Days 19 and 20
The way you have so much more time when you no longer drink...
Day 19
Weird dreams are back. Last night I was a temporary shop assistant in JD sports! Let me know if you want a discount on trackie bottoms! Got up early and did a couple of hours of writing, and then a decent gym workout. I’m doing a pre-foundation course in art. I’m doing my art homework, which involves making a sellotape cast of an object - so I am doing Nellie (pictured above)! It’s fiddly work which is not my forte! I’m also going to watch French movie to remind me of Paris!
Amazing how much you can get done in a day when you aren’t wasted! Life is really good!
Day 20
Finished my sellotape cast homework. There’s something very wholesome about my alcohol-free life. Doing this kind of activity is connecting me to the simple pleasures of childhood. It feels like I am in primary school again - can people start collecting their egg boxes for me?
Drafted a long post earlier on the theme of how your experience of time change when you stop drinking - and then Facebook deleted the draft!
So, here’s the edited version: f@ck me, how much more time do I have now that I don’t drink?! In many ways it’s fantastic. So much more time to do things that are interesting. But the time you get back can also be a burden if alcohol has atrophied your ability to take pleasure in non-drinking activities.
I don’t know how I managed to draw that out into three paragraphs!
Postscript: I actually managed to turn this material about lost and found time and the way alcohol alters the brains capacity for finding joy and pleasure, into about seven chapters in my book Do I Drink Too Much?