This month The Courier reporter Shelley Iñón has been sharing her alcohol-free journey. In this last instalment, she looks at what her life is like now and looks to a future without a drink in hand.
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Just as suddenly as I had been jolted into a world of ear-ringing anxiety, I was jolted out.
There is only one word to describe my life on the other side of alcohol, and it is euphoric.
Sometimes too euphoric, as my poor husband found out at the start of January.
We had decided to throw a belated surprise birthday party for our youngest son and I had suggested the top of Little Mount Peel.
Strangely, my very rational husband did not object.
In his defence, he had never walked up there before and our friends’ kids had been up plenty of times.
So our backpacks were crammed full of party food and everything else he deemed imperative, such as a nice thick wooden chopping block, three individually wrapped sponge cakes, icings in a multitude of colours, birthday candles, matches, a large range of cutlery
— including a rolling pin to flatten the fondant and a large knife to cut the cake — and litres of water along with two different types of juices. You know — just the essentials.
Being a wonderful gentleman, he insisted he would carry the bulk of it.
A backpack malfunction at the top only added to the mayhem.
He pulled himself up the last 4m.
After birthday songs were sung and all of the litter carefully collected and returned to the backpacks, we descended.
As we drove out of the car park at the end of the walk — our shoulders sagging in exhaustion — he exclaimed, ‘‘Why did they call it ‘Little’ Mount Peel, Shelzie?’’
Two weeks later we climbed up to Woolshed Creek, although I do not think this hill deserved such an active verb after our previous mountaineering expedition.
Regardless, my husband gave me a stern talk about wanting two months to recover and thus he would be doing ‘‘no more hills’’.
I managed to weasel my way around the newly-instated rule by planning to take the kids to ride along the cycle trail with our friends in Oamaru.
I was no longer arriving at a friend’s house focused solely on how long we had to wait before we could open the bottle of wine, but I was planning where to take the kids this time.
This summer I found out I am a fan of laser tag and — despite being 42 next month — I am still fond of games arcades, especially when I am not holding sweatshirts, water bottles and some strange item my youngest requested I clasp (which could range from a rock, his hat, a briefly sucked lolly to a sticky jelly monkey he won as a prize).
On the date of this newspaper being published, I have been alcohol free for 157 days.
I have discovered I am really assertive when it comes to protecting my sobriety, which is bloody lucky because not everyone is wanting me to succeed.
My mother would prefer I drank a glass of wine over the odd glass of Coke.
She never seemed too worried when I mixed rum with Coke, but now there is no rum in it it is suddenly very disconcerting.
I do not remember my parents drinking alcohol when I was a kid. I have no memory of either of them drunk.
I have one memory of my father tipsy when I had left home. I might not have noticed but he was telling my mother he loved her and he was misty eyed, so for a few seconds I was scared he was dying.
Every time I visited them I marvelled at all the bottles of untouched alcohol in their pantry — all presents from people from the last 50 years.
As a teenager, alcohol barely interested me, I just wanted to be with friends.
But after a bit too much in my 20s I had got to the stage where I could not have a single half used bottle of cooking wine in my kitchen without it being on the ‘‘to drink’’ list.
My mother is right, Coke is a dental nightmare, but alcohol — according to the World Health Organisation — contributes to 3 million deaths each year.
My oldest son is impressed with how long I have been without a drink.
He asked me the other day if I will drink a glass of wine at his wedding (despite the fact he’s only 9 and has told me he wont be leaving home until he’s 27).
‘‘No.’’
He and my husband stared at me in surprise. My tone was too strong — surely I could have one drink at my oldest son’s figurative wedding?
Nope.
But one drink would not hurt me, right?
No.
One drink will not hurt me. But one drink will lead to two drinks and two drinks will slowly — but surely — lead me back to a problem.
I cannot go through December again.
The baths, the humming in my ears. The frustration, the anger.
Fortunately, by the time my 9 year old gets anywhere near marriage I imagine we will have decided alcohol is on par with smoking.
And all those photos I had taken over the years of my alcoholic beverages on table tops at every single holiday location I have ever descended upon will be as ridiculous as someone taking a photo of a lit cigarette with a sandy beach behind it — or that same lit cigarette on holiday in the Swiss Alps.
Over the last 157 days I have learnt there really is no problem that alcohol cannot make worse.
