Recovery Primer Part 2

If you want to get sober, you have to make yourself accountable. Here's how...

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

“I’m just taking a break.”

“I try not to drink between Sunday and Thursday.”

“I’m on antibiotics.”

These are the sort of limp, bullshit excuses I used to wheel out when people asked why I wasn’t drinking.

It made it really easy for them to say: “Don’t be boring, just have a pint.”

And it was all too easy for me cave in.

I wasn’t being honest about my drink problem. I was playing it all down to make myself feel less ashamed, make others feel less awkward and protect myself from people taking the piss.

I was worried that claiming I had a serious problem would come across as a little bit ‘extra.’ That people might think I was being over-dramatic or seeking attention. I also feared that announcing that I was attempting to get sober for good would mark me out as a boring weirdo.

I wish I’d known then what I know now. Firstly, that no-one really gives much of a shit about anyone else’s drinking habits. Some mates might take the piss a bit the first time you talk about it in the pub but ultimately it’s quite boring and everyone’s got their own shit going on.

Secondly, the only person who can judge your relationship with booze is you. It’s not for others to tell you if you have a problem or not. How could they know? I opened up to a couple of mates when I suspected I was an alcoholic and they laughed, told me to chill out and ordered me another pint. The last thing they wanted to believe was that I was an addict. because if I was, maybe they were too…

Once I had established in my head that my drinking was out of control and that I wanted to find a way of quitting forever, I had to make myself accountable.

Embracing accountability is the most important and powerful step you can take when you first quit drinking. Without it, you will really struggle to sustain your sobriety long term.

But what does accountability really mean in this context and how do you enact it? Read on.

My addiction therapist explained it to me like this: you have to remove your ‘secret doorways.’ That means denying yourself the little get-outs that have always allowed you to fall off the wagon without it feeling like a big deal.

If you tell everyone you’re just taking a short break from booze or some other poxy excuse, you are playing it down. This means that it’s easy to just say ‘ah fuck it’ and have a drink the moment the urge starts to get the better of you.

If you make out to everyone that you don’t really have an issue with booze, you’re in control and you’re not seeking to quit, then nobody will really notice or care when you fall off the wagon. You won’t have to feel any embarrassment or sense of failure when you reach for the bottle.

These are ‘secret doorways’ you leave ajar for yourself whenever you resolve to quit drink. They are the comforting plan B’s that mean it doesn’t really have to be forever.

They condemn you to failure. As long as they exist, I believe the lure of drink will always get the better of you. You will always be able to tell yourself that having a couple of cheeky pints won’t harm you or anyone else.

But, in my own experience, getting stuck in that endless cycle of abstinence, relapse and guilt is extremely painful, boring and frustrating. It can scratch away at your soul.

So you have to make yourself accountable. That means eradicating all of those secret doorways. It means making a real and explicit commitment to yourself that you want to stop drinking. That you know your entire life will benefit from it. And that you’re backing yourself to make the change.

Don’t sugar coat it. Don’t tell yourself that it’s only because you want to sleep better or lose a few pounds. Accept that drinking is making your life shittier and sobriety will make it much, much better.

Slam the next secret doorway shut by telling everyone about your decision. Do it with pride, honesty and clarity. It doesn’t have to be dramatic or self-indulgent. Just blunt and direct.

“Why aren’t you drinking mate?”

“Because I’ve quit alcohol.”

“What? Completely? Why?”

“Because I had a drink problem, it was making me miserable and so I decided to stop forever. Mine’s a Heineken Zero please.”

You’ll be surprised how respectful people are when you are as clear and direct as that. If you tiptoe around the subject, play down your decision or take the piss out of yourself for being ‘boring,’ other people will take your lead and take the piss back.

But if you are proud and transparent people will take you seriously, respect your decision and stop bothering you about it. At least most will. Those that do give you grief probably aren’t worth your time or energy. Quitting drink can be a great ‘friend filter’ in that way.

As always, I must stress that this advice is only for people who are seriously thinking that they need to get booze out of their lives. If you’re fine with moderation and think you can manage it healthily, then crack on. I’ve got no problem with people who simply love booze.

But if you do feel you have addictive tendencies and that one never seems to be enough, then I can highly recommend complete abstinence. By harnessing the all or nothing mentality that made you drink too much, you can actually become addicted to sobriety quite quickly.

Don’t wait around to get started. Fuck your mate’s stag. Fuck your brother’s birthday. Fuck that holiday in Spain. Do them sober. You’ll still have fun at all those things sipping on a zero per cent beer because you are a fucking legend. You just won’t have a hangover the next day.