4 Fucking Years.

Read time: 10-11 minutes. Potential triggers: contains details of depression, anxiety, trauma, drug/alcohol abuse.

Happy Halloween: no tricks, just treats! 🎃🍂 Friday 29th 2021 marked the 4th year of the treat of sobriety, and being free from the tricks of alcohol and other drugs.

“Everyone is welcome to take their own life experiences and version of events and make them into art. These are mine.”

When I was writing Sober October at the beginning of this month, I remembered that I had 4 other posts I’d been working on since 2020. I hate saying “I’ve been so busy” because it feels like such a thin excuse, but honestly I really have. I started writing back in October 2019, a few months before the pandemic hit the UK. In the last 18 months (with the help of others) I’ve moved house, built and opened 2 tattoo studios, successfully applied for a business loan, finally got the official diagnosis of lifelong chronic illness, celery juice cleansed for 7 months, built a life for myself in lockdown, met my partner Chris and, as well as travelling the UK this spring/summer, we now work and live together. Busy, I have been!

The idea of becoming a writer was born from years of scribbling intermittent Morning Pages at the crack of dawn, completely unaware back then that the rambling confusion I was scrawling onto the pages half asleep would be planting the first tiny seeds of change in my mind and heart. These seeds grew bigger, much to my surprise. When they became too large to ignore, I began to tend to them properly with honesty and action.

I started to make big changes in my life that seemed sudden, crazy and out of character to the people around me. I started to grow into the knowledge that one day that I was going to alchemise a lot of my pain, trauma and suffering into healing and inspiration. I’m so grateful to the people who have reached out over the last 3 years to tell me that my writing has really done something for them. It helps me to keep going and keep telling my stories. Everyone is welcome to take their own life experiences and version of events and make them into art. These are mine.

I find writing in a global pandemic and lockdowns easy(!), but it’s been the fluctuation and extreme pressure to work hard, return to business as normal, make the most of things opening back up… but then plunging back down to “stay at home, stay safe”, stopping working and entertaining ourselves. I’m currently hovering on working part time around weekly Fibromyalgia flareups. It’s been like a worldwide game of Simon Says, but with people’s lives and livelihoods. Fucking exhausting, especially for disabled and disadvantaged people.

I’m 4 years sober from alcohol and 4.5 years sober from other drugs. So far, I’ve saved just over £33,000.

This was based from what I was spending on an average week: £150.

£70 a week on booze is easy to do when you’re buying multiple glasses with a couple meals out at dinner, along with a few nice bottles per week to “unwind” with after work (decent meaning slightly better tasting poison with a prettier bottle and better branding). Funny thing is: no matter how much money you pay, it all feels the same the next day (so is the damage it’s doing to your brain and body).

£80 a week on average for other drugs. I definitely wasn’t partying every weekend (some months I was!) but the 3 years before I stopped had started to become increasingly heavy when I inevitably did. There were weeks when I hardly drank or partied at all. In the months leading up to getting sober, I would be teetotal for weeks before blowing it in one spectacularly chaotic evening. I managed just over 4 months sobriety back when I was 27, which I’ll be writing more in an upcoming post called Relapse.

“Funny thing is: no matter how much money you pay, it all feels the same the next day.”

Not to mention the amount of money I’ve saved on lost wallets, taxi rides, makeup bags, key replacements, locksmiths, replacement phone screens. Being neurodivergent means that this still happens, but not quite as often! I still shudder to remember the amount of shots I bought for people I didn’t even know. Those rare but ridiculous bar and strip club tabs. Having to go back the next day to pick up my wallet/makeup bag/keys. All those comfort purchases made during the emotionally vulnerable aftermath; like online shopping and hangover food. The ruthless payday loans and humiliating financial instability (self employment, disability and partying don’t blend well). Now, I won’t split a dinner bill if it’s full of other people’s alcohol. These days, it’s always principles before personalities.

Alcohol is a drug.

One more time for the “drugs are bad” crew at the back! Alcohol is a drug. It’s one of the most addictive substances and the only drug that can kill you if you withdraw from it too quickly. It’s a mind altering, mood swinging, mess making mockery of sophistication, style and sexiness. Poison ain’t pretty, despite the clever branding and advertising. Self destruction is too easy, the real anarchy and rebellion is self preservation.

Live within your means.

The financial gain from being sober is easy to talk about. the biggest gain I learnt in sobriety was how to live within my means, and I’m not just talking about income and expenses.

Living within my means looks like complete honesty and integrity about my limits and boundaries. Those limits are emotional, psychological and physical (as well as financial).

I spent over 30 years of my life without the knowledge that I am neurodivergent and chronically ill. I’ve had to process each diagnosis and disability, and redefine the scope of my abilities. I’ve had to learn to drop the elaborate mask I had created and was hiding behind. I had to stop trying to keep up with the outdated, able-bodied expectations I had put on myself and internalised ableism from society.

Living within my means can also look like choosing not to overbook my work schedule, refusing to watch that extremely triggering film/TV show until I’m ready, or be realistic about how much of my life is being affected by my chronic illness symptoms. It can also look like dumping that person with an avoidant attachment style who won’t go to therapy, can’t seem to stay sober or stop flirting with his female friends. Recently, living within my means meant I had to turn down an offer of a weekend away hiking Snowdonia, because it was happening just 4 days after a 3-week tour of North England and tattoo guestspot in Scotland. Good thing too, because I came back from Lake Windamere with a sprain to my reconstructed knee (hypermobility strikes again!).

It’s hard to talk about the health benefits of being sober when you’re chronically ill. I know that my conditions and symptoms in would be so much worse if I wasn’t sober. In terms of mental health, the benefits have been immense. It’s a myth that alcohol “loosens you up” and makes you more confident, it just makes you drunk! It’s a proven depressant and causes anxiety symptoms to worsen.

I preordered Sunshine Warm Sober earlier in the year on the recommendation of my wonderful friend Sammy of @sober_circle and wasn’t disappointed. 💛 Although I fucking love recovery, I admit I still struggle with accepting and tolerating the heavy drinking of the people I love. Catherine’s book made me feel so seen, heard and understood.

She’s armed the book with a formidable weaponry of statistics about the multi-billion worldwide industry that is Big Alcohol: did you know that drinking alcohol is as equally toxic and carcinogenic (cancer causing) as smoking cigarettes? ☠️ and the REAL “safe” amount of alcohol would be ONE glass of wine per YEAR?! 🍷 but you wouldn’t know that, because Big Alcohol makes sure of it.

This is hands down one of the best #quitlitbooks I’ve ever read. Catherine starts this book at 4 years sober, and my sobriety journey and recovery feels so much like hers. She has another book that’s perfect for your shaky (terrifying) first months, and into years 1-3 (The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober).🕊

My favourite line from the book is about detaching from a loved one who is being consumed by their illness (addiction), and knowing when to walk away: “It’s not hypocrisy to detach with love. Three things can be true at once: 1. I love you, 2. I empathise, 3. I can no longer be around you.”

“Sunshine warm encapsulates how it actually feels to be sober… It feels beautiful, mellow, temperate and clear; like a fine summer’s day.”

Catherine Gray, Sunshine Warm Sober.

I started celery juice cleansing in spring 2020. It was a few weeks after getting a lifelong Fibromyalgia diagnosis after fighting through a cancer scare and years of struggle and suspicion. I managed to keep cleansing after the 30 days, and read this book along with 2 more of the @medicalmedium books. I kept it up for about 7 months, but a sudden breakdown in November last year halted my life as well as my juice healing. I lost the ability to feel my lower abdomen and breathe deeply, and suffered constant migraines… I hardly left the house for 4 weeks. I worked hard to try and break out of that breakdown by being super gentle on my mind and heart. I spent it bathing, reading books and playing FFXV. December 2020 gave me so many amazing gifts after surviving what I did, and I’ve grown and learnt so much. Maintaining any “health kick” of any kind is tough, especially for anyone disabled or disadvantaged.

I definitely noticed an improvement in my symptoms last year after 7 months, but not as much as I’d hoped for. At first, I took this as a sign that the cleanse just wasn’t very effective. Now, I feel that it was more of a sign of how deep my chronic illnesses and conditions are rooted in my body, and how able-bodied you need to be to start and keep up the cleanse in the first place. This year I’ve been slowly getting back into healing and cleansing. Saying that, I finished day 30 this morning and I’m looking forward to not cleaning the juicer again tomorrow!

It’s definitely a luxury and privilege to be able to access juice cleansing. Although running a business and juice cleansing is tough, being self employed means I can adjust my hours to fit in juicing, cleaning the machine and making smoothies into my morning routine. I live opposite an organic food shop, and close by to lots of other shops. I can afford lots of extra fruit/vegetables and supplements. I don’t have children to take care of in my daily life. I’m not allergic to any of the extra things I’m introducing into my usual diet, as far as I am aware. I understand juice cleaning isn’t for everybody. But if you’re interested and feeling capable, you should definitely check out the @medicalmedium books and try it for yourself. 💚

This year’s Halloween is a quiet one: my chronic pain has been unbearable recently. Great excuse to spend the day resting, playing video games and watching horror movies with Chris. Having a partner that’s also chronically ill and neurodivergent means we can fully understand and take care of each other. Even though it’s just the two of us, it’s the first time I’ve had a proper sober Halloween. I’m so grateful for this, and for the life we’ve made together. ♥ 

🎃🍂