7247/19767
I am reading Adrian Chiles book “The Good Drinker” (one of four books I have to finish by next week for my five book interviews- luckily I finished the other book a few weeks ago) about his attempts to moderate his drinking, rather than giving up all together. I have obviously taken the other route to cutting down, to stop entirely, though it was never really a conscious decision. I stopped for a bit and that bit had extended into 21 and a bit months (so far). Given I gave up for 13 months from January 2019 too, I have been a non-drinker for 34 of the last 45 months (and I think I might have taken another month off in 2020) so I definitely tending toward abstinence, rather than moderation. I haven’t decided if this is permanent, because I never decided to stop. Every now and then I think about trying to moderate, like Adrian, but I don’t think I can do it. But also the main benefit of stopping drinking was that I also stopped waking up in the middle of the night, feeling anxious and confused and not being able to get back to sleep for hours. That happened quite a lot when I was drinking and then stopped when I stopped.
Annoyingly though, it’s started happening again recently. Tonight I woke up at 1am and couldn’t get back to sleep again til after four, which was pretty annoying. It’s a weird indefinably anxiety that means unconnected random thoughts spin around my head and I feel like I might be losing my mind. At some point these panicky feelings subside and suddenly I am able to sleep again. Even though I know that time will come, it’s really annoying. I think it might be something to do with digestion or what I am consuming or maybe it kicks in when I am a certain weight. Like Sybil, in times like this, I seem to be trapped in all the times of my life at once. Random moments from my past (not even always particularly embarrassing ones) mix with fears for the future and I am forced to confront the fact that although I think my youth is recent and my old age is far away, something is trying to tell me that it’s actually the other way round. All my years of life are pressing down on each other like different strata and crushing me beneath. Catie says I am in denial about my age and the fact that I haven’t properly dealt with the fact that I’ve had cancer. But I never had cancer. She’s crazy.
I think that in fact I am 95 and in a hospice and everything I am experiencing is just my broken memory of past events and these little night time incidents are just reality impinging on me reliving the past. And if that’s the case there’s not much I can do about it. Particularly from here, inside the memory. If someone can help the 95 year old me with some meds or something that would be cool.
The madness always passes, but with a big 3 hour chunk taking out of my sleep it has repercussions on my day. I think if I started drinking again that this would only get worse, so I doubt that I am going to go the Adrian Chiles route, though I understand why he finds it hard to leave behind. Booze was so engrained in the social life of his generation and he is still a social person and has made nearly all his friends via drinking together. My own abstinence is much easier as my social life is pretty minimal, though I do feel that non-alcoholic drinks do allow you to enjoy most of an evening out with drinkers without too much self-consciousness. But things do get a bit boring when everyone else is drunk and if you need the effects of alcohol to relax and join in then you’re not really getting that from non-alcoholic beer.
I like Adrian Chiles. He’s unaffected and that makes him an authentic and honest writer and he’s not afraid to admit where he’s been stupid or write the occasional column that makes him seem uncool or weird. Too many writers are trying to be “writers” and conforming to a set method of expression, but Adrian Chiles is definitely Adrian Chiles and this book will make anyone who drinks regularly think about they consumption. Christ knows how many units I was drinking per week thoughout my 20s and 30s, never even really considering the damage it would be doing to me. And it’s pretty hard to be a social drinker and not massively exceed the recommended intake (in a night to be honest). So it’s worth thinking about.
