Towards the end of 2017, I decided to challenge myself to raise money and awareness for The Brain Tumour Charity, in memory of my lovely mum.
When I was thinking about what to do, I soon realised that I needed to do something pretty spectacular to get maximum attention and support from my peer group and made the decision to give up alcohol for a year.
As I write, I'm halfway through my #Dry365 challenge. 2017 was the shittiest year of my life so far. At the start of the year, I realised that my marriage was not going to survive and at the beginning of March, I asked my now ex-husband for a divorce. Two weeks later my mum died from a brain tumour which she'd endured for just shy of 20 years.
Sobriety is actually incredibly relevant and appropriate in terms of a personal challenge as my mother became sober when I was 18 months old. In the process of divorcing my father (they were great friends afterwards), the Judge in court told her that she was risking losing me if she continued to drink and so she stopped immediately.
Since giving up alcohol, albeit in the name of charity, I've noticed that nothing bad has happened to me. In fact, the whole experience has been massively positive. Aesthetically speaking, I look better and I am told I am 'fresher'. I have far more energy and I feel much more engaged with life.
Recently, I have noticed that alcoholism (or whatever label is preferred) is progressive in nature. It has, over time, become increasingly socially acceptable to self medicate with alcohol and people often slide into it without realising.
The contrast between my life last year, surviving on a diet of red wine, peanut butter and Berrocca, is stark in comparison to this year. Last year, I fell into the comforting arms of red wine when beaten by life’s hard and fast curve balls.
This year is so very different as I'm getting much better at catching those curve balls! The sense of perspective from the charity focus, combined with the rationality of sobriety, has made this a much easier ball game to play.
The good news continues.
After my divorce, I learned how to date as a sober person and went through all the 'firsts', which was utterly terrifying. I was so lucky to meet a chap who is bloody amazing and thankfully more Darcy and less Cleaver! I sometimes wonder whether it's the absence of alcohol and hangover paranoia or lack of drunken social media analysis that has helped nurture this relationship because alcohol always made me question everything.
Sobriety has helped to silence any doubts I may have had. I believe that sobriety was my Mum’s legacy to me. One of the benefits is that I am much more engaged in life and specifically less 'slummy mummy'. I should make it very clear that I have never shirked my rugby mum duties. I would just pitch up blurry eyed, scoffing bacon and slurping full fat coke whilst the boys played. My sprogs have been very honest with their disdain of drunkenness. They are not keen on inert, hungover parents lying comatose on a sofa watching TV. There was a time that I was presented with an Early Learning Centre plastic wine glass and a lettuce leaf for supper by one of my sprogs. I certainly don’t want them to learn any future poor lifestyle choices from me.
I don’t know whether I will continue to be alcohol free when my challenge is completes at the end of 2018. I do miss wine especially when the sun is shining but can happily give or take shots, beer, etc. Who knows what will happen?! I look forward to finding out!
If you would like to follow my challenge, please follow me on Instagram @brains_are_awesome
Written by Kat, edited by Sober Fish 2018