If you’re reading this and you are sober curious, just as I have been for many years, one of the questions you will being hounding into google is ‘Will going sober increase my energy?’, as I was. In a short and simple answer, yes – going sober will increase your energy.
In fact, increase probably isn’t the correct word. Going sober will absolutely project your energy into a whole realm of unimaginable enhancement. Honestly, it’s fucking crazy .I feel like all I do is talk about myself but it is my blog so fuck off 😊 Anyway, I am quite creative and typically with creatives they are the most messy, which needless to say drives my girlfriend absolutely insane. I snore quite bad after a drink, which I used to sample most nights, and I have heard recordings of myself and I do sound like someone trying to start a lawn mower on fucking fresh air. It’s horrendous and wouldn’t want to sleep next to that sound so I completely understand why she doesn’t when I’m drinking. So I tend to sleep downstairs on a sofa bed. I like it that way anyway because it gives me a few hours on my own before bed where I can read, write and watch TV – which is great for me, just not so good for my body clock! So anyway, I sleep downstairs and when I was waking up hungover 3 minutes before I have to leave for work I’d leave the living room a mess. All my clothes would be all over the place, empty glasses left until I’m home. The quilt just flung on the floor and all sorts. At the end of the day, when you’re absolutely wankered the night before and you’re up at daft o’clock to leave for work, you’re not jumping out of bed with a spring in your step ready to attack the day and whatever life throws at you are you? You’re snoozing that alarm til 8:03am. Waking up, hating life, debating whether to ring in sick. Belching the whiskey away from the night before. Shitting, showering and brushing teeth and putting shoes on quicker than any human ever and making the 9:05am bus.
Today is my 20th Day off the booze, and this morning I woke up at 7:30am, with a spring in my step. I positively jumped out of bed and started the day with a pint of cold water – I read somewhere it’s good for you. I tidied the living room from last night’s chilling-out and washed the few dishes that needing doing. I was showered, shaved and teeth-brushed by about 7:55am – and walked to work. A 30-minute walk to work and back most days has been an obvious example of my increased energy levels since putting the drink down and the weight has been falling off – more of that in the next blog post.
At work I’m a lot more alert, I manage my time better and I’m more happy in the office – my co-workers words not mine. I’m quite fortunate in my role that if I get everything done by about 3 or 4pm I can spend the remaining few hours updating the blog or sorting out my personal life. I’ve only learned this since quitting the drink as throughout the day I’d procrastinate over any task and end up staring at my emails for hours. I’m not w lot more productive and can work on updating this and you guys a few times a week. The creativity is absolutely frightening as well but I’m going off on a tangent here, typical Jack eh?
My next few posts will be more about the other positive side effects of not drinking, like the weight loss and creativity. But until then – I hope you have enjoyed!
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Here we go then, as promised. My first post which isn’t moaning or self-loathing when I’m trying to get back onto a sober streak. I’m starting this sub-category, if you like, as another reminder of why not to pick up that bottle when temptations present themselves. Weekends can be a real struggle. Especially when it hits about 7/8pm on a Friday/Saturday. It can be really difficult. So instead of picking up that bottle of Shiraz which has been laughing at you in the cupboard since you took your vow of alcohol celibacy, pick up your phone and open up this thread and remind yourself how brilliant life is without the drink.
So, the first instalment in this saga I want to focus on is the absolute Mental Clarity you are gifting yourself once you take a vow of abstinence from drinking. It’s really quite eye opening how different the world really is once you spend a few weeks not intoxicated or hungover.
After just a few days out of the boozy haze the clarity which shines over you as the clouds part is absolutely incredible. Food tastes amazing, freshly cut grass and the like smells so much stronger and more vibrant. Having a shower and feeling clean, fresh and ready to attack the day is my personal favourite feeling. The endless creativity, positivity and ambition to achieve and succeed in whatever you put your sober mind to is frightening and, last but not by any stretch of the imagination least, the absolute aura of happiness, normality and content that you emanate is mind-blowing.
I used to wake up with crippling anxiety, trying to piece the previous night away. Mental fog, unhappiness and feeling my life was in such a rut. Since putting the bottle down, clarity has been the main word in my vocabulary. The only way I can describe it, which is ironic considering I’m preaching mental clarity and having to use a synonym but, it’s like seeing the before and after the rain fell in Australia. I don’t know what date you will read this, but at the beginning of 2020 there were some awful bush fires in Australia. Broadcasted across the world was this absolutely horrific looking chaos as the wildfires were spreading at a catastrophic rate. The wildlife was perishing, animals being burned to death and an orange chaotic glow was visible for as far as the eye could see. A week or two later the rain fell quite heavily and you could see in the pictures, after all that destruction, there was a strange atmosphere of tranquillity and a general relief that the fire had eased. The land began to produce new sproutlings underneath the mess that the monstrous flames had left in it’s relentless path. New life was beginning to cultivate. A new beginning almost, and for the first time since the fires started everything was clear to the eye. The chaos has settled and peace was restored once more. That is the only way I’d describe the transitioning from drunk to sober and the clarity that we can all achieve once we stop chucking that poison down our necks.
As always, thanks so much for reading I really appreciate it. A bit more of a deeper post this week and hopefully something that can inspire us for years to come and help us resist our temptations when the devil becomes visible on our shoulder.
Well, it’s Tuesday morning, and I feel great! Day 7 on my second attempt of going sober for the foreseeable and that weekend was, if I can say so myself, a breeze.
I think it makes it easier this time of year to kick the booze because it seems like most people at work, around us and what have you are attempting Dry January as well after over-indulging in the poison over the festive period. I mean, most of them don’t have a genuine drinking problem and won’t last the whole month, but still, it makes it easier.
Now, as you know, I don’t write and post updates here for any other reason apart from to look back on when I’m going to inevitably want a drink. I’m sat here on my throne and high-horse because I managed a whole weekend without a craving. But when I get to this weekend, next weekend and the hell/heaven of a sobriety lifestyle intensifies, I’ll need some motivation to not open a bottle. I’ll need a gentle, but fierce, reminder of what happens when I drink and that is why I document everything on here, online, so I can’t lose it.
But, I have decided to upload a few posts, mainly to make it neater, but also as added ammo to make a U-Turn on Saturday afternoon when I’m watching the TV and start visualising a nice double Bell’s on the rocks in my hand. *Drooling*. Right. Stop now. Sober lifestyle. I’m sorry for even mentioning it and I really don’t know how this blog post helps you because it’s just me, battling inner demons, and imagining my cravings as some sort of Oasis in the Desert at my desk. Writing it down and then uploading it. But anyway, thanks so much, I really appreciate your commitment to reading this drivel, as I see it, but yeah, thanks.
Anyway, moving on, the other categories of blog posts I’m going to start uploading will be stories of Sober Celebrities and the success they achieved after they quit. I feel like when we get cravings it’d be inspiring to read exactly what they achieved. I mean, everyone has dreams don’t they? I know I do, and I think that alcohol, as with all of us, is the hurdle between us and our dreams and everything we want to achieve. I’m also, and this is mainly for my benefit but if you find it helpful then please tune in as it were. I’m going to start a thread called ‘Reasons to not Drink #1/2/3 etc’. I just think it’ll be a nice, gentle but firm reminder when the devil is on our shoulder and encouraging us to drink!
I’ve tried to make this entry less about how I’m feeling because I know a lot of you have told me that you like it when I moan about how I’m feeling and you find it relatable but I can’t allow myself to just moan and groan about everything. I hate negativity and I feel like I’m being draining and exhausting the words I write with shear pessimism.
So, on a brighter note! Some more exciting, inspiring content coming to the blog in the next few weeks and I’m going to try and create some sort of hub where us recovering piss-cans can go onto when we’re finding the cravings too hard to beat and, hopefully, find some motivation, encouragement and reassurance that not drinking is the way forward!
As always, thanks so much for tuning it as it were! Please subscribe to the mailing list on the website to be alerted when I upload, and please, follow me on the following social networks to stay in touch and grow this community! 😊
Yeah I fucked up. 2 weeks in and I cracked on Christmas Eve. Then again on Christmas Day. Boxing Day. Both days away in York and then again on New Year’s Eve. Fully off the wagon and currently feeling like shit. Feel like a failure, a scrub and basically as I am typing this on the first day back in work after the Christmas binge/break, I’m thinking about getting an Uber to the nearest bridge and doing my best Tom Daly impression.
I thought, originally, that quitting right before Christmas would be good and test my character, but I just succumbed to the drink and kept telling myself I’ll start again by doing Dry January. Apart from feeling down in the dumps now, I mean I was still up gone 3am because of withdrawals from the booze, I don’t actually regret it as much as I thought I would. I do regret it because I want to be sober but in my delicate state, trying to be gentle on myself but still think you’re a prick mate, I had a great time. But now it’s time to knuckle down, take 2020 by the balls and absolutely boss this year, sober.
I did have a great Christmas though, really enjoyed it. I hope you did too, and I hope you stayed sober and wasn’t a prick like me. There were no arguments as such and I didn’t drink exactly into oblivion apart from Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve. When I think of those two nights, the main nights if you will, I do have a horrible sense of dread and anxiety because I remember nothing. But my girlfriend, who I owe so much to and if I ever make anything of myself will give her everything, just shrugged it off and said I fell asleep and didn’t really make that much of a dick of myself. I don’t really give a fuck what any cunt thinks but right now, feeling delicate, tired and emotional, it’s giving me anxiety thinking about it.
But hey, new year new me and all that bollocks. I know some of you have been asking where my post was over the festive period and I do apologise. It took over me once more and I can only say sorry for that. Today has been spent kind of self-loathing but kind of staying positive. I know, better than anyone, that I am a moaning bastard and can be pessimistic. But with it being a New Year I am trying to be positive. I’ve written goals down and things I will treat myself by staying sober. I’ve written activities down I enjoy doing like stuffing my face at the cinema and playing badminton – weird one I know and proper doesn’t sound like me. I’ve made a massive watch list on the IMDB App because, deep down, I am a TV-binger. I’m going to buy myself a laptop for at home so I can open and write on the blog if I’m struggling. It’s a nice little community we’re growing here and I really appreciate the comments and struggles you confess to me. I’m going to get back into my cooking and try to cook something gourmet, I was a chef straight from leaving school, at least once a week for me and the Mrs. I can’t really think of much more else I enjoy, miserable cunt, but I think this is a great start. We’ll call the comment section below the suggestions box and if there’s anything you think that I could incorporate into the daily life of a struggling piss-can who thinks that wine, whiskey and anything else fermented is the only way to be happy then, please let me know.
Even though, when you’re on a sober streak, there’s always that temptation of drinking. It’s honestly not worth how you feel. I mean the 2/3rd January is a depressing day for the 90% of us that are back on the grind before the weekend, back to the mundane routine, but by Jove is it amplified by an alcohol come down.
I suffered depression, boo-hoo I know, after my Mum passed away and was drinking heavily, binges, cocaine, all sorts of shite. But today for about a minute or two I was overwhelmed with an incredible sense of dread and darkness. It felt like the world was grey and colours were obsolete. The feeling reminded me of how I felt for weeks and months back in 2015 and it was scary. It’s a sensation I never want to experience again and even though I am trying to remain positive about my festive fuck-up, it really wasn’t nice, at all.
So anyway. It’s Day 2, again. This time I’m feeling more positive. I’m going to eat better, instead of going Pound Bakery every fucking day, I’m going to do my activities and I’m going to grab this year by it’s fucking bollocks and achieve more than I’ve ever achieved before. I hope you’ll join me whether you stayed strong or not over Christmas.
Let this blog post be a reminder to all of us that the temporary happiness and relief of pain/anxiety/depression that alcohol provides, is not worth it in the forthcoming days. Bring on 2020.
I never wrote this to please anyone, just to get my thoughts on paper and hopefully re-read this blog before I naively fucking decide to go for 1 pint with a friend, an offer which will inevitably present itself in the not too distant future.
I hope you appreciate the honesty. I don’t apologise for the swearing. Thanks for reading.
I wouldn’t say I’m an alcoholic, I’d say I’m more of a city drinker. I can’t label myself as a binge drinker because that would imply I drink once a week and take it to the extreme. I drink 5 days a week and either drink because I believe I’ve earned it, or drink to numb the anxiety which was self-induced and caused by my sudden and often urge to ‘reward myself’.
It’s a lose-lose situation. When I’ve been off the booze for 2 days consecutively, I’m more productive, sharp, witty and confident than when I’ve sunk half a bottle of £8 Tesco Whiskey and watched a documentary on Brendan Behan thinking I’m some sort of Irish Poet who is more creative after a drink.
I seem to think that when I finish work, a bottle of whiskey, wine or brandy will make me more productive. I have this romantic idea of me sitting down at my laptop, writing with a glass of scotch, churning out the most eloquent colloquialisms and language since Wilfred Owen was scribbling in the trenches. But it doesn’t happen. I’m not in the trenches. I’m in a one bedroomed flat in South Manchester, so I turn the TV on and binge-watch alcoholics like Shane Macgowan and Oliver Reed, thinking that my regular drinking is acceptable, cool and stylish. When really my regular drinking is slowing my progress down as a person and is in fact foolish.
I fucking hope it is.
The day after a bottle of whiskey comes; the anxiety, laughable train of thought, stuttering, lack of confidence, wanting to hide under the quilt until the next day, neediness, tiredness, tongue like Gandhi’s flip flop. It’s all horrible. I’d rather be genuinely struck down with a real illness than actually have to experience another hangover. The anxiety and lack of confidence really is a killer. Unfortunately, the only remedy for a hangover is more drinking. All this bollocks about a cold shower, a fucking smoothie and some ginger in your morning water. Utter shite. Sorry for the swearing. It’s just nonsense. The only thing that will get you out of that confidence-shattering abyss is half a bottle of whiskey, by the time you’ve ingested that you’ll feel back to normal, and knowing that the other half will get you back on top of the world, it’s a dangerous process.
I’m a writer, a business owner and I have a day job. Like everyone I want to ditch the 9-5 and stop answering to my fucking cunt of a boss and I feel like alcohol is the hurdle in which I can’t get over to achieve my dreams of finally ending the money-slaving routine of working for a living. I think it was Charles Bukowski who penned “How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 8:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?” – how ironic that a quote I use is from another piss head.
 But in my head, and a mixture of me being a twat with my girlfriend as I get too excited to go out and can’t wait, and convincing myself I needed that whiskey before they got there. I assured myself I’d be sharper, more on the ball and making them laugh more if I got that double whiskey and a pint in. Truth be told, I had 2 double whiskey’s and was on my 3rd pint by the time they turned up. I was smashed before them and had to grab an ‘emergency bag of cocaine’ so I could even fucking make it to kick off for the match – of which I still can’t remember where we watched it.
So yeah, I didn’t sleep that night. I spent around £300 and fuck knows how much I drunk or shoved up my nostril. Probably £290’s worth (the other £10 for 20 cigs’. We stayed up all night at my mates, I’m feeling ashamed as I write this, as he went to sleep at 8am. I lay on his couch until about quarter past, went for a cigarette and admitted defeat. In admitting defeat I realised I’m not going to be able to sleep, an effect of drugs and drink. I went into his kitchen, searching for anything I could, and started tucking into a bottle of Jameson’s watching Blue Planet. 8:30am in the fucking morning. I was pissed by 10am and as my addictive personality came into play, I realised that this day was going to be one spent three sheets to the wind. It was a Sunday.
My mate came down and seen me drinking on his couch, knowing that I wouldn’t leave until every drop of anything wet, cold, fizzy or alcoholic was drunk in that fucking house, he ordered me a taxi and I went to my other mates house. I turned up uninvited, telling him a lie that his older brother, who I’ve known longer, said it was fine with me coming around. I enticed him to come to the pub, he’s as bad an influence of me, and straight again we were back on the drink.
Simultaneously I was receiving the inevitable and justifiable earache from my girlfriend about where the fuck I am, where I have been and what the fuck I’m playing out. We don’t live together but she told me not to come home in which I went home, drank more, and rang in sick to work the next day.
The Monday was my anniversary with my girlfriend, and it was nearly almost spoiled if it wasn’t for me being able to charm her out of any situation. But anyway, I’m fucking waffling on here.
Right basically, I’m quitting the booze. I cannot be arsed with it anymore. At the time I’m drinking, yeah, I’m on top of the world but by the time I’m on my 8th pint, I’m a cunt. So, I’m stopping. I put it alcohol above anyone and anything else and it must stop. As with anyone, who’s fucking made it this far in this blog post – I would have clicked away by now, I’ve destroyed relationships with family and friends and I’ve just regressed into a drink and drug-fuelled cunt. I want it to stop.
I know I can come across arrogant and like a teenage little turd who sits in his bedroom listening to Linkin Park thinking he’s so hard done too. But I want to get this off my chest and I want something to refer to when I get faced with the opportunity of going on a ‘sesh’ or a bender.
If you’ve made it this far. I thank you. I’m not sure why but it seems like the time to say it. If you’re feeling the same, I hope it inspires you and makes you think you’re not alone. I’m going to try and update it weekly so please, before you touch the bottle and end up hating yourself again the next day. Please refer to this blog (which as you can tell I still haven’t named at the time of writing this which is 15:46 on 11/12/2019. Fuck knows why I told you that anyway).
I hoped you appreciated the honesty and let’s stop being cunts together.
Hi again. Thanks for your tremendous support on the last post. It really means and lot and has inspired me to make my fucking honest sober diary a weekly occurrence, so, thanks. No really. Thanks a lot.
After I well and truly rode that donkey to Seshlehem and back last weekend, having a complete hungover breakdown listening to Morrissey all day on Monday after ringing in sick to work, I can confirm that today, which is also Monday, is a much better day.
I feel fresh, alert, like I have a purpose in a life and a reason to be here. As you know, if you read the last and first post, I am a budding – I hate that word – writer and hope to make this my full time job one day. Well the writing itself has become almost second nature. Since putting the drink down, it seems to just flow through me, like the Jameson’s once did.
I’m not going to sit here and type some bullshit about me having an epiphany and seeing the light. Because 1. I’m not religious and 2. Who wants to hear that shit? You want to hear about my struggles and mental battles when I’m in a Co-Op in the middle of fucking Windermere trying my hardest not to purchase a bottle of Vodka from some uptight bald cunt wearing glasses called Malcolm. Smugly smiling at me as I pass him a White Kit Kat Chunky, he knows full well, I’m staring past his aero-dynamic head and looking with rage at a Goose which is laughing at me on the bottle of Vodka I’m debating to buy. I want to jump over the counter and fucking twist that little cunt of bird’s neck off and pour out it’s innards and berries and whatever other fucking shite geese eat over this bald cunt’s head to brighten his sorry excuse of a face up and give a little bit of life to this dull shithole of a shop. That wasn’t the best English from a budding writer but I’m honestly fuming.
£23.99 for a litre of grey goose which is going to take me to a euphoric oblivion, admittedly I’ll end up at rock bottom again wanting to order an Uber to Barton bridge and do my best Tom Daley impression but remember the important thing. Euphoric Oblivion. Even if it’s just temporary. Euphoric Oblivion. But no, I resist.
This fucking boiled egg prompts me to see if I want anything else in which I kindly decline, bald cunt, and walk out the shop linking the arm of my half-cut girlfriend, envious of her uplifted and jovial mood.
Anyway, the lakes were lovely. Is it were or was? The lakes was lovely? Fuck knows I’m too northern for my own good. But the north is good isn’t it. It’s the heart of the nation. It was George Orwell, I think, who penned ‘Manchester is the guts and belly of the nation’ and I agree. The city I’m from is built on strong-will and determination… and the Irish. Of which I am a descendent. What the fuck am I going on about seriously? I am a right fucking weird waffling bastard, I digress.
Right, anyway. The lakes. Yeah beautiful. So from the last update on this woefully pathetic diary, my girlfriend surprised me with a night away in a Bohemian Hotel in Windermere. Bohemian? I was expecting Freddie Mercury to bring up the Eggs Benedict in the morning, telling me how he’s just killed a man. An anecdote my girlfriend didn’t find amusing driving into 25mph winds near Preston. But no, apparently if you stick a hot tub in the bathroom of a hotel now you call it a Bohemian hotel. You’re fucked if I know why. But anyway, I’m proud, in a perverse way, of myself for not indulging in one drop of devil juice and staying sober. That’s 8 days today, by the way.
Upon arrival of the Bohemia, which we’ll call it for namesake, I don’t want you cunts slating them for alcohol they were throwing in my face, a recovering sesh-head, throughout my stay, on trip advisor. They weren’t to know I was piss head were they? Anyway, upon walking through the glass doors of the Bohemia, you’re greeted by a complimentary glass of Prosecco, which I deflected into the path of my better halves’ gullet, whilst I opted for a glass of diet coke, which I’m pretty sure I drink more than fucking water itself since retiring from the drunk tank.
Our room wasn’t quite ready so the concierge, which it had on her silver-plated name badge, decided to talk us through the 16 million different types of gins they stocked. I don’t know how to tell her without being rude I’m off the drink because I’m a degenerate alcoholic who can’t say no to a drop whether it be the gently-distilled juniper-infused delights of your raspberry gin, produced in the wombs of virgin sunflower harvesters, or a nice chilled glass of paint stripper, which would of saved Caitlyn Jenner a lot of money. Nothing against trans by the way – I’m all for being yourself, as you can tell by this shitstorm of words I like to call ‘a Blog’. Anyway, I’m 5 seconds away from telling this busy fucker that I’m not drinking before her Slovakian compatriot kindly informs us that our room was ready. Thank fuck.
So, after the brief awkward tour of the room whilst she stands there and you tell her everything is lovely, she hands us a laminated menu of the wine list, hot tub proof, of course. She then lets us know it’s 2 for 1 on champagne, that the bar is open until 1am, the room service is 24 hours, there’s 4 pubs in walking distance, a mini fridge in the bathroom and that the fucking whiskey is brought up on a diamond platter by a unicorn. I bid her farewell and calm myself down.
It does make you think doesn’t it, in this country, everything we like to do when we’re not sat at a desk 40 hours a week, revolves around alcohol. Everywhere you look it’s there. Behind Malcolm, the bald cunt, at the shop. It’s advertised in all the windows. She didn’t even mention anything about the shower, hot tub, spa bath. Nothing. Just where the drink is and how this fuck head can get his hands on it. Do I really look that much of a drunkard? I mean I’m not the best looking cunt that you’ve seen but I’m hardly Shane Macgowan. I don’t think you look at me and scream piss head. I don’t think anyway. I’m getting anxiety so I’m moving on.
If you were on a weekend away in the lakes with a hot tub in your room, cosy pubs on the horizon and a 24 hour alcoholic room service, I think most cunts in my position would crumble. But I didn’t. I resisted and filled my time with food. Admittedly I ate my way through aisle 6 of Malcolm’s, the bald cunt’s, shop and cleared them out of Triple Chocolate Cookies but, I did remain sober. And I do feel quite good about myself for doing that.
We even went out for a slap up meal on the Saturday, which was beautiful, and I resisted any urges. My girlfriend still drinks, which I have no qualms with at all because she doesn’t have a problem. She was ordering double gin and tonics, getting the prosecco delivered to our room and enjoying herself. Rightly so. She’s can turn it on or off. That’s the problem with me. I have no off button. It’s all in or nothing at all. I would still be on it now sniffing coke with fucking Wallace and Gromit and the other farming bastards from that way if I had that complimentary glass of Prosecco. But I didn’t. And today I don’t feel like a fool, I don’t have crippling anxiety, I’m getting a lot done and I feel fucking fantastic truth be told, Nessa moment again. I think I’ll be all right now until the weekend, then it’s Christmas, then New Year’s Eve. So, expect loads of ranting and updates in this honest fucking sober diary.
Again, if you made it this far, thanks so much for reading. It means a lot. When I posted my last post on Facebook a lad, my memories fucked from years of whiskey on the rocks mate sorry, messaged me saying that he’d been having strong urges to drink that night and reading my blog post curbed and eased them. Which is an amazing feeling. I mean all I’m doing really is ranting to some imaginary cunt I don’t even know. I don’t even know if anyone will read this do I really? But I’m just sat here tapping away ranting – and someone is finding comfort and encouragement in that. That is fucking mental.
whiskeyyourethedevil.code.blog 