Cheers, Fellow Ocsoberites.. hope you're having a good night, and an easier time of it than I am at the moment.
The first three days have not been too difficult really. Actually to be fair to myself, I really started two days prior, not intentionally, but I just didn't see any point in loading up on alcohol in preparation for a beer famine. It's a bit like dieting, where you feel you must have your last hurrah, so you eat everything in sight the night before, to stand trembling on the scales on D-Day morning about 3 kegs more than you were last time you decided you were the biggest heifer God laid breath into... thereby setting yourself up for an even harder task (and diets are doomed to failure, everyone knows that).
So I sort of "eased" myself into Ocsober: one Cascade light beer only on the 29th, nothing at all on the 30th, and that meant my cold turkey was already nicely chilled for the month ahead. Or so I thought...
So Days 1 to 3, as I said, no real problem. Sure, I wanted a beer. But it wasn't too bad. Being weekdays as well, by the time I finished work, organised dinner and then fell into bed exhausted, it seemed fairly okay. I've also stepped up the exercise to distract myself. As well as managed to fast two days this week (Mon and Thurs) to carry on with the 5:2 strategy that has seem me drop an impressive amount of weight over the last few months.. I think I'm actually addicted to the feeling of fasting now. Hmm, maybe I'm just an addict!
Anyway, Friday dawned (as it does!) and heading into the weekend, I've wanted a beer, and all day. It's school holidays as well, so entertaining (is that what I'm doing? Hmm I think I AM the entertainment here) a somewhat rebellious nearly 14 year old, has had me reaching for that non existent beer prop all day - and coming away empty handed, I'm proud to say.
Mid afternoon it became extremely pressing, wanting that beer, I mean. I'd worked, I'd swum, I'd sunbaked, I'd eaten half a tray of the chocolate brownie bake (hey I'm not fasting today!) and STILL my old mate Vic B was calling me. Insistently. Not to be appeased.
So I decided to walk, to somewhere where there was no beer. I passed the bottle shop on the way. Actually, two bottle shops. I ended up at the beach. Saw some guys drinking stubbies, as the sun was starting to sink lower in the sky. I ignored them, and jumped in the ocean. No towel, or change of clothes. I'm gonna regret this when I'm walking home. The ocean feels warm, and wild. I float awhile, pondering the 26 days ahead. Shit, it's actually 27. How on earth am I gonna do this?
I emerge out of the surf, and stand there in the breeze, getting air dried. The guys with the beers are gone, thankfully. I start to walk along the sand. I can hear music coming from the surf club, so I want to get closer to hear what's playing. And of course the first thing I notice is all the people on the deck, drinking, laughing and enjoying. I turn away, rinse my feet, then walk back towards the road. Past Laguna Jack's (and that bottle shop again) only this time there's a heap of people in there, enjoying their icy cold bevys at this time of day. I grit my teeth. I now want one so bad, I almost consider cheating. I can feel my legs wanting to walk in there, to that big inviting glass fridge, choosing my preferred icy friend, cracking him and taking that first gulp, my fingers wet with cold moisture off the glass.. and how great that would taste.
But then how bloody AWFUL I'm gonna feel, how hopeless, how I'm gonna KICK myself, how ashamed, how everything BAD BAD BAD. Four days and couldn't cut it. And the alarming implications that raises in me, the suggestion that really I am no longer in control of my choices because I NEED that drink more than I need to keep my integrity.
Hey, I almost RAN from there, straight across the road, and then made the stoic walk home to my currently dry life. Phew. I'm going to make it past today at least.
So what to do over the weekend? I have plenty of possibilities, and invites to do things. Some of those things involve activities which for me would normally include drinking. Catching up with friends. Seeing a band at one of the surf clubs. Part of me wants to just hibernate for the month and go nowhere, see nobody, and then go totally apeshit on 1 November. But the part of me that began this whole painful yet worthy mission needs to KNOW that I can function in the real world in this way. Because the day might come when I need to. So tomorrow (which as Scarlett O'Hara says, is another day) I am going to the beach, I am meeting up with friends, and whatever else I would have done. On Sunday I am going to see not one band, but two. Most of my friends will be drinking, but a couple won't. I'm not sure if that will help anyway, but it's nice of them to offer.
What I'm really hoping here is that it does become easier, because when I said we're in for a ride, I'm now thinking it's gonna be a HELL of a ride!!
Yours in grumpy sobriety
Caz X
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