Finally got hold of a copy of Unwasted: My Lush Sobriety by Sacha Scoblic after hearing so so so so much about it from all of you other lovely sober bloggers. I got sick of waiting for my library to get a copy and ordered my own online. It arrived just as I was heading off to the hairdressers thank god because I find sitting getting a cut and colour so incredibly boring.
My hairdresser asked what I was bringing in to read and to be honest I was a bit hesitant about showing it, like I was going to out myself at this hip place or something. But she read the title and didn't really comment and then 10 minutes later offered me a glass of "pinot gris? or pinot noir perhaps?" Ah, that would be a no.
Anyway .. I practically read the damn thing in one sitting. Seriously. I have maybe two chapters to go. Yes this book is as good as everyone has been saying. She just writes so well and so punchily. It motors along and probably about 250 times I was thinking - yup, me too. There was so much that I could relate to; when she described how she drank and why she drank, and what a reliance on alcohol is all about, and what becoming sober is like. It's very good.
It seems she was a bigger lush than me in some ways, more vomiting and major binges, I mean she didn't have kids so could go out and get hammered till dawn whenever she pleased. But as always I was kind of left with a slight feeling of 'am I alcoholic enough? Was I really that bad?' It doesn't help that someone said to me recently that they were sceptical about whether I really needed to stop drinking. Is that because my drinking habit was largely private? Or that I pulled the pin before major tragic consequences occurred? That I had a 'high bottom' as they say?
Oh fuck that, whatever. I can't be bothered analysing how much of a tragic boozer I was. I know exactly how dangerous and obsessive my drinking was and where it was heading and if people think it's been easy for me to stop because I didn't appear to be that bad I don't care. And if they think it's easy to live sober now because I make it look easy then ... whatever. I shouldn't even question myself like I did after reading Unwasted. That's just stupid. I used to have gallons of wine in my life. Now I don't. End of.
Love, Mrs D xxx
