by Linda McGrath-Redmond Host + Columnist at Hola Sober
We minimise and rationalise our drinking to ourselves and to others. We tell ourselves it’s no big deal really if we poured a glass of wine and found ourselves drinking the whole bottle. We watch the tv programs where the beautiful professional woman walks into her fabulous home, kicks off her high heels, pours herself a half-litre size goblet of wine, and thinks, yep, perfectly normal. Or it’s a bank holiday weekend, or I’m on summer vacation, I’ve had a tough day at the office, the kids are really playing up today, my partner is being a shit, my 2nd cousin once removed passed away, my best friend ignored my texts, it’s my hormones! I certainly don’t drink as much as such and such! And on and on and on goes the denial, the rationalisation, the multitude of lies upon lies. And the best one of all, I’ll stop tomorrow! How many times did I utter those words both aloud to my family or to myself and in some vague way I’d nearly believe it, nearly. We can and do waste years going around on this not so merry-go-round of denial. So how do we finally begin to face the truth and start facing up to the denial head-on? For most of us here it wasn’t a big life-altering moment, a ‘’Go straight to jail, do not pass go’ moment. It was a series of 3 am wakeups, parched and full of fear, another morning hungover and filled with anxiety and weariness. For me and many others in my support group, it was simply yet another hungover morning, where somehow a piece of truth broke through, and we thought ‘ I just can’t do this anymore.
And this time instead of carrying on as normal, we sought out ways to get us out of this hell hole we’d found ourselves in. I totally got the platinum ticket and found myself here in Hola Sober with a founder who can spot denial from literally across the globe! And instead of dancing around it she hits it hard but with compassion and empathy. And it works. Breaking through denial and owning our truth is not something that happens right off the bat. It involves taking a long hard and very honest look at all areas of our lives and how our addiction to alcohol has interfered with and been detrimental to so much of it. Some people take Online Sobriety classes, some go to a Rehab centre, some work the 12 steps through AA, some journal, asking and answering honestly all the areas of our lives that addiction played a part in (usually there is not one area that has escaped, at least not for me). The wine witch never fully goes away, no matter how deeply we bury her, and she can sniff out vulnerability and self-deceit from the very depts so we must always be ready to call her out, not just to ourselves (we’re experts at denial after all) but to our support groups. When she is laid bare, she loses all power again.
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