12/15/2023 0 Comments Tempest quit like a womanWhile reading your letter, I was struck by a few things. ![]() Believe me, that friend is worth her weight in gold. The friend who is always up for a hike on Sunday morning because you’re not battling a hangover. You can become the friend that people go to the cinema with, the friend who organises tickets for a match or the theatre, who sends details of an interesting art exhibition into the Whatsapp chat. Maybe you’re someone who can still stay out all night dancing, completely sober - I am not one of those people! - but if you’re not, there are plenty of things you can do that don’t involve around drinking. I’m not going to lie and say that I didn’t receive the odd comment or sideways glance when I first gave up alcohol but I will say that your true friends aren’t going to dump you because you made a decision to prioritise your health. You didn’t write what age you are in your letter, but this is particularly difficult if you’re younger. We don’t want to be excluded from parties or nights out because we’ll be the only one who isn’t drinking. No one wants to be ‘zero craic’, or the ‘boring’ one. ![]() I tell you this because I think often, especially in Ireland, there is such a culture of drinking - so much of our socialising is predicated on the idea that it will take place over a glass of wine or a gin and tonic - that the prospect of taking a step back from that can seem frightening. I have attempted a sip of Prosecco here and there in the years since, at a wedding or celebration of some kind, but I’ve lost both the taste and the tolerance for alcohol. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that only two months later, I began to recover from the eating disorder that had plagued me for most of my adult life. My life was chaotic and messy I was spinning out of control.ĭeciding to get sober was the first step to taking back some of that control. I dealt with it the only way I knew how to process painful emotions at that time, with disordered eating. ![]() Combined with my natural inclination for self-loathing, that shame (or The Fear as it’s more commonly known) felt corrosive. I didn’t hurt anyone or cause harm, but my behaviour wasn’t reflective of who I was as a person.
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