I'm drying out

At midnight on Saturday, standing (or rather, bobbing along to the music) in Barcode Vauxhall, I looked at the can of Red Bull in my hand and secretly toasted what for me was a major personal success. No, I hadn’t pulled the cute lad in the polo shirt (though heaven knows I’d have liked to) nor had I been snapped for the fashion pages of the gay press (though God knows I deserved to – I was looking fabulous). No, this success was altogether more meaningful than that – at midnight Saturday became Sunday and that meant I had gone a whole seven days without alcohol.

A week ago Sunday I woke up, for about the fifth consecutive Sunday, feeling as if I had gone ten rounds in a boxing ring, against a particularly vicious opponent. Pounding head? Check. Nausea? Check. Cold sweat, shakes, mouth as dry as a nomad’s flip-flop? Check, check and check. Worst of all, I realised to my horror that my liver was throbbing. Not figuratively, but actually, throbbing. Attaining some sort of consciousness, I began to scan my memory banks for details of the previous night, and almost instantly wished I hadn’t, for far from having blanks in my memory, I remembered far too well just how drunk I had been the night, and indeed day, before and just how terribly I had behaved. Why this particular occasion should have been the watershed I don’t know, but I realised there and then that something had to give.

For a couple of hours I sat (or rather, slumped) on the sofa, asking myself if I had a drink problem, and eventually the answer came back ‘Yes’. I went so far as to look in the Yellow Pages for my nearest Alcoholics Anonymous group; I wasn’t labelling myself an alcoholic but felt so unsure right then that I figured going along to a meeting might help me find clarity. After some more soul searching I decided that, no, AA was a step too far; I didn’t want to make more of this than I needed to. I resolved instead that I was going to try an experiment – to stop drinking, for a week, to see if I could do it. On the basis of my success or otherwise, I would then decide what action to take from there.

You know of course that I succeeded – and I even succeeded to keep off the bottle for another day, to make a proper week, having decided that Sunday last couldn’t really count as a) I’d been drinking into the wee small hours so had technically had alcohol on that day and b) it doesn’t really count as abstaining when the only reason for doing so is because you can’t keep anything down, liquor or otherwise. So now that I’ve done it, what’s the verdict? Do I still have a problem? The honest answer remains ‘Yes’. I base this on just how much of a challenge it was to not have a single drink – or even sip – of booze. Sunday was fine – as I’ve said, I felt so ill I couldn’t have even contemplated boozing. Monday - usually a booze free day anyway – was fine, and Tuesday likewise, having dinner round at Big Sister’s where booze is usually available but never pressed upon one.

Wednesday however was when the demons descended. By about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, I’d started to fancy a drink – red wine to be precise. In the same way as I can tell when I’m craving a cigarette, I could tell that I was craving a drink. I was thinking about how it would smell and taste; how it would make me feel. The warm glow, the slight squiffiness…I could already feel it. Like a Tom & Jerry cartoon I had good and evil over respective shoulders, the one telling me that I’d gone three days so one drink wouldn’t hurt, the other saying no, you said a week and a week it shall be. The wrestling went on well into the evening but I made it through the evening without buckling. Thursday saw me giving a talk in Cambridge (no memory stick disasters this time, thank God) and although afterwards I was tempted to reward myself with a quarter bottle of Rioja for a job well done, I was able to resist and rewarded my self with a nice cup of tea and a family size mint Aero when I got home.

Friday was always going to be tricky – a long-standing invitation to dinner where I knew wine, and good wine at that, would flow freely. I had two choices; go, try to tough it out and not beat myself up too badly if I failed, or cancel so as not to put temptation in my path. The latter striking me as being terrifically self-indulgent, and knowing how much my hosts were looking forward to my company, I went for the former, but warned them in advance that I was off the sauce and would be grateful if they were to not even try to tempt me otherwise. It was certainly a test of will-power (something I have never had in spades) especially when the other invitee arrived bringing with him a very good Sirah which I could smell and even, vicariously, taste as it was poured. It would have been so easy to give in; I knew for a fact that my hosts, and certainly the other guest who I’d only just met, would certainly think no evil of me if I were to throw up my arms and say, ‘Oh sod it, I’ll have a glass with you.’ But I didn’t, I saw it through, and I travelled home feeling the most amazing sense of achievement.

Saturday came and, knowing this was Day 7, I was resolute in my determination to make it through the day dry. Even a bigger than expected attendance at mine for X-Factor, where I watched soberly but jealously as the boys got steadily drunker and drunker, didn’t break my resolve (although I nearly took a sip of vodka and tonic when I mistook it for my glass of water but smelled it in time before it hit my lips!) And after that, off we went to BCV, the boys all promising to not let me go to the bar lest I get tempted, and to not pressure me into staying should the temptation to drink get too strong and I want to leave. Which brings us full circle back to where I started – midnight, and the completion of my first 100% dry week since as long as I can remember.

Where I go from here, I don’t know. Week 1 felt so good that I’m going to try for week 2. I won’t be joining AA, or seeing my GP, or checking into rehab just yet. I’m going to take it one week, one day, one drink at a time, not forever, but until I can be sure that I’ve got it under control.

Watch, as ever, this space!