Another Day One: Day Four

Just a very quick post because I have a dog to walk, lunch to make, and a child with an ear-ache to collect and look after.

I said I would talk about upcoming challenges, so briefly:

I have said that family holidays and airports have been my downfall and I have a trip to see my sister coming up soon. My sister is maybe the only person to whom I have mentioned the word 'alcoholic' in relation to myself. It's a word that hovers on my father's lips but never quite makes it past the teeth. With my brother I say "I have to go very easy and watch myself around drink". But I have used the word with her (the use and meaning of that word might be a good post one of these days) because she accused me directly of being one and I couldn't really deny it.

I use the word 'accuse' because that's how it felt. When I use the word to myself it's usually in the context of something like "Well I may be an alcoholic but I'm not an alcoholic today!" or "I'm not an alcoholic, I'm a non-alcoholic!". It's chirpy and affirming. But she uses it in a way that, for all her good intentions, seems to categorise me with the park bench meths drinkers in a way that I find unhelpfully dramatic. (She used the word cancer in a similar way when our mother was dying.)

(Just to be clear: I do not consider myself better than a park bench meths drinker. I consider myself lucky to have been dragged out of my addiction before it got to that stage. But I recognise that the difference is one of degree rather than of kind, and I might say a word about the alkies who haunt the supermarket one of these days.)

Anyway, I am going to stay with her and her family for a few days. I love her and her family but I am already feeling antsy and resentful about the way in which she will be tiptoing around me and proudly offering me specially purchased nonalcoholic beers. I can't really complain about this - she is being generous and considerate - but it irks, riles and otherwise rubs me up the wrong way. It makes me feel like I want to have just one pint to demonstrate that I can.

And I could. I've done it before. But it wouldn't be a good idea. It would be a much better idea to accept her clunky thoughtfulness and love in a generous spirit, and be grateful that she cares. Which I can also do, but which takes energy. And when I have done it will make me feel like I have really earned a drink. So I have to be careful there....

Of course we could obviate the whole business of drinking by smoking weed but that's also not a great idea and I may talk about that tomorrow.

Now, this dog needs a shite and I am going to get chocolate milk to help with my daughter's ear-ache.

[NOTE TO SELF: Get sponsorship from Bartoline, decorating sundries since 1876]