The Power of Stories

I've been reading Patrick Ness's A Monster Calls, with tears dripping down my face and onto my Kindle (which needed a bit of a wash, frankly). Read it - it's wonderful.

There's a scene in the book where Conor says to the tree monster "Great, another story when there are more important things going on," and the monster replies "Stories are important. They can be more important than anything. If they carry the truth."

And the tree is right.

Stories - the stories of others, and writing my own story, changed my life.

At a time when I felt most at sea, isolated and in despair I found the stories of other women like me on the internet, and in books like Mrs D's and Caroline Knapp's, and realised that I was not alone, that there was a way out.

Writing my own story helped me to understand what was going on in my head, served as a reminder of where I'd been, lest I forget, and found me a whole tribe of wonderful supporters (thank you!).

Alcoholics Anonymous have always been aware of the power of stories. Each meeting starts with people sharing their own.

Stories teach through 'show' rather than 'tell'. Instead of being preached at, "you must do this", (and we drinkers are not very good at following rules or instructions, are we?) telling your story shows the listener what the possibilities are, what the future could be.

How you respond to that story, what you take from it and what you leave behind, is completely up to you.

The storyteller hands you a seed - it's your choice whether to plant it, pass it on or toss it away.

Reading those lines of Patrick Ness's this morning just made me want to say thank you. Thank you to all those bloggers, writers and storytellers out there who have the courage to stand up - literally or virtually - and tell their tale.

Because stories have the power to change the world.

To read my story from the beginning click here.

Now go write that happy ending to your own story. You are the author,  so you can make it whatever you want it to be....

Love SM x

The First Minute

One of my fabulous readers, J, sent me (on sobermummy@gmail.com) an extraordinary article which I have to share with you all.

It's written by Kelly Coffey, a personal trainer who used to weigh over 300 pounds (21 stone!) and it's the story of a talk she gave to a group of seventeen year old girls which had them all in tears. Ten years on, she still gets e-mails from some of them telling her she changed their lives.

Kelly's speech was about the importance of looking after your body in college, and she was just wrapping up when some smartarse asked her a question.

She was asked what the point was of looking after yourself when we're all going to die anyway.

It sounds like a stupid question, doesn't it? But don't many of us feel like that after decades of drinking too much? I certainly did.

I had a feeling of we're all doomed anyway, so I might as well enjoy myself while I still can. And I carried on... not enjoying myself, but getting progressively more miserable.

Well Kelly's answer to this girl's question totally summarised the difference between my life now, sober, and my life when I was drinking a bottle of wine a day. She says it's all about the first minute.

Kelly said "Even if you sleep late, eventually every day begins, and in the first minute of each day you have to face yourself. Day after day, until you die, you will wake up and remember what you’ve done.

Memories of what you did the night before will bubble to the surface. Those memories will come with feelings. If you binged on ice cream or box wine or cocaine, that will be one of your first thoughts, and it will come with a weight of shame, maybe even self-hate.

Those feelings may be subtle when you’re young and you think you have all the time in the world to turn things around. But unless you practice treating yourself well, soon you’ll be in your 50s and you’ll wake up and the pain of that first minute will be so intense that the day ahead will feel like a prison sentence.

I’ve spent years harming myself and years healing myself. I’ve had thousands of first minutes that were torture and thousands that were good, and I can tell you that nothing has more of an impact on how we feel about just being alive."

And that is so true.

Towards the end of my drinking years, my first minutes were characterised, at best, by a feeling of ennui. What's it all for anyway? At worst my first minutes were filled with shame, dread and fear.

Now, almost every first minute (everyone has some bad days) is filled with hope, expectation and exhilaration. I start the day like my terrier, bounding out of bed, wagging my tail, desperate to get on with the excitements of a new day.

I'm not kidding or exaggerating.

And that, more than anything else, is what has changed my life.

For the Kelly's full article, which is well worth the read, click here.

Love SM x

Stress

It's funny thinking that not that long ago I couldn't even deal with the stress of renewing my car insurance without a glass of vino to take the edge off, and yet now, several times a year, I have to cope with check ups to see if there's any sign of my cancer coming back stone cold sober.

Yesterday I had a meeting with my oncologist to go through the results of my blood tests. The key thing they check for is 'tumour markers'.

Their main concern is that some pesky breast cancer cells may have escaped last year's slash and burn procedure and have taken up residence somewhere else - like my bones, brain or lungs. If this happens (which is, in my case, statistically unlikely, thank heavens) I am buggered.

I'm getting better at dealing with these appointments. On previous occasions I've started to freak out several days in advance and have had to take a friend or relative with me to hold me up.

Yesterday I only started falling to bits that morning and I decided to (wo)man up and go on my own.

I love my oncologist. He's all antipodean and twinkly and frightfully clever. If you have to have someone use the words terminal in front of you (apart from an airline operative), then he's the one you'd choose.

"So," he says, after giving me a bear hug, "how are you doing?"

"Good," I reply while thinking just tell me about the tumour markers. Are my children going to be motherless?

"How's the Tamoxifen? You don't look like you've put on any weight." (I bet he says that to all the girls) "Hot flushes?"

"I get a bit warm sometimes, but at least it saves on heating." I'm trying to read my incomprehensible blood test results up-side down.

"Well," he says, moving his finger painfully slowly down my print-out, "immune system fine...." tumour markers??? "Vitamin D levels normal," what about the tumour markers? "liver function good" ha ha, "cholesterol good" spit it out! "tumour markers normal."

Hurrah ! Hurrah! Hurrah! Looks like I'm going to be around for the immediately foreseeable future, which is great as I have a lot to do.

We move onto the 'manual examination' phase. I have had my breasts fondled more in the last fourteen months than over the entirety of my teenage years. And my boobs were a completely different kettle of fish back then.

(Can one describe one's boobs as a kettle of fish?)

While the Prof is copping a feel I take the opportunity to tell him about the book.

"I thought you should know that I'm writing a book..... and you're kind of in it."

"Really? What's it about?"

"It's about quitting booze, with a little foray into the whole breast cancer thing. I know it sounds dreadfully worthy, but it's actually a black comedy."

The Prof looks rather chuffed and asks for a signed copy.

"How much were you drinking?" He asks.

"Around a bottle of wine a day," I reply. The first time in my life I've been honest about my drinking to a member of the medical establishment.

He looks a little shocked, but rallies quickly. "I'm sure lots of my patients drink that much," he says. Bless him.

He signs me off for a whole year (although I still have appointments for mammograms and ultrasounds).

I skipped out of the cancer clinic feeling like an escapee from death row.

In the old days I'd have gone straight to a bar. Now, without the masking effects of booze, I realise the real impact that huge stress followed by release has on the body: I felt utterly exhausted.

I picked the kids up from school and, as early as possible, we all piled into my bed, read Harry Potter and went to sleep... at 8.30pm. Result.

Love to you all,

SM x