When I gave up smoking, the seven-day mark was the clincher. After countless failed attempts, and having smoked 50 cigarettes on the Friday (which was par for the course on a Friday - I was a fervent smoker and this was 2002, five years before the smoking ban in British pubs) I finally managed to get through the rest of the weekend without succumbing to the large, burly, smoking part of my brain as it bawled and screamed and railed in its ceaseless attempts to bully my mind's small but growing resistance into getting me to light up. From Monday onwards I had work to distract me through the daytime and in the evenings I would immediately scurry home to my non-smoking house, avoiding any opportunity to have just one beer, which had always been my downfall in the past: My defences would come crashing down and I would find myself with a pint in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other.
I can still taste the smoke now, and it still tastes wonderful. And that's the problem. Whatever your vice, once you're hooked you're always hooked, even if you no longer partake.
The following Friday I found myself having accomplished an entire week without a single cigarette. It was one hell of a triumph as any keen smoker will tell you, but it had also been an unrelenting psychological trench war, and it was far from over. I'd so far avoided going out and leading myself into temptation by having the one beer that would lead to a cigarette. But that evening a friend and colleague was leaving work. I wasn't going to miss his leaving drinks for the sake of not smoking and I wasn't going to go out and not drink. One cigarette was all it would take to put me back to square one, so before I left the house I looked in the mirror and listened as my reflection told me sternly, "If you smoke tonight, you're going to have to go through this whole week all over again."
It worked. I didn't dare give up the progress I'd made that week, and managed to not smoke that night. (But I did drink at about three times my usual rate. And I have ever since.)
With this in mind, the seventh day in to my Adventures in Sobriety was something of a minor achievement. I say minor because (as explained in the prologue) I haven't stopped drinking to overcome an addiction in the same way I did with cigarettes. In Week One I'd been to the pub, I'd stayed in on a Friday and I'd met a movie star, and in all instances I had successfully resisted the temptation to have so much as one quick drink. I'd covered the basics, but, as with quitting smoking, at this point I hadn't long left base camp and I still had much of the mountain to climb. (For the more mathematically minded among you, I was at this point 1.912% of the way through my dry 2011. Not that I'm counting.)
Despite my first dry Friday, Saturday didn't see me up any earlier than usual. I adhered my usual routine of reading the papers on my netbook in bed, enjoying a long, late breakfast while listening to Radio 4 until the comedy finishes at 1pm, and then a shower. But, having found Friday night a bit of a stretch, I was constantly in mind that there would be no drinks that Saturday night. In fact, there would be no drinks for the following 51 Saturday nights. (I'm really not counting, you know.)
That evening came another sober first. I was to cook dinner for my friend Isla who, coincidentally, is also off the booze. Anyone who knows me will most likely be aware that I'm rarely short of something to say, but this did nothing to allay my distant concerns that two sober people in the same room would suddenly have little to talk about. I was concerned that the conversation might dry up without the aid of alcohol on both sides to as a social lubricant.
Cooking without a Bloody Mary on hand is going to take some getting used to, but the conversation still flowed perfectly well. We had plenty of non-drinking notes to compare, and instead of the usual bottle of wine Isla brought with her a bottle of ginger ale, which was something I'd never tried before. After finding that time in the pub drinking diet Coke was more functional than just succumbing to temptation and having a pint (I mean, you can drink diet Coke anywhere, so why do it in the pub other than just to mix with drinkers?) I was wondering what there is in the world of non-alcoholic drinks that isn't either healthy or cloying, or both.
It turns out that there are a variety of different types of ginger ale, and this one described itself as having the "kick of two mules". But as it didn't contain alcohol, just how strong could it be? Too strong to drink like any other soft drink I discovered as I knocked it back and broke into a coughing fit, like I'd just tried whiskey for the first time. I liked it.
Sunday was spent writing, and was the most productive day I've had writing for pleasure for months. Perhaps a year without booze is a year when lots of stuff gets done.
But at risk of sounding boring (and believe me, I'm trying hard not to) the beginning of the week was fairly unremarkable. I resisted temptation once more at the monthly CING networking event, and was pleased to discover that the urge to stay out late and socialise was still there. I am still a social animal, and I still like my friends, even when I'm not drinking. In the end I got to bed about 1am, having grabbed a kebab for dinner on the way home. (And I won't be doing that again without first sinking at least six pints.)
Then quite suddenly, in the middle of Wednesday night, things started to get a bit strange. I woke three times having had what I wouldn't exactly describe as nightmares, but what certainly rank among the most vivid and surreal dreams I can ever recall. (Knowing I'd forget them shortly after waking up I made a point of writing them down as soon as I could. If this is the start of a theme I'll detail them for you in a parallel thread. They'll blow your mind.)
Consequently, all day Thursday I could barely concentrate at all. Normally I would have attributed any off-colour feelings in the morning whatever volume of drinks I had consumed the night before, but this was clearly not the case today. (In fact, I've often thought that my near-impeccable work sickness record over the past 15 years owes less to being super-healthy than to mistakenly attributing any occasional illness to just being hungover. So if any businesses leaders reading this want to increase productivity I recommend subsidised worknight piss-ups to ensure that staff have no excuse not to come in the following day.)
My consciousness seemed very distant from my physical self and watching my fingers pinch the skin of my arm felt as though both hand and arm belonged to someone else entirely. I felt dizzy and weak, and my heartbeat was apparent. Not having had a drink for nearly a fortnight, could it be that I was experiencing - surely not - withdrawal symptoms? I googled the phrase "what happens when you give up alcohol" and found a few relevant pages. In particular there was this from Alcohol Issues:
"Depending on the level of addiction, withdrawal symptoms can sometimes be severe, but will usually include some shakiness, anxiety, sleeplessness and of course cravings."
With the exception of anxiety, that's a pretty accurate description of how I was feeling. (As for the cravings, I've been eating markedly more ice cream than usual. Mint choc-chip, if you ever want to buy me one.) But addiction? Really?
More weird dreams followed on Thursday, all of which now seem to take place in the same darkly-lit, vaudevillian world. However, I was apparently becoming accustomed to them as I just slept through without waking up anymore. But despite sleeping well I'm really no more alert in the mornings than before I stopped drinking and, so far, I've still failed to make it to the gym this year.
At the end of week two I'm still sober, still unfit, and now I'm full of ice-cream.
Stats for Week 2 of 52
Weight: Don't know as I couldn't get access to any scales.
Drinks: 0
Gym hours: 0
Mood: Generally good, if slightly creeped out by the dreams.
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