It has been 925 days since I last had a drink.
I don’t like writing that — not because I miss alcohol — but because it makes me sound like I’m dehydrated.
Obviously I have had a lot to drink in the last two and a-half years.
My family have single-handedly kept Kombucha companies afloat during this cost-of-living crisis.
I’ve consumed countless iced coffees, and my husband has made me loads of cups of tea, I’ve purchased sodas and I have also sipped the occasional glass of water — I’m still working on that — but just nothing that contains alcohol.
I think it is very safe to say I too will be doing Dry July.
When I shared my four stories about finding a life without alcohol (The Courier, April 2023) I remember scurrying around the supermarket in horror all month, trying to avoid seeing anyone. Because what must people think of me?
I must say, sharing my dirty laundry with the entire region has kept me honest. I can’t even bear to buy cooking wine for my husband in case people worry.
I had a lot of feedback.
Some people were worried about how much their consumption had risen since Covid had locked us down.
I also had a few people telling me they too would like to give up drinking one day, ‘‘But not today, no offence, but life without alcohol is boring’’.
I get that.
Sometimes social gatherings (especially ones we aren’t really comfortable in) are excruciating without a social lubricant.
And sometimes seeing your life fall to bits and not being able to drink whisky straight from the bottle, is painful.
We have to sit in our discomfort, sit with the pain and embarrassment and process it like adults.
But it is not all boring.
No longer waiting for ‘‘wine o’clock’’ has really freed up my time.
My sons and I kicked off this year by grading as white belts at the local karate dojo.
We’ve been running together and the medals they have received from participating — which hang off the foot of their bunk bed — bang loudly as they roll around in bed each night.
They also encouraged me to participate in things a little bit out of my comfort zone, like weekly games of Dungeons and Dragons with the neighbours, going on the hydroslide at CBay, and swimming in the Waihi River in the middle of winter.
There have been crap moments too.
My parents are publicly struggling with the possibility of losing their farm due to bank pressure and industry slump.
When their 2000 goats got loaded on to trucks to head to the freezing works I struggled to get out of bed for an entire afternoon.
I had to sit with the pain, and I had to sit with the loss and I didn’t drink.
My oldest son has admitted he sometimes misses the mum who drank each night.
He likes to tell me that at night when I’m sending him to bed, because apparently I used to be far more relaxed.
Apparently, I also wasn’t as anal about time spent on technology either.
I’m still working on both of those things, so it horrifies me that I was even worse than I am now.
My main takeaway is everyone has a different rock bottom. Some people might crash cars, lose their family, and end up with a lengthy stay in jail.
For others, they might wake up in their early 40s, with their recycling bin full of empty bottles and look in the mirror and think ‘‘surely my skin should be a bit more hydrated than this?’’
And just because someone drinks a lot more than you, doesn’t necessarily mean they have as much of a problem as you do.
Friends who were heavy drinkers in the past are now happily having one drink every few months because they can’t stand the hangover.
I could have easily stopped drinking for a month, but to manage that and then only have one lone drink before heading off into another two months of no alcohol really makes me think: Those people obviously don’t understand the lure of a nasty bottle of Bernadino.
