Alcohol and Nicotine

Looking back now at my addiction to vino, it strikes me how identical it was to my addiction to nicotine.

And, funnily enough, my old smoker friends, who were also hooked on a packet a day (at least), are the exact same ones struggling with booze now.

What about those really annoying 'social smokers' (Mr SM was one of these) who'd steal one of your last, precious, Marlboro Lights at a party*, then not smoke for days?

(*Known in 1980s England as 'bumming a fag'. That's an expression that doesn't translate well to American).

They're the ones who slowly savour one glass of wine with dinner then stop. Happily. Damn their eyes.

The last smoking years were much like the final years of drinking: I tried again and again to quit, sometimes only lasting a day or two, sometimes weeks or months.

I, once, managed to quit for a whole year, decided I'd cracked it and could live life henceforth happily as a moderate, 'social' smoker. Ho Ho. Two weeks later and I was back on thirty a day.

I wasn't enjoying my habit any longer - it was making me cough, it was making me smell, and my nails, teeth and skin were turning yellow. I hated myself for my lack of willpower.

But the main reason I knew I had to quit smoking was that it had started messing with my head.

I would leave parties early and walk for miles to find a twenty-four hour garage selling cigarettes, rather than stay without my smokes.

I would wrap up a client meeting early on some feeble excuse so that I could squash the edgy feeling. I would avoid any no-smoking restaurants like the plague. I was very cautious about actually making friends with a non-smoker.

Is this ringing any bells? Because that's exactly how I was, by the end, with booze.

And quitting the ciggies was just like quitting booze: a few weeks of uncomfortable, bordering on unbearable, physical withdrawal, followed by months of feeling edgy, obsessed and not knowing what to do with my hands.

I didn't know how to deal with stress, fear, boredom, celebration - anything - without lighting up.

But, instead of replacing my trusty smokes with something healthy like exercise, mindfulness or yoga, I found something altogether easier and more familiar: WINE!

Oh, the irony.

There is, however, one huge difference between my two favourite addictions: other people.

When I quit smoking everyone understood. They all - even the avid smokers like myself - knew that cigarettes were evil, that they were killing us.

No-one thought that I was weird and had a problem - they understood that I'd just been trapped (like millions of others) by a highly addictive drug.

There's loads of help out there for the quitting smoker - the encouragement of friends and family, free support groups, hypnotherapy, patches, gum, inhalers, e-cigs.

Nobody expects you to huddle anonymously in church halls berating yourself and blaming your situation on a disease.

But here's the good news: now I look at smokers and I don't envy them at all. Not even the tiniest bit. I think you poor, poor fellows. If only you knew how much simpler, healthier and more peaceful life is without the tyranny of nicotine...

....and I'm starting to feel the same way about booze, too.

Maybe, one day, society will support and cheer the quitting drinker in the same was as the quitting smoker.

Alcohol and nicotine - they are just the same.

Love SM x

Secrets and Lies

Not only was I very secretive about the amount I was drinking, I was also just as cagey about stopping drinking.

For months and months I kept up the charade of I'm driving, or I've given up for Lent, or I'm on a health kick.

Then, as luck would have it, I got cancer, and everyone assumed that I was on doctor's orders not to drink.

Ironic, actually, as the doctors and nurses in the cancer clinic were constantly urging me to 'go home and pour yourself a large drink.'

(By the way, I wouldn't recommend that one as a smoke screen. Stick to the 'I'm on antibiotics' line rather than getting breast cancer. It's easier).

I lied, evaded and dissembled because I was terrified of what people would think.

Would they assume I was a reckless drunk who'd endangered her children and abused her husband?

Would they think I was a boring teetotaller who wasn't worth a party invitation?

Would I end up with no friends, and no booze with which to drown my sorrows?

But gradually I've become less and less bothered, and I've told more and more people that I no longer drink.

Pretty much all my friends and family now know. And you know what? They don't seem to care.

The bigger drinkers get the issue. The hardly-ever-drinkers don't see it as a big deal.

If they quiz me about it I say "I was drinking way to much, and I'm an all or nothing kind of person. I find it much easier not to drink at all than to drink just a little bit. Moderation is not my forte."

But I didn't tell any of them about this blog. That would be (to coin a phrase from the kids) too much information.

Then two of them just came across it while surfing the great wave of the interweb. (See my post: Outed). And they were really supportive. So I got a bit braver...

One of my best friends has known for months that I quit drinking. She also knows that I write a blog. So a few days ago I sent her the web address.

And she was horrified!

She said "I'm in shock," and "I need some time to process this," and "I can see why you've kept it so quiet."

(You'd think I'd told her I was having Donald Trump's love child, not that I quit drinking and wrote about it).

I know it won't affect our friendship, and I know she'll always love and support me (and I her), but her reaction has made me rather scared. Scared for me, and for my family.

It's made me totally reconsider the idea of publishing a book, because I know that it would be impossible to stay anonymous if I did so.

But then I found this poem by Dorothy Parker, and it made me feel a little better:

In youth, it was a way I had,

To do my best to please.

And change, with every passing lad

To suit his theories.

But now I know the things I know

And do the things I do,

And if you do not like me so,

To hell, my love, with you.

Dorothy, by the way, was an alcoholic. At one New York speakeasy she frequented, a bartender asked her "What are you having?" to which she replied, "Not much fun."

Love SM x

Envy and the 'Moderate Drinker'

Day 117.

We all, at least occasionally, envy the 'moderate drinker.'

My husband is one. I watch him sneak his bottle of Saint Emilion out from behind a row of books in our playroom (he's taken to hiding bottles just like an alkie housewife!), and pour one glass to drink while we watch TV.

One glass! Much as I love him, sometimes I feel this urge to stick my fingers in his eyes (and you wonder why he's hiding the bottles!).

When I was a thirty a day smoker (see the pattern here?) I used to envy the moderate smoker with a vengeance.

Then I read Alan Carr. He pointed out that the housewife who limits herself to 5 cigarettes a day is just as addicted as the pack a day smoker. She is utterly reliant on those five and can't quit any easier than I could.

In fact, her life is more miserable, as - because she is defying her inner addict - she has to constantly deal with cravings, whereas I would just satisfy mine.

This, for me, was an epiphany. And, funnily enough, whilst I quit smoking thirteen years ago, my five-a-day friends are still chuffing away and are desperate to stop, especially now their children are older and they find themselves smoking more and more each day.

I now realise that the same is true of drinking. I'm sure that there are people out there who are totally 'take it or leave it' about alcohol, and not in the slightest addicted (although I suspect that they also don't really enjoy it that much - in which case, what's the point?), but there are also vast numbers of people who are just as addicted to their 'moderate amounts' as we were to our bottles a day. And many of them are miserable about it.

I received an e-mail yesterday from Fiona (not her real name), who kindly agreed that I could share her story. Here's what she said:

My problem is I don't drink that much - comparatively that is, but still it disrupts my life. I used to drink just one glass of wine 1-2 times a week when we ate out.  Now it is hard for me to stop at 1 glass, usually I have another and sometimes even a third when we get home, still only 1-2 times a week but I feel cranky, tired and foggy the next day and I think why, why, why, at 50 would I want to waste about 20% of the last of my relatively youthful years feeling like this??? 

I try to picture myself in 20 years at 70 - eegads - and I know if at 70 someone said to me, here you can live this extra year as yourself at age 50 I would loooove that, just as I would love to have a whole year of me at 30 right now, so why do I throw these days away like they aren't precious?? And looking like this too - as you mention, my face now shows it with this sickening puffiness.

So Fiona's tried to quit and, you know what? Not easy! Which is why she mailed me.

The truth is that stories like Fiona's are never going to make those articles in the Daily Mail about 'problem middle aged drinking'. Fiona would be seen as drinking 'sensibly', 'moderately', 'healthily', but it's still messing up her life and making her feel terrible.

The more blogs, books and e-mails I read, the more I realise that generalisations are useless and dangerous, and that none of us knows what goes on in other people's lives. Certainly no-one knew what was going on in mine!

So next time you envy the moderate drinker, just stop. It's terribly likely that (s)he is envying you....

Thank you, Fiona, from us all. Best of luck to you, and please keep in touch.

Have a fab Friday everyone!

SM x