The truth… from a certain point of view.

Old Ben Kenobi has one thing in common with my adoptive mother. I wish it were two things and that she also was living out her days in a remote cave, but sadly it’s just one thing. Old Ben kept the truth about Luke’s parentage a secret. For more Doom Hustling from the Land of Sobriety, you can join my list.

Likewise, it was far too many years before I discovered some of the truth about my parentage. I haven’t yet gone on a rampage with a light sabre, but feel free to keep watching.

Luke and I both were just fed some truth from a certain point of view. 

It’s unclear if this issue contributed to my becoming an abuser of alcohol as I only discovered the truth near the end of my addiction. It’s highly likely though that drinking was my way of practising avoidance of what I somehow knew was going on.

I’ve been reflecting on how my perspective on alcohol has changed since I became sober. It’s like night and day. I used to be someone who was obsessed with alcohol, but never spent any time consciously thinking about it. It was just an ingrained behaviour to seek out and consume alcoholic drinks. 

I never used to spend any time actively thinking about the act of drinking or the effects it was having on me. When I thought about alcohol I actually thought about the time I would be spending enjoying myself, not the substance itself.

To think about the nature of alcohol and its impact on me would have been to stop avoiding the truth. Alcohol slowly poisons your body and quickly poisons your spirit. 

This was the crucial change that occurred that led me to become sober. I changed the way I thought about alcohol. I started to overtly consider what it was and what it does to the human body.

Now I’m on the loose in the land of sobriety. My views on alcohol are completely changed. I often stop and wonder how I thought any differently from how I do now.

Of course, that is the illusion that alcohol addiction creates. It makes you believe that drinking is perfectly normal. It convinces you that as long as no one labels you an alcoholic or that you’re safe from being viewed as one of those park bench-dwelling outcasts that everything is perfectly fine.

Your peers that drink, society in general and the alcohol industry all stand firmly behind you and your belief that a few drinks are the sign of a free, successful and happy life. 

The longer and deeper you sink into this illusion, the less likely you are to believe that there is anything wrong at all. More importantly, it makes the journey out of this illusion seem too hard to make.

I don’t believe in conspiracies, certainly not secret ones. I think these days most politicians, certainly in the UK, lack the intellect to concoct some sort of scheme to act against us. Most of the time it’s pretty blatant that they couldn’t care less about the people they govern. The rich elite is too busy openly exploiting the rest of us to be bothered to try and keep it a secret.

Yet you could wonder about the part alcohol could play in this. It’s the ideal drug to keep a large number of people distracted, compliant and docile. Quite frankly there should be riots on the streets of every town in this country over the pathetic way our government conducts itself. It seems too many people are quietly anaesthetised by a few cheap bottles of Sauvignon Blanc.

This highlights a distinct difference between those in society who never or hardly ever drink alcohol and those who have abused it and then moved on to sobriety.

A few people I know who have never drunk, or drink a few times a year are mostly unaware of drinking culture. Through choice or circumstance, they never took to drinking and that whole section of society is nothing more than a different group of people. 

In the land of sobriety, drinking culture is generally considered an evil from which a narrow escape has been achieved. Drinkers, especially those who want to surround themselves with other drinkers are to be treated with caution.

There’s an expression I’ve heard that “there’s nothing worse than an ex-smoker”. People who have quit the habit complain the hardest about those still in the thrall of nicotine. 

If you’re a former alcohol drinker, how do you view people that still drink? Are they a danger to your sobriety and to be avoided? Do try hard not to, but sometimes find yourself looking down on them from the sunlit uplands of mocktail corner? Do you pity them or help them? 

The word “woke” gets bandied about as some form of insult these days. Personally, my Twitter profile proudly proclaims I am Woke AF. All this really means is that I am a big fan of social justice and equality. People are just people to me. I’ve always been like it, there was no awakening.

However, my change of attitude to attitude could be described as an awakening. One day I took the empties out for the final time, packed up my cocktail kit and move to Sobriety Land. From here the view is very different.

I am quite literally a different person in terms of my attitude to alcohol. I have woken up to the evils of the alcohol industry and how they’re aided and abetted by highly paid marketers and well-lobbied governments. 

Aside from the fact that thinking about drinking makes me slightly nauseous, I could never contemplate a return to my old ways. For the first time in my life I think consciously about alcohol and so enjoy the positivity I gained from quitting. 

Pulling back the curtain and taking a long hard look at your relationship with alcohol is hard. I promise you, however, that it’s worth it. For any argument you can give me in favour of drinking alcohol, I can give you scores of counter-arguments. 

So come and live with me in the Land of Sobriety.