Thanks, alcohol, you taught me a lot...
Seven things I've learned since being teetotal
It’s December 30th 2019. I’m staying with some beloved friends in their home in Manchester.
I’m waiting for an ambulance.
I’m having a seizure. Again.
My three-year-old daughter is asleep upstairs, but I’m going to have to go to hospital. I don’t know who I am. I think I might be dying.
I’m epileptic and I’m 200 miles from home. I’ve only had a glass and a half of wine tonight, but it’s enough to tip me over into a seizure.
Later, when my fuddled brain is starting to knit itself back together and my memory is working again, the thought crosses my mind. This is enough.
That is enough for me and alcohol. We’re finished.
Drinking and I always had a love/hate relationship, even before the epilepsy diagnosis. Often, in my student days, I’d get so hungover after nights out that I would cry. The anxiety was the worst.
God, the anxiety.
I’ll skate over the many, many embarrassing moments I had over the years, but will illustrate them all by highlighting just one. My then-boyfriend* tried to help sober me up by buying me a McDonalds, which I ate, and then lavishly vomited into the brown paper bag, which I handed back to him. The Golden Arches bag burst its contents into his lap and all down his jeans.
If you’re currently halfway through doing dry January, thinking of quitting all together, or interested in what it’s like, I’m here to say from the other side that it’s actually great.
The first weeks were weird, and parties felt excruciating, but gradually I got used to it and it is totally normal now.
I’ve learned a lot about myself from being alcohol free, and now, three years in, I don’t think I’ll ever go back. So here goes…
The first half hour at parties is the worst.
Everyone is a little bit more anxious-seeming, a bit more edgy, a bit nervous. It passes. By the time you’ve finished getting yourself a soft drink, saying hello, and presumably greeting someone you know, (even vaguely, or why are you at this party?), anxiety starts to lessen. Seriously, you can’t stay in an anxious state for long if you consciously let it pass. And if you hate it… you can just go home.
2. You’ll learn exactly what is hangover, and what is tiredness/sugar crash.
These days if I’ve been out or stayed up late, I know exactly how much of the wretchedness of the next day is down to tiredness. It’s a surprising amount. Most welcome is the absence of impending doom, horrible memories of the night before, and cringe from things I did.
Enough is enough
When you’re ready to leave a gathering, you know. People are slurring, burping as they talk to you, and stumbling about.
The night doesn’t get better from there. It might be 2am, it might be 9pm. You know. You can just leave.
Nozecco. Cross-stitch baubles by Snitches Get Cross Stitches.
No one remembers what time you left
Any sense of embarrassment you might feel about leaving earlier than other people is fleeting. When people protest ‘Come on, stay for one more drink!’ It is kindly meant in the moment, but nobody ever remembers what time it was you actually went home.
They’re drinking, remember. They just want you to stay because they enjoy your company. They don’t care if you actually do stay or not.
Alcohol free drinks feel weirdly indulgent
Pre-teetotal days, I’d spent a tenner at the supermarket on a couple of bottles of wine a week literally without another thought. But I would never, ever buy myself a packet of expensive teabags without feeling like Marie Antoinette.
Now I’m booze-free, I still feel like the last of the big spenders when I buy cordials or teabags yet they are the same price. It feels hugely lavish to have Gimber or Seedlip even though it’s a similar price to gin.
Alcohol free options in bars are improving
Getting to 10pm in a bar and feeling all those bottles of Diet Coke swirling around your insides like pints of Frobscottle is not your only option.
From Seedlip to kombucha to a decent mocktail, you’re less likely now to be standing as a grown human adult essentially drinking a Slush Puppy while everyone else is sipping a negroni (zabagliato… with prosecco in it). There is variety, and choice, and it’s not all warm tiny bottles of Schweppes ginger beer.
Being alcohol free has added much more to my life than drinking ever did
This was a huge realisation for me, and it took a while to fully appreciate. Despite my reluctance to give up boozing, after three years hangover free I can see incredibly clearly how much richer my life is.
Not drinking isn’t a deprivation, it’s a liberation. I’m more creative, less anxious, more confident. I sleep better. I have only had a single seizure since I stopped drinking, which has been the biggest bonus of my life. I used to love a good drink, but I’ve got a life which is just as fun as it ever was, and if anyone was to ask me, I’d say to give living booze-free a go and see how you find it. Good luck!
*Reader, I married him after he’d cleaned the sick off his jeans. Sorry.
That last sentence. So good.