18 MONTHS SOBER!

Time does funny things.

When you first quit drinking, it slows right down. That hour between 6pm and 7pm seems to take a lifetime. Each day you climb a mountain, every week you cross a continent.

But then, one day, you realise that time is speeding up again. You can't keep track of the days any longer, so you start counting in months.

Now I've lost track of even the months. The last six have flown by. It took one of my readers to remind me (thank you, lovely LushNoMore), that for her, and me, this is one and a half years.

I was looking at my children as they're getting ready to start the new school year, and thinking about the lives they have ahead of them.

When you're a child, anything is possible.

It's like standing in a vast hall, surrounded by open doors - hundreds of them circling around you. And, as you look up, you realise that there are many storeys above you, more than you can count, of wide open doors.

Through each door is an adventure. You can become an astronaut, an astronomer, an astrologer. You could find a cure for cancer, be an Olympic cyclist or paint a masterpiece.

Then, as you get older, the doors start to close. You're now too tall to be a ballerina, too old to be a supermodel, too big to be a professional gymnast. You don't have the right A levels for medical school.

One day, around middle age, you look around you and realise that the vast hall of open doors is now a small room with only a few potential exits. It's just too late for a do-over. Every decision you've made in the past has narrowed your options for the future until it's all just more of the same.

No wonder we drink.

And that was me eighteen months ago. Depressed, fat, broke. Sipping on the endless glasses of Chablis while thinking about what might have been if I'd walked through one door rather than another.

And the thought of quitting booze feels like giving up more options, more potential adventures. Not only is life becoming increasingly dull and predictable, but you have to do it all sober. Are you kidding?

But, you know what?

Since I quit drinking, the extraordinary thing is that the room I'm standing in has got bigger and bigger. Every time I look around there are more doors I can walk through.

I've got more energy, more self respect, more time. I've lost that nagging anxiety and fear of failure, replaced by the feeling that anything is possible.

Gradually, all the pounds I've saved by not buying wine have added up, so I'm completely debt free. No credit cards, no overdraft.

And, now I'm twenty six pounds (12 kilos) lighter, even my fashion options have expanded. I no longer have to stick to black, stretchy and forgiving.

My life is totally unrecognisable.

So please don't worry that putting down the glass will make your life smaller. It's going to open up possibilities you never imagined.

Soren Kierkegaard says it much better than I ever could:

If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating as possibility!

Love to you all,

SM x

The Possibility List

One of the many side effects of heavy drinking is how it makes your life gradually smaller and smaller, until - if you get right to rock bottom - it's just you in an empty room, staring at the bottom of an empty bottle. It strips your life of possibility.

(See my post Let Me Not Die While I Am Still Alive)

Children are the antithesis of this. Their whole lives are filled with possibility.

They could become brave firefighters, visionary artists or life saving surgeons.

Our job as parents is to ensure that as many doors stay open for them as possible, that they have the courage and the confidence to walk through those doors, and that we support whichever choice they make.

As we get older, more and more of the doors shut. That's life. I know, for example, that I will never, ever be a ballet dancer. That door slammed behind me many years ago, along with a whole corridor of others.

Problems arise when you suddenly realise that there are no more doors to choose from. You're totally stuck in a rut.

This, I believe, is what leads to your classic mid life crisis, or just a low level rumbling depression.

It's what makes men buy a Harley Davidson and run off with their PA, and it's what makes women drink more and more. (Please forgive the stereotypes! I'm all for women buying Harley's and finding themselves a toyboy, obviously).

When I was still at University, and the world was my oyster, I had this theory of the Possibility List.

Back then, the list was about boys. I was, I would tell me friends (at length), perfectly happy being single, so long as I had a good Possibility List.

The possibility list was the list of men (boys) that you could, or might, go out with in the future. It would go something like this:

1. William - sweet and earnest. You know he has a crush on you, but you suspect he's just a bit too wet.
2. Richard - gorgeous rugby player. Currently has a girlfriend, but there's definitely a spark there, and who knows what may happen when his relationship finally fizzles out.
3. Harry - You've locked eyes several times during lectures on micro-economics. He hasn't made a move yet, but you're bound to see him at Ariane's party on Saturday....

The thing about the possibility list is that it gives life a feeling of optimism, of possibility, of momentum. It makes you realise that any current issues you have are temporary, and all you need to do is be open to potential and cast out a few fishing lines.

My Possibility List theory caught on, and many an hour was spent with girlfriends (accompanied by lots of cigarettes and bottles of wine) writing and re-writing lists, ordering and reordering priorities and, with much ritual, crossing off candidates who'd fallen short of expectations.

(Perhaps if I'd spent more time reading Keynes and writing essays I would have got a First).

If you've recently quit drinking don't worry about the possibility list. Just hunker down, be good to yourself and eat cake (if necessary). Just not drinking in itself is opening your world up to endless possibility.

However, if you've been sober for a while then think about casting out a few of those fishing lines. Think about creating a few more open doors. Join a dating site. Send out your CV. Sign up for an evening course. Life is short, and we've wasted enough of it.

After a decade of digging myself a rut and then getting well and truly stuck in it, I have finally taken action. Over the last two weeks I've submitted my young adult novel for two unpublished novel awards, plus I've sent it to a literary agent. I was terrified, but realised that I have absolutely nothing to lose (see my post Feel the Fear).

I've also started working on the plot for an adult novel with a deeply flawed heroine who is (surprise surprise) a secret drinker, and I've taken on an unpaid job doing marketing for a charity event.

All of this may come to nothing, but - for the first time in years - I have a possibility list, and that feels good.

Happy, sunny, sober Sunday everyone!

SM x