I’m a drinker. In Australia, most people are. It’s what socialising implicitly means for many. It’s the way to do things in style too. If you’re doing something creative like art, you should have red wine and cheese beside you. If you’re having a BBQ then there should be a beer in your hand on entry.
This week will be challenging for me. In isolation, I often enjoy a scotch to mark walking away from the work station and then knock a few more back just for good measure.
You see, if going out made things hard because alcohol is how we socialise, staying in will be twice as hard, since I’ll be tempted to drink my feelings.
Depression isn’t an easy mental illness to cope with and alcohol is often an easy answer. But it’s not a healthy one.
At first alcohol numbs the emotions. But then it can and most likely will have the opposite effect. I think that’s why people drink to get drunk. The first stage is that it numbs any negative emotions. And if you binge enough, you can open up the emotions, blame the outpouring of feelings on drinking, and if you have enough you won’t even remember what you spoke about.
But for me shit is about to get real. You see, I have a lot of stuff to work through emotionally.
I will need to socialise. I have a housewarming to attend on Saturday and some life drawing to attend, for which wine usually unlocks some creative corners of my mind. I will need to be the real me.
So here I go, into week one of no alcohol. Just me, my emotions and whether I’ll do anything about them this time.
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Phoenix 