crossed the line into addictive thinking. It would take me seven more years of trying to manage, moderate, and outsmart alcohol before I finally understood that the only way out of the agonising cycle was to throw away that maddening rulebook.I have freedom now that I follow one rule only: I do not drink alcohol. And each morning, I awake remembering the sparkling sentences read the night before. ________________________________________________________ Austen, Jane. Letter to Cassandra Austen. “LXIX,” November 6, 1813. https://pemberley.com/janeinfo/brablt12.html#letter70 2 Austen, Jane. Letter to Cassandra Austen. “XXIV,” November 20, 1800. https://pemberley.com/janeinfo/brablet4.html#letter24
this compulsion to walk nearly two miles to Marks & Spencer, even in inclement weather, wasn’t logical. But I didn’t realise its significance. The beginning of addiction can look like a well-read lady in a grand country house, obsessing over refilling her crystal glass rather than enjoying her remarkable surroundings. I wish I could say that was my wake-up call, but I continued to try to control alcohol with excessive rule-making. I recorded my alcohol units in my diary as if putting the data on paper would make it acceptable. The idea of asking for professional help or of going to a support group would have seemed ludicrous to me then. Would I introduce myself by way of reading aloud from one of Austen’s more confessional letters to her sister? “I believe I drank too much wine last night at Hurstbourne; I know not how else to account for the shaking of my hand today. You will kindly make allowance therefore for any indistinctness of writing, by attributing it to this venial error.”2 My own hands were not shaking; my multiple mini-bottle sins were only venial. I often woke up with a headache, but I soldiered on with ibuprofen and litres of water. I was very productive at work, publishing articles and finishing my book. There were no external signs that my inner life was fast becoming unmanageable. In hindsight, the fact that I was spending so much brain space making, breaking, and revising rules was an indication that I had
HOLA SOBER | MADRID
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