Dry Jan and I'm a Fan

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 instead you rely on techniques, habits and constant reminders of why you are doing what you are doing. 

 

In Sue’s World you see,  life is very black and white.  I am a successful Business Woman, I have no interest in the whole grey shite. No no no that’s simply not how us uber successes roll. 

 

• Work hard - Play hard
• Earn it - Spend it
• Want it - Have it
• Break it  - Fix it
• Order it - Drink it
• Take it - Leave it

 

It’s a very simple way to live. Saint or Sinner that’s me, Grab life by the bollocks and go for it.  

 

Well at least I thought that’s what I was like, until my reliable fucktard husband tells me I am completely the opposite and I have missed the whole middle ‘fucking about’ section where I faff, dawdle, debate, think about it, change my mind, half heartedly have a go, change my mind again, ask my mates, wake up in the night thinking about it, google it and THEN it seems embrace the final outcome.

 

‘Tackle Drinking like you tackle Dieting’, he says, ‘Trust me, you NEED to join a club’.   Pfft what does he know, I think to myself and besides I absolutely hate clubs per se, but the dieting kind are up there with the Worst kind of group camaraderie on the planet. If drinking clubs are like diet clubs then I am doomed.  I remind him of 7 very good reasons why I dislike Clubs.

 

1. They are always held in stupid fucking places, like a social club with a bar, A church hall, A school assembly hall, or an abandoned air raid shelter.  All pointless places I wouldn’t inhibit normally if you paid me in free Hi Fi bars.
2. They have ridiculous uncontrollable heating settings that swing between the blistering heat of the sun or the freezing fucking realms of Siberia
3. They serve shit coffee, that’s either so piss weak you can see your reflection in the bottom of the cup or so strong it looks like it was made in 1958 and reheated especially for your arrival
4. They take too long to get weighed, as you wait for Sarah the Serial Slimmer of the Week to remove her earings, her watch, her coil, her false teeth and clip her toe nails before she can jump on and win another fucking sticker to add to her entire collection.
5. They only take cash, held in a cash tin, manned and guarded by Doris the dealer who only accepts notes and no credit given.
6. The chairs are not designed for sitting on but instead designed to work in sync with the room temperature and remove skin within four seconds of seated application.  Too hot, skin burn, too cold skin graft, job done.
7. They are full of abandoned fruit adorned with whoopsie stickers

 

Maybe he is right though, maybe I should look for a support group something that keeps me accountable. 

I go online and after a rather censored word choice to describe my drinking style, I stumble on a group, but before I am allowed in, there is a mysterious set of questions, oooooooo in fact its a quiz, this exclusive club has its own quiz with it and I love a good quiz.

Have you ever suffered memory loss after drinking? Fuck yes

Have you ever lost your phone? – Errrr standard, isn’t that the whole point of ‘find my phone?’

Have you ever woken up in a strange place…..Well Irene once got pissed in Mallorca and woke up in Warrington if that counts??

I stop, I can see where this is heading and I am going straight to AA hell.

 

I don’t press submit, I glance at the rest of the questions and feel they are a little bit one sided and the fact they are sponsored by the Priory doesn’t give me much confidence in a happy normal drinker ending.

 

I favour instead the good old self diagnosis that I am an Overexcited drinker.  Much better ring to it, I mean it baffles me how the fuck that a name that you self-diagnose has such a profound stigma attached to it, like no other word on earth.

Announce to the World that you are a

Workaholic…..................Champion

Shopoholic………...........Me too

Chokaholic…………........Snap

Alcoholic………...............QUEUE AWKWARD SILENCE

Alcoholics apparently according to society judgements, don’t have jobs, don’t drive cars and don’t live in houses, they sleep on park benches, in bus stops, basically outside with no fixed abode, they don’t wash, they stink of wee, their hair is covered in puke, they drink out of brown paper bags and have a liking for white lightening, methylated spirits and paint stripper. 

This stigma I vow to myself, I will investigate further and delve into the questionable pool of vomit that surrounds it. But for now, I park it there, 

‘How you getting on?’ Rob asks, ‘you found yourself a gang’.

 Fuck that I say, I am going to start my own.  I am going to be the official leader of the six pack!

And who knows, in honour of my fellow overexcited drinkers, I may just bloody well go and do it!

Move over AA we have the OTT Club in Town LOL not a bad ring to it!!!😃

xxx