Getting on the wagon amid this relentless pace of life: on giving up booze

It’s Saturday morning. The only hangover I have is from last night’s Maccie D’s, bought by Tom on the way home from Cubs – a treat I have not indulged in without feeling guilty since I was nine. Last night, I felt nothing but pleasure. I even had a milkshake – shared with the kids, after two and a half sips for being too sweet, but enjoyed as reminiscent of childhood treats, nonetheless. When you’re as busy as I feel, it ‘s important to love the little things, and not feel too guilty about the dirty things. And there are much worse things I could be doing on a Friday night.

I began Friday at 3am. Tom, who’d collapsed atop me after he returned home at the not unreasonable 9.30pm, beer goofy with a kebab in hand, had began to sleep babble, as is his want after a few too many, and woke me up. Foggy with melatonin, I attempted to banish him to the spare room, but it took a good few attempts to wake him, by which time I was incensed, adrenaline pumping, with a client presentation to give the next day, and a head full of neurosis. Once I wake, I don’t go back to sleep.

It’s a fault that has nearly lost me my mind and my marriage. When the kids were babies, I spent long nights unable to return to my slumber, anticipating the wail of mornings following a feed or puke or night terror. For long months, even years, I wouldn’t sleep more than a fitful two hour stretch, and I became hollow eyed, rashy, pissed off, suicidal. I would react by drinking – not a lot, but using it to let off steam with my friends given half an opportunity. A picture from Ava’s Christening has me passed out in a pub garden after one too many wines, toddling Ava smiley beside me. I know I barely slept a wink the night before.

I learned to manage it – the sleep. Lights off by ten to allow my sleep cycle to begin, white noise in the bedroom to prevent sirens calling me from my slumber, or the early morning thump and clang of the kids waking above me. It’s no good. I awake pumped regardless, heart racing, ready to start the day’s climb till bedtime.

It affects my social life. I know midweek drinks will have me suffering my hangover at 4am, so I largely don’t bother. I have to be trollied to sleep through, and I don’t have time to write off the next day in hangover, so I drag myself through them, aching, and shivering with a loud internal monologue that tends to self loathing. But eventually the boredom of nights in with a Netflicks binge results in a sociable kickback of epic proportions that has me partying till dawn to the detriment of the next three weeks.

Now, I’m thinking of giving up drinking altogether. It’s never been my friend. Not that I’m a bad drunk – although I tend to start doing to splits – and hangover from more flexible days, and curling on laps, a hangover from skinnier, cuter days. I tend to puke before I do anything really stupid – but I can count on my hands the number of times I’ve actually chundered. I stay lucid on vodka, but white wine makes me crazy, and sits on my belly in pouchy hollows. Two reds and I’m drousy and I get hungover before I get tiddly on beer, so little of it can I manage to put away. It’s not what I do on it that’s the problem; it’s what it does to me. Wrecks my sleep and waistline, begging the question, what’s the point?

Everyone needs a little treat. I’ve been working late, Tuesday through Thursday for weeks in a row. My colleagues, mostly childless, gather at the bar downstair after to reward their stamina. I have to make the leaf sodden walk to the station, endure the central line for half hour, ride my bike up Bethnal Green road and sort the kids out when I get back. The chance for wine doesn’t come till later and by then I’m practically asleep. What’s the point of inhibiting then?

Last night, a family Friday I enjoyed so much more than those nights spent hanging round outside pubs spilling out on the streets and smoking, Tom was tetchy from my nighttime anger, and my refusal, when I was still awake a four and five  and six when he had to get up for work, to let him forget it.

Fresh from hoofing it across town, we went to a parent’s meeting run by the Scout leaders, planning activities, like camps and fundraisers and quizzes, that would be of benefit to our children. Sat in the lino coated school hall, the waft of dinners from ten year’s hence lingering in the air, these entirely charming, unfashionable, yet perfectly content people asked for our support to help in their selfless endeavours. I looked at Tom, wanting his company to pull out a magic cheque out the bag, because for all my instincts, my need for more society, a sense of community and purpose, I’m just so bloody knackered. I can’t commit my energy to actually helping out. All I want to do on a Friday is sit on my couch and eat chips, and have the will to go for a run on Saturday morning to burn it all off.

I know this is counterproductive, but this is the rat race we have created for ourselves. So much of what we are expected to do and be in today’s society fits this model of effort and indulgence to no-one’s best interests. Society would be better served by everyone having more time, and less stress, but alas, this isn’t going to happen; at least not in mine or Tom’s self-serving professions. The best thing I can do is buy some more freedom for myself in the form of more sleep and the better mental health this invariably conveys, and that for me means no more booze. At least, not as often. Not as much. Moderation in all things, is what we should strive for to be happy.