I thought you didn’t drink???
This is one of the most frustrating questions I get asked, after spending several years not drinking and having to explain to people, “I don’t like it”, “I don’t like the taste”, “I don’t like hangovers”, or even “ My parents are alcoholics” it’s one thing having to defend my choices for not drinking, but on the twice annual occasion I decide I fancy a celebratory glass of Prosecco I get met with sarcasm filled comment of “I thought you said you didn’t drink” and what’s more a annoying on the occasions I do decide to have a drink I do so because in that moment I am comfortable, I’m confident, I’m not ashamed, and I’m enjoying myself….until that comment! a few words that fill me with dread, make me feel anxious and insecure, and questioning my own choices. Why is it that someone else feels the need to comment on, or in some cases dictate how much someone should drink, and why is it we feel the need to defend our decisions. I would never question someone’s decision to take a drink or not (although I do tend to keep myself away from being in that situation due to mental health triggers and I am not talking about people who may have a toxic relationship with alcohol) the same way I wouldn’t question someone’s decision on what they chose to eat ‘which I have spoken about before in a previous post’ it’s a snap shot of someone’s day, you don’t know what they have filled the rest of their day or even week with when it comes to food. So seeing a snap shot of someone’s diet and commenting can be like picking at one thread in a tapestry, it’s starts small but can trigger a chain reaction and make the issue worse. This is how I feel about drinking! one intrusive comment and it’s picking at that little thread and the next thing my thoughts are spiralling and I am unravelling.
Let’s delve a bit deeper, why is it a trigger? Now I don’t need to go into details but I was brought up by two parents that were alcoholics and spent a lot of my childhood around people drinking, at home, in restaurants and in pubs and although at the time I thought I had a great childhood it came with a lot of struggles, struggles that a child shouldn’t have to go through, struggles that left me as an adult with severe anxiety, depression, self doubt, feeling unloved, unsafe and no confidence in myself. Struggles that I have worked so hard as an adult to work through.
Being brought up in this environment I was very comfortable when I started drinking, so much so I could drink enough to match most men, but with that came embarrassing behaviour and terrible hangovers and shame. I don’t need to tell anyone how it works, we have all been there where we have drank too much and done Somthing stupid and then don’t want to face the music the next day. In extreme cases we can’t always remember what we did the night before, this is a huge one for me, as someone who has huge blank spots in her life due to emotional trauma, times that my mind has suppressed in order to protect myself, I find it extremely uncomfortable that I would willingly inflict that upon myself through alcohol.
One day I just woke up and decided that type of life wasn’t for me, I wanted to start a family and I didn’t want my child to live through the same emotional trauma that I lived through. Firstly after struggling to conceive I decided it was the right time to stop drinking, and it was never my intention to stop for several years, but by stopping it gave me clarity and let me evaluate my life. I never liked the person I was when I drank even when I used to hear “you were so funny last night” or “you looked like you were having fun last night” I was never having fun I was pretending to be someone I’m not, drinking gave me the confidence I was lacking due to mental health issues and having confidence made me feel powerful, a power that I didn’t have when I was sober.
I was never a confident person and until I spent years without drinking I never realised that drinking was a mask, if I went out and had a drink I became full of confidence and didn’t worry about what others said or thought and I could be the confident person that I couldn’t when I was sober. But it wasn’t real! Non of it was real, the people I was surrounding myself with didn’t like the real Becky, they liked the drunk, crazy, confident girl who was pretending to be Something she wasn’t. By giving up drinking I have finally learnt to build confidence naturally and overcome social anxiety without the need for drink and I’m so proud of that. I was able to find who the real Becky was, and actually Becky can be a confident person, sometimes a bit silly and crazy, but more than anything I am a real person who stands by her decisions, and surrounds herself with people who accept me for the Becky she really is.
But why drink now???
Why not???
I rarely drink but since discovering the real me and by understanding my mental health and triggers it means I am more comfortable with my decisions. I actually quite enjoy a celebratory glass of Prosecco or a mojito on the odd occasion, only one but I enjoy it, and this tends to be due to the company I am with. I surround myself with people who understand my choices and make me feel comfortable and they would never question my choice to take a drink or not to take a drink. I know I’m not taking a drink to give me confidence because I ALREADY AM CONFIDENT.
Although I maybe have developed a natural confidence that doesn’t stop anxiety, anxiety can come and go without you even realising, and all it takes is one small trigger. Even now It’s not the drink that triggers me it’s the behaviours that come with it. Things that may seem small to some but are huge to me, a drunk phone call, my husband coming to bed smelling of alcohol, or not answering my calls when he’s out, keeping my child up late in a pub or restaurant, the smell of red wine, my child being looked after by someone who’s had a drink, someone trying to have a deep conversation with me when they’ve had a drink and I haven’t!
All these things trigger me massively and make me feel very uncomfortable as they bring up things from my past that make me feel unsafe. So for me these are things I try to avoid as I know they are going to trigger feelings inside me that I am not comfortable with. Sometimes it’s unavoidable and can happen but I do my best not to put myself in these situations, whether that be turning down invitations to certain types of events or taking myself to bed early so I don’t have to be around other peoples behaviours. Unfortunately it can’t always be avoided and this tends to heighten my anxiety in all aspects of my life, and when you suffer from high functioning anxiety people think you have it all together as you’re always willing to try, try to function as normal and try to make others happy, to help others at your own expense. But this just ends in overthinking, overanalysing, procrastination, fear of failure and in severe cases panic attacks.
So not only does one simple question make me question everything I worked so hard to learn about myself, it makes me question whether I should be allowed a drink or not. It’s a viscous circle caused by years of anxiety, the anxiety that people wonder why I’m drinking when I’ve spent years saying I don’t. Or anxiety of people wondering why I’m not drinking when they saw me have a drink 6 months ago. It’s mental to believe that people are so invested in other peoples drinking habits, but what I have learnt by going through this journey is it says more about their insecurities than mine. I am strong and stand by my decisions to take a drink or not, if I drink in your company it’s because I feel comfortable enough to trust you and you make me feel safe in what I am doing. If I’m not drinking it’s probably because I’m simply not in the mood or I am feeling anxious. Truth be told I actually much prefer to drink a soda and lime anyway! But try not to pick at someone else’s thread because you don’t know how they will unravel.
If you find you are questioning someone else’s choices, I would urge you to look at yourself and question why you feel the need to ask and who would it benefit. Do you need to know why your friend doesn’t drink? Will that question benefit either one of you? Because being the person that doesn’t drink (most of the time) they will tell you if they feel they need or want to. You know what, some people simply just don’t feel like they want one and that should be normal, we need to normalise that people have the choice to drink or not and it shouldn’t need to be questioned. People chose sobriety for a number of reasons but I don’t believe we should even have to have reasons, we live in a country where drinking culture isn’t just accepted it is expected, but times are changing and ‘choosing to not drink’ is definitely becoming more normalised, and I’m here for it!
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