SUNDAY 26TH JUNE 2022
Well, today is the first of what I hope will be at least 52 consecutive hangover-free Sundays. I’d like to say I feel good but, after what was probably my busiest week since pre-covid times, I just feel tired, fat and bloated.
It has become a tradition in our house to mark the solstices and equinoxes with a bonfire so we did that on Tuesday night and it seemed like as good an excuse as any to polish off a couple of almost-finished bottles of gin and get them in the recycling ahead of my detox. The fuller bottles will languish on the top of the kitchen unit for the next year at least.
Wednesday 22nd June had been picked as the last day I would drink because one of my sisters had very generously bought me a ticket to see the Eagles in concert and had arranged overnight accommodation for us. Left to my own devices, I’d have happily gone sober but I didn’t want to disappoint her by not joining her in prosecco so I decided to turn it into a last hurrah and I’m glad I did. We enjoyed champagne and tequila sunrises (I do love a theme!) before the concert and some more when we got back to our accommodation. Then we chatted till 3 in the morning as we shared a last bottle of prosecco. It was lovely. We chatted about a whole load of stuff but also about my decision to quit drinking for a year. I had thought she’d dismiss it as another of my crazy health kicks but I was surprised to hear her say that it is something she might seriously consider herself. I shared just a few of my thoughts and reasons and she really seemed to take them on board. She reckons that after a year, I probably won’t even want to go back to it. Who knows? Total sobriety is not my goal but it’s nice to know that I’ll have her support and understanding this year and beyond, if it comes to that.
So, Thursday 23rd June – my Day One – started predictably with a low-level hangover, which was easy enough to bear, knowing it would be my last for a long time. Already tired after 2 late nights, I then had to go to another concert that had been rescheduled from 2020. Going in to work on Friday morning for a crazy, busy day was a bit of a struggle but at least this time it was hangover-free. One quiet night at home then last night I was back out, for the 3rd time in 4 days, to catch up with a friend group that I hadn’t seen in nearly 4 years – talk about timing!
The ladies I met last night were serious drinking buddies 20 years ago – we could probably write a book about the crazy nights out we’ve had together! We all grew up, moved apart geographically and started families so, in recent years, our get-togethers have been few and far between but they were always alcohol-fuelled. It obviously crossed my mind that I could delay the start of my sober-free year until after last night but I knew that I would then think I might as well delay starting until the beginning of July. Then I’ve got something coming up the second week of July that would normally have been a reason to drink so I might’ve delayed again until after that, and so it would go on – always an occasion to drink on the horizon. So, I didn’t join them in wine last night and, of course, it was totally fine. Having not seen them for that long, there was so much to catch up on that, if wine had been in the mix, I’d have had troubling remembering chunks of it anyway. The conversation inevitably turned to alcohol at one point and how we’d all over-indulged during the pandemic, along with the rest of the world. One shared that her drinking has still not completely returned to pre-covid levels, another said she has done a couple of 6-month booze-free stints and the third said she might actually join me after her up-coming holiday has been and gone. So, it seems more and more people around me are questioning their drinking on some level. I’m very glad I’m at the forefront and not lagging behind if this is really the way things are going.