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I’ve just got back from an amazing wedding in the lakes. Unfortunately I’ve also brought back a massive hangover and the usual memory loss and anxiety that comes from drinking far too much. In fact I feel that bad I’ve decided to make a bold decision - I’m going to stop drinking.
I know what you’re thinking, everyone says that when they’re hungover! And when you do tell people you’re not drinking, people are very judgemental about it which can put people off - it certainly made me debate whether or not I should do it. So I thought I’d write a blog about it so that people might be more understanding of my reasons.
I used to suffer really badly with my anxiety. It effected my daily life. I was lucky enough to get therapy for it and now my anxiety is much better and only rears it’s ugly head with certain triggers - like alcohol. Now if you suffer from anxiety, you’ll understand. If you’re fortunate enough never to of suffered from it, trust me that alone is a reason to never drink again. I’m sat here now with a knot in my stomach, I can feel my heart beating twice as fast as normal and I feel absolutely dreadful. I couldn’t even sleep my hangover off earlier, because anxiety doesn’t like you to sleep. Anxiety likes you to try and go over every single thing that happened last night (or sometimes the last 10 years) - which is very difficult when I can’t actually remember half of the night.
Which brings me on to my next point - the memory loss I mentioned earlier. I want to make memories, I don’t want to forget them! The amount of hours I must have lost to alcohol, not to mention the day you lose the next day too when you’re too hungover to function, is another big reason I want to stop. I hate not being able to remember what happened. Firstly, because I might of missed a great night but secondly because I can talk some absolute shit when I’m drunk.
There’s a quote that I like that sums up another reason I want to stop; ‘I hate the phrase “Drunk words speak a sober mind.” Drunk me has a completely different agenda than sober me like I don’t even really know her.’ I am trying really hard to be a self-love, body positive, empowering woman who is kind to everyone she meets. I know we all have drunk chats to strangers in the toilets and they become our best friends, or we can confess our love to our actual best friends, but drunk me can be a bit of a bitch too. Or I’m presuming she can be, like I said, I can’t remember and I literally feel like I don’t know that person. But I can presume she is based on the apologies I usually have to make after a night out - and I don’t want to be that person.
I also don’t need to drink to have fun. I’ve been known to be dancing sober at 3am on a night out and have someone say ‘you’re so drunk’ (I know, my dance moves must be terrible) or tried to get in my car to drive home for someone to accuse me of drink driving (my driving is terrible too to be fair). In fact some of the best memories I have aren’t when I was absolutely wasted. Too much alcohol for me usually just leads to me being an absolute gobshite (yes even more than usual), upsetting people and ending the night in tears.
This next one is a more obvious one and is really just a bonus to doing it - I’ll save money. I have a LOT of events coming up in the next few weeks, in fact my next free weekend is the end of September and to be honest I was already debating just drinking tap water, because I’ve just started a new job (blog coming soon about all my jobs too) and guess when I get paid - the end of September. We’re also looking into getting a new kitchen and we’ve got Disney World/Universal next year that we need to save for and as I mentioned, when I drink, I DRINK, so I rack up a huge bill. My poor partner had to pay the hotel charges this morning and I’d put shots on our room that I couldn’t even remember having - not cool.
I also think I’ll feel a lot healthier too. I preach to everyone about being a goddess and how essential it is to love yourself enough to look after your body - and binge drinking and having shots you can’t even remember, isn’t doing that. It’ll help my mental health too, which is probably the most important type of health. No drinking means no hangovers too so it stops you wasting a day, binge eating copious amounts of unhealthy food and trying to find something to drink that takes the taste of all the alcohol away and rehydrates you after all the alcohol you’ve had the day before too.
I found another quote earlier that is so true too; ‘When you quit drinking, you are sandbagged by the way alcohol is threaded into our social structure. Drinking is the centre of weddings, holidays, birthdays, office parties, funerals, lavish trips to exotic locales. But drinking is also the centre of every day life. “Let’s get a drink”, we say to each other, when what we mean is “Let’s spend time together.” It’s almost as if, in absence of alcohol, we have no idea what to do. ‘Let’s take a walk in the park’ would be met with some very confused glances.’ But the fact is, we don’t really need alcohol to enjoy ourselves. Like I said earlier, some of my best days are days without alcohol. On our last holiday me and my partner hardly drank, because we didn’t need to and it was the best holiday I’ve ever been on. The Self Love Summit, I had one drink all day and night and it was potentially the best day of my life. And personally, I love a walk in the park, or a catch up with a friend that doesn’t involve alcohol.
So I hope anyone who thinks I’m ridiculous for giving up alcohol understands my reasons a bit more now and can support me. I’m not saying it’s going to be forever - I might only last until the end of the year, I might only last until I get paid and can afford it again! But it feels right for me at the minute. I hope it’s helped anyone who might be having similar thoughts to me and if you’ve already done it, I would love to hear about your experiences of stopping too!