Sundays - Hair of the Dog

Happy Sunday Morning Everyone!

Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a parallel universe where everything has ended up back to front. I remember when I was a child I used to think that if I dug a hole deep enough I'd end up in Australia where everything would be kind of similar but we'd all be standing upside down. (Did any of my Australian readers imagine ending up in London?). Well, giving up a chronic alcohol habit is a bit like that. For example, in the BS (Before Sober) days, Friday nights and Saturday nights were the best, and Sunday mornings were the pits. Now, AF (Alcohol Free), Friday and Saturday nights are the hardest BUT Sunday Mornings are our reward!

One of the best things about glorious, empty but filled with promise and expectation, Sunday Mornings AF is remembering the horror of Sunday Mornings BS. So here's a trip down memory lane:

4am Sunday morning: wake up, head pounding, dry mouth, dying for a wee. Gradually try to piece together exactly what led to feeling like this. Wish I hadn't. Lots of self hatred and self flagellation and empty promises to self to change. Endless trips to the loo and the fridge to get more water. Toss and turn until about 6.30am. Go back to sleep until woken up by kids and dog at 7ish. Try really hard not to be grumpy and horrible. Fail. Spend all morning wishing time away until midday when I can 'reasonably' open a bottle of wine 'while I'm getting lunch ready'. Watch minute hand on kitchen clock obsessively because I cannot drink in the morning. Only alcoholics do that, and I am not an alcoholic. Open bottle at 11.50am so glass is ready for midday. Drink first glass wine fast. Feel much better.

It strikes me now that one of the core differences between 'normal' drinkers and 'overly enthusiastic' drinkers is their attitude to hangovers. I was always amazed at people who would refuse a drink at Sunday lunch because they'd drunk too much the night before and 'couldn't face it'. Surely they knew that the only way to 'face it' was to drink more? I was an enthusiastic proponent of  'hair of the dog'.

The phrase 'hair of the dog' comes from a time when - bizarrely - it was believed that the cure for rabies was to put the 'hair of the dog that bit you' onto the rabid dog bite. There is also a great Swahili phrase for drinking off a hangover: kuzimua which means being assisted to wake up after a coma.

A recent scientific study Proof: the science of booze by Adam Rogers claims that 'hair of the dog' really is the only effective cure for a hangover. This is because alcoholic drinks contain methanol, which is poisonous, and doctors treat methanol poisoning with ethanol i.e. alcohol.

There is another, more worrying, reason why 'hair of the dog' works according to alcoholrehab.com and it's this: 'A common reason why heavy drinkers experience hangovers is that they have actually entered the early stages of withdrawal. By drinking alcohol the next morning they are preventing these withdrawal symptoms from taking hold.' Seems obvious, but I'd honestly never thought of it like that!

I checked out the good old National Health Service website for their advice on hangover cures, and found this classic line: 'The best way to avoid a hangover is not to drink.' Well no shit Sherlock (as they say, but not in front of the kids, obviously, or it's another pound in the swear box). But, acutally, that is what I am doing! And it's Sunday morning. Beautiful, glorious, Sunday morning, and I feel amazing!

So, here's my plan for the day. I will not be grumpy and clock watchy all morning followed by drunk and asleep most of the afternoon. Oh no. I am taking #1 and dog to park this morning for good walk and girlie chat. Come back and cook roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for lunch (oh yes, my French readers, it is not for nothing that you call us 'les rosbifs') Have judging of the great cheesecake bake off (yesterday husband and #1, inspired by the Great British Bake Off on TV, had an argument about who could make the best cheesecake. Their efforts, plus one from Waitrose, are in the fridge awaiting the family blind taste test). Collapse with Sunday papers. Take #2 and #3 to pet shop to buy birthday presents for the dog. Have birthday tea (with dog food cake and candles) for said dog. Play massive game of Monopoly or similar. Put kids in bed and watch 3 episodes back-to-back of latest box set with husband. Collapse into bed sober and happy.

So, Sundays are still about 'the dog'. But this one's six years old today, smelly, furry and totally loveable.

Enjoy your Sober Sunday my sober friends! And if you're reading this with a chronic hangover, pondering giving it all up then please join us!

Love SM x

14 days - Discovering Mindfulness

We got through the weekend, ladies! (are there any blokes reading this? If so, do shout and I'll stop being so sexist). Congratulations to Kags who did her first big night out sober - woo hoo! Love and hugs to Whimsical (great username!) who was out drinking until 3am Sunday morning and felt terrible yesterday. We've all been there, and we're with you.

14 days in, and here's what I've noticed:

Bright eyes and clear, sort of dewy fresh, skin. And I've lost 2 pounds and about an inch off the muffin top. I'm not yet at the 'hot mama, careful as you walk past building sites' stage, but definitely not looking as raddled as I did. Yay!

Cravings not as bad as they were. I've realised that my danger periods are the old 'wine o'clocks' i.e. around 1pm and 6pm. The way I get through these tough times is to indulge myself. I lie down on the sofa with a good magazine or book, or I have a bath with bubbles, candles and some chilled music - just for 30 minutes until the craving passes. And it does.

I'm not as distracted as I was (see previous post - withdrawal symptoms), so I am managing to (more or less) get through my 'to do' list for the day. And - thank goodness - the digestion seems to be back to normal.

But the big change is that I have suddenly discovered the ability to live in the moment. For the first time in as long as I can remember I can do 'mindfulness'. It strikes me that mindfulness is impossible for an alcohol dependant. We are either wishing time away so we can get rid of the hangover, or wishing it away because we're longing for the next drink or - most likely - both simultaneously. The last thing we want to do is linger in the moment. Maybe we're in the moment when we take the first sip of the first glass, but we're very quickly looking forward to pouring the next one.

The other issue with alcohol and mindfulness is that we use our drinking to take the edges off life - to make it all a bit fuzzy. This is the antithesis to mindfulness, which is about noticing everything clearly and sharply - colours, smells, sounds, our own breathing.

Mindfulness has been in the news a lot recently. Wikipedia define it as "the intentional, accepting and non-judgemental focus of one's attention on the emotions, thoughts and sensations occurring in the present moment." (Try doing that drunk). The effects of mindfulness include alleviation of anxiety, depression, stress, handling emotions and treating substance abuse disorders. Hey, what's not to like?

So, Sunday morning I take my youngest (aged 5) for a walk with the dog round the local cemetery (sounds ghoulish, but it's beautiful). Half way round and I realise that I am absolutely in the moment. Not wishing away a hangover, not checking the time constantly to see when I can pour the first glass. I'm seeing all the daffodils appearing around the gravestones, the glorious spring light and the terribly poignant inscriptions on the monuments. The little one and I play 'who can find the most angels' (not celestial ones, sadly - stone ones). She turns to me and asks " How old are you again, Mummy?" "As old as the hills", I reply. She pauses, thinking, then asks "how old are the hills, Mummy?" I laugh till I cry.

Here's my mindfulness quote for the day: "You must live life in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look towards another land; there is no other life but this." Henry David Thoreau.

Best of luck to you all. Stay in touch. X

Secret drinker hits the high bottom

'Hitting the high bottom' sounds a bit like a Miley Cyrus dance move, but that's not what I'm talking about.

It seems to be generally understood that alcoholics need to 'hit rock bottom' before they can shake off the denial and change their lives. We're used to hearing stories of people doing terrible things like sleeping with their best friend's husband, or putting themselves at huge risk - waking up in a gutter with no idea where they are or how they got there. For some, a medical diagnosis is the wake up call, or an 'intervention' by family and friends. The problem with never getting to 'rock bottom' is that it's much easier to convince yourself that you're absolutely not an alcoholic and, therefore, are perfectly able to start drinking again 'in moderation.'

I know that I'm going to constantly question whether going back to drinking is possible for me, so in order to remind myself why I stopped I thought I should document my 'high bottom'. Not a 'rock bottom', admittedly, but a 'bottom' in any case.

There were three events in short succession that gave me the necessary wake up call. My drinking had gradually increased, from sharing a bottle of wine with my fabulous long-suffering husband over dinner every night, to also (secretly) drinking half a bottle at lunch time and (secretly) drinking another half bottle while getting the children's supper ready and supervising homework. When I say 'secretly', I mean that I never confessed to drinking 1.5 bottles of wine a day, but my children were totally used to seeing me with a glass of wine constantly to hand.

Event number 1 was in my youngest child's classroom. She's five. Her teacher pulled me aside one morning and said "Lucy said the funniest thing yesterday! We were reading a book called 'a cup of tea' and I asked if Mummy liked a cup of tea, and she replied 'no, Mummy likes wine!' Ha! Ha! Ha!"
"Ha! Ha!" I replied, "Aren't children funny?" but inside I felt terrible. The truth is that my children think it's perfectly normal for Mummies to drink constantly. What kind of a role model am I?

Event number 2 was a few weeks ago when, for the first time I hid a bottle of wine. I'd always thought that alcoholics stashed bottles of vodka in laundry baskets, and because I only drank expensive wine, and never hid what I was drinking, I was ok. Well that evening I'd cracked open a bottle at about 5.30pm (as near as dammit to wine o'clock) while I was cooking the children's supper. By 7pm it was only a third full and I knew that the husband would - quite rightly - raise an eyebrow when he got home, so I hid it in the back of the cupboard and texted him asking him to bring a bottle home with him for supper (which I then drank half of, obviously). I did the same thing a couple more times, and realised that I'd crossed over one of my invisible lines.

Event number 3 was another line crossing. Alcoholics drink in the morning. If you don't drink in the morning, therefore, you're not an alcoholic - right? Well, a couple of weeks ago I woke up on a Saturday with a rotten hangover. I had lots to get done and knew that I wasn't going to feel better until I was able to have another drink. But it was only 10.30am. There was an inch of red wine left in a bottle from the night before. I poured it into a mug (a mug! ), so that the children wouldn't notice, and I drank it. And - wow! - I felt better. For about 5 minutes. Until I realised that I'd broken the big taboo. I stared at the empty mug and - with horrible irony - it had 'World's Best Mum' printed on the side. And that was it. I knew it was all over.

So when the wine witch starts whispering that it's really ok to drink on special occasions I'm going to read this again and remember the shame.

By the way, I went out for dinner with the husband and another couple last night and drank water. Yay!