27th April 2015

Not just another date on the calendar but it would have been my Dad's 88th birthday had he still been alive.  Not a big milestone, I guess, you could say, just another birthday to remember.  However, this one was different.  Don't ask me how, don't ask me why.... 

Every year it was a hard day to get through; every year, I would remember with love and tears, my darling Dad who was taken far too early from Pancreas Cancer; the disease that took him from a strong, beautiful man into a broken shell.  I never tried to focus on the end though and always on what he was and how much of a wonderful Dad he was to me.  So really this birthday was like any other except it was to become the most significant day for 30 years. 

It began like all other days; with a hangover, a fog of alcohol in my system which stopped me from functioning in the real world; although I had got so used to "functioning" that it seemed so normal to get up at 5am, guzzle a whole bottle of coke to start to rehydrate and then go back to a wet, alcohol sweat induced bed and then wake up in a panic when the alarm went off, just in time to struggle to get the kids to school.  

To everyone else, I was ditzy, funny, crazy and always manic Mum in the playground; little did they realise that I was always still drunk, after only going to bed about 6 hours before and still enjoying the ride from the alcohol, even at that early time in the morning.  It was only when they didn't see me an hour later, when the alchol started to wear off and the tiredness began, that this party girl was definetly not up for any more fun.

And so it began, with the party in the playground, the tiredness in the morning, the sleep until it was time to function again.  A phone call to Mum to let her know that I was thinking of her and that I was actually aware that it would have been Dad's birthday.  

And then, from nowhere, a notion.  That, just perhaps, I could stop drinking today, of all days.  I could stop drinking after 30 whole years of abuse; 30 years of having a drink every day (apart from when pregnant with my babies due to hyperemesis, not due to not wanting a drink sadly).  A realisation that 30 years of my life had been stripped away to alcohol and not one thing had been a positive thing out of the whole time.  

And there it was; from that thought I created a whole new identity in my head; a sober, calm, loving, financially better off, healthy woman with less wrinkles, less cellulite and more energy, more vitality, more to give; a better wife; a better Mother, a better person.... 

I had tried a few times to give up alcohol; AA beckoned twice but each time, after 6 weeks, I would fail, due to the fact that I put alcohol on such a pedestal, I would always fail because I was always trying to reach it and punishing myself in the process.  Sadly, it never worked for me and each time I would end up drinking more than the last time. 

Imagine the shame on national television when Andy (my husband) and I were on a programme called Make me A Baby on BBC3, when we were trying to conceive Molly, and there was me clutching 8 bottles of wine and the presenter telling the nation that "nobody will get pregnant if you drink as much as Barbara".  Ironically enough I became pregnant two weeks after the show but you would think that would kind of bring the message home that enough is enough, especially when a friend stopped me and said "oooh I saw you on the telly!! You like a drink don't you"!... 

Fast forward 8 years later and my husband had even stopped taking the wine bottles out to the bottle bin; trying to wake me up to the realisation that I was drinking too much by letting them stack up on the kitchen shelf.  However I just kept adding the bottles to the line up and not even realising half the time that there were 10 bottles there in one week.... just aggravated by the fact that there wasn't much room to put another few!  

Yes there were factors that led up to this massive life changing event; about a year prior to becoming sober, I purchased a book by Allen Carr (not the comedian!) who outlined how you could give up drinking by using reverse psychology and renaming alcohol "devastation".  The book was a revelation to me and shocked me so much that I did give up for a day as some of the things he said struck a chord with me.  However, my addiction was so strong that it didn't take long before "devastation" invited me back into it's life and got me back where it thought I belonged.  However, I do believe at the moment I read the book, that alcohol had started to lose something of it's "magic"....  

This coupled with my health declining over the year; every morning I would wake up feeling the same, with mouth ulcers, aching stomach, pale skin and knowing that I had a double addiction with Bulimia Nervosa which had been with me, again for 30 years.  The double addiction meant that as soon as I abused food, I would abuse alcohol.  However, I would abuse alcohol without abusing food.  Confusing, yes, but it all seemed to make sense to me in my little world.  I knew how much damage I was doing and although it's a bit of a clique, I wanted to see my children grow up and be there for them.  Waking up like this every morning was not the way to go about it.  

And every morning, I would look in the mirror and say to myself "no more.... " or "I won't drink tonight".. and by 6pm every night, I would have failed.  

I am not sure what made everything "click" into place on 27th April.  Nor do I particularly care why everything clicked.  All I know is that from that day on I have felt completely different.  I do in fact regard alcohol as "devastation" because that is all it has done in my life.  Even when I met my husband, I was drinking heavily every day and successfully managed to hide it.

My husband said that I should start going back to church after getting sober.  However, I am not convinced that "God" helped me to become sober.  I think it was something in me that realised after all this time that I want to live.  

I want my life back after devastation has stolen it off me.