My Battle. Not Just with the Booze

Yesterday I shared an old poem I had written.

I don't even remember exactly when I wrote it, which is slightly ironic considering what the bloody poem is about.

Booze.

Or actually, not just the booze.

I found it and thought, oh, I like this, so I shared it. I didn't really think much more about it.

Then the comments came.

Then the messages.

Are you okay?

And yes. I am okay.

I promise.

But I'm also not going to pretend that everything is always sunshine, poetry and me skipping through the woods hugging trees. Although, to be fair, there is quite a lot of that too.

The poem was about something I have battled with. My relationship with alcohol, my relationship with my own head and, I suppose, what happens when you take away the thing you used to quieten it.

Because my head doesn't half go on.

It thinks.

And thinks.

And then thinks about the thinking.

There are ideas. A million bloody ideas. Things I want to write. Things I want to do. Things I should have done three weeks ago. Conversations I've had. Conversations I've never had. Conversations I might have in six months' time.

And then there's the night-time stuff.

The half sleeping.

The strange dreams.

The waking up.

The brain that apparently decides 3am is a really good time to sort my entire life out.

Wine used to shut some of that up.

There. I said it.

It did.

And sometimes that was exactly why I drank it.

But the problem with blurring your mind is that you don't get to choose which bits get blurred.

That's what struck me when I read my own words back:

Each wine creates a line in the past to be blurred.

Because it wasn't only the stuff I wanted to disappear.

Ideas disappeared too.

Memories.

Motivation.

And entire bloody days sometimes because I felt like shit.

So then what?

Take away the wine and suddenly there's me.

Oh joy.

Me and my brain.

All night.

So what replaces it?

I write.

Obviously.

I read.

I walk.

I spend time with people I love.

I create things.

And sometimes I just have to sit with whatever is going on in my head and accept that perhaps I don't need to shut the bloody thing up all the time.

I'm still working on that one.

Then something else came up in the comments that made me think.

The write-off day.

Because maybe there's a difference between losing a whole day because you're hungover and actually allowing yourself to have a day where you do absolutely bugger all.

Why do we feel like we need an excuse for that?

Maybe I can read all day.

Watch crap telly.

Stay in my pyjamas.

Stare at the wall if I bloody well want to.

Maybe doing nothing doesn't have to mean I've wasted a day.

That's something I'm not particularly good at either. My brain is constantly telling me I should be doing something, creating something, organising something, writing something.

But perhaps rest doesn't need to be earned.

Perhaps I don't need a hangover to give myself permission to stop.

That's quite a revelation in itself.

And something else happened after I shared the poem that reminded me why I share things like this.

People started talking.

Not just Are you okay?

People started telling me about their own experiences.

Their own relationship with alcohol.

The slip-ups.

The lost days.

The guilt.

The why the hell did I do that again?

Then other people joined those conversations.

One person says something.

Another says me too.

Someone else finds the words they couldn't quite find themselves.

And suddenly something I scribbled in a notebook isn't just about me anymore.

And that matters to me.

Because I don't share this stuff because I want sympathy.

I don't share it because I have all the answers.

Christ, I definitely don't.

And I'm certainly not here to tell anybody whether they should drink, shouldn't drink, give up, cut down or dance naked around a bottle of Sauvignon under the full moon.

You do you.

I share because someone has to say the uncomfortable stuff sometimes.

Someone has to say:

Yeah, me too.

And then maybe someone else feels able to say it.

That's what finding my voice has become about for me.

It's not just standing behind a microphone and reading poetry.

It's saying the things I once wouldn't have said.

Writing the things I might once have hidden.

And being okay with other people seeing the messy bits alongside all the good stuff.

Because we're all bloody messy.

And maybe if we were a bit more honest about that, fewer people would sit quietly thinking they were the only one.

So yes, I'm okay.

Thank you to everyone who checked.

Really.

But please don't ever be afraid to tell me your stuff too.

Because perhaps that's the whole point of me sharing mine.

And as for the question I ended that old poem with:

How the fuck can I make that alright?

I still don't know.

Maybe I don't always have to.

Maybe some days I can just do absolutely bugger all and let that be alright too.

And maybe talking about all of it is a pretty good place to start.