'One Last More' The Secret Diary of a Working Wino

I have completed my first DRY Month, My first milestone and MY GOD am I annoyingly smug about it.  I have become a Sobriety stalker, I am reading everything and anything I can get my hands on about the benefits of not drinking, the money saved, the extra hours of life gained, the liver regenerating like a Duracell bunny on speed.  I am on a completely legal High as I dwell on my booze free, body benefits.  Irene is becoming an out of touch old friend slowly being replaced by my new cyber crew and their equally impressive dry January achievements.   ‘Well congratulations, you’ve actually done it’, Rob says proudly but then rather sarcastically adds, ‘with a little help of 10 million other people in the same position’.   ‘Fuck off, Yea of little faith, I've got this’.  I shout back but he has hit a nerve and I know I need to think the next stage of my sober life. The tough bit, the bit where your determination and steely grit starts to fade and instea...

  Week four sans alcohol and life Chez Jones is rather divided.  The Testosterone wielding Alpha of the Jones Clan is living it large.  Gone is the overindulgent temporary weaknesses of the Festive Season past, replaced it seems with an overzealous training schedule of cardio, weights and HIIT.  Calorie scorching, fitness frenzied activities have well and truly resumed, health is high on the peak, performance, priority list and the smug motherfucker whose basic metabolism alone could power South Warrington is feeling great. I am NOT fucking happy.  My miserable oestrogen flooded ovaries and the rest of my sorry ass carcass is sulking, and desperately wanting a quick fix diagnosis, I punch into Google – ‘What is wrong with me?’ followed by an almighty list of ailments, including I am fucking jealous of my lesser half and his fucking fitness finesse. Up it pops…..THE WALL! Not ‘Off the Wall’, as in Michael Jacksons, legendary album, although ‘Don’t stop ti...

Last Night Rob and I (plus select members of the family sworn to best behaviour) went to the hallowed ground to watch the Liverpool V Arsenal Game enshrouded in Luxury. We were of course invited into the Boardroom, the Ultimate Liverpool Match watching experience surrounded by an epiphany of Liverpool legends, the walls superbly adorned with photographic memories of these legends and this iconic Clubs History.   Sober as a judge and of course now the designated driver for all social events, I couldn’t help but reminisce about our Liverpool days as I mindfully debated how, not just Liverpool but football times have changed and matured like a fine bottle of Amarone.     Talking of drinks, the entire bar and including the non-alcoholic drinks selection has clearly improved from the players’ lounge days I could remember, not a rola cola in sight and the food, Oh wow, move aside tatty tubes of Stacks pretending they are Pringles, oh no this is full on Michelin star gourmet...

My phone is repeat ringing and following the arrival of lots of shouty capital letter text messages I have completely ignored, my Spidey Senses are telling me my Mother is in a pissey mood. I answer swiftly in the hope to diffuse the situation. 'SUSAN JANE JONES, Do not mention ME in this so called Drink confessional essay, you seem to be focusing on....I know you think you are funny but you're not and, if anyone at the WI or Walking club read it.........Oh my lord......I FORBID IT ......YOU HEAR ME' she barks down the phone, followed by a lot of tutting, and the handset being repeatedly slammed over and over against the phone base, each time missing its intended landing spot as she adjusts her glasses and refocuses. Essay, I think to myself, what does she think I am focussing on.......some sort of Winter term  School Project, and as for Confessional.............. the last time I went to confession, Father Cahill stopped me mid chat and asked me to speed it along or he woul...

  So heading into Sober life  Week 2 and it’s London bound for me! Navigating this ‘first’ is going to be slightly  tricky as I normally look forward to these work trips with the knowledge that by 6pm I will be hopping back on the train, heading North and keeping the drinks trolley Company for the Duration.    I open up my usual travel handbag and stumble on the emergency miniatures that frequent the bottom of said handbag, proudly clinking away like a grown up goody bag for the Borrowers. Hmmmm it dawns on me for the first time, that this trip may take a teeny bit of forward planning!    Now Rob, who is already one step ahead, pre-empting the pending doom and potential pitfalls, is fussing, faffing and following me around like a persistent dose of thrush.    ‘Empty your bag ‘ he demands like a power crazed Border Control Officer on confiscated steds.   ‘Fuck off’ I roll my eyes. ‘Give me a little bit of credit....... An...

This week I have deep throated a cotton bud at least twenty times in the hope that the shakes, the shivers and the headache from hell are Covid related and not simply my body withdrawing from the Booze cruise I have been sailing on with more vigour than Ellen MacArthur.   Much to my horror, with the stroke of one red line, my suspicions are confirmed. No fucking virus to give me sympathy from my fellow household.  No I am simply detoxing and I feel like shite.  I stumble back to bed and face plant the pillow letting out a rather whale like groan as my head processes the throbbing symptoms unfolding. Now in normal marriages (well in the films at least) a Husband would dutifully stand by his Woman whilst she sweated profusely, mopping her brow tentatively with a moistened face cloth....................Well not in my house it seems as I married a Man who in his natural habitat  displays distinctive Piranha-esk like qualities.  He is quick to react to noise fro...

I, my friend am an open book. It is usually pretty easy to tell how I am feeling, for instance if my hands are round your throat I am usually a tad pissed off, however this Christmas cameand went in a haze of calm aided by the trusted Sleepeeez tablets, a gift from the Boots Insomnia Gods and the copious amounts of Champagne, Chablis, Pino Grigio, Malbec and Merlot required to wash the fore mentioned tablets down and cope with the Mothership of Intergenerational Mayhem and Madness that was unfolding around me. Needless to say I woke on Boxing day with the Hangover of all Hangovers. 'FUCK ME' I exclaimed to Rob, not in a demanding amorous way of course more a 'Who did this to me?' inquisitive kind of way. 'Same old, Same old, Boozy Suzy morphed into Irene, kind of night' he replied in a rather bored, dulcet tone, accompanied with that, we've been here a million times before, look on his face.   Now Irene is my alter ego, she is the Queen wine witch bi...