Celebrating 10 years of sobriety

Hello all.

It's April 6th 2012 and that can only mean one thing.....it's ten years since I last drank alcohol. It's strange looking back on it as it doesn't seem like ten years. I am always asked why I don't drink alcohol and I have given many reasons over the last ten years as to why, but only twice have I actually told someone the reason.....until now.

To tell the story I will have to go back exactly ten years to April 6th 2002. I was 17 at the time and was in the middle of my first year at college. My closest friend is a girl from Brighouse, just outside of Huddersfield, called Faye and we had met for the first time about 2 months previously. We had met via a mutual friend of ours (Dee) and become good friends, and I was looking forward to seeing her again. I had been given that opportunity by her sister, who was turning 18, as she had invited me for her night out.

Skip forward and it's around 7pm and the group of five of us head out and despite being only 17 (for those of you who don't live in the UK and don't know why I am highlighting that, the legal age to buy alcohol in bars/pubs in the UK is 18), but luckily I have always looked older than I am, this in hindsight was a bad thing as I was freely buying alcohol.

Skip forward and it's now around 11pm and I have had what must have been close on 10 pints, and given that I had never drunk that much before, it didn't have a good effect on me. We move onto more pubs and I continue to drink. I should really mention that at this point in my life I was a bit of a drama-queen and made things out to be a lot worse than there were and during the night I climb to the top of a car park and threaten to throw myself off......I do. Maybe I had drunk far too much but I thought I was on top of a six/seven storey car park.....in reality I was on a car park that only had two floors, so did pretty much fuck all damage to myself other than maybe a slightly hurt toe.

Several hours later and we have finally made it back to where I am staying. By this point I had thrown up at least four times, and it was still coming.

The next morning and despite originally supposed to be there for another night, Faye's mum drives me to the train station because I am ill, or at least that's what she said. I should have gotten the clue by the fact that Faye didn't talk to me at any point during the day before I left, not even saying goodbye. Several hours pass and I finally get home, and Faye says that she knows what sort of stuff I did, including the car park incident. She says she doesn't want to be friends anymore, and I was distraught as she was my closest friend and probably the only person at the time that I trusted.

So, that's why I don't drink. Not only do I remember not liking the taste and it saves me a lot of money, but I don't trust myself not to do something stupid if I got drunk again, such as finding a car park that is actually several storeys high and jumping off of it.

I'm sorry that it might not be the dramatic story that some of you were hoping for, but there you go.

The Aftermath

As soon as Faye told me that she didn't want to be friends anymore, I went out to try and replace her and ended up finding Marinda/Maz that same day, and she turned out to be the great love of my life. Had I not getting drunk and ruined my friendship with Faye, I never would have met Marinda, so in that sense that was a good thing.

I also try and take my mind off things go deciding to go to more football matches, however, even I never imagined how far that would go. The day I went to Brighouse saw City play away at Kidderminster towards the end of the 2001/2 season....since that day I have only missed two matches, for better or worse.

Me and Faye also haven't spoken in the ten years since this all happened but I am now fully over her. I have been for a long time. I might occasionally think of what happened but not very often, and it's the best example I can think of of the term "time heals".