Catriona Innes on giving up giving up

The noodles drip down my chin and – long after I slurp the strands up – their presence remains. The crusty yellow stain lingers, the cold cleansing water of my bathroom tap just a few steps away. But I remain, the stain sinking into my foundation encrusted face.

Joey is in front of me. He’s yelling that he doesn’t share food. I mouth it back at him.

Oh, I think, I haven’t changed at all.

I once drank so much white wine I began to hallucinate. “I’m allergic to a small glass” I’ll say to waiters, pitiful in my flirting, as I then turn to a friend and say “actually let’s just get a bottle”. Wine has pulled me into new friendships, tying bonds tight as it loosens lips. Secrets spilled as the world around us turns fuzzy, our cackles growing louder and our bladders crying out for release. Wine has caused me to melt into my sheets, as if my flesh is dissolving into the mattress, wiping my jangled mind clean. But wine is an emotional see-saw. It has ignited a red rage inside my stomach, that then travels up my gullet and spills from my mouth, my words flames that spread and burn. It’s pulled me from my sleeping husband, as it takes my 4am thoughts and it twists them into something tangled and unsolvable. It’s had me retching on the bathroom floor, on a Tuesday afternoon, the smell of Toilet Duck clogging my nostrils and the salt of my tears running onto my dry, shameful tongue.

There have always been points where I feel the balance tip. Where the fun parts become weighted with danger, a danger that will turn a love into an obsession, and then an addiction. So I stop. And when I stop, I stop with gusto. I listen to sobriety memoirs in scalding hot baths and my inbox becomes filled with emails singing of the joys of a wine-free life. I excessively Google “what happens to your body after a week/fortnight/month of no alcohol” and I wait, patiently, for the benefits to paint me in gold. I day dream of a future where I will go to a festival, wearing a white crocheted crop top and attend a yoga class, or perhaps wild swim, while my friends snore in their tents. I think of my abs, how they’re under that layer of skin, that will dissolve, quite naturally, now I’m sober.

This, I’ve realised, is my problem. I’ve stapled all the worst parts of myself onto this one habit. And, when it goes away and they don’t, I despair. I begin to claw apart at my actions in the same way I did when I was drinking. And do you know what makes hating yourself that little bit more fun? A large glass of white wine. The cycle continues.

So, when I decided to embark on another sober sprint, just before Christmas last year, I set no expectations for myself. I didn’t read the forums, or the emails, or listen to the memoirs. I decided to see what I’m like without wine, in the moment, each day, rather than using it as a way to try to mould myself into who I could be later on. A few months in and I’m sharper, my brain feels clearer and I obsess a lot less over my phone not ringing. But I’m still lazy. I still Deliveroo myself groceries when the shop is a five-minute walk away. I still nap on Sundays, drooling across the papers I promised myself I’d read. I still forget to wash my make-up off and I still eat three-minute 39p noodles guffawing at Friends instead of working out. I still make poor decisions and I still don’t have any fucking abs.

No matter what willpower I pluck from within, to achieve whatever goals I set, there are always going to be parts of myself that remain. There will always be other imagined, more perfect lives that I will never achieve. Realising that, this time around, has rewritten my relationship with wine in the most unexpected way. My inability to stay sober forever is no longer a stick to beat myself with. Neither are any of my other ‘flaws’. Accepting this has meant that, when last Saturday, I poured myself a glass, I didn’t scold myself for ‘breaking’ or ‘failing.’ I drank it, enjoyed it, had a second and that’s it. I didn’t need any more to wash away any lingering self hate. I’m not saying I have it all figured out. Like any long term relationship it is personal and ever changing and maybe one day I’ll find myself tipping in a dangerous direction once more. But, for now, I feel content in how little I need to change. I’ve finally found some balance.

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