Every incremental decrease
Each Monday morning, I adjust a small matrix in the corner of the whiteboard in my office with the accumulated totals of weeks since Wine (233), Spirits (109) and Beer (20). I do so with a sense of elation, relief and cold realism, for I know I was, and may remain until I snuff it, an alcoholic or, to guild a lily, a reformed alcoholic …
I was born in 1960 and grew up in north-east England, where breweries produce beer on a mass scale to quench the thirst of the industrial grafters. At home, during festive times and family gatherings there was ‘drink’ to go with meals. Aged four, I was given my first taste of beer in a small whisky glass bearing the name of the ‘Scottish & Newcastle Breweries’, its Blue ‘Star’ logo emblazoned on the shell. The beer was from a yellow party can. A little lime cordial was mixed with my beer. I loved it, and over the years I was given this treat at special times and in doing so, became aware of alcohol, yet I can’t recall ever being seduced by the buzz nor being, addicted to the taste.
From what my late mother has stated many times, I never walked. I ran everywhere and that included around our spacious home and regularly into obstacles too. I ran as a teen and played a lot of soccer, yet running was, and remains, a safety valve. Solitude and the pursuit of challenging myself have always allowed me to feel a sense of freedom and self-effacement.
Being fit and ambivalent about alcohol because I had never been shielded from its taste or availability at home, I eschewed the drinking culture of my school friends, and again at university. I didn’t need alcohol as fuel or stimulation. Academically, I was bright enough to gain an education in the medical field as a technologist and, aged 23, I left home to take up a very lucrative two-year contract with an American healthcare company in Saudi Arabia – a country with a strict ban on alcohol. I mixed with other expats and enjoyed playing a lot of soccer to fill in the spaces between shifts and R&R. One evening after a long game, I joined some of the people with whom I had played soccer, for dinner, and returned to their digs, which were close to my own. I was given a replenishing glass of lemonade – ‘7-Up’ laced with Siddique – homemade and rated at 90-100 % proof. I drank it gratefully down and was drunk in a very short while. I was quite terrified. I made it home and avoided the guards at the military base where my digs were located, for fear my breath would give away the odour of the grog. Thereafter, I didn’t drink for the remaining 21 months of my contract and left the desert with a good deposit and an Australian wife.
Settling in Sydney, I quickly found work and over the next 10 years built a solid reputation, gained more qualifications and promotions. I also began to drink – wine, beer & spirits.
After a significant promotion, which led to a highly paid posting in the capital away from family, I began to drink on my own in the evening, and formed a habit which became a need rather than a want.
In 2008, I returned to Sydney to care for my ailing wife – perhaps the darkest period of my life up to that point. And whilst I had hardly drunk any grog in the eight months of her long and painful demise, after her passing, with time on my hands and being again alone in Canberra, I began to drink again.
In early 2021, a terrible rift with my in-laws over property saw me almost lose everything and after restoring order by mid-year, in what I can recall was a purging of the demons of the past six terrible months, I consumed over the long weekend what would normally have been a month’s supply of beer. Having stopped drinking wine in 2017 after seeing my mentor destroy his career by consuming an average 3-4 bottles per night, I had also relinquished spirits two years later after consuming a bottle of good Cognac, received for Father’s Day, inside two weekends. Beer had thence become my tipple and some...
Giving up beer, which as mentioned I had first tasted 56 years earlier, was and remains tough, and after that long weekend, I was utterly horrified to see the fridge empty and knew it was time to stop, which on reflection, I initially did with relative ease … though with time the desire for beer remains like a shadow tapping my skull softly yet provocatively. My thirst after hard work in the garden and after a long run or cycle was, for so long, satiated with beer that now, even after five months, I still crave it, which scares as well spurs me to maintain my abstinence, though it can be suffocating.
I have as I write not consumed any alcohol for 20 weeks and my mental health has improved. My physical health too, as I have lost 7 kilos and I’m within 5 kilos of what should be my ideal weight for my age and height.
I miss the taste of beer and possibly always will. I want to maintain sobriety and want to not even give alcohol a second’s thought and look forward to the day when I’ll forget to mark-up my whiteboard counting the time since my last drink. But that is quite probably a long way off.
Thanks for taking the time to read.
Timcsky
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I’m trying to get it under control.
I’m 63.live alone,and have drunk sinc being 18.
Good morning Ian
Thanks for responding to my post. I am not nor do I intend to be an evangelist for going AF, as I don’t have the ego. Nor do I have pearls of wisdom to offer other than to say that after what is now almost 24 weeks alcohol free the benefits are quite astounding. It’s worth going through the pain barrier.
“Go you good thing!”- Courtesy of the Dream
Timcsky
Thanks for sharing this moving account. I’m your age so I find it inspiring.
Hi Juali. Thanks for your response. I am relieved that my story has had resonance.
Regards
Timcsky
Thanks for sharing this. I really appreciated the history behind where you find yourself today. Also – “…like a shadow tapping my skull softly yet provocatively…” – is such a brilliant way of expressing the nagging urge, that can overwhelm good intentions.
Good morning Bev. Thanks for taking the time to respond to my post. Your phrase, “the nagging urge”, is apt in describing where one can find one’s self and just how easy it is to lapse.
Take care.
Timcsky
I am grateful for your honesty and effort to stay alcohol free. I am a little older than you are and the lifelong struggle remains too real. Your blog keeps hope alive for me. Thanks
Good afternoon Marianne
Thanks for responding. The struggle is real and the benefits sometimes seem elusive when you’ve had a bad day or week. I have had a few rough weeks since giving up and the temptation has been like a black magnet drawing me to the negative pole to have a drink. I resisted, but only just, yet after each of the three near misses, in the hours and days after, I felt a little less in need and more positive about having come through the ordeal of an almost irresistible urge.
Take care
Timcsky
I first thankyou for sharing your relationship with alcohol like all relationships they take their unique journey. I believe reading I will take away some useful tools.
Good afternoon Donnella
Thanks for responding to my post. If I have helped in any way, then I’m chuffed.
Take care
Regards
Timcsky
my answer was to switch to non alcoholic beer. the German one is the best
Hi May. Tried most of them and immediate thought was Alkaseltzer and into the compost.
I think I’d rather have a cup of cold tea with 4 Yourshiremen- without milk, or sugar…or tea.
Regards
Timcsky
Thanks for sharing Timsky and talking about your life and your relationship with alcohol over time.
Very inspiring. I wish you well on your AF journey.
Hi Russell
Thanks for your message. Its good to hear from others for I realise my plight is not unlike that of many others.
Best of luck with your AF journey too.
Timcsky
Thank you for telling your story bravely. It tells of our dependence on alcohol to numb the pain, which I did for so many years. I was alcohol dependent for 27 years. Started drinking at 12. I’ve been sober for over two years now, and those years have been the best of my life. My mental and physical health is so much better. Life is full of good and my relationships are better too. Keep going. You’ve got this x
I have been alcohol dependent for roughly 20 years and it really does feel impossible to quit and remain abstinent. I want it so bad but continue to fail. I hope I can quit asap. It’s all I want for Christmas, to be sober.
Hi Kelly
Thanks for your courageous response. As I have said in other responses, I am no evangelist or new-born zealot for going AF, but after almost six months, the benefits are truly worth enduring the graft of abstention. My own personal challenge has had and will no doubt continue to have ripples and potholes, but they pass and today, I know I am better for stopping.
Take care. You had the courage to write a response which suggests you have the same courage to stop.
Regards
Timcsky
Well done. I’m jealous
Hi Peter
Please don’t be green at me, I am no pin-up in the giving up caper. I just had to stop before it stopped me…for good.
Regards
Timcsky
Hi Jemima
Thanks for your response and candour. It is rough road at times and finding this site was pure chance and that its Australian made me nearly faint as so much scribble on giving up grog seems to hook into clinics for the desperate and few seem to take a pragmatic approach to supporting people in what is a very hard human challenge.
Go well
Timcsky
Being born in 1960, I really enjoyed reading your story with so much insight into how we weave alcohol into our life journey. The drinking culture of our childhood, teenage years and adulthood is so embedded. My sober life is still only new to me so I am inspired by your words.
Hi Geelove
Thanks for your response. Yes, those early years are so formative and resonant. My adopting Father died young (56), in a Pub drinking a Whisky-chaser four months after having most of his bowel removed and a colostomy bag fitted to deal with what was left of his digestive system. He offered me drink because he had been offered drink as a youngster. My children are polar opposites: one does and one doesn’t drink.
I can’t offer any recipe for dealing with the cravings, other than to say its worth the effort.
Stay well
Regards
Timcsky
Hope for us all then.
Hi Maggie
If what I have written helps than more power to you.
Regards
Timcsky
You are a beautiful person with a great deal of love, care and respect for yourself.
I am so grateful to be able to have this glimpse into your life through these precious words.
Yes, you may always need to write those accumulating weeks up on your whiteboard, and that’s perfectly awesome. I look at the accumulated number of days I write in my diary and on my weekly planner every single day, and they remind me that I am one step further away from being done by, and in the grips of alcohol, and another step towards not being so.
Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful and amazing journey here. You are helping me to keep adding to those numbers too.
Yes, this was an inspiring, honest and courageous story indeed.. ❤💙❤
Hi Elizabeth
Thanks for your lovely message. Just before I was notified of the pending publication of my post, I turned to look at the matrix and decided to scrub it clean. So I have now ditched the Monday tally-up and put a picture in its place of Wallace & Gromit- my early-adult (Still?)hero’s- in respect of their Tea-drinking as I have consumed more Tea since I gave up the grog than in my first 20 years of living. As for noting the increments, I’m a shade off 6 months AF, and feel I am moving into a less hazy space. Hope this message finds you in good fettle.
Regards
Timcsky
Thanks so much for sharing – an inspiring story
Hi Kerryn
Thanks for your response.
Take care
Timcsky
Dear Tim Sky, big Congrats to you as after so long, it’s hard. Discomfort during withdrawal, but yes, the pain is real, the fight is real dealing with the emotions that we never knew how to cope with… I was born in 1959, inner city, working class Melbourne. Surrounded by factories, industry and, of course, a pub on every corner. You’d probably remember the 6 o’clock swill… my first beer was outside a pub, where the children and wives waited.. before the “Ladies Lounge” was introduced. A man in overalls gave me a “pony” of Foster’s Larger which I disliked the taste of immensely, but consumed out of politeness.. I was around 7 years old. I enjoyed the feeling, the buzz it produced. Although I didn’t continue to crave or consume until 15yo, I would be fascinated watching people drink and their “apparent” enjoyment, fun, talkative outgoing behaviour. They would change completely from shy to abusive, tough to teary, controlled to falling over. From 16 ish to one year ago my life revolved around alcohol.. during my “drinking career”, I’d
binged, was a black out drunk, grey area drinker, abstained during 3 children, functioned well, functioned not too well, rehab x 3… ok, I will cut this short, as it’s your story !! My son, at 27 yo, told me I’m toxic, showed videos of me pissed, black eyes and extreme bruising from falls. This is why I stopped. I’d upset them so many times but continued to drink. The more f**k ups, shame, remorse alcohol created, the more I’d drink.. the merry go round, a vicious cycle. Then I found Hello Sunday Morning, of course, on a Sunday hungover Sunday morning 😅and my life changed !!!! Thanks for reading, if anyone has.
Hello Alison, yes I’ve read your brave account of the drinking life and yes, all of your boozy descriptors ring a bell. And it’s hard to imagine how alcohol promotion can be so normalised and acceptable when the devastating effects of the stuff are just SO apparent ! I wonder when the promotion of alcohol will be viewed like the early days of the implementation of plain cigarette packaging and withdrawal of advertising ? In other words when will the Governmental Health Authorities show leadership to clamp down on this destructive and socially destructive poison ? I’ve never seen a public health initiative promoting sobriety…more the pity. I’m 10 months alcohol free..never felt better…keep up the good work all you who are brave and courageous to hop on the wagon , joyfully for good !
Hi Alison
Thanks for sharing your chronology with the “Satan’s Sauce”, as one of the Nuns at my primary school told us. I was 6 years old. She was fierce, sadistic and a sly Gin-drinker!
My Father was Musician and played all sorts of venues and that the had lost his licence for drink-driving, my Mum would have to pick him and his drum kit up from gigs- all hours. He often got back into the car after a gig with a bottle of beer and often passed it back to my sister and I for a swig, which we did and giggled all the way home. I was by then 8, my sister 11. Both well used to the taste and almost expectant of the bottle being passed back. The early origins embedded.
That you’re 10 months AF is incredible and I hope I can reach that milestone. When I do, you will be well past a year with your AF time line. Best wishes
Timcsky
Thankyou for your share. I found it to be a beautiful read & strength providing.
Hi Michelle
Thanks for your response. I am delighted that so many people have responded and in a surprising way, I feel less as if I am on my own in striving to stay AF, though when I am on my own, the temptation remains.
Stay well
Regards
Timcsky
A Huge “Shandy” made with non-alchaholic bear and loads of ice helps
Hi Sheridan
Thanks for your recipe. I might well give it a try.
Regards
Timcsky
Hi Timcsky, thank you for sharing this. Grief can kick you hard, I am sorry that you had to deal with your wife’s loss. Your story touched me and inspired me. All the best to you on your journey. Donna
Hi Donna
Thanks for your response and kind thoughts. Losing my Girl was possibly one of the darkest experiences of my life and it nearly brought me completely undone. I know grog eased the deep sadness but only for a while, and then subtly, turned the table on me. I was as near to reckless as can be. To look back as I have often done of late and recall the loss of self respect is sobering in itself. I look at myself now and think “just in time.”- no smugness or conceit attached, just a shiver from the concept of what I was becoming.
I hope if I inspired you, it sustains you during the rough spots.
Regards
Timcsky
Thanks for sharing your story. I really enjoyed really it & can fully relate!
Hi Maureen
I somehow thought I was not alone in assembling my story to post. So many have had a rough ride, which has led to drinking- not always self induced either- circumstances and other people affect us in ways we cannot predict and the consequences of such can only really be managed by our own desire to change what we can no longer sustain. I simply do not want to go the way of others I have known nor do I want to have to feel as if I am tagged, shunned or mocked because of propensity to enjoy a drop too much.
Stay well
Regards
Timcsky
Great article thank you
Good evening Virginia
Thanks for your response. I am grateful for the feedback.
Regards
Timcsky
I loved your post Timcsky and i enjoyed eveyones responses too. Thank you. I am a fraction younger, 1964 but could relate to a lot of what you said. Greif is a big trigger for shifting alcohol from an occasional relaxing time to a cruel master and I am happy for you that you have found a way to crawl out. I enjoy the odd drink but spend a lot of energy trying to make sure it doesnt get out of control – i wonder if it is worth it, might be better just to give it up before it turns on me…
Hi Katie
Thanks for your message. It appears from yours and others’ responses that quite a few people have been drawn into drinking through circumstances and events out of their control. That the habit becomes a need is shocking to the system if and when you realise. I have no illusions about the draw to have a drink after a heavy week at work, or after exercise, but after almost 24 weeks alcohol-free, the way I feel mentally and physically, is becoming almost addictive and this in itself, helps to steer me away from the temptation. That said, some situations of the past 2 weeks have had me waiver so close to stopping off to fill the fridge with my once close liquid companion, Pale-Ale, that I feel I still have a long way to go be well and truly over my addiction.
Take care and write back if you wish.
Regards
Timcsky
Timcsky,
I am from the US and really appreciate your sharing. I hope that you were able to fight off the urge to fill your fridge with Pale Ale. I have struggled with drinking for many years. Born in 1963 I have drank consistently since high school. Now in my 50s I have had moments where I don’t drink and I feel great. The mind is clear, I eat right, exercise. But the moment I take a drink I am back on hard. Most recently I was at my mom’s house. She suddenly and unexpectedly passed on 10/5/21 while visiting me. It has been unbearable and I have turned to alcohol which makes the pain worse! Last week end while alone and her home I drank a bottle of tequila and baileys. I felt horrible, had conversations I don’t remember.
I know I have to stop. My mom would want me to stop. I hide it from most people, but lying to myself about what it, is the worst pain.
Today is day 1. I really want to do this. I will do this..
Dear Timcsky,
thanks for your posting!! You write you’re hoping one day to forget marking-up your whiteboard … yes – indeed: I also think, this might be a sign, that alcohol lost all of its importance for you. This day will come I guess … since you’ve already mastered the hardest hurdles: One of the hardest hurdles, in my opinion, is making the decision to stop drinking in the first place. And to do it. Not just wanting to do it, but doing it – that’s not really easy either. To say: not tomorrow – but today. Not soon – but now. And it’s not always easy to resist the urge to try again with one or two small drinks after a week or two. You’ve already done all that! Be proud. Be happy.
That’s why the chances are – I think – very, very good that alcohol will now slowly become less and less important, less and less interesting for you. Like an unpleasant blinding light, which slowly gets darker and darker and finally expires completely…without much excitement.
By the way: I myself quitted drinking in April 2019 … and still today I write down in my electronic diary how many alcohol-free days it is today. I just feel like continuing to do this and: sometimes it is a pleasure for me to do that … today is day 958…
I wish you success and pleasure …
Tom
Hi Tom
Thanks for your supportive comments. Your achievement of nigh-on 1000 days is epic and as I approach 200 days alcohol free, I would like to think I too can multiply that by a factor of 5 for I do believe it will be 3 or so years before I have put real distance between myself and alcohol and no longer need to tally-up.
in recent days, I’ve been to several Christmas events where grog’s been freely available and been ambivalent to its presence and not ill at ease by not free-ing up as I perhaps may have done in the past. In addition, my housemates’ brother has been staying with us for the past three weeks and is an ardent drinker. Both he and his sister have consumed a serious volume of beer and wine and at no time have I been tempted. This I feel is a milestone. One other minor note of interest has occurred in my sign-off to people in emails and text messages: I’ve stopped using the term “Cheer’s”.
Thanks again and I hope when my 1000 arrives (?) you too will be nearing your 2000.
Regards
Timcsky
Timcsky,
I am from the US and really appreciate your sharing. I hope that you were able to fight off the urge to fill your fridge with Pale Ale. I have struggled with drinking for many years. Born in 1963 I have drank consistently since high school. Now in my 50s I have had moments where I don’t drink and I feel great. The mind is clear, I eat right, exercise. But the moment I take a drink I am back on hard. Most recently I was at my mom’s house. She suddenly and unexpectedly passed on 10/5/21 while visiting me. It has been unbearable and I have turned to alcohol which makes the pain worse! Last week end while alone and her home I drank a bottle of tequila and baileys. I felt horrible, had conversations I don’t remember.
I know I have to stop. My mom would want me to stop. I hide it from most people, but lying to myself about what it, is the worst pain.
Today is day 1. I really want to do this. I will do this..
Dear Jennifer
Thank you for your reply. I have to admit to sharp intake of breath when reading your story for I recall the loss of my own Mum in early 2017. My Mum Joan, adopted me at 9 weeks and indelibly, was my best friend for those next 56 years. It was in the months following her passing as I reflected on so much of my early and later life with her woven through just about every important event, that I realised I needed to stop drinking. The grief I felt at her loss in those early weeks was very heavy. I knew then the very meaning of having the black dog follow me, even in my dreams and at the worst of times, I fell upon the unforgiving trident of wine, beer and cognac with regularity. I was using alcohol as a distraction to my facing the realisation that I no longer had my best counsel and that it was time to be my own counsel. I’m now 6 months alcohol free and the see-saw aspects of wanting a drink have plagued me from left of field on a number of occasions since I stopped. Yet, I have remained resolute because I actually feel so much more healthy that I can recall for perhaps over 20 years. I would have been in my late 30’s-early 40’s, when I felt as mentally sharp as I do now and whilst my 61 year old body is not as sprightly as my early 40’s model, I am as fit physically and know that it is down to having stopped drinking. All I can say is that its worth the effort and I send you my wholehearted commiserations on the loss of your Mum, perhaps in her passing she passing on to you the whole responsibility for your own future as I think my Mum did with me, it just took me a few months to realise that the old girl was still in the background- gone yes, but never forgotten. Funny that such important people in our lives can still inspire from the other side. Best of Luck
I am 6 months alcohol free and it’s my first New Year’s Eve without alcohol in almost 30 years! I’m 54
I started with the 30 day alcohol experiment with Annie grace
The best thing I have ever done
Life is just better without it
Although sometimes in social situations I feel like a fish out of water
I was a daily drinker and I never want to be again
Thanks for sharing your story x
Dear Nicki
Congratulations- 6 Months- Absotively brilliant. I too, share your view that its the best thing I’ve ever done. I am at the 7-month mark now and could list a bevy of pluses along with having despatched a modest though age-defining beer-belly. Mentally, far sharper and not phased by the social pariah-ship I had imagined by refraining when all others kicked up their heels in the past few weeks. I wish you well and I am yet again chuffed that my story has added heft to someone else’s radical change and no doubt turbulent journey… you might be on your own with this quest for there is no other way to do it, but you’re not alone as you would no doubt have read in many of the personal stories.
Best wishes and please stay in touch. Regards, Timcsky
Follow-up to this post: My last alcoholic beverage was taken on the evening of Thursday 18th June, 2021. Today, Saturday 18th June 2022, marks one calendar year since my last alcoholic beverage. How do I feel one year on?: Brace for this; I am, depending on the time of day, 12- 14 kilo’s lighter, and according to reputable health agencies, I am at the correct weight for my height and age. The sharpness of mind and clarity of thinking continue as does the better physical fitness. I cycle more regularly, walk further, and balance far more complex tasks than I had in the previous years and my sense of self is less negative and more accepting. I have the occasional hankering for a beer, usually after a long bike ride and after a long session of gardening and outdoor work. But that passes very quickly as the habit of arresting a beer from the fridge almost by reflex is virtually gone. I said in my earlier post that I was a recovering alcoholic, not a drastic case by any means, but a condition I was not looking to skirt by saying such things as “I could stop at any time” or some such gilded phrase. Because, I recognise that “I could start to drink again so easily at any time”, for drinking was a component of my life for decades and just because I’ve made 1 year AF, does not mean I am no longer an alcoholic. I remain and will always be a recovering alcoholic- state of pride, perhaps, but also a state of realism. As I reflect on my previous intake of beer, wine & spirits, I am not so much ashamed as shocked at the way I consumed and how the need crept up and captured my diet over decades. 1 year on is an achievement, I know, but the next as many as can achieve will make the real difference to myself and those around me.
Thanks for reading, if you did.
Timcsky
Great story and it resonates so much, i keep these to reflect on. I have tried many times and will keep trying, you understand how hard it is to break through this cycle but so pleasing to hear how good the other side is.
Hi Craig. Thanks for taking the time to respond. I wish you all the best in your journey. Regards, Timcsky
2-year update.
Hello to all.
I passed Day 730/2-full years alcohol-free, on the 18th of June.
For those who might be interested, I have no regrets. My health is good and my sense of self is better than I could have imagined. Stopping was not necessarily hard rather, it was an uncertain path, sometimes hidden and rippled, sometimes relatively straight and without stress. But wholly a pathway I needed to take alone, in my own haphazard way. Am I a better person for those who matter to me?- I think I am, but I know I am a different person to the one who drank in company and felt the competitive aspects of doing so to be insidious and disturbing. Stopping the competitive social drinking was easy as those with whom I drank, were on reflection, unimportant to me on a personal or professional level. They are not missed. But I also drank on my own and preferred to do so-that was hard to stop .
To those who struggle to stop, I can only say that it’s worth the struggle and the self effacement of doubt can be displaced by fulfilment in ways you least expect.
2-years on, I am facing another monumental challenge in my life journey- of becoming who I am and that journey could not have begun if I had remained an alcoholic. How I emerge and what I become are yet to occur, but getting there will only happen if I remain alcohol free and as I want to be that person, then alcohol must never pervert my existence.
I wish you all, the very best. Timcsky
Three year update: I passed the 3-year mark last week and my other journey progresses gently and with caution. Transitioning is not without its challenges and as I enter the 2nd half of my second year, I know I am becoming the person I have hidden all my life. Grog was a blocker, its elimination has become a liberator.