So it has been 8 years, 1 month and three days since my last post Day 1. (A pretty long day then!)
Well, a few years a go I gave up alcohol, trained as an ESOL teacher and went off into the world (literally - I moved to China)! I've had a great time!
I have since lived in a few different countries, (China, Spain, stayed in the Philippines for a while), I got married and have even started a family! I still teach, although I have returned to the UK, to put down roots.
All good then? Well no, even if a lot is!
I started to drink a while back - and for many years it wasn't actually a problem! (Not that it wasn't a problem - it just didn't really affect what I was doing.) I was enjoying a fairly cushy job, being well looked after. I was doing mostly after school/evening classes - so late starts in countries where it is cheap to live, eat, and of course cheap to drink!
But there have been ups and downs, times I have had to stop or cut back. It, as always, slowly builds up, gets shoved back in check and then starts over again. I often wonder if when people think 'alcoholic' it seems so at odds with that - that its just such an unquestionable horrible, uncontrolled mess that no one would be able to function or survive its midst. Well that's the type where you stop or die - either long term salvation or death.
I am 'blessed' with a form of alcoholism that means I don't drink 24/7. I drink in the evenings. I dont drink everyday. Like most people - get home have dinner, and relax with a glass of something... the problem has always been 1) I would do that every day if I could 2) when I do I don't stop after I've started, not until I am a bumbling stumbling alcoholic.
That's not to say it is less of a problem - or that I am not as bad an alcoholic as another - I am writing this, in fact it all started when I first started stopping drinking, because I acknowledged I am an alcoholic. In fact, maybe I am worse? If I drink for a hundred days in a row, I will - frankly - feel like shit. I'll have put a strain on my body, wallet, family, friends, sanity and faculties. I might swear off drinking and truly mean it.
But 10, 20, 50 days, maybe even 1 year later there might be a celebration, an argument, or just a bit of boredom that will leave me wondering "How about just one evening. So I'll get pissed, but that's it - not tomorrow". And at that moment in time, I'm right. I'll probably just have 1 evening. Maybe not even get that pissed. I might not again for a few days or a week. And even then maybe just the Friday and Saturday even - so far so normal right? Pretty soon...
I'm back!
