Last Friday, I consumed alcohol. I was in a bar of people most of whom knew I don’t drink, so when I asked for a slimline tonic, I assumed I’d be safe.
I had a sip, thought it was sweeter than I was used to, and assumed the drink wasn’t slimline. But there was something about the taste that wasn’t right. I smelled it to see whether it had alcohol in and it seemed fine, so after another few minutes, I took another sip.
It would be an over exaggeration to say I could feel it in my veins, but with that second sip I knew that this was alcohol and that I needed to Get the Hell Out of Dodge. I asked the kind drink buyer whether it was gin and tonic because I don’t drink and she was MORTIFIED. It was.
Hilariously, the reason I didn’t recognise it to contain gin was because I don’t think I’ve EVER had a single gin and tonic in my life! It wasn’t the kind of gin *I* recognised. I remember once being caught at a party pouring a drink that was significantly more gin than it was tonic and the person who saw me thinking this was wonderfully out of character for me. ‘In for a big one?’ She’d asked, and I just thought ‘how little gin do YOU put in your drink- this is totally normal!’ I was genuinely amazed that anyone would consider somewhere near a single or even double measure satisfying.
Anyway, back to the bar.
I gave the drink to someone else and ordered a diet coke, trying to brush it off. But I felt really uncomfortable. I’d had a stressful day and was ill at ease anyway, but this close scrape really shook me. What if I hadn’t stopped? What if I hand’t been able to put that drink down? Losing nearly 6 months of sobriety for a silly mistake would have been devastating.
What was encouraging was that I didn’t WANT to carry on drinking that drink. The thought of ingesting alcohol truly terrified me. And I suppose that’s a positive sign. That when faced with a glass of alcohol I’ve already partly consumed, I choose sobriety.
I told my sponsor about it immediately and she reassured me that this wasn’t relapse because I hadn’t intended to take the drink.
I’m so happy to be sober today. I have a headache, I’ve got a bit of drama going on with not being able to live where I’m living for much longer, my job is very high pressured and as usual, I’m not getting enough sleep. But in sobriety, all this stuff is manageable. So today I choose to avoid that first deadly drink.