Sobriety Diaries (1) - Declaring my sobriety
6th February 2022, I wrote the following post on my Instagram:
"This is gonna make some of you choke on your Sunday night Scooby snacks, but I'm breaking up with alcohol. You read that right.
Alcohol always takes more than it gives. In a time when I'm struggling with my mental health, I feel like I've had an epiphany, an awakening, I don't know what to call it, but it's one of the very few things I feel absolute clarity on. I may never drink again, I may drink again, I'm not thinking that far ahead but for now, I will go 1 year alcohol free.
I feel so much contempt for it at the moment, that I feel that gut determination. I'm not daft though and I know there will be times when I will find it very difficult, but once I've made my mind up about something, I'm a stubborn bastard and that's where I'm at.
So, if we're together during the next 12 months and you give me the 'oh go on, have a drink' shit, there's a real danger I will fucking throat punch you and break up with you too.
I had my last drink on January 15th. I swear I could list 101 reasons why, but I'll not go into that now. No hangovers for the next year is definitely one of them though!
A sober 2022 will be full of 'firsts' and I'm well up for the challenge, it's going to be a beautiful thing."
I had posted it on social media because I had to say it out loud, publicly. I was bubbling inside with all sorts of emotions that I didn't know what to do with. I had been questioning my drinking habits for some time, getting a little sick and tired of being sick and tired kinda feeling. Pissed off with the hangovers, the memory loss, the beer fear...just the bloody lot of it.
9 weeks earlier
I had gone for a coffee and cake date with a friend and we'd spoken about alcohol. I said to her 'I have a feeling I'll give it up completely one day' She replied 'Really?!' I said, 'Yeah, I have no idea when and I'm definitely not ready now, but I just have this feeling that in the future, I will'
This feeling was difficult for me to explain and in all honesty, I was thinking it would be years down the line. Little did I know, what the following 9 weeks leading up to my sobriety declaration, would bring though.
The crippling depression shifted into dysphoric mania, or a mixed episode. This is where the person is experiencing symptoms of depression WITH symptoms of mania. For me, this is the worst part of Bipolar. I'm no psychiatrist but I suspect my ADHD is exasperated at this time too. In January 2022, I was right there. It wasn't a new experience for me, I had been here before so I knew I needed to get help. I rang my GP in crisis. (at the time I wasn't diagnosed so I had no idea what I was experiencing but I told my doctor I felt like I was going crazy and losing my mind. I'll explain what it feels like in another post)
Anyway, my mind is proper mosh up at this time and I was put onto antidepressants. It was around a week later, at the end of January when someone very, very close to me had a life changing experience whilst under the influence of alcohol. It affected me deeply and something inside me just clicked. Every feeling, thought, emotion that I had been struggling with over the previous months literally funnelled into this one focus point. It was like an epiphany. It was alcohols fault. Almost everything that had caused me trauma over my life - there was a common denominator - alcohol.
I declared my sobriety in the above social media post. Positive right? I thought so. But no, the following few months would continue to be a living hell. Things often get worse before they get better don't they.