I think I am an alcoholic, but a functioning one, at a very low level, and in a way that has little or no effect on my mental health.
I drink most days, but I try not to drink every day of the week. Manage two days most weeks, sometimes three, occasionally four without a drink. I can frequently open a bottle of wine and not finish it on the days I do drink too. Don’t feel the need to flog a night to death either; when I’m done, I’m done.
I hugely enjoy being drunk, and the effect it has on me; I’m never aggressive or nasty (if anything it makes me a nicer, kinder person). I sometimes say daft things when I’m drunk, but in terms of drinker’s remorse, I suffer from mild instances once a year maybe, and a couple of severe cases in my adult life, but in terms of rock bottom moments, I’ve never had that feeling because I don’t believe my drinking has a negative effect on those around me or myself, save for the long term effects on my physical health.
I am nearly always ‘in control’ in the sense that I can always stop on a session if I need to. For example, it’s never stopped me doing my job effectively, and I tailor my drinking around what I’ve got to do the next day. I’m pretty sure I’ve never driven over the limit and structure my drinking of a night around whether I’m driving or getting the train the next day - and only ever have a single drink if I’m driving if I know it will be out of my system by the time I get in the car - I actually don’t leave until I’m confident it is. I usually don’t even have that single drink when I’m driving and it doesn’t bother me in the slightest that those around me are drinking when that’s the case. In fact, I actually hate it when people try and persuade me to have a drink when I’ve said I’m driving; not because I’m craving one but because I think it’s fucking rude - and I tell them so if they ask me twice.
I hardly ever used to drink at home, but I have done so in recent years, since my marriage broke down, but on the other hand I socialise less than I used to. Think my drinking has increased slightly in recent years, to around 50 units a week. That’s an honest figure.
So I love drinking, and it’s been a huge part of my life for reasons that extend into mine more significantly than others because of the nature of my work throughout my adult life. I’ve had some incredible times at events and in interesting situations and amazing places while hammered in the last 30 years; some amazing stories to tell. I don’t regret a thing, but I’m also increasingly conscious of my own mortality. That if I continue in the same vein I might drop dead, or worse, develop something like throat cancer or liver disease as I progress through my fifties.
So I’m trying to cut down, and hope to do so significantly so going forward. Not because I want to stop, or because I hate myself the next day, or because it’s bad for my mental health, or because it makes me nasty, or hate myself, or because I can’t function without it, but because I’ve had an absolute ball over the last three decades and want to take my foot off the gas whilst I’m still ‘ahead’.
It won’t be easy, but I manage a month off every year, so it won’t be impossible, but it will require a great deal of mental strength on my part in a way that’s harder than being abstemious for a few weeks then going back to ‘normal’.
However, I won’t stop altogether; no way, I enjoy it too much; I’m just trying to adjust the odds against my dying too prematurely. That's all.
