Weeping

Day 54.

I had an odd day yesterday. I was multi-tasking: doing the ironing while catching up on Poldark on the TV, about 11am.

By the way, have you noticed how clean and orderly your house gets when you stop drinking? We ex-drinking enthusiasts often find that cleaning and ironing really help to take your mind off the not drinking thing - it's like a less indulgent version of 'mindfulness' - it keeps you focused on the moment.

Plus, there's a lovely synergy between cleansing everything around you and cleansing yourself. A fresh start. A clean sheet of paper. Right now I'm finding newly laundered bed linen almost exciting as a chilled bottle of Sancerre used to be. How sad is that?

Anyhow, back to the point. There I am, watching telly and ironing the husband's shirts when, a propos of nothing, totally out of the blue, I start weeping. Profusely. And I'm not even sad. Nor is Poldark - he's just discovered copper in his mine and they're all celebrating.

Now, I'm British. I don't do weeping. Stiff upper lip and all that. The only time I remember being this emotional for no apparent reason was shortly after #1 was born. I was a mass of hormones and still in shock from being suddenly propelled into motherhood and it took me two days to get over the scene in Finding Nemo where Nemo's Mum, along with hundreds of his un-hatched siblings, was eaten by a shark.

Yesterday I felt a bit like an onion that's gradually had it's layers peeled away, leaving me all raw and vulnerable. And I was crying because I suddenly felt overwhelmed by emotion. It wasn't bad crying - it was actually rather cathartic.

I've read a lot about how we drink in order to avoid emotions; we're stressed, we drink, we're scared, we drink, we're happy, we drink. As a result, we fail to grow up.

The fabulous Caroline Knapp, author of Drinking, a Love Story, writes 'I'd never really grasped the idea that growth was something you could choose, that adulthood might be less a chronological state than an emotional one which you decide, through painful acts, to both enter and maintain. Like a lot of people I know (alcoholics and not), I'd spent most of my life waiting for maturity to hit me from the outside, as though I'd just wake up one morning and be done, like a roast in the oven.'

And that's so me: a raw chicken wondering when I'm going to get cooked. I still feel like a nineteen year old at heart.

Alcoholrehab.com states that 'Addicts usually struggle when it comes to dealing with their feelings. This is why many of them will have turned to substance abuse in the first place. Alcohol and drugs can provide a temporary escape from unpleasant emotions. These chemicals numb the brain so that the individual feels very little. Once the individual becomes addicted to these substances, they will be unable to mature emotionally. This means that when they become sober, they will still be faced with the problem of dealing with their emotions.'

When we stop drinking we don't mature immediately. It feels as if we have to be 'pared down', or rubbed raw, before we can build ourselves up again, before we can choose to deal with our lives and emotions properly, soberly, and become a real life grown up. A perfectly done roast.

So there I was, all raw and weeping. I felt as if I was looking at myself from a distance, and I'm thinking 'look at you, you ex boozer, sad case weirdo. But, actually, what an inventive use of bodily fluids! Who needs an expensive steam iron? Just weep all over your laundry.'

Have a fabulous Friday everyone.

Love SM x

Follow the sober brick road....

Day 53! Over the last week I've become obsessed by imagery from the Wizard of Oz. I've managed to work out why. Please stick with me here, I promise there's a really valid point to all this!

Remember the bleak, lonely, black and white Kansas in the opening of the Wizard of Oz? That's the drinking days. Slowly, slowly, sip by sip, all the colour is gradually leeched out, and you look around you and think "how the hell did this happen?"

So you make a monumental decision: I have to stop drinking. The initial few days are a physical whirlwind - a tornado. You're all tetchy and restless and everything goes a little haywire - your sleep, digestion, energy levels and emotions are all inside out and upside down.

Then, the tornado clears and you discover that you've landed in an amazing place - Oz. This is the 'honeymoon' (sometimes called 'pink cloud') phase that I've written about a lot already. All the colours are brighter, your senses are heightened, there's a feeling that anything is possible. You wonder why on earth you never came here before.

But before too long you realise that Oz isn't all it seems. You don't know the rules, you're not sure how to navigate the landscape. The brightness is actually a bit scary and there's a sharpness, an edge, that you're not used to dealing with. (This is around week 6 or 7, when a lot of people seem to fall off the wagon).

And, the most frightening thing about Oz? The Wicked Wine Witch of the West who is constantly out to get you.

Now I get to play Dorothy. I know that's not entirely fair or democratic, but it's my blog and I have to get some perks. But I'm not wearing that ghastly gingham dress, or doing the plaits. The expression 'mutton dressed as lamb' springs to mind. I'm wearing a floaty Alice Temperley dress, and the hair is loose with a Kate Middleton style blow dry (by the way, is it true that you Americans say 'blow job' instead of 'blow dry', or is someone winding me up? A blow job means something entirely different on this side of the pond....)

Tallaxo gets to be the lion as he's the only bloke who's so far volunteered for a speaking part on this blog. (What are you all - men or mice? It is not statistically likely that 17,000 page views are all female. Come on out of the drinks closet and join the conversation!) Plus, I suspect that Tallaxo looks like Colin Firth. Don't you just love putting imaginary faces to the names?

So, now we've discovered how scary Oz actually is, we find ourselves some friends and together we follow the sober brick road, because we've been assured that at the end of it is the Wizard, and the Wizard can give us freedom.

As we make our way on our journey, holding hands and singing, we realise that we're having to cope with emotions and stuff that we've never really dealt with before - or at least not since we started drinking a lot. We find that, like the lion, scarecrow and tin man, there's bits we're missing - a heart, a brain, courage, whatever, and we want the Wizard to fix us and transport us to the sober nirvana.

Tragically, when we get to the end of the road we find that the wizard isn't there. He never was. He was a figment of our imagination. But, you know what? By then we no longer need him. Because, in our long journey, brick by sober brick, along the road, we've been learning how to deal with all the emotions and stuff.

Oz is no longer scary and sharp, and we've managed to dissolve the Wicked Wine Witch of the West with a bucket of water (she was well and truly sozzled). We don't need to be transported anywhere else, because we find that, actually, we're already here, and it's amazing!

At least that is, I hope, how the story ends. Right now I'm still tripping along that sober brick road with you, my friends.

Have a great day in Oz!

Love SM x

Related post: the sober rollercoaster