WE ARE FAMILY...

As sober women we often talk about negotiating the ‘big’ family days; the weddings, the funerals, the family reunions, and now the fast-approaching Christmas season that brings with it a presumed accompanying association with alcohol. It is rare to see a Christmas advert on television at the moment that doesn’t feature a glass of something alcoholic as we are cleverly persuaded by the big marketing moguls to create Christmas table settings with all the trimmings and cozy living room scenes of the perfect family living the perfect life.

But we don’t talk so much about the ordinary family days, the days where nothing much might be happening, the days that somehow seem to melt into one another without any big lifechanging event or milestone to surmount. But I believe that these days are no less important because it is in these days; the mundane mornings where you are just plodding along that therein lie the little unassuming pouches of sober gold that build up into a solid alcohol-free capital that we can all be proud of.

Although I am nearly three years sober, I remember vividly the ‘drinking dramas’, the lurching from one night to the next relying on what I thought was my salvation at the time. It is easy to become complacent, it is easy to forget the steadfast grip, the magnetic pull that the wine glass had. It is easy to forget the constant rushing through each day until finally I could look forward to the slow gradual obliteration and numbness that alcohol gave me. And it is easy to forget the impact that our way of living with alcohol has had on those closest to us. One of my huge regrets from my drinking days is not being more present for my son when he was younger, particularly in the evenings when I would practically speed read his bedtime story so I could say good night to him and get to the wine glass waiting for me.

I will never forget one rare evening I hadn’t been drinking. I was ‘trying to be good’ after many days when I most definitely hadn’t been. I heard a scream and rushed outside. My son had fallen on the concrete in front of the house and his arm dangled at a very strange angle. My husband and I got into the car and took him straight to the A&E department where we spent a difficult night waiting before the doctors and nurses tended to him and diagnosed a fracture and put his arm in a cast. I remember whispering a silent prayer of gratitude that I had been unusually sober that evening and able to drive to the hospital and get my son the emergency care he needed at the time. I remember feeling that I was running out of chances, running out of lives, running out of ‘this is the last time’ moments. But crisis averted, the memory faded and it wasn’t long before I was back drinking each evening, hiding the gin bottle and the cut lemon and making sure I didn’t get too close to my husband when he got home from work, so he wouldn’t smell the alcohol on my breath.

And now... now I can have honest conversations with my fifteen-year-old son where I am not hiding anything, and we can talk openly about alcohol. He tells me he doesn’t think he is going to drink but if he does it’ll just be the one “so I can let Dad buy me my first pint”. I am sure that we will face our own challenges in raising a teenager in these times where young people appear to have so much more to contend with than we did at that age, but I feel that in being sober and present I will be far more able for these situations when or should they arise.

In the language of sobriety, there is talk of ‘doing the work’ and although I admit that there is still a lot of catching up I have to do, the expression ‘doing the work’ rankles sometimes. You see, I believe that we have already done the biggest thing, we have done the hardest thing, we have put down the goddamn glass. The biggest step by far. Now we ‘just’ have to keep going, and that is as easy and as hard as it sounds, putting down the days, but finding new ways to live and new ways to be, for ourselves and for our families.

And it may take time, it may take time for our husbands, lovers, mothers, fathers and children to catch up with this new sober version of ourselves because they are getting to know a new version of us, a more present version of us. For our spouses and children this can be challenging because they were used to us not being here, in the sense that as soon as we took that first sip, we were one step removed from them and from family life. Now we are available, we are present, we are here one hundred percent of the time. I am sure that every family that has someone within it who has been addicted to alcohol has made allowances -in some cases for years- for the drinker; for example, getting their timing right in discussing difficult topics or leaving the drinker in bed to ‘sleep it off’. There is a whole host of other situations where in order for the family unit to survive, family members may indeed have settled for less.

And there may be resentment, hurt and confusion present as the dynamics of the family unit shift again to accommodate the sober person. It can take time for everyone to adjust. There may be many words that need to be spoken, and grievances aired that may have been held onto for years. It is so important that these words are spoken and heard even though this can be painful both for the family and the family member who is newly or recently sober. In the long term the ripple effect of our sobriety will serve our families and ourselves in the best ways possible providing a solid and firm foundation based on true acceptance and honesty.

At the end of the day, we are so lucky to be here and to be alcohol-free, to be able to love without compromise, to be able to live without fear and be our true selves. We are the lucky ones.

MEMBERS ONLY

I remember vividly the ‘drinking dramas’, the lurching from one night to the next relying on what I thought was my salvation at the time.

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