One summer evening, I was having a drink, somehow knowing that it really was the last drink, and that the following day I would never drink again. I had plenty of stops for a week or two, or even a few months, before, but for some reason, the 'finally had enough moment' in 2013 was a much more scary feeling, a sense that I was heading for unintentional suicide, and that frightened the life out of me. Drinking wasn't fun anymore; it was medicine. There had been plenty of rock bottoms: almost losing a leg horse-riding half-drunk, drunken date rape, battered by my first husband in continuous drunken arguments, getting arrested drunk, street fighting drunk, defacing property drunk, getting lost in the snow in my slippers drunk. Plenty of rock bottoms that never seemed quite bad enough. There are never enough terrible scenarios for some of us addicts. In my case risky situations came so often I just ended up thinking of them as a predictable down side of drinking; almost an occupational hazard. Drinking and recovering from drinking became pretty much a full time preoccupation. Falling asleep face down in a blizzard became a 'hilarious' Facebook post about making snow angels the next day. How we laughed. Becoming obsessed with the idea that I would one day get drunk enough to accidentally pop too many anti-depressant tablets, or accidentally walk out in front of traffic, or dive into the Tyne, was a new personal low. In my third decade drinking, there developed a nagging fear in the background of what I might do to myself in a drunken stupor. A dull awareness in my soul that I was no longer in control of my actions. I later learned that this growing paranoia is a classic sign of alcoholism. I grew convinced I was a danger to myself and no one else in the world could be trusted, except my 'friend', dear old wine. Coming home to wine was like coming home to a safe haven. I knew that taking anti-depressants and drinking a bottle of Shiraz each night was a pointless exercise in self-care, but was deeply in denial.
About the Author: Binki lives in rural Durham, England, with her husband and border terrier. She worked as a teacher and trainer for many years, before changing career entirely in her fiftieth year, to work in sales. She enjoys cultivating her vegetable garden, knitting, sewing, walking the hills and recently returned to horse riding, after a long break. Her first book Staying Sober: How to Control the Drink Demon recounts how it felt stop drinking for the first hundred days and is also available on Amazon.