Mrs D is Going Within E-Book

Lotta Dann

• Herausgeber: Allen & Unwin
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 303

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Despite outward appearances three years after getting sober Lotta is struggling to deal with life in the raw. It's becoming abundantly clear what people mean when they say putting down the drink is just the beginning. Truth is Lotta's lifelong heavy-drinking habit has left her as a fledgling emotionally. She's slowly accepting that she needs to do some more work on herself. But what? Please don't say it has to involve turning into a hippy. Can't she just comfort herself with another chocolate muffin, distract herself on Instagram, and hope for the best? It would appear not. In Mrs D Is Going Within Lotta outlines the practices she developed and strategies she worked on to start establishing herself as an emotionally robust woman.

Leseprobe

First published in 2017

Copyright © Lotta Dann 2017

The Mindfulness Revolution, edited by Barry Boyce and the editors of the Shambhala Sun, copyright © 2011 Barry Boyce. All quotes reprinted by arrangement with The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Shambhala Publications Inc., Boulder, Colorado, shambhala. com; ‘Here, Now, Aware,’ from A Heart Full of Peace, copyright © 2007 Joseph Goldstein. All quotes reprinted by arrangement with Wisdom Publications, Inc., wisdompubs. org; 10% Happier by Dan Harris, copyright © 2014 Daniel Benjamin Harris. All quotes reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers; All Dr Libby quotes reprinted by permission of Dr Libby Pty Ltd; Mindsight: Change your brain and your life by Daniel J. Siegel, copyright © 2010 Mind Your Brain, Inc. All quotes reprinted by permission of Scribe Publications; The Mindfulness Summit. All quotes are printed with permission. themindfulnesssummit.com; Sane New World by Ruby Wax, copyright © Waxworks Ltd 2013. All quotes reprinted by permission of Hodder and Stoughton Limited; Mindfulness: An eight-week plan for finding peace in a frantic world by Mark Williams and Danny Penman, copyright © 2011 Professor Mark Williams and Dr Danny Penman. All quotes reprinted by permission of Rodale, Inc.

Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use copyrighted material in this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Allen & Unwin

Level 3, 228 Queen Street

Auckland 1010, New Zealand

Phone:[phone]

Email:[email protected]

Web:www.allenandunwin.co.nz

83 Alexander Street

Crows Nest NSW 2065, Australia

Phone: [phone]

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand

ISBN 9781760639617

Internal design by Anna Egan-Reid

Cover design: Jo Pearson

For Stanley

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: What the bloody hell is the problem?

Chapter 2: I’m far from a ‘happy, joyous, free’ housewife, that’s for sure

Chapter 3: ‘To be honest, I’ve been worried lately that you’re getting depressed’

Chapter 4: Minecraft and mindfulness do not mix well

Chapter 5: It’s a tiny little moment, but it feels rather significant

Chapter 6: It’s amazing how boring my thoughts are a lot of the time

Chapter 7: ‘Everything is fluid. Let it go.’

Chapter 8: I just fall back into moving around my life in the same old way that I always have—like a busy, floating, munching head

Chapter 9: Quite frankly, I don’t think I’ve ever thought about my breath so much in my life!

Chapter 10: My feet are actually a hive of static activity!

Chapter 11: A reality where shit happens and bad moods prevail

Chapter 12: Oh, the freedom in letting my thoughts go

Chapter 13: If I just stop telling myself over and over that I’m busy and tired, will I really feel less busy and less tired?

Chapter 14: The most adorable recovery tool around

Chapter 15: ‘Life sucks, everything changes, don’t take it personally’

Chapter 16: Who knew that yoga could be about having fun?

Chapter 17: ‘History has delivered us this moment’

Chapter 18: Practising mindfulness is the ultimate act of self-care

MY toolbox

Resources

Thank you

Introduction

I am an alcoholic. An A-grade, first-class boozer. I could couch myself in more delicate terms maybe, and call myself a wine-lover or an enthusiastic drinker, but I prefer the more blunt and honest approach. Alcoholic, that’s what I am.

The truth is that for almost all of my adult life alcohol has been my constant companion. I drank determinedly and heavily—religiously, almost—from the age of fifteen to the age of thirty-nine. When I first tried alcohol as a fresh-faced teenager, I overdid it and ended up vomiting the entire contents of my stomach into the bath (sickly-sweet bubbly wine and marshmallows, to be precise—an image that has never left me), but that didn’t put me off. No way! I was hooked from the get-go, completely drawn to the fun, danger and allure of this magical drug.

I loved the way it felt in my body, trickling up my spine and entering my brain. I loved the way it loosened my limbs and loosened my mood. I loved that it shifted reality, made everything more gnarly and more fun. Teenage me—a heady mix of nerves and rebellion—thought that this wonderful, powerful liquid was the golden ticket to life. And, since I lived in a society where drinking regularly was not only the norm but a celebrated and even encouraged thing to do, it was easy for my teenage crush to steadily morph into an adult love affair. Regularly drinking was how I rolled, and as far as I was concerned imbibing alcohol almost every single day was a very ordinary, grown-up and acceptable thing to do. Five o’clock is wine o’clock right? It certainly was in my world.

I drank through my student years and my early jobs in journalism. I drank as I travelled the country and the world. I drank when I was achieving great things; I drank when I was idle and miserable. I drank in stressful jobs; I drank when unemployed. I drank alone and in groups. I drank when I was single, throughout happy romances, and during dysfunctional relationships.

I used booze to bond with friends, to fit in to groups, to prove that I was a good hostess, and to make myself comfortable in social situations. I drank it to mark achievements, drown sorrows, cure boredom and dull sadness. I drank when celebrating, congratulating, relaxing and memorialising, and when grieving, stressing, being let down or heartbroken. I drank in bars, at work, on aeroplanes, in parks, at the beach, up mountains and sitting on the sofa. I even drank in bed. The only time I didn’t drink was when I was pregnant or laid up with a tummy bug (sad but true).

Alcohol was just there for me all the time, impacting every experience I had—sometimes elevating my experiences, sometimes smoothing them out, sometimes ruining them. (I have a bunch of best-forgotten memories from events where I got completely blotto and lost the plot—not pretty.)

I can’t even begin to imagine how many litres of alcohol I have consumed in my life. I shudder to think about how much booze my internal organs have been forced to process. Beer, wine, gin, whiskey, peach schnapps … You name it, I have drunk plenty of it. Mostly though, and certainly towards the end, it was pretty much only wine. Glass after glass after glass of wine. Wine was my constant companion, my trusted friend, my go-to solution, my crutch.

Until it wasn’t.

Towards the end of my drinking days I completely lost the ability to moderate my intake. I struggled to have any alcohol-free nights. Once I started drinking I wouldn’t stop until all the alcohol in the house was gone. I needed more and more to feel ‘full’. Where one bottle of wine in a sitting used to be enough, soon I needed one bottle plus another glass (or four). Time and time again I made promises to myself that I failed to keep—promises like, ‘I’m only having one tonight.’ I was frequently sloppy, slurry and messy. I’d stumble and fall. There was vomiting.

I was permanently exhausted, hungover and wracked with guilt. Every day was an endless cycle of regretting drinking, recovering from drinking, convincing myself I didn’t have a drinking problem, planning on drinking, acquiring alcohol and drinking again. Once it hit my system, I was a goner and I just wanted more, more, more. I was a slave to the drug of alcohol, locked in a miserable binge-and-regret cycle. What had started out as a fun, edgy habit ended up in a dark and dysfunctional place where I had very little pride, strength or self-respect left.

I quit drinking on 6 September 2011 after a particularly miserable Monday-night binge at home, during which I hid an empty bottle of wine from my husband to conceal how much I’d had while he’d been out. This was something I’d never done before. It wasn’t so much the events of that evening which forced my point of change, although the dysfunctional behaviour of hiding the bottle was a horrifying new development. Rather, it was the accumulated knowledge gained over the preceding months, during which I’d been trying desperately to gain control of my habit. I couldn’t gain control, and it all finally came to a head on the night that I hid that empty bottle.

I woke at 3 am that morning full of despair and guilt and frustration and desperation. This was my personal rock bottom, me at my lowest ebb, a miserable, teary mess. Finally, I accepted that the only way I was going to gain any control was by removing alcohol from my life completely. So I quit, thinking that if I just broke my nasty little drinking habit and learned how to live alcohol-free then life would carry on the same as before.

Boy, was I wrong.

First of all, breaking my ‘nasty little habit’ was bloody hard work. My brain freaked out when it realised I’d taken away its beloved fix. ‘I WANT MY WINE!’ it would scream as 5 pm approached. Every. Single. Day. And every single day I’d have to grit my teeth and resist the urge to drink. It was hell. I’d snap and be grumpy with my family. I’d guzzle sugary drinks. I’d clean the house like a mad woman to distract myself. (Never has my house been as clean as it was when I first quit drinking.) I’d force my thoughts forward through the evening, visualising myself getting into bed sober then waking up in the morning without a hangover. I knew that if I could get through the dreaded ‘witching hours’ of 4 pm to 7 pm without drinking I’d be so happy and proud of myself. Sometimes I’d go to bed at six-thirty just to get the day over with.

Slowly, as the days and weeks passed, the intense physical cravings lessened, and I was able to relax a little.

But beating the cravings was just the beginning.

Next, I had to work on entirely reshaping my identity. No longer was I ‘fun Lotta’, the upbeat party girl who was always game for a laugh. No longer was I ‘cruisy Lotta’, the awesome hostess who always had wine on ice to offer her guests. No longer was I ‘naughty Lotta’, with the twinkle in her eye, getting amongst it into the wee small hours. So who was I instead? My biggest fear was that I would become ‘Lotta the boring, sober loser’.

In my early days of sobriety, I struggled through social events, feeling terribly awkward and uncomfortable in my own skin, but—as with everything in sobriety—slowly things took a turn for the better. I discovered that not only did no one care whether I drank or not, but not everyone else was getting hammered all the time. Who knew?! I’d been so locked in to my own boozy mindset that I hadn’t noticed how many people take it extremely easy. Furthermore, as I started hanging out without a glass in my hand, I began to realise that—surprise, surprise—alcohol is not the magical, golden ticket to fun I once thought it was.

My entire life, I had given alcohol the power to make events successful, but when I removed it I began to learn that a fun party is a fun party not because my glass contains a brain-bending liquid, but because it’s full of elements that make it fun for me—things like a crowd of people I love, a great location, a good atmosphere, music I dig, and me in a good mood and happy in my outfit. I also realised that no amount of booze can improve a boring or nerve-wracking party—all booze does is make you drunk at a boring or nerve-wracking party.

In fact, the longer I went without drinking, the more I started to understand that all of my hardwired beliefs and romantic notions about alcohol were complete and utter bullshit. This revelation was HUGE for me and, quite honestly, fascinating.

Here I was at the age of 39, having spent over twenty years worshipping at the altar of my idol, alcohol, and only now was I discovering that it wasn’t actually the glorified substance I thought it was. My false god fell off its pedestal, and I started to see it for what it really was: expensive, destructive, foul-tasting shit that did nothing to enhance my life and everything to dull it. I discovered that alcohol wasn’t essential for good times; good times are good because they contain naturally enjoyable elements. I discovered that it wasn’t the best thing to help me relax at the end of a busy day; relaxing is about being finished with work, putting on comfy pants, lighting a scented candle, connecting with family or unwinding with enjoyable activities. And the biggest mind-shift of all? That alcohol wasn’t a ‘treat’ to ‘reward’ myself with, but a costly drug that stifled my inner spark and messed me up.

As I slowly clocked up the sober days, and as each of these revelations emerged, I started to feel so great about being free of the stuff. I also started sleeping better, looking better, listening better, concentrating better, parenting better, writing better, singing better, dressing better … Just being a much better version of myself than I had been before. Fantastic!

Initially, I thought that I’d escaped my drinking days largely unscathed and was on the path to a settled and happy second half of my life—particularly because my story lacks the usual litany of dramatic incidents and monumental cock-ups that can follow in the wake of an alcoholic. But I soon realised this was not the case. I may not have had a criminal record or any failing organs to my name, but did I have widespread emotional deficiencies as a result of my long-term alcohol abuse? Yes indeed.

From the moment I put down the bottle, I was all over the show with my moods. Without a daily liquid suppressant, every tricky emotion burst out of me with overwhelming intensity. I felt raw, drained, teary, super sensitive, uncomfortable, alarmed and confused—sometimes all within the same hour! It was like I’d crawled out of a dark cave—one in which I drank alcohol all the time and never matured properly—and into the bright sunlight. I started to see that alcohol had been a great leveller for me, one that I had used to keep myself on an even keel so that no big highs or lows ever came my way. My regular alcohol habit had dulled all of my feelings and emotions into a fuzzy, boozy mess. I wasn’t expecting it, but boy was the shift to living sober a dramatic one. Without my beloved smooth-all, I started living on high alert, feeling every emotion very acutely.

My anger was rage. (Ask my sister about the time I punched the wall in the midst of an argument.) My sadness was despair. (Ask my friend about the time I sobbed all over her about something that had happened twenty years prior.) These extreme emotional outbursts were deeply uncomfortable. I hated being angry, and I thought that sadness was the worst thing in the world, a feeling to be avoided at all costs. Now that I was sober, these emotions were not only unavoidable, but it also quickly became apparent that I was woefully ill-equipped to deal with them. I couldn’t be like, ‘I’m having a bad day so I need to do X, Y, Z to look after myself,’ or, ‘I’m fuming—I need to X, Y, Z to manage this.’ I didn’t have an X, Y, Z! I had no emotional coping mechanisms, no tried-and-tested methods of dealing with stuff. The only tried-and-tested method I had was to be found in a bottle.

Time has helped somewhat. As I’ve pushed on through over three years of being sober, I’ve naturally calmed down and the dramatic lurching from one emotional state to another has quietened. I’m still way more heightened than I was when boozing, but I’m no longer all over the show like when I first quit. I’m much more accepting of my emotions nowadays and am a little more in tune with them coming and going. I’m simply more used to feeling. I still don’t like tricky emotions, but have grown to tolerate them, much as you would an annoying neighbour or insect bites.

But I still need to do some serious work. The truth is, I’ve never sat with myself ‘in the raw’ for long enough to gain any real insight into how I function as a human being. Emotionally, I am very unformed and unresolved. Sure, I’ve lived a full life and have built up a decent amount of experience and wisdom just from having been on the planet for many years, but having booze as my constant companion in life has prevented me from properly developing any robust coping strategies. I thought I was quite a well-adjusted, mature and wise woman, but putting down the bottle has proved otherwise. I now know that using alcohol for most of my adult life to enhance, distract, avoid, numb and blur reality has messed with my brain chemistry and left me an emotional fledgling.

In many ways, I am writing this book as a typical woman in her forties. My body is that of a typical middle-aged woman (saggy but also soft and strong). My life is full of the typical trappings of middle age (family, mortgage, reading glasses, teacup collection). I’ve experienced many things and have a bunch of memories to show for it. But I lack something important. I lack a solid perspective on myself—how I work, how I process and deal with things. I lack any fundamental knowledge or good tools to help me navigate the remaining years of my life. I’m sober and that is fantastic, but putting down the drink was just the first step. Now I need some next-level help to get me through.

As it stands, I have only two tools in my toolbox that have helped me get to this point in my sobriety. The first tool is massively powerful and the most important, and that is my awesome online recovery community. Thanks to my blog, Mrs D Is Going Without, which I started when I first quit drinking, and now Living Sober, the government-funded recovery website I run, I’m constantly surrounded by a wonderful tribe of like-minded people who know exactly what I’m going through. Through my blog, Living Sober and my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts, I’m in daily contact with thousands of equally brave and amazing people who are also working hard to reshape their lives and get sober. We all share openly and honestly about what we’re going through, our trials and triumphs, and how we are navigating our sober lives in a world awash with booze. The connections I have made online are incredibly strong and heartfelt. Knowing I can always find a wise and sympathetic ear online when the going gets rough is gold.

The second tool that I have whole-heartedly embraced is the concept of ‘sober treats’. All the money that I used to spend on wine, I now spend on special things to treat myself with when I’m feeling low—fresh flowers, scented candles, fancy soaps, delicious chocolates and glossy magazines. These items may sound trite or superficial, but with every purchase I send myself a little self-care message that I am worth being treated well and that I am brave and amazing for quitting booze. It’s an important message.

So my toolbox isn’t empty. It’s just a bit light. At the moment, I don’t even have any regular exercise in there, and everyone knows that is super important.

MY TOOLBOX

Recovery community

Sober treats

I need more tools, a better range of tools, deeper tools, more robust tools, because the problem is, life keeps coming at me. Tricky stuff keeps happening—big stuff, hurtful stuff, complicated stuff, painful stuff, confusing stuff—and my tools aren’t proving tough enough. I need more techniques for when I’m struggling. My online community is fabulous, but I don’t share everything with them (some things are just too private), and a scented candle only goes so far. I’m lucky to have an extremely supportive husband in Corin, a great family and some wonderful friends, but I still desperately feel the need to develop some better coping strategies.

Because, honestly, things aren’t going great. Lately I’ve been experiencing low-grade anxiety, and the sober treats that fall into the ‘sweet’ category are getting way out of hand—so much so that I’m often caught in a cravings–binge–self-loathing cycle with sugar that is scarily reminiscent of my drinking days.

Sober me needs some serious work. And I’ve got to do it now, or maybe I will end up back in a bottle, once again using wine as my main emotional coping mechanism.

And that would be extremely dumb.

Chapter 1

What the bloody hell is the problem?

It’s 5 pm on a Tuesday. In an hour I need to take my middle son to his Cubs meeting, but before that we’ll have dinner. I’ve got sausages in the frying-pan, potatoes roasting in the oven, broccoli and carrots chopped and ready to cook. My three boys are happily playing video games (or watching YouTube videos of other people playing video games, which is apparently a fun thing to do). While it’s quiet, I’m tidying up the house, repositioning things so that they are in their rightful place—something I seem to do endlessly. Corin will be arriving home from his job as TVNZ’s political correspondent later. It’s an ordinary Tuesday evening. So why do I feel nervy and on edge, like something is wrong?

I can feel it in my belly—there are butterflies there. I mentally run through a list of things that might explain why I am feeling this way. (‘There always has to be a clear reason for any emotion,’ is how I think.) Butterflies usually equal nerves. Am I nervous about something? Have I got a scary work meeting coming up or a talk to do? Did I just receive a snippy email or nasty text message that I’ve forgotten about? I stop my tidying and lean over to place both hands on the corner of the kitchen table. I try to reach back into my mind. Nope, can’t remember anything specific. So what is going on? Is my health worrying me? Is there a social event looming that I’m dreading? Nothing. Well, what the bloody hell is the problem, then? Why the butterflies? I can feel them dancing around in my belly and hate that I can’t pinpoint why they’re there. What on earth are they trying to tell me?

I despise this sense of impending doom, this feeling like I’ve got something to worry about. It’s not an unfamiliar sensation and often—like right now—I can’t put my finger on what that something is. I take a deep breath and push myself off the table then carry on tidying things away. As I head back over to the kitchen bench—picking up some shoes on the way and chucking them in the basket—I’m still edgy and worrying about what’s wrong. Surely there must be a simple and clear answer to why I’m feeling wound up. Did I sleep badly last night? Am I due for my period? Have my food choices been crap lately and that’s what’s bringing my mood down? No silver bullet springs to mind to explain why I have this nervous tummy. It’s annoying.

I keep ruminating on what’s wrong as I chuck a couple of glasses into the dishwasher then turn on the elements under various pots and pans. The edginess stays with me as I move about the kitchen, getting dinner plates out of the pantry and putting them on the bench. I need a solution.

It’s a pretty fraught conversation, this one I’m having in my head

The only solution I have is to distract myself. I’m very good at this. I reach into the ‘secret’ cupboard (the one that everyone knows about), where treats for lunchboxes are stashed, to grab two mini bags of salty chips and tear them open. I’ve been sober for so long that wine isn’t on my radar any more and, thankfully, I’m not having a fierce internal debate about whether to have a glass (or five) of merlot to smooth out the edginess … but the chips are a nice, salty distraction for sure.

My phone dings (more distractions—yay!) so I grab it to check out what has arrived. (Must check notifications on my phone immediately or the device will explode.) It’s an email from a North American rehab wanting me to publish their infographic about addiction on my blog. Do I want to do that? It apparently details the struggles a child faces when their parent is an addict. Still holding my phone, I grab a tea towel and open the oven door then give the roasting spuds a good shake. They look ready so I turn the oven off and leave the door ajar, then quickly reach into the cupboard for another mini bag of chips. I gobble them down while thinking about emails and infographics and addicted parents and my work in general.

I decide to quickly check Instagram (a couple of new followers, someone’s salad, a dog on a beach), then Twitter (two likes on my last tweet, endless boring tips on how to live well, local politicos bickering), then my Facebook page (a couple of new comments, someone has shared a mocktail recipe), and finally my blog to see if there are any new comments (a reader has shared a quote attributed to Helen Keller about the world being full of suffering but also the overcoming of it). I then head to the Living Sober website and navigate to the community section to make sure all the members are playing nice (they are—they’re all rallying kindly around someone who relapsed last night, and yet again I’m heartened by how kind and non-judgemental the community is).

When I finally tear myself away from my online world I look over and realise I’ve overcooked the broccoli. Shit! I drop my phone on the bench and grab the pot off the stove, yelling ‘Dinner!’ at the boys. The butterflies in my tummy come back into focus and I’m aware my shoulders are tense. I’m definitely on edge. I think about the member who relapsed—it’s a bummer, as she’d been doing so well—and mull over the Helen Keller quote, before mentally starting to write an email response to the American rehab. I’m going to have to turn down their request because infographics aren’t my thing. I’m busy trying to word my response so that I don’t sound uncaring or flippant. I wonder what other bloggers say when they turn down such offers.

There’s no sign of my boys.

‘Get off your screens now!’ I yell, and start worrying once more about this edgy feeling I have. As I drain the hot water off the veggies, I decide it must be my work that has me worried. Not the Living Sober job—that is running very smoothly. It’s the media advisory work I’m doing on the side. I’m having trouble managing one relationship in particular, and I’m feeling stressed about the whole situation. I don’t know what to do to improve things, and I feel that I’m being totally misunderstood. It’s very unsatisfactory. This must be what’s got me on edge.

I’m still alone in the kitchen. ‘Dinner, now! GET! OFF! YOUR! SCREENS!’

As I begin to plate up, I start a conversation in my mind with the colleague I’m having trouble working with. It’s a pretty fraught conversation, this one I’m having in my head, but at least when I’m having it I’m not thinking about the butterflies in my tummy.

Sausages on the plate.

I imagine the colleague being rude and dismissive towards me and I’m being defensive and emotional back.

Broccoli on the plate.

The imaginary conversation is not going well; it’s heating up. I’m getting more and more upset.

Carrots on the plate.

‘We think your work is shit!’

Potatoes on the plate.

‘You don’t value what I’m doing!’

‘Mum … Mum … Mum … MUM!’ I’ve hardly noticed that the boys have finally arrived in the kitchen.

‘What?’ I snap at my ten-year-old, then instantly feel bad. The poor guy doesn’t realise he’s interrupted a tense imaginary work meeting.

‘Did you sign the form for the class photo?’

Did I?

‘Is there any tomato sauce?’ Mr Twelve queries.

Is there?

‘Knock-knock!’ says Mr Seven.

‘Who’s there?’ I say, handing over the tomato sauce while wondering about class photos and still feeling like I’m locked in an imaginary fight with my colleague. My phone dings again. I grab it. It’s a text from Mum, who lives in the South Island: Call me.

It’s always a sure sign I’m in a gritty phase when I’m eating bagels covered with butter and jam

Mum tells me my step-father has terminal lung cancer. Holy shit. The news hits like a bomb and I simply don’t know what to do with this awful, gut-wrenching sadness. It hurts, this emotional pain. It hurts down deep. Grief is not something I’ve had a lot of experience with. I’m struggling big time to know what to do with this. Forget about work woes and nervy tummies—this is the really big stuff of life. I feel utterly wretched that this kind and gentle man who has been an unwavering presence in my life for over twenty years is going. I feel deeply for my mother, who is heartbroken at the prospect of losing her best friend and dear mate. I just feel so deeply sad.

I’ve had people close to me die before but back then my coping mechanism was booze (and lots of it). Obviously, that particular remedy is gone now. So what to do with this pain? I desperately read up about grief, searching for material on the internet that will give me tips on how to deal with it, watching YouTube clips and TED Talks. Mostly, though, I just keep wishing it away. Wishing he wasn’t sick. Wishing this wasn’t happening to our family, that we weren’t preparing for him going. Why does it have to be this way? I really do wish this wasn’t happening.

I feel deeply, heartbreakingly, devastatingly sad. I use the tools I do have, talking to my online community (they are very kind) and diving head first into my sober treats. Well, one type of sober treat, in particular: food. Basically I eat as much as is humanly possible. It’s like I can’t possibly be full enough. I binge on foods full of sugar and fat. It’s always a sure sign I’m in a gritty phase when I’m eating bagels covered with butter and jam. Quite why I consider these foods to be treats is beyond me—they might be yummy immediately, but the after-effects are grim. I feel fat and unhealthy and weak.

I have other ways to distract myself from the sadness: cooking, cleaning, working and worrying about tricky colleagues also keep me occupied. My mind has kicked into overdrive, fretting about the less-than-satisfactory relationship I feel I have with that colleague, and the tenuous position I feel I’m in with regards to the work. In real life, nothing new about this situation has developed, but it sure has escalated inside my head. By now, I’ve spent so many hours carrying out a crazy imaginary feud with my colleague that the argument has dug out well-worn pathways in my mind and I’ve lost sight of what’s real and what’s not. It almost feels comforting to keep returning to this fierce dialogue in which I’m battling for my point of view to be heard, and so I do go back to it—again and again and again.

And, more than ever, I busy myself online. Every new Instagram follower, Twitter notification, Facebook like or blog comment is a welcome distraction. So, too, is parenting my three boisterous sons. They’re extremely busy, and even more so than normal as we’re heading into the end of the school year. There are endless forms to fill in, gifts to be bought, plates of food to be prepared and activities to get to.

But, during the moments in the day when I’m not able to distract myself with sugar, technology or the kids, my mind wanders like buggery and my thoughts are busy and noisy. In the shower, driving the car, washing the dishes, any time when I’m alone and doing something menial, I’m actually miles away, lost in thought, feeling annoyed that my work relationships aren’t easier or feeling sad and wishing my step-father wasn’t dying. It’s exhausting and depressing. It’s no bloody fun at all.

Chapter 2

I’m far from a ‘happy, joyous, free’ housewife, that’s for sure

Eight days before Christmas, just a few short weeks after his diagnosis, my step-father dies. We travel to the South Island for the funeral, which is a small gathering in my mother’s garden. I wear sunglasses during the service and try to distract myself by thinking about other things (I literally try to get lost in thought, remembering happy times), but it’s hard to tune out the poems being read and speeches being made. I cry a lot.

Once the formalities are dealt with, I slip into social mode. There are a few tricky dynamics with some people, which is a little stressful. There is booze flowing, of course, because booze always flows at social events in this country of mine, but I’m not bothered by that. No one is getting sloppy and I have relaxed an awful lot since I first stopped drinking. (Back when I first quit, I used to take every alcoholic drink consumed by another person as a huge slap in the face, but nowadays I feel much more chilled out about having it around. Other people can have it; I’m not interested in the stuff. Booze really has lost its allure for me.) However, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t dearly love to escape the deeply uncomfortable sadness that is overcoming me right now—and thankfully there is cake!

After the funeral there’s no time to pause and gently recover from the shock and emotional outpourings, as we’re straight into Christmas. We launch into the silly season head first, racing around visiting friends and relatives, socialising up a storm. All this interacting and negotiating with other people is tiring, and there are complicated relationships simmering away that I feel hyper-aware of. Why do relatives always have such brilliant button-pushing abilities?

After a couple of weeks of hard-out socialising, Corin, the boys and I go camping for a week. I’m hoping the deck-chair lifestyle will give me a chance to finally de-stress, regroup and unwind, but it doesn’t. Pausing all the busyness only serves to highlight how unrelaxed I am. There’s still so much noise whirring around in my mind. I’m far from a ‘happy, joyous, free’ housewife, that’s for sure.