8. Diverted Traffic

 

Anyone who has watched Star Trek will know you can’t have your deflector shield on all the time as it will pull too much power from the main engine. Superheroes can’t keep force fields on for long as it weakens them. A castle’s ramparts will not withstand indefinite battering. The analogies go on and so it appears does urge to have a drink at Christmas.

I had a drink on Christmas day.

Dun dun dun der.

I feel a little blasé about it now but at the time it was a defeat of sorts. I have no one to blame but myself and my overconfidence. If I had given up Alcohol because I was an Alcoholic it may be a different story. I may still be pissed right now but I gave up alcohol to seek and lead a better life for myself and those around me.

I knew there would be pressures leading up to Christmas. This year there were less than normal. We were pretty much trapped in our houses and there was no Christmas party at work. However it is still the season of ethanol excuse engines, we even encourage our kids to leave booze out for the big man himself. 

Every other advert is for booze and they launch limited edition boozes just for this time of year. Stick a cinnamon stick in a 40% proof hooch and roll it out the factory gates. I refer shamelessly back to my first blog title “Cogito Eggnog Sum”. Yes even eggs don’t escape the ethanol spin doctors.

On Christmas day it is culturally normative to start drinking first thing in the morning. It is a badge of pride to be pissed or hung over. As you lay slouching on the sofa it feels like a new lease of life if someone finds a bottle of something exotic at the back of the cupboard and everyone casts aside their living room temperature Carling for a taste of somethin cold, creamy and exotic. 

Have I set the scene for my own failure yet? No, just a bit more background is required.

I had told my daughter and my wife they were to get what they wanted to drink at Christmas. My daughter had started drinking white wine at university, partly through choice and partly because no one else on her corridor would touch it. Now white wine was my thing, it was my jam man. So I thought what better way to celebrate my sobriety than to buy my daughter a nice bottle for Christmas instead of the usual junk she normally buys. 

She had bought herself a couple of bottles of Cote-de-crapola as well. The first night she had some pink gins which I can take or leave. The second night she opened the crap white wine and I had a minor pang. Nothing too major, just a feeling that I wish in a parallel universe you could experience alcohol without the human cost. Like I say nothing too major. On Christmas morning she asked if it would be OK if she had a drink and whether it would affect me and I said it was fine. Then I wrangled about having one just during the meal so I had begun to verbalise my feelings to drink. I wanted them to say yes do it. I must have banged on about it until it was more a relief if I did have a drink. So I did. I had one and in the end I ended up drinking the special bottle I had bought for my daughter.

What I have written feels so very sad but it is nothing to what it is like for so many people. I had one bottle of wine and I asked the permission of the person and said I would replace it so what? Why does it feel so bad? Would you have done it? If I said to you I had a bottle of wine on Christmas day would you even think twice?

It is the story behind the alcohol and the story after the alcohol that makes it sad so isn’t it all sad?

I haven’t touched a drop since or wanted to. It was a diversion and a diversion driven by a failure of willpower and a lack of focus.

If I asked you to hold 5kg weights on outstretched arms you may manage a few minutes. If I repeatedly asked you to do this allowing short breaks in between you would end up only managing a few seconds. In the end you would not be able to lift your arms.  You cannot fight fatigue, it seems a natural by-product of effort.  Willpower is like a muscle, overuse it and it begins to weaken. 

Willpower has to turn on the moment you think you need to resist something. If you have learnt to focus past it so no resistance is needed then as Robert Smith says “Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick”. 

The minute I felt like a glass of white wine would be nice I should have spoken up. I should have said sorry  I’m not strong enough for that yet. I should have said "guys I've been training for 200 metres, but this is a marathon."

In retrospect I am glad. I am glad because my sobriety streak came to an end and the pressure of keeping it up for its own sake had ended. After a while, sobriety feels a little like a thing in itself.  It grows a personality. I am sober so I can live my best life and it has given me that in spades. I am more alert, healthier, stronger and fitter than any time in my life before. I feel more connected to the universe and seek the friendship of those who feel the same. It is the sober life I am after.

I can look back at last year as several failed attempts to give up booze or I can see it as over half a year without Alcohol. I’m now a "the glass is half full" kind of guy, in fact it is full to the brim and with nothing I need to worry about in the morning. Maybe this year I will manage a full year maybe I wont. Maybe I will just have one drink maybe I'll have one hundred. I am now more aware of my boundaries and aware of what I will be loosing so I will not be a sober wall flower. Being sober is my best life so let's not drink to that.