Sober weekends.
I’ve been a big drinker ever since I was old enough to lurk outside corner shops asking older kids to buy me booze. I got wasted for the first time in a graveyard. I was 14 years old and passed out on the grass. The gardener on his lawnmower had to work around me. My friends called my mum to pick me up, popped me in the passenger seat and left me at her mercy, pissed out my head on a Monday evening after school.
I steadily boozed my way through my teens. I was naturally quiet, but drinking gave me confidence and helped me build friendships. It counteracted my social anxiety. By the time I got to uni I was a seasoned pro when it came to necking pints and drinking cheap rosé out the bottle with a straw.
I’m now 28, and I had the recent realisation that my excessive drinking has never actually stopped. It’s just evolved to include a more classy variety of drinks out of the correct glassware. I knew I had to do something to break the habit.
I’ve always thought dry January made no sense. Why would you want to make what is normally the most miserable month of the year the sober one? But this year by New Year’s Day I was so utterly exhausted from the festive season’s excessive partying I decided to take up the challenge.
For the most part of January, I was indeed sober. And I was loving it. I was particularly loving telling people about the fact I hadn’t been drinking. I’ve definitely got a bit of a reputation for my partying habits among friends, family and colleagues and it was nice to brag about my successful sobriety. Plus there was a whole host of things that started going well for me at the same time.
I was churning out the writing. Getting freelance jobs and making arrangements with friends to write for them. And ideas were flowing nicely. Plus my anxiety levels were staying low at all times. I had no cringe factor about any social events I was going to. Which I normally had, in case I’d said something a bit weird at a dinner after a bottle of wine on a Wednesday night. And I slept like a baby every night. Alcohol really fucks with my sleep.
One particular sleeping incident that still haunts me from last year. I’d gone out with some old work colleagues and come home at 3am, way drunker than I’d intended to be. In the night I had a dream that there was a bottle of Fanta on my bedside table. Half asleep I grabbed it, unscrewed the lid and frantically sipped it – only to realise it was actually a bottle of ketchup from when I’d got chips on my way home. I DRANK KETCHUP.
I did eventually fall off the wagon in January. The first time was on a Tinder date about two and a half weeks in that definitely called for a few beers to make it more bearable. Then I catastrophically ruined Dry January on the last weekend with a marathon boozing sesh. But that isn’t the point. The point is that I’ve finally learnt (and before I turn 30, thank god) that if I’m not drunk or hungover all the time, I might actually be successful.
So here’s to 2019, the year of scheduled sober weekends. More sleeping, more writing, healthier eating and never keeping condiments on the bedside table again.
-Terri Cramer
