Aside

Reflections

Here I am again, another week, another failed attempt.

Last week, the thing that made me crack was a very unusual and emotion filled day. I attended an incredibly sad funeral, a person just a few years older than me whose footsteps I’ve always wanted to follow in. The funeral made you realise just how incredibly delicate life is, how precious your health is, and how much you should squeeze out of life. The second part of the day was the amazing medal ceremony with my running club, the thing in my life which, more than anything else, makes me feel like I’m squeezing the most out of life.

I got home in a really heightened emotional state, but simultaneously feeling like I’d been steamrollered. My solution? A bottle of red! In an hour. I mean why not?!

I rarely feel hungover nowadays, just incredibly tired, I woke up the next day feeling exhausted and naturally not too happy about the drink. Wednesday at training all I thought when I ran was how much unnecessary booze weight I was carrying and how much fitter I’d be if I didn’t drink.

Cue Thursday, pint in the pub after work, beer and 2 glasses of wine in a restaurant. More wine when I got home.

Friday, ill-advised date, glass of wine. Bottle of wine (each)with a friend. Possibly more. Out til 3am havng eaten shitloads.

Saturday- feeling low. Knackered, can’t train. What to do? The pub of course! A pint, 2 large glasses of red wine and a mojito. Not enough, clearly, so how about a cheeky mini bottle of cava on the way home? Which I subsequently poured over my face by accident. It was the angle, not the drunkenness, obvs.

Sunday- an amazing 12 mile walk with some brilliant friends. Felt so calm and resisted a cider in the pub during the day (dehydration- all I could think about was a big pint of lime and soda). So surely my supreme abstinence merited a white wine spritzer, glass of wine and then the best part of a bottle when I got home? Even though I really really didn’t need it? Of COURSE it did.

Monday- knackered (again). Late night filming in a night club. Me and the cameraman get a beer, I secretly drink another when he isn’t around and polish off the rest of the bottle of wine when I get home.

That was my last drink, and it’s Friday today. Things have been going well. I was dying for a drink on Tuesday, but swam and had an early night. Wednesday was good, a similar routine with running club, some TV and bed.

Last night was a real breakthrough in this cycle of trying not to drink. Thursday is a real trigger point for me- I don’t train, I usually arrange to meet friends and I really itch for a drink to let my hair down. I was due to meet 3 of my biggest drinking friends and for the hour or so before I went out, I was absolutely itching to have a drink. I read Soberistas.com before I went, and as I excited the building, I was thinking about a really large glass of tasty white wine.

But I stopped in the toilets on the way out, took a hard look at myself in the mirror and gathered some strength.

Once that first drink was out of the way I was fine, and kept in the back of my mind how the rest of the evening would have gone had I not had that first lime and soda.

I left feeling I’d had an amazing night, a night which reminded me of many I’d had before I started drinking so much. I went home and watched a video of someone very special to me, and very important in my journey to be strong, which reminded me of why I want to stay sober and happy.

And yet as I type all of this, I really want a drink. I’ve hatched a plan so I avoid the pub with colleagues tonight, but I’m so tempted to jack it all in and have a few drinks to wind down after the week.

This won’t work, it never works. Now I know one is never one.