Moderation. Does it work for me?

 Drinking in moderation is something I have promised myself I would do a million times over. The day after a big drinking session, instead of quitting, I would just vow to "take it easy" next time and to stop when I started to feel the fun buzz that you get before it all goes wrong. As a binge drinker, that isn't something I have ever had the will power for though. Personally, for me, there are three different types of drinking. There is the social events drink to be on the same level as the people around me, the "out out" drink until I'm stumbling into the smoking area of a club asking everyone and anyone for a lighter and finally there is the at home binge drinking.

 When it comes to drinking at social events, I would often find myself trying to be at the same level as everyone else. I would begin by saying "I will only have a few so that I don't do anything embarrassing." and eventually I would find myself being the drunkest person in the room after trying too fast to catch up with everyone else. I would wake up the next morning feeling sick and embarrassed by my behavior every single time. Moderation has never worked for me in these situations because I have always had a weird FOMO feeling when drinking with others. If I wasn't drinking as much as them, I would be really bored and would be thinking about it so much that I'd have a bad night. At one point in my life, this included drugs too. I felt like I had to keep up with my friends. I snapped out of it with drugs because I started to get really anxious about my heart stopping but for some reason, I didn't think twice about alcohol.

 Drinking "out out" is a massive part of being 18-25 in England. It is all people talk about. Going clubbing at the end of a long work week, birthday parties in town, work Christmas events, etc... I also live in a city with an entire street dedicated to drinking and clubbing. It has a spoons at the top... and at the bottom. As you can imagine, with a lot of people working in the city center, uni students and people that work weekends, the clubs are going off every single day of the week. Growing up in a town, this was crazy to me when I first moved here full time. I think moderation and clubbing live in different universes. I don't know anyone who shows up at a nightclub and say's they'll just have a few. Although I have only stayed until lights up like twice in my life, I sure fit enough alcohol in my clubbing nights to make me really sick. I remember once, when I met my ex husband, we went on a night out with people from work, we started at a spoons where I vowed to only drink a little bit so that I wasn't too drunk before the club. I'm not sure how much I drank that night but I remember running into someone from school at a kebab shop... whilst I was literally taking my top off in front of everyone because I felt too hot. My hotel was only across the road, I got into the middle of the road and I have no idea what happened next. I can barely even remember the layout of the hotel room. I'm pretty sure that this was the time I woke up on the hotel room floor half naked in my ex's tshirt because apparently I refused to put my pjs on but, that could have also been a different time. So, again, I didn't stick to the moderation at all.

 Finally, there is my third drinking mode. At home binge drinking. This is the one I struggle with when I am mentally unwell. I do not go out when I am in a depressive episode, unless it is to get wine. I promise my boyfriend that I will have two glasses to relax but I then find myself hiding the bottle from him and filling up my glass when he isn't looking. Before I know it, the bottle is gone and I'm sobbing, reliving the past four years of trauma, wondering why certain people don't love me or just completely self-destructing and threatening to end my life. I know I sound crazy. Without alcohol, I still have these feelings, it's just that alcohol brings them right up to the surface and out of my mouth. It would feel like a release. I know now that it isn't a healthy way to express myself. I find that moderation is the hardest if I drink at home. I simply cannot control myself. 

 Now, at over a month sober, these worries are in the past for me. However, I wanted to share them because in my opinion, moderation takes an awful lot of will power and if you are even having to think about moderating your alcohol in the first place, I think you need to really have that will power nailed down. For me, I just don't have it. I don't listen to anyone around me that tries to help either because I don't like to feel out of control of my own choices. So, I guess the short answer to the question is that no, it doesn't work for me. However, I do strongly believe that if you have the will power, it may be a great start for you on your own sobriety journey or even long term if you do not want to give up drinking all together. My advice though, is to be totally brutal and honest about if you can handle it because only YOU can stop yourself from drinking and drinking in excess. 

 If you are reading this and think you may have a problem with alcohol, my best advice is to contact your GP. That is how I began my journey. They give great advice and can point you in the right direction for help. Everybody has a different story, a different reason for sobriety, because we are different people. So please, keep that in mind when reading about me and my journey!!

 That is all from me on moderation!! Thank you for being here and for reading this post. If you want to contact me or to follow my journey some more, you can find me on threads and insta as @imsoberpositive !! I would love to connect with you, to know what you think of these blogs and what you would like to see next.

Until next time,

Keep going & remember, one day at a time.

-P x