A few of my readers have mentioned a book by Amy Hatvany called A Best Kept Secret.
I'm enjoying it hugely, but it terrifies me.
The heroine, Cadence, is a Mum (sorry, Mom), just like me. For many years she drank 'normally,' 'moderately'. But then it starts to get out of control. In secret.
Unlike me, Cadence splits up with her husband.
I know from e-mails I've received and blogs I've read that divorce (like bereavement) can be a huge catalyst. Not only is it hard, but - once there's no-one around to hide from and to disapprove - the gloves are off.
Cadence (and this is not a spoiler, you know it from the beginning of the novel), ends up fighting for custody of her son who is, for the time being at least, living with her ex and his (ghastly) mother.
There's an analogy in the book that really resonated with me. Cadence asks a man at an AA meeting how he know he'd 'hit bottom.' He replies "When I stopped digging."
Hatvany/Cadence then writes: I see myself at the base of a deep, dark hole, shovel in hand, face blackened, exhausted. I'm prodding the soil, digging here and there, the ground literally falling out from under me, right along with my footing. But it's me, I'm the one digging. I stop my jabbing movements and see myself lifting the shovel out of the dirt. I hold onto it still, unsure how to let go, where to put it, no clue as to what else I might use as a tool to find my way out of this deep well I've put myself in.
"How do I stop digging?" My voice is quiet. "I don't know how to stop."
"Put down the shovel, honey," he says. "That's all. Just put it down, and start looking up."
#1 has a friend who, for as long as I've known her, has lived with her Dad. She never talks about her Mum. Her parents split up when she was tiny, and, like Cadence, her Mum's drinking spiralled out of control.
Like Cadence, she had to fight for custody. I don't think she had any fight in her by that stage. She lost.
I've never met this lady, but her story, and Cadence's, terrifies me. Because my children (and the husband) are what kept me 'high functioning'. Once you've lost your kids how can you cope without the drink? What's to stop you drinking yourself to death?
So if you're standing there with your shovel, digging deeper, thinking 'I'm not a proper alcoholic! I'm functioning! I haven't reached 'bottom.'
Stop and think. Do you really want to know what bottom looks like?
Start looking up whilst you can still see the sky. Start climbing while there's not so far to go.
Just put down the shovel.
Love SM x
Showing posts with label high functioning alcoholic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label high functioning alcoholic. Show all posts
Friday, 10 July 2015
Friday, 5 June 2015
Clutter
Day 96, and my current obsession is clutter.
We high functioning alkies, in order to remain high functioning, become masters of prioritisation. We identity all the really important plates and we make damn sure that we keep them spinning.
Much of this is about external appearance. If everything looks as if it's in control then we can kid ourselves that it really is. We're like swans - apparently gliding effortlessly over the water, but in reality paddling like crazy through all the fish poo.
So I would like to bet that many of you have homes that look, on the surface, in pretty good order, but if you look in the cupboards, under the stairs, under the bed or in the cellar they are stuffed with clutter.
When you're drinking a lot you simply don't have time to deal with loads of stuff, to work out where it goes or what to do with it. So you shove it in a drawer and pour another glass of vino. Am I right?
And, here's the spooky thing, didn't we do exactly the same thing with our minds? Oh dear, here's a little emotion that I don't really like and don't know what to do with. Shove it in a recess and pour another drink.
So when we get sober we start clearing out all those rejected and neglected emotions that haven't gone away but have sat there getting mouldy and making us all sluggish and dysfunctional.
It's no surprise, then, that we start feeling the need to do the same thing with our environment. Our gardens (see Gardening) and our homes.
The link between our spiritual selves and our surroundings is the basis of feng shui. I have to confess that I'd always filed feng shui in the 'life's too short for all that up itself nonsense' drawer. But now it makes total sense.
Here's what feng shui has to say about clutter: Clutter is low, stagnant, and confusing energy that constantly drains energy from you. Depending on the feng shui area of your home and where your clutter is located, it can also negatively influence, or even completely block, the flow of energy and events in many areas of your life.
Funnily enough, the two areas of my house that I've started decluttering first are my kitchen and the entrance to my house. Having done some (quick) research I've discovered that the kitchen is the area which is related to your health, especially your liver. How spooky is that?!?
And the entrance to your house is known as the 'mouth of chi' and where your house gets its 'energy and nourishment.' If your 'mouth of chi' is all blocked you're screwed (executive summary).
Now, if you've only just quit drinking and are still in that slight-state-of-shock pink cloudy state, then do park all this and come back to it in a few months time. If, however, this is ringing some bells with you, then here's a link to how to clear your clutter with feng shui.
But, because I'm feeling generous and giving today, I've done a SoberMummy summary:
1. Don't try to do it all at once. Take one small area at a time and spend no more than thirty minutes on each session.
2. In those 30 minutes separate all your clutter into 3 piles: 'keep', 'bin' and 'don't know'.
3. Only keep stuff that you love, or is useful and you have a place for. If you don't love it, or have no use for it and nowhere to put it - BIN IT. (N.B. by 'bin' I obviously mean take to the charity shop/recycle or sell!)
4. Take the 'don't know' box away for a few months, then go through it again doing 'keep', 'bin', 'don't know' until it's eventually empty.
This process is hard work - physically and emotionally - but hugely rewarding. According to feng shui, we are like plants, and we cannot grow without space and light. Clutter saps health and vitality, restricts finances and stifles relationships (apparently).
Let it go (oh God, now I've got that terrible 'Frozen' song in my head for the day) and feel the energy flow.
Since my decluttering frenzy (before I even read all the feng shui stuff), I've created my little herb garden outside my front door, plus a tank filled with the children's tadpoles (which I now think of as my equivalent to the koi carp pool!).
By the front door I have a hook for the dog leads, and pegs for all the children's school bags. And all those bowls filled with bits of stuff have been emptied out and categorised.
I have a long way to go, both with the physical and the emotional clutter, (I haven't been anywhere near the cellar - known in our house as 'the pit of despair'), but I can see chinks of light starting to break through.
Happy Friday everyone!
SM x
We high functioning alkies, in order to remain high functioning, become masters of prioritisation. We identity all the really important plates and we make damn sure that we keep them spinning.
Much of this is about external appearance. If everything looks as if it's in control then we can kid ourselves that it really is. We're like swans - apparently gliding effortlessly over the water, but in reality paddling like crazy through all the fish poo.
So I would like to bet that many of you have homes that look, on the surface, in pretty good order, but if you look in the cupboards, under the stairs, under the bed or in the cellar they are stuffed with clutter.
When you're drinking a lot you simply don't have time to deal with loads of stuff, to work out where it goes or what to do with it. So you shove it in a drawer and pour another glass of vino. Am I right?
And, here's the spooky thing, didn't we do exactly the same thing with our minds? Oh dear, here's a little emotion that I don't really like and don't know what to do with. Shove it in a recess and pour another drink.
So when we get sober we start clearing out all those rejected and neglected emotions that haven't gone away but have sat there getting mouldy and making us all sluggish and dysfunctional.
It's no surprise, then, that we start feeling the need to do the same thing with our environment. Our gardens (see Gardening) and our homes.
The link between our spiritual selves and our surroundings is the basis of feng shui. I have to confess that I'd always filed feng shui in the 'life's too short for all that up itself nonsense' drawer. But now it makes total sense.
Here's what feng shui has to say about clutter: Clutter is low, stagnant, and confusing energy that constantly drains energy from you. Depending on the feng shui area of your home and where your clutter is located, it can also negatively influence, or even completely block, the flow of energy and events in many areas of your life.
Funnily enough, the two areas of my house that I've started decluttering first are my kitchen and the entrance to my house. Having done some (quick) research I've discovered that the kitchen is the area which is related to your health, especially your liver. How spooky is that?!?
And the entrance to your house is known as the 'mouth of chi' and where your house gets its 'energy and nourishment.' If your 'mouth of chi' is all blocked you're screwed (executive summary).
Now, if you've only just quit drinking and are still in that slight-state-of-shock pink cloudy state, then do park all this and come back to it in a few months time. If, however, this is ringing some bells with you, then here's a link to how to clear your clutter with feng shui.
But, because I'm feeling generous and giving today, I've done a SoberMummy summary:
1. Don't try to do it all at once. Take one small area at a time and spend no more than thirty minutes on each session.
2. In those 30 minutes separate all your clutter into 3 piles: 'keep', 'bin' and 'don't know'.
3. Only keep stuff that you love, or is useful and you have a place for. If you don't love it, or have no use for it and nowhere to put it - BIN IT. (N.B. by 'bin' I obviously mean take to the charity shop/recycle or sell!)
4. Take the 'don't know' box away for a few months, then go through it again doing 'keep', 'bin', 'don't know' until it's eventually empty.
This process is hard work - physically and emotionally - but hugely rewarding. According to feng shui, we are like plants, and we cannot grow without space and light. Clutter saps health and vitality, restricts finances and stifles relationships (apparently).
Let it go (oh God, now I've got that terrible 'Frozen' song in my head for the day) and feel the energy flow.
Since my decluttering frenzy (before I even read all the feng shui stuff), I've created my little herb garden outside my front door, plus a tank filled with the children's tadpoles (which I now think of as my equivalent to the koi carp pool!).
By the front door I have a hook for the dog leads, and pegs for all the children's school bags. And all those bowls filled with bits of stuff have been emptied out and categorised.
I have a long way to go, both with the physical and the emotional clutter, (I haven't been anywhere near the cellar - known in our house as 'the pit of despair'), but I can see chinks of light starting to break through.
Happy Friday everyone!
SM x
Monday, 27 April 2015
Low Bottoms
Day 57 - Eight weeks!
I've just finished reading Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. It's a brilliant, page turning, thriller - but that's not the main reason I bought it. The truth is that I was listening to a (glowing) review on the radio and discovered that the central character - Rachel - is an alcoholic.
If you're planning to read the book - and I highly recommend that you do - don't worry, I'm not going to reveal any crucial plot twists!
Now Rachel is hugely believable. A terribly flawed, deeply troubled 'heroine'. And I'm all for anything that draws attention to the issues that alcohol can cause people and society. However, I don't think that Rachel has done us any favours...
You see, Rachel is a classic 'low bottom' drunk. She has huge memory black outs pretty much every time she drinks, which is pretty much all of the time. She's alienated almost all her supporters. She's constantly hurting herself and other people. She's lost her husband, her job, her house, and is about to be thrown out of her rented bedroom.
The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence have a 26 point scale of dependence (which I'll do a post on if you're interested), and according to this, Rachel would be classified as a 'final stage' alcoholic. But in fact, only 3-5% of alcoholics are your classic 'low bottom' drunks. The vast majority of us are 'early' and 'mid stage' alcoholics, and manage to function quite admirably for many years.
"So what?" you may ask. This is fiction, and the 'final stage' alcoholic is way more interesting than a boring old 'high functioning' one. But the problem is that a bestselling novel like this just re-enforces all the massive pre-conceptions that people have about 'alcoholics'. It loads more and more negativity on the 'alcoholic' word, and makes it increasingly hard for any of us to want to admit to being one of the tribe.
Not only that, but had I not already quit drinking this book would have been classic wine witch ammunition. I would have read it, chortling away at Rachel's antics, feeling a massive sense of relief that that was what a proper alcoholic looked like, and that definitely wasn't me. Oh dear, poor Rachel, pass me another glass of that Chablis, please...
The truth is that there is always someone we can look at for reassurance - to convince ourselves that we are actually okay. And we are masters at surrounding ourselves with them. We seek each other out and then judge each other as a way of making ourselves feel better. As Caroline Knapp says (in my favourite book Drinking, a Love Story) "When you're drinking, the dividing line between you and real trouble always manages to fall just past where you stand."
I bet thousands of women will use Rachel as reassurance that they don't need to worry about their drinking. But the truth is that once that switch in your brain is flipped, once you've turned from a cucumber into a pickle (read Moderation. Is it possible? Part 2 if you've missed the post on pickles!) the only way is down. The only possible progression is from early to mid to final stage.
We shouldn't laugh at Rachel, scorn Rachel or dismiss Rachel - because Rachel is waiting for all of us at the end of the elevator. So don't wait until you get to the bottom! Get off as quickly as you can while it's still (relatively) easy.
Do read the book - it's great. But don't take it as reassurance. See it as a warning.
Love SM x
I've just finished reading Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. It's a brilliant, page turning, thriller - but that's not the main reason I bought it. The truth is that I was listening to a (glowing) review on the radio and discovered that the central character - Rachel - is an alcoholic.
If you're planning to read the book - and I highly recommend that you do - don't worry, I'm not going to reveal any crucial plot twists!
Now Rachel is hugely believable. A terribly flawed, deeply troubled 'heroine'. And I'm all for anything that draws attention to the issues that alcohol can cause people and society. However, I don't think that Rachel has done us any favours...
You see, Rachel is a classic 'low bottom' drunk. She has huge memory black outs pretty much every time she drinks, which is pretty much all of the time. She's alienated almost all her supporters. She's constantly hurting herself and other people. She's lost her husband, her job, her house, and is about to be thrown out of her rented bedroom.
The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence have a 26 point scale of dependence (which I'll do a post on if you're interested), and according to this, Rachel would be classified as a 'final stage' alcoholic. But in fact, only 3-5% of alcoholics are your classic 'low bottom' drunks. The vast majority of us are 'early' and 'mid stage' alcoholics, and manage to function quite admirably for many years.
"So what?" you may ask. This is fiction, and the 'final stage' alcoholic is way more interesting than a boring old 'high functioning' one. But the problem is that a bestselling novel like this just re-enforces all the massive pre-conceptions that people have about 'alcoholics'. It loads more and more negativity on the 'alcoholic' word, and makes it increasingly hard for any of us to want to admit to being one of the tribe.
Not only that, but had I not already quit drinking this book would have been classic wine witch ammunition. I would have read it, chortling away at Rachel's antics, feeling a massive sense of relief that that was what a proper alcoholic looked like, and that definitely wasn't me. Oh dear, poor Rachel, pass me another glass of that Chablis, please...
The truth is that there is always someone we can look at for reassurance - to convince ourselves that we are actually okay. And we are masters at surrounding ourselves with them. We seek each other out and then judge each other as a way of making ourselves feel better. As Caroline Knapp says (in my favourite book Drinking, a Love Story) "When you're drinking, the dividing line between you and real trouble always manages to fall just past where you stand."
I bet thousands of women will use Rachel as reassurance that they don't need to worry about their drinking. But the truth is that once that switch in your brain is flipped, once you've turned from a cucumber into a pickle (read Moderation. Is it possible? Part 2 if you've missed the post on pickles!) the only way is down. The only possible progression is from early to mid to final stage.
We shouldn't laugh at Rachel, scorn Rachel or dismiss Rachel - because Rachel is waiting for all of us at the end of the elevator. So don't wait until you get to the bottom! Get off as quickly as you can while it's still (relatively) easy.
Do read the book - it's great. But don't take it as reassurance. See it as a warning.
Love SM x
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