Ludlow Castle

To celebrate my year anniversary I've gone away to the lovely market town of Ludlow. Where I've spent many a weekend in the past, drinking in its gorgeous old pubs and wandering around aimlessly.

What made it really special was my friend from Devon of 21 years joined me for the weekend. She's always been so supportive of my choice not to drink and it's never been an issue.

Now, I was going to do a big post tomorrow celebrating my year and I probably still will. But I wanted to talk about something that really triggered me last night.

We got into Ludlow friday afternoon and spent the late afternoon and early evening wandering around. We stopped at a gorgeous pub with a terrace over the river. I was content having a 0% beer watching the river go by as the lights changed and the sunset. It was beautiful.

Saturday we wandered around, visited the castle and marvelled what a novelty it was not to be cleaning up the sticky fingers of our children or constantly being on high alert. We drank a lot of tea, investigated the markets and also the wonderful cake.

We had booked to go to the burger bar called the Bakehouse for dinner and were excited about eating there.

We got there and were seated and offered a drinks menu. It had an extensive cocktail menu but didn't detail any other drinks. I wasn't bothered about a cocktail as I'd had a lovely mocktail earlier in this gorgeous tudor pub, but obviously I wanted to see what they were offering for the sober people.

I enquired with the waiter. I then got the worst response I've ever had to not drinking.

Server: "What can I get you to drink"

Me: "What's on your non alcoholic menu please?"

Server "What?! Why are you not drinking?" this was delivered in a loud outraged voice. It's a quiet bar, people were definitely looking over

Me (speaking quietly): "I don't drink, do you have any 0% beer?"

Server (raising his voice louder): "Why don't you drink? This is awful. I can not believe you come here and don't drink." Then directed to my friend, "Isn't she boring, how can you be friends with someone so boring".

Me: "Do you have any non alcoholic or not?"

Server: "Well maybe, I will find you a 0% beer. I can't believe it!? How boring. I can't believe you're not having a cocktail"

I was so mad and for some reason embarrassed. I was upset I didnt stand up for myself more. In a normal situation there's a million reasons I give.

Reasons like:

I have a heart condition and choose not to drink as alcohol affects electrical impulses in your heart.

I was in the murky grey area of addiction and chose to clamber out before I dived any deeper.

I was making questionable choices whilst drinking.

Key relationships in my life were suffering.

I was a boring drunk.

I used to blackout.

I used to spend all my day thinking about the next drink.

I have a daughter I love more than life itself and I never want her to see her mum as an out of control mess.

Children who are exposed to alcohol at a younger age are more likely to struggle with alcohol at a later life.

Because I love myself and my sobriety is the biggest gift of self love I can give to myself.

Because quitting has opened up a whole new world to me that wasn't available before. I have done more stuff I've loved even whilst in lockdown than I ever would have done drinking.

It's opened my life to new people who have become friends.

But I gave none of these reasons. I just shrank into myself and it was awful.

My friend asked if I was ok and a smiled and whispered he was so rude. She nodded in agreement as our drinks came back by another server.

The other server was lovely and put our drinks down and asked if we were ready to order. As doing so the other server came over and started on me again, "is it a non alcoholic beer, she doesn't drink, isn't that boring?". I could see the other server and my friend felt uncomfortable, I just shrank back in my seat.

Our burgers came quickly and they were as bad as the attitude to be honest. We ate as quick as they came and left as fast as possible.

My friend squeezed my arm, she was so lovely and as outraged as me. As we were leaving she said could you imagine if you were really struggling tonight and that attitude made you drink. Like thank god you're not an alcoholic. I explained to her on the walk home that I found it really triggering and how I probably was an alcoholic.

That if that exchange with the server was earlier on in my sober journey I probably would've drank.

We walked back to the hotel, put on our jamas and reminisced about our wild days. It was a perfect end to a crap evening.

In a weird way, this morning on the eve of my soberversay, I'm really glad that horrible experience happened. It made me reflect in the early sleepless hours of the morning my reasons why. It brought it back into focus.

And I've told myself it's ok to have responded the way I responded. I responded on how I felt at the time. It was none of his shortsighted business and some times people don't deserve an explanation. They just deserve a patient smile as they rudely berate you.

So on the eve of my soberversay, I'm lying in bed in a hotel room, sober with a happy heart. This afternoon I'm going to my friends for lunch, who lived in that beautiful cottage where it all began last year. Although they're now in a different cottage, there's something fitting about going for lunch with them.

It was a drinking session with them when my mind was made up to go sober. Where I woke up made a tea and wandered into their country garden, overwhelmed with the scent of lavender on my first sober day. Scared of who I was becoming, scared to go a week without my "best friend" alcohol.

I can not believe how far I've come.

Love

JS