Cold Turkey
In stark contrast to my drinking days I have been sleeping like a baby lately. During my days of excess I’d wake up at 4am precisely, my mind racing with nervous energy, my eyes bloodshot with fatigue. And yes the cliche is true. You really do wonder who you are and what you’re doing with your life at those moments.
When I cut back my drinking something else happened. I began to have nightmares and wake up drenched in sweat. On many occasions I woke up fighting with imaginary opponents. My fists would be flailing out above me as if an opponent was levitating above my bed. It strikes me that this is symptomatic of withdrawal. I’d have thought this is the sort of thing that only happens to junkies but apparently not.
Now I sleep 7 hours or so, dream pleasantly and wake refreshed. There really is a greener valley over the next peak.
11 Month Update
It’s been 5 months since I wrote in here & 11 months since I started this blog.
So Have I been successful?
Certainly the intake has shrunk & memory loss is very rare & slight occurrence. It is now an unconscious habit to moderate. Before I really had to concentrate to do so. I still have my moments however but the problem has lessened and is far easier to reign in when I notice poor habits re-emerging.
I still drink a little too much as a cumulative amount over the week. Often I’ll drink four nights a week, though not huge amounts, and after the 4th get nights sweats. So I’m aiming to cut that down to three nights.
What are the differences in my life?
The biggest differences are all psychological. My personnel confidence has risen dramatically, my mood is one of optimism and not fear (On a daily basis I was fearful!) and I am simply happier. It is as if I re-discovered my youthful self after years lost in a fearful wilderness of drink induced depression & paranoia.
Another difference is that my personnel fitness has returned. I don’t mean I have lost weight or anything. Rather I can run miles without feeling my body screaming at me. I used to run a lot during my drinking days but hell it was painful.
My brains appear to be back too!
What have I learned?
That my alcohol problem was just one of poor habit. I’d been drinking in an excessive way for so long that it had become second nature. I had to re-programme myself into good habits simply by concentration & hard work.
I enjoy myself a lot more when I do drink by drinking moderately. Mainly because I am a lot more likeable.
What would I recommend to anyone in the same position?
There are many things you can do (see earlier entries) but if I had to recommend one it would be to have a written plan. This is the most popular entry on my blog. Clearly this is what people find useful and it certainly helped me. I probably achieve only 60% of it regularly but that was enough to change my life around.
What is there still to do?
I need to get it it down just a little more. Maybe 25% less over the week. This is not because I see any huge impact on my mental state any more but rather because it may be damaging my physical health. I am confident I can do this as these days I control alcohol it does not control me.
My specific target is to drink no more than 3 out of 7 nights and make sure I get 3 nights on the trot without any alcohol.
New Approach
I’ve noticed a bit of the old toxic behaviour creeping in so I’m going to try an AA technique. I’m simply going to count the days of moderation.
So today I can say……I am prone to excess & it has been three days since I last binged.
Funnily enough it was Friday the 13th when I last lost it.
Backing Myself
“The years of gin have broken him & left him cold where he fitted in.”
As I leave the path of normal abnormality & become simply moderately immoderate I’ve realised there is another challenge. I need to rebuild the qualities which alcohol destroyed. The principle of these is assertiveness or more simply guts.
I wouldn’t say I was ever the bravest of the brave but I knew who I was & what I would not compromise on. As the booze took my confidence I developed bad habits. I stopped making eye contact, began to believe that compromise could be used in every situation. I became uncomfortable with any confrontation. It has to be recognised that confrontation is a part of life. Some things are objectionable & unacceptable & must be challenged.
I can feel the confidence returning with each new day of moderation. But it needs something extra. I need to take a stand in a few small ways so that when it comes to big plays I will back myself.
I need to
- look everyone in the eye.
- present confidence at all times through my voice & my body
- realise that people’s issues are their issues
Childlike Chipperness
You know that time in your twenties where your a cheeky little f**k with an impish grin & the energy of a jungle cat?
Well all happy healthy people retain an element of that into later life. For me it disappeared a few years ago but really it had just been given a general anaesthetic by beer & spirits.
Mid April I took a weeks holiday during which we drank almost every night. Prior to that holiday & during it my inner imp was playing around. But by the end of the week he was going to sleep drugged on alcohol. Then I got back to my usual drinking rules & within a week he was back. But it took a week because like indulgence abstinence has a cumulative effect. It takes time. Especially as you get older.
I missed that little barsteward!
Moderately Unmoderate
I seem to have moved from being a normal abnormal drinker to a moderately immoderate one. By which I mean I no longer drink like a drunken chaotic fool but rather get mildly smashed.
Progress? It doesn’t sound like much but my experience of life is much changed. I’m having new experiences like standing outside nightclubs fully compus mentus & able to make conversation. I even see people more drunk than me. Slavering aggressive drunken women mostly.
I deal with other drunks better now I’m less of one. I used to find them intimidating when I was too drunk to gauge the situation properly. I even used to think I had some how slighted them. Now I can see who has the moral force backing them up I know I’m steady enough to defend myself should it become necessary. Though now I can see far enough ahead to avoid those situations.
There is the new awareness of female body language. I’m so tuned in. No beer goggles either! Best of all I’ve refound the confidence & enthusiasm for talking to strangers. It helps when you haven’t got the black dog on your shoulder.
There are still some items on the to-do-list.
- Break the mental association between alcohol & socialising. Right now I can’t go for a night out without a drink because I see it as essential to socialising.
- Tail off the drinking toward the end of the night (I’ve tailed it off at the beginning & I drink slowly in the middle but I won’t stop till the lights go up)
- When holidaying have a couple of nights off the sauce (I’m breaking the 2 nights in a row rule in these situations)
A Real Control Test
What is a control test? If I remember my science classes correctly you begin with a control test & document the results. Then you change one aspect of the way the test is administered & record the second set of results. If you are seeking to test six singular variables you would run seven tests. One control test & six variations. By the end you could tell what singular tests created what changes.
My attempts to moderate my drinking have many variables. But they have never been put to the test against the control test. Why? Well the environment where my drinking really became impossible was London. My feeling is that if there is one place which will act a true test of my moderation techniques (or variables) it is London.
So here I am in North London considering the weekends drinking. It wasn’t perfect but I have no memory loss and I’ve been able to stop myself lapsing into my old extreme ways. I drank a lot of shandy (that is one half lager, one half lemonade) & made sure to eat well before drinking. Crucially I didn’t drink at speed but rather paced myself. I could do with being a little more polished in my approach but it was a good start.
The Interaction of Everything
I am 32 years old. In the last year my world has shrunk around me. There are now few friends, no colleagues & few reasons to leave the house. I’m on a break from the world partly because I’m a bit of a drinker & partly because I’d had enough of interacting. I’ve talked a lot about the former but little about the latter.
There is a phenomenon I have christened ‘The Interaction of Everything’. To explain this I will present to you the life of Man A & Man B.
Man A lives in 1960’s London. He has a house in the inner city with all the amenities. A telephone, a black & white TV (without remote) & a radio. In the morning his post arrives & he reads a letter from his brother in Sydney. The news is a few weeks old of course but it is nice to hear from him as he only writes every 3 months or so. Man A would love to see him but it is a once in a lifetime trip.
Man A leaves for work & boards a tube. There is one advert on the way in for Bovril. He reads his paper which has only tight concise articles on Britain & Britain’s interests in the world. He reads this without great worry as he largely agrees with all that is written. Who doesn’t? Perhaps those hippies at the Isle of Wight festival but he doesn’t move in those circles.
Man A arrives at the office & works methodically preparing a report. Interruptions are seldom. For lunch he has a ham sandwich as usual. In the afternoon he makes one call to a supplier, presents his report (the summation of a weeks work) & makes a couple of phone calls.
In the evening he goes home & watches one of the three TV channels. He goes to bed & sleeps soundly.
Man B lives in modern London. He has a house in the inner city with all the amenities. A telephone, a multi-media TV, a DVD, a laptop, a mobile & a games console. In the morning he checks his email. Just yesterday his Sister in Law in Australia gave birth to a son & he is looking at the digital pics. A man in Nigeria with a small fortune wants to give it to him in exchange for a small fee of 10 grand and someone thinks he needs viagra. At that moment his download of the latest 50 Cent track completes. Then he checks flight costs to Oz. How much is an air ticket he thinks. Mind you he just went last year.
Man B leaves for work & boards a tube. On the way down the escalator there are adverts every half a meter. Each minute the surface on which they are plastered rotates & a new advert is visible. By the time he alights at the bottom he has seen 3 different ads on each of the 15 rotatable hoardings. Many of the ads are for TV programmes he can watch later or music he can download at work.
He reads his paper which has a main body & three pull out sections on specialist areas. There is a wealth of colour photos, exciting fonts & graphics. There are not only the facts but results of the straw poll conducted on the interactive zone of the website. A semi-serious celebrity passes comment on the issue. He focuses on an article about one of the many woes in the world & how they are his fault for living in a former colonial power in the wealthy west. He starts to feel guilty but isn’t really sure why. Then he reads about some other horror 2000 miles away & starts to feel depressed. Then a murder close to home & he feels fear. The train arrives at his destination & he’s read about 5% of your vast newspaper. He’d throw it in the bin but he’d feel guilty about the rainforest.
Man B arrives at the office & begins to clear his 50 emails. Interruptions are constant. Whether via email, mobile, landline or blackberry but hardly ever in person. He has time to react but none to act. For lunch he can choose from all the foods of the world. London is after all a very multicultural place. In the afternoon it is more of the same & work drags on late in the evening
In the evening he goes home & flicks through one of the three 300 channels. Nothing is on so he opts for some interactive gaming. When he goes to bed he is exhausted but he can’t sleep. It’s as if his brain refuses to stop thinking. It is waiting for stimulus.
This is the ‘Interaction of Everything’. The constant non solicited stimulus plus the incredible complexity of a globalised techno savvy world. A phenomenon which snowballs with each new change.
I have enjoyed the travel, the cuisine, the internet, the knowledge of the world & its issues but all at once & all the time is exhausting. Where is the peace & serenity that the brain requires for recovery from day to day grind?
More WP Search Terms
‘i binge drink it makes me paranoid’
It’s not just drugs that make you paranoid. Having a hangover can have similar effects to a drug comedown. I found prolonged exposure to alcohol made my hangovers mental battles. I’d have a lot of negative thoughts & a general feeling of fear. The combination is paranoia.
I can still remember the last hangover of this type I had. I was sitting in the sun in my back garden on a beautiful summers day. The birds were singing & my family were making lunch. All was good in the world but in my head there was a battle going on. It was horrible.
I’ve had the occasional hangover since but none of the mental symptoms. This is because I am now only an occasional drinker. The effects of alcohol are cumulative. The toxicity builds up, the damage isn’t repaired fast enough and then you pour more fuel on the fire. That is when the paranoia kicks in.
And don’t forget alcohol affects your sleep which is crucial to mental health!
Truffle Shuffle
Like a lardy Peacock I donned my state of the art running gear. Resplendent in my brilliant white running trainers and Mediterranean blue breathable top I ate up the miles. Binmen stared in awe as I sped <ahem> by.
Behold my mighty works ye fatties & despair!
