Awesome! this is so interesting. Will reply on message in a bit.
I’ve just been writing a piece today about my drinking and reasons I want to try and create these habits… Must head out for a run now as not been out today yet but Its been so scary going back over stuff:
For the tricky drinkers, the quick drinkers, the ones who like to keep the party going (even when it finished hours ago, heck- even when it never started(!). For the ones who drink to relax, to celebrate, to breathe in the sadness, to mark the end of the day, to reward themselves for a week of working hard and running 100km in the rain and meeting all our yoga practices, eating healthy and doing our hobbies. For the ones who drink for themselves and ‘for other people’, the extroverts (who sometimes don’t feel like extroverts) and yet accept responsibility for making others have a good time, a funny time.
For the blackouts, and suffering the consequential anxiety underneath the duvet on the Sunday morning, as we dizzyingly stumble round the house, on our very own crime scene investigation, trying to piece together what happened when we got home… Ah, the remnants of a falafel wrap down your lovely black top. Ah, thong on the bathroom floor, Ah shit, the disgruntled housemate you woke up at 5am as crashed the shampoo bottles Into the bath while you attempted to brush your teeth. Then the full mirror length Inspection of the body for bruises, cuts, make up smeared, un-identified liquids - how did I get mud here? Maybe even lifting up your top to look at your tummy for clues on how bloated you might be, serving as indication of beer or gin consumption?
Ah shit, the tap you left running overnight (oh god, think of your African relatives!). What about the time on New Years eve 2008, when you actually fell asleep in the bath, with your cowboy boots on? Waking up in ice cold water in the attic bathroom, door wide open and the tassles of your boots draping in the water. At 15, it was your first big night with your brother in a small group and you managed to break your brand new vintage polaroid camera and make a neat reputation as a drunk. What about the time two weeks after you cried to your mum that you wanted to stop drinking. She laughed and said you hardly drank, and you were just hungover and needed a run. You haven’t spoken of it since. You went to uni later and drank until you had to remove your gallbladder via key hole surgery. After you’d recovered and had tried to be sober, you drank in pre drinks and managed to actually vomit up bile before a night out.
What about the time after a date in Rotherhithe, where you woke up in pain, with no memory and an ambulance slip in your pocket. The note read: ‘LOC’, ’SOB’ and notes that read ‘found outside Dalston Station, bleeding. LOC. Drinking wine on empty stomach, driven home. Told flatmate home on arrival’. I tried to quit that time, and lasted until my birthday 3 weeks later, where I blacked out again. What about the she kissed you, after several bottles of wine after a yoga class and you slept together and she was your friend, and you didn’t know how to be the morning and you hurt her feelings because you were so uncomfortable that you had slept with your friend and colleague.
Or the worst time of all, the time he kissed you and you encouraged it. He had a girlfriend, and you let him kiss you. And you fucking slept together. And she messaged you on LinkedIn full of loathing and hatred and you never ever ever want to be that person again. You apologised so much, and you reasoned that you’d just had a horrible break up, and you couldn’t be responsible for other peoples actions, only your own. You blocked them all and quit again, this time for maybe 2 months. You still feel bad for this, even though it was 5 years ago. You still can’t bear to think that this is also the same you, sitting here typing this.
For the times you’ve woken up at 5am and checked your texts in hope that you didn’t send anything wildly inappropriate (you did), and they’ve all been read already. For the mornings we can’t bear to imagine how we behaved at the wedding, when we woke up outside the marital couple suite, on a blow up mattress, to the best man in his boxers. And that painful joint thank-you/apology letter to the mother of the bride. The day spent waiting for a lift home and coyly greeting guests from the night before with an apologetic smile.
For the times you check in with your values, and find that ‘alcohol’, ‘reckless’ or ‘party girl’ is not on that list.
Instead, you see: integrity, listener, honesty, kindness and RELIABLE.
For the ones who want to find intimacy sexuality and connection without the NEED to use alcohol to fuel a self-love or to feel attractive. For the ones who use alcohol in ways they haven’t even quite realised or come to terms with, but equally for the ones who infrequently drink, and don’t even know why we suddenly woke up and missed 3 hours of our life (NB. Nobody else missed these hours, they all witnessed it and look on you pityingly for how you behaved and what you said). For the loud drunks, who have never been able to be the quiet and retiring kind, but instead want to be the destructive kind, the kind who thinks ‘ok, fuck it I might as well try out this comment now to make the night a bit more dangerous for everyone else’. For the ones who have woken up with a stinging genitals, outside a first aid tent at Benicassim festival, wrapped up in a tin foil towel with no recollection why. For the ones who have thrown up in their front garden after a work night with colleagues. For ones who have thrown up on their duvet at uni, while lying on their back, and very nearly choked alone in her room after not making it out. For the ones who have cycled home through London, without any bike lights and without any recollection. For the ones who now value their career, friendships and relationship so much that they don’t want anything they unconsciously do to risk messing those up, and who, on the contrary want to be reliable, loving and totally there for that person and those people.
