My last (hungover) post

An ode to those who have been wondering what the f is going on

Last night, I found myself sitting on the last train home, seven or eight drinks deep, doing the unforgivable: feverishly bargaining with Google Gemini about whether I should end my current, arguably abusive relationship. Let it be said that I’m blaming the alcohol. I hate AI.

Where do I start with this connection?

He’s always there for me. I feel like my best self around him. It’s a love story that I haven’t quite been able to fully extricate myself from, despite it spanning over eighteen years. When I’m happy, I want him around. When I’m sad, I almost need him around. He helps me feel more confident to go out into the world. I always wanted that in a partner.

The problem is, it seems that he’s also quite keen on insidiously destroying the life that I envisage for myself.

The signs were subtle at first, giving me such a wild night the evening prior that I’d end up skipping a morning run here or there. He made my heart rate soar so high that any sleep I did get around him was completely unrestorative. Despite seeing him every other day at points, I could not stop thinking about him… When we’d next meet, how long I’d need to recover from our next rendezvous.

I’d only let him back into my life a few months ago, after an almost two-year break. We’d already been ‘on-and-off’ several times in those months. It didn’t take long for him to get back under my skin.

I’m getting bored with my own metaphor now. If you’ve read anything else I’ve ever written, you’ll be privy to the fact that I’m talking about my trusty toxic lover: alcohol.

Earlier this week, I wrote a piece where I rattled off details of a date I’d been on last month, and cavalierly peppered in instances of me drinking with zero acknowledgement of how fucking bizarre that would be to my readers. As someone whose following was borne of writing about her two years of sobriety. Quite something to be so high on one’s own delusion supply that I didn’t even want to address that it was all. Very. Wrong.

I knew drinking again was wrong. All the woo-woo shit that I pretend I don’t believe in conspired to show me, in myriad ways, how wrong it was. Nothing was in alignment. The month around May, when I didn’t drink, had flowed seamlessly: new clients, an influx of Instagram followers, a steadier home in my mind.

Yesterday alone was a screaming testament to just how wrong my path was becoming.

I’d bargained with myself once again that I would “not drink until Saturday”, after drinking at a funeral the previous Monday. This would prove that I was a ‘normal’ drinker. Each day in its run-up felt like Groundhog Day. I spent hours daydreaming about Saturday. Endlessly, I would start up the mental flowchart quiz of “Would it really be that bad if I had one or two pints before Saturday?” The cognitive gymnastics gave me literal migraines.

I’d begun scheduling my drinking solely around being able to conduct my coaching calls without them being impacted. Everything else fell by the wayside. No running, no creating content, no music rehearsals. I’d stopped caring again. I just wanted an excuse to sit in a beer garden and beckon towards oblivion, under the subterfuge of ‘socialising’.

It didn’t even feel like I was drinking too much until I put my recent units into a calculator and it grassed that I was “hazardously binge-drinking” for my age and size. Upon hearing people discuss how they’d managed to delude even themselves in the final stages of their drinking, I’d never really related, despite being someone who’s had the rockiest of rock bottoms in the past. But this time, piece by piece, I realised that I was fooling myself and everyone around me again.

The day began, rather cruelly for a Saturday morning, with an NHS mental health referral appointment. Naturally, it was a waste of time, as I haven’t been an active risk to myself for over seven years now. You need to have severed at least one of your own limbs for the NHS to take you seriously these days. What struck me, more than anything, was how gently blunt the practitioner became after I revealed my recent drinking habits.

“Once you have a diagnosis of AUD [Alcohol Use Disorder], it doesn’t ever really go away. You’ve only been drinking consistently again for a few weeks, and you’re already showing addict behaviour”

Initially, I was livid. How dare he tell me I don’t have a handle on this? I’d already told him that I was a much better-adjusted drinker than last time. No booze in the house. No drinking alone.

“I’m sorry this probably hasn’t gone the way you wanted. I genuinely feel bad: you came in all chirpy, and now you seem down”

I assured him that it wasn’t my first rodeo with the NHS mental health services. But my eyes remained glazed with dissociation, staring through his notepad. I knew there was a glaring sign above my head that read “DO NOT SERVE THIS WOMAN ALCOHOL” that only I refused to see.

Of course, one gut-punch of reality later, I had a date to pull myself together for.

Before I’d even left the house, I’d experienced stomach problems. The first two sips of ‘gin in a tin’ I had on the train had me skulking off to the toilet. I persevered. About five stops from the city, the train conductor walked down the carriage with damp eyes.

“Sorry everyone, there’s been a fatality on the line. This train won’t be going anywhere for a while”

Horrible. Surely this was all a sign to put down the drink and go home? Instead, I necked the gin, ended up befriending a woman at the bus stop, caught a bus as far as we could towards Manchester, then ended up splitting an Uber to the bar I was going to. Thankfully, my innards held tight.

There’s nothing bad to say about the date itself, other than when I asked whether it would bother him if I stopped drinking again, he wasn’t hugely enthused. He’s since suggested that we go on a hike for the second date. TBC.

He missed his last train home, and I impulsively offered to stay out with him in Manchester. I felt somehow responsible even though I’d spent a good twenty minutes repeatedly telling him he’d need to hotfoot it to the station. Almost as soon as the words left my mouth, I added that I was going to “sense-check that with my sister” quickly. She, of course, advised against getting wasted with a stranger in a hotel room.

So, that brings us back to the opening scene. Peering into my bag at the extra ‘gin in a tin’ I’d grabbed from the Co-op. Wistfully listening to a band that reminded me of an ex, staring dead-eyed out of the train window. I didn’t feel super drunk, but I was all too aware that I’d been running back up to the bar for an extra drink to each of my date’s pints.

Gemini learned that I was about to head to another bar to meet friends as soon as I got off the train, even though I was exhausted and it was nearly 1 am. I laboured over whether to just go home, but felt nothing short of grief when I realised that this would mean cutting short, hopefully, the last drinking escapade. If I was going to feel shit the next day anyway, why not do it properly?

But even typing reams of waffle about the potential of getting sober again had me welling up with relief. The unopened ‘gin in a tin’ winked up at me. It was weird that I still hadn’t drunk it. In fact, I was sipping sparkling water instead. Before I could even get off the train and find myself carried over to the nearby bar, I booked an Uber home.

Once alone, I cried into a bowl of Crunchy Nut whilst my cat looked on bemused. They weren’t sad tears. It felt like someone had taken a weight off my chest.

This morning, I booked myself onto a half-marathon in September. I just redownloaded the I Am Sober app. The pivotal ‘gin in a tin’ was gifted to a friend. To those who have been rightly baffled by my behaviour of late, thank you for your patience. It’s good to be back.