A Birthday Gift

Hello! I’ve been quiet recently. A little bit due to recurring-bloody-illnesses, and massively due to the guilt I’m feeling about drinking again, and about wimping out on friends who are doing the 100 day challenge. Oh, yes, I folded, faster than a shitty cheap deckchair.  As I predicted, once I’d recovered from my last bout of illness, I started to feel better, and decided that it’d be completely impossible to enjoy an evening of friends staying chez-Red without drinking beer.

Then I became ill, yet again, with a bad cold. So I stopped drinking, got a bit better, and then it was my birthday, FFS, how can I possibly enjoy a birthday sober? So I had a large glass of wine with my birthday tea, and once the resolve was utterly shattered, shared a bottle with Mr Red in the garden.  By this point, however, my tonsils had freakishly started swelling up again, almost as if I’ve become allergic to the damned stuff. So at 11pm, on my birthday night, I decided to give myself a gift. I would not drink again, one day at a time.

Giant proclamations about giving up forever, or for 100 days, don’t seem to be working, in fact they seem to send me very quickly running to the bottle. So I’m going to try taking it day by day. See if that sticks a bit longer. I’ve written a list, actually physically written it into a journal. It’s a list of how I feel, and how shambolic my life is, when I’m drinking. If I get the urge to drink, my plan is to look at it, and ask myself if anything has changed/improved. If nothing has got any better, if life’s still constant chaos, and I’m permanently ill, and feeling overwhelmed, then I can drink again if I want to. I know lists are only any good if you remember to read them at the crucial moment. And I’m obviously banking on the fact that my life will improve here. Bit of a gamble, but from my research, the odds are stacked in my favour.

Another surprise birthday boost I received from my eldest son was a display of his maths prowess: “Mummy. Mummy. In eight years, I’ll be twelve!”(pause, for some frantic calculation…) “And that means, in eight years… you’ll be FIFTY!!!!”.

Thanks son. Yes indeed, in 2024, I’ll be 50, with a 12 year old and twin- 10 year olds. Jeeeezus. I’d best stop drinking now, so I can be a fit, strong, healthy, glowing, Elle MacPherson “oh-my-God, she’s-not-really-fifty??”. And not be the tired, overweight, irritable, slightly crazed, embarrassment of a mother that I am now.

Today’s day 4, and despite the fact it’s the first England match of Euro 2016 tonight, I ain’t drinking today.

Love, Red xx