The Diagnosis
May 4th 2022. At about 1am, while I was staying at my Parent’s house, a familiar pain had begun in the lower right side of my abdomen. This time however I could already tell this wasn’t like anytime before. Not wanting to get driven to hospital at this hour and knowing I didn’t need an ambulance, I lay there in a pain. On this occasion it was so severe that I can’t find the words to describe it. I’ve had hockey balls hit the inside of my knee caps and head, finished a marathon on a broken foot, experienced a younger sister as a toddler and a football boot to the face leaving my tell tale bent broken nose. This was pain off a new kind.
It was though a familiar abdominal pain as I said. One that for more than 2 decades I’d experienced with no apparent rhyme or reason. A pain that had become more severe and by now was debilitating for a 2-3 days stint and if bad enough would be so intense I would be sick with pain, a truly awful predicament. Then a week after of feeling like you’ve gone 12 rounds with Tyson and a need to lie down a lot is no exaggeration.
I’d been scanned, tested, injected and no expert had been able to identify any cause. The routine had become A&E, presentation of appendicitis, prep for surgery, tests return it isn’t appendicitis and 1-2 days on a ward, followed by a month’s supply Codeine for a as I was discharged.
It was a mystery and worse, one that sounded so vague and without physical proof it would sound like an excuse for a few days off. Luckily the times it did happen my bosses were incredibly understanding to what amounted to “I’ve had to go hospital, they can’t tell me what’s wrong, I was kept in and now they’ve discharged me and I need to lie down for a week”.
As I said though this time was different. A pain so intense and debilitating. In A&E I waited for 6 hours on Codeine that changed nothing and had my bloods done. Eventually, I was called and sat up on the A&E bed and the Dr asked if I had had my bloods done and if I’d had any codeine.
My replies “Yes, and yes but not done a thing”.
He disappeared behind the curtain and I sat there for 2 minutes before he reappeared.
“I can see why the codeine isn’t working. We need to get you morphine quickly. Your pancreas is in a bad way and we may need to remove part of it because it is so badly inflamed”.
At this stage my mum had sat with me in A&E and I told her the white lie of needing to be taken in for observation. For myself, I knew how important the pancreas was and I knew this was as serious as the pain suggested.
Fast forward 24hrs and thankfully my pancreas had turned a corner. The inflammation was waning and I had no need for imminent life changing surgery. I had dodged one heck of a bullet.
On the consultant rounds the next day though and after an ultrasound, MRI and X-ray for a full review I had a fairly simple conversation.
“We can see that you have had a history of this inflammation in your adult life and we believe it is alcohol that is triggering this reaction. Your liver isn’t abnormal, and has a fatty level similar to someone of your age who drinks and regularly. I cannot tell you if you drink on if this next attack is the one that goes too far and we take your pancreas. It may not be for many. It may be one glass of wine or a long weekend with the boys. But if we do need to take your pancreas your life is likely to be materially shorter and far more unpleasant and painful”.
With that my last drink was already behind me. There simply wasn’t a point to my mind of taking another sip.
Nor is this demand even that significant. It is after all only drink. Booze. Alcohol. In the challenges of life it isn’t on the same list as almost any other problem we all know about.
One of the strangest things though is that almost like an imposter syndrome we tend to underestimate the scale of the challenge / problem to endure by making comparisons and others tend to do the same and form their own view of what scale / how significant the problem / challenge is. Yes, I’ve got my health. Context matters. And it never left my mind. This wasn’t so bad. I truly knew then and know it now.
However, why I wanted to share this is that I learnt that stopping alcohol was far more difficult, emotionally challenging and character changing than I ever thought. This journey doesn’t come with a guide or plan to assimilate to a new life or even how you might feel or steps you will go through. It’s just you and what you discover.
This is my journey. I hope it can help others who either want to give it up or, like me, have to.
Learning to live alcohol free
Alcohol was a huge part of my life. I loved drinking. It was entwined with my choices of how I used my time outside of work. Steak with Pinot Noir, long ale sessions with my best friends laughing loudly and long, the afternoon beers on a sunbed right through to sundowners and my evening cigars and cheeky lunchtime pint or long train trips for weekends away with ‘the boys’. Thankfully at 36 my younger and more social years were behind me. Had they not been I think this would have been far harder. Or maybe easier.
This is because the closest thing I can compare it to is grief to a loss in your life. Like the sudden death of a friend. There but no more. There was no bargaining or denial. There most certainly was anger, depression and acceptance. Nor were they linear. They came in spouts and often not one alone.
It also came at a time where for several years my relationship with alcohol had become more intense and not necessarily in a good way. The isolation of Covid and the need to find work at the same time had meant more than ever I had at times been ‘leaning’ on alcohol. It was no longer just a social activity but one for the first time I’d begun to use on my own and regularly. So at the time I was told to stop the reality was I’d never used it / consumed it as much as I was.
Stage 1 – Anger
The first few months in the Summer of 2022 had been quite simple as given covid and vaccinations still raged as issue I’d taken full advantage to work remotely and back in Yorkshire at my parent’s place where walks in the fields and no city social demands made life to my new sobriety easier to accommodate as there were simply less moments where I’d be faced with an event I would have drunk at. However, for a new role I returned to London at the end of October.
Staring me in the face everyday now were suddenly the stalwart venues of my previous life. My local ‘The Alma’ in Wandsworth to be passed every day I got the train to and from work. It sounds silly but the first Friday I was back in town and just wanted nothing more than to do what I used to do and rally up some mates and sink several too many pints laughing about whatever. You can’t have it again or not like it was. That realisation is tough to deal with. I did not enter the Alma for more than 6 months. I simply didn’t want to. Why? What’s the point? The anger is real and not a phase. It’s more about how you confront your old life. You cannot get it back. That makes you angry.
You can run from places though and types of events that are less significant. You cannot run from the old life in the form of major events. Christmas, birthdays and whatever else they are. These aren’t the impromptu events or nights you organise. These are the icebergs your good ship Titanic is going to hit. You really can’t hide from these. You can’t not attend Christmas like I had set out to do for The Alma forever more.
The problem is simply this. All things equal you feel in a permanent state of loss. Nothing changes but you can’t enjoy what you did. Be it the pub or Christmas. As an economist I can term this as a permanent utility loss all things equal. You are net down on the former life you had. Everyone else untouched. That’s what makes this grief so unique. No one is sharing this loss with you.
This is the root of the anger. A sense of permanent injustice to the life you had lived to the one you will. Silly, pathetic, disproportionate? I’d agree. I bloody felt it though. I can’t pretend I didn’t.
The first Christmas was bad enough for sharing a small flat with my sister in London but seemingly lost on everyone was that here came a period I loved and in which booze was as much a part of it as the awful jumpers, special food and presents. I left it until the last chance to come home om Xmas eve and I’d made one request – M&S brandy snaps. For me they were the one thing in my mind I needed to make this Christmas work for me. The day started as normal with Champagned and drinking from hour 1. We never got drunk during the day as a family and would frequently play trivial pursuits into the early hours. Tipsy by then but steady away all day. Almost all the major moments of the day were drink orientated. The first drinks over breakfast. The drinks to celebrate the arrival of family late morning, the trip to the local pub to wish good tidings to neighbours and then back for the meal. Drink wasn’t just an afterthought it was a companion.
Yes, many pregnant women will have endured this. Some in training. I know. The difference is the expectation. I was dealing with losing something I couldn’t bring back but wanted to. It wasn’t a temporary trade for another life choice. It was forced on me and with no choice.
Well by the end of Christmas Dinner it transpired we didn’t have any brandy snaps. Inside myself I just went mad, angry and then some. One thing, just one thing I’d asked for and it wasn’t there. Looking back I know how unreasonable it is to have been like that but at the time and in the mind it was unavoidable. I wasn’t ready for Christmas. There was no avoiding Christmas though.
Learning 1 – Familiar and routine are not always best
For me I’ve learnt just how the types of event can be so different to someone going through something and I’ll forever more think more carefully about friends, colleagues and family. We often think “it will be good for them to enjoy a big event or something familiar”. My word of warning would be that often these are the most difficult times. Icebergs that their ship shouldn’t be trying to pass just yet. But obligation or sense of letting others down forces their hand. A quiet word on the side may reveal they want to ‘drop in’ or engage on very different terms to the past. They are just trying to find a way that works.
In a similar way Boxing Day or a day or so after I’d meet my best friends who were all back in Yorkshire. It was easier to meet in the pub and enjoy a few hours chat but once the drink started to hit them and I wasn’t on that train I really had to pull the rip chord and get out. I think nothing wrong or object to what they were doing. It was what I would be doing with them normally. However, if you aren’t on that train then it quickly becomes tough to listen to or enjoy. When the jokes get repeated or a story. You no longer are having fun. To leave is the best thing for all. It just doesn’t feel like that at all.
Stage 2 – Depression
Having been confronted with an old life you can no longer live as you did and you not yet having the solution of how you can ‘enjoy’ life within the same events as you had means depression of some sorts is a logical step on the journey you’re grappling with.
It really isn’t just going from drinking to not drinking. It is redefining how you enjoy the very same things you did before. No guide. No rule book. Certainly no one rule fits all either. And time waits for no man. You are confronted with the lack of a plan or meaning in the new life all the time.
This for anyone going through the choice will find it easier if they made the choice on their terms. Knowingly choosing to give up booze means you are at least front footed in that you expect to make different life choices and you don’t feel as much in a state of loss. Afterall, you made the choice presumably for reasons known to you that are positive.
For those, like me, who had it forced upon you then you’re going to need deep reserves of patience and learn to let go.
Learning 2 – Live your truth and do not hide it
The new things you will want to do aren’t going to instantly appear. Your adjustment will take time. The best thing that will aid your journey and your happiness is when you start to openly live your new truth. Only then can you start to engage properly with life and remake a new one that is great for you. I think some level of depression or withdrawn and unhappy times are inevitable for the reasons I shared in the anger stage. But if you’re open with friends and family this stage will be easier and more productive than simply ‘depression’. We need pain to transform. Nothing comes easy. Depression can be a great engine of positive change if harnessed properly. Too often we talk about it as a state of illness in society and I think that is in a big way a mistake.
Last October a 40th Birthday Weekend I had to miss despite booking travel and it meant not seeing some of my great friends I’d made for the first 10 years in London at Sky. The reason why was simple. I was terrified of being sober around tipsy folk and only having a hotel room in Glasgow as my escape. To leave wasn’t to come back to my flat and comforts of my new life. It was simply to escape the old one confronting me and the hotel room the lifeboat. I just didn’t want to put myself in that situation fearing the anger and whatever else it may cause in my own mind that I can hide from people over a weekend but I would live with for however long after. I just wasn’t ready yet. I didn’t tell all of the boys but I told two as this is key.
Your old life is gone. Make choices based on your new reality and be open and honest with friends. If you don’t want to go to an event and its because of booze, then say so. Don’t hide behind anything else. Tell your truth. Equally, then seek your new truth. Hiding cannot mean doing nothing. You must find your new self. You cannot hide simply as your old self isn’t there anymore.
Acting on your terms is a skill I’ve now developed and it wasn’t there before. I had fallen into societal norms of how we socially behave and I enjoyed it. But I’d never therefore had any reason to push the envelope and learn about myself more.
Push and be amazed.
Stage 3 – Acceptance
I don’t think you accept not drinking. I think you learn you don’t need it and that comes from the enjoyment of your new life.
I have found a new love of reading to a level many wouldn’t say I needed as I already read a lot, but for me the new energy I have from less late nights and no hangovers means I’ve had time to get to things I never would have. I’ve recently read the works of Freud and Plato. I’m currently enjoying Ralph Waldo Emerson. I’ve appeared on podcasts to present a theory of the global system we all live in – a product of me unleashing my inner nerd for sure. A nerd that was held back perhaps by alcohol.
I’m training again and at 38 can confidently say I’m in the shape of my life. Something I’ve enjoyed doing just for me.
As a single guy dating is still tough as the alcohol point is – just as I hope I’ve managed to explain here – is far more complicated to how life works than we all understand. Many a time now I’ve met on a first date to say I don’t drink and the woman immediately will say “oh, well I won’t drink either’. As nice a gesture as it is, the reality is we both know they would want to. I certainly would want them to be themselves. Just as I want to live my truth so important it is for me that those who I spend time with live theirs.
Alas, how others react to the news you don’t drink at all is the one thing beyond my control. It is the last part of the journey that will never be ‘solved’ and I’m very accepting of that. It means that forever no matter how settled the world is for me on the drinking front it will always be in contact for many where it isn’t. That’s just like choosing to spend time with Leeds Utd fans though. In small doses I’m fine. I won’t be buying a season ticket at Elland Road anytime soon.
Alcohol will dictate my journey now in a new way, as it did before in another.
2 years on I can now write for the first time that I’m happier on the new path than I was on the old one.
As Nietzsche said “He who hath a why can bear any how”.
I’ll drink to that. Zero %, naturally.