Remember how last year I was looking for a Recovery Playlist that wasn’t about wallowing in drug addiction, couldn’t find one, and ended up making my own? Well, since then I’ve been setting aside songs that would fit another mixtape, and it’s up now on my YouTube Channel.
It’s a really, really good mixtape.
Read MoreA lot can happen in a year.
You can go from the shell of a person, a desiccated husk oiled with a steady diet of poison, to something entirely else instead. You can transform your body from a collection of inflamed tissue, dusky with sadness soot, to a beautiful, fluid machine that slips between the strata of the world – emerging unscathed from between the knives.
It can be done. A wrong can be made right. A lot can happen in a year.
Read MoreStopped drinking alcohol? Cutting down? Maybe just don't fancy it right now? Good stuff. The thing is, you'll still need a go-to drink when you're out in restaurants, clubs and bars, or cosying up at home, or sitting out on verandas under the stars. Here are some of my favourite recipes for beautiful times.
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It took a while, but when I stopped drinking alcohol, many of those fleeting, fearful imaginings I'd had about what life would be like – how nothing would ever be the same again – slowly came true. The too-bright nights unwinding over a drink or ten? Gone forever. Close friends taking the same liquid shortcut to a more communicative state of mind? No more.
Sounds terrible, right? Way back when, I thought the same. And now...I get that I didn't really get it before.
Read MoreIf you’re newly not doing alcohol any more, and you can honestly say you’re saving money, then you’re probably setting yourself up for a fall. Now is not the time for austerity measures. Now is the time for all the cake. Now is the time to spend the same money you were previously shelling out to dull your emotions on making your life easier, prettier, brighter, and more beautiful. Consider it an investment in yourself and your quality of life. Later, once you’re on an even keel, you can think about saving money. For now, concentrate on saving yourself.
Now that I don't drink alcohol, I find myself noticing things more. Things that would have slipped under the radar before. Things worth thinking about.
Somehow, conversations about alcohol keep happening in lifts. I have no idea why, but the lift seems to be the happening new venue for short conversations that exemplify sweeping societal attitudes to alcohol. There have been a fair few more than this, but I'll call out two lift conversations that gave me pause...
Read MoreI no longer drink alcohol. After a long period of altogether excessive drinking (which really wasn't as Gatsby as you might imagine) I decided not to do it any more. It's great, the not drinking, but according to conventional wisdom it should also come with a side-order of name-calling.
Hi, my name's Fay, and I'm not an alcoholic.
Read MoreOver recent months, a song has has rolled through my mind repeatedly. I've gone to sleep with it playing on my internal FM, and I've woken up other times to find it running loose in there like a cheeky streaker on an 80s football pitch. In a funny way it's been quite comforting; a wry inward smile at the good I know lies ahead, but that simply hasn't materialised so far. Let's talk about cell turnover...
Read MorePicture the scene: you've decided that drinking alcohol isn't for you any more... Well done, you brave, clever, magnificent human being. You might be wondering though, 'Will life just be kind of crap from now on?' Well, that all depends on you – and whose lies you're willing to swallow this time.
Read MoreWhile I have my faculties in place, and the choice is mine to make, I choose to stay. I don't want to go. I don't want to die. I don't want to drink myself to death, or lose myself forever. I choose, instead, to stay.
Read MoreAfter a recovery playlist that isn't about wallowing in addiction? Me too. But all I could find were depressing lists full of songs about drinking or taking drugs – which isn't what I want to be focusing on when utilising music to strengthen my resolve. So I made my own.
Read MoreThe really important stuff is always the hardest to write. It'll come soon enough, just not yet. For now, let's take it as read that I have some complex, thoroughly biased ideas about jargon, and that using the term 'recovery' doesn't mean I'm good with the other phrases that usually go alongside it. Recovery, however, is undoubtedly a good thing.
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