everyone coffee and chocolates. I'd cleared all the plates. Loaded the dishwasher. And they all just sat there drinking.

Don't get me wrong. It was great fun. The conversation was hilarious, and at several points I laughed until I cried. But - to steal a word from a comment left a while back by mythreesons - I felt itchy.

I really wanted to be able to turn up the dimmer switch, slump down in my chair and just go with the flow. I was way to upright and aware to be able to spend four hours at a table without eating or drinking.

By 5pm I wanted to stand on my chair and shout "RIGHT! You've eaten my food. You've drunk my booze. Now just EFF OFF out of my house." But I love them all, and they were having fun, and I couldn't.

By the time they did go home I had a crashing headache and realised that I'd been literally gritting my teeth for several hours. I was proud of myself, but utterly exhausted.

Then, yesterday, I woke up with a feeling of dread as the realisation dawned that I had to do more socialising. Again, a lovely invitation. Dinner at the house of some very good friends. But all I wanted to do was to hole up in my safe little house with my safe little family and watch Mad Men with a cup of hot chocolate.

I did the dinner. It was fine. But I found myself analysing everything I was saying as I was saying it. Was that funny? Why am I telling this anecdote? Is this gossip really appropriate?

In the old days I just said stuff without thinking. It probably shocked people, or upset them from time to time, but it was easy. It was natural.

Funnily enough, I now remember being this analytical about conversation way back in my teens and early twenties. Probably the last time I did dinner parties relatively sober. Apart from when I was pregnant. And that was easy. You could just sit back in your chair, quietly and serenely stroking your precious bump, then leave early without any qualms.

As we drove home (drove home! Now there's a bonus!) I asked The Husband "am I more boring when I'm not drinking?"

"How can I possibly answer that?" he says, exasperated. "If I say no you'll worry that you spent years boring everyone. If I say yes you'll worry that you're boring everyone now. You weren't boring then. You're not boring now."

He's right. I'm never going to know the truth.

I've realised that it's a bit like learning to walk again after an accident. You just have to take baby steps. And this long (so long!) weekend, I've been trying to run a bloody marathon!

What are we doing today? Going to old friends in the country for lunch. More socialising. More drinking. More itching.

My advice to any of you in the early days? Protect yourself. Take it easy. Baby steps.

Love SM x

For more on sober socialising read: The Drunkard Detector, Tartan and Tiaras, Blast from the Past