I had been moaning last month that I wouldn’t be able to drink early in Smithfield once the meat market moves away (see photo above). The City’s closing the meat market, “opportunity” was being limited – outrageous.
Last Friday, I was planning to come out of Kinds College Neuro ward and get home the other side of the river where I’d been injured. I’d be spending the night in Farringdon in one of the densest pub sites in the world
It had been nearly five weeks and I wanted to know what I’d missed. Decent food – steak, proper chips, a lot of rubbish food you don’t get on the ward, I wanted to have a steak. But I have a bottle of red when I have a steak and the prospect of having a glass let alone a bottle scared the hell out of me.
Then it struck me that I was not thinking about or reacting to alcohol in general. I wasn’t getting angry with people, I wasn’t getting headaches in the morning, yes I had lots of things, physical and mental, that were bothersome. I couldn’t remember that the word for where I lay was “hospital” not “hotel”. I had a sore side of body. But unbelievably, I did not want a beer or a spirit or a glass of wine.
And I didn’t feel sorry for the loss of the early morning Smithfield drinking culture.
I’ve been drinking the best part of 50 years. When I was 14, my tree surgeon boss used to take me into the Three Crowns in Shaftesbury and break me in with a pint of pale after work (which I had to pay for John Heaton).I still associate the proper cost of a pint as being 20p.
I played a lot of rugby that demanded a pint after. Then I kept on getting married (with booze) and getting divorced (with booze). I have worked for over 40 years – always with drinking. I bet I’ve been over the drink/drive limit. I bet I’ve been a nuisance out of habit, like so many people are. I’d looked at Simon Chapple’s urging but never taken it seriously.
Yet here I was not wanting a drink as I went from Denmark Hill to Blackfriars on the number 40. I went into my flat, the wine, beers and spirits were there but I didn’t want any of them. The following day I went down to Shaftesbury. There I’ve been – another week- and I haven’t wanted a drink. I am not even trying at giving up drink, I just have and it’s getting on for 50 days Simon Chapple.
I will put this down to two things. The first is the care I had in the 9th Ward of Kings College Hospital which made me aspire to be as good a person as those looking after me and the others with neurosurgical issues. The second is that a lot of what I went through at the beginning was serious enough for me to be on morphine and hallucinating that I knew what was going on. The world that I lived in did not involve alcohol and when I came out of its first phase, I think I had changed.
It has now been over 6 weeks since I had a drop (Thursday 14th Nov) and I don’t want a drink. If you meet me having read this, if you see me with a drink in my hand, think the worse of me. I want to be a better person and live longer and I now associate that with not drinking.
In case anyone that this is an admission of guilt about drink- it isn’t. Most of my friends drink responsibly, a few are out of control and a few have stopped using AA. Most people are ok with drink but I’m now thinking that I’m not.
I do not look down on anyone but I would like people to feel good about me not drinking. I want to get back to running and talking well.
I cannot talk very well right now. Too often my brain doesn’t properly connect and I say the wrong word or no word at all. I am not sure I am thinking with the degree of precision that I had before the incident, but I have a clarity about I can get back to where I want to be and that does not involve alcohol.
I hope that people reading this will realise that I am not proud of myself for my past nor critical of anyone for liking a drink. I am simply not the person I was and I want to be proud of it.
I’d love to finish this piece by raising a drink to you, but it’s 6 am and not even a 24 hour a day drinker would be that daft! Instead I would ask you to consider my changed behavior for the good it has brought me. Hopefully you will find me a better bloke to go out with and you’ll find a round that involves me will be a little cheaper, I look forward to a pint of lemonade in a pub these days! I’m sure that the various pubs within 100 yards (four) of my door in Blackfriars, can do with me a little better behaved.
Please remember to toast me for not having a drink and recognise I’m not smug – simply determined to build on this magnificent opportunity to change my life!