Sobriety

What an unattractive word sobriety is! To me it brings up images of worthy, wholesome, evangelical Christians, looking down on anyone enjoying themselves in any way. Of course that is not really what sobriety is, nor is it really what temperance is, which ought to be the moderated use of things. What sobriety really is is probably best defined here by the World Health Organisation:

'Continued abstinence from alcohol and psychoactive drug use (see recovery).

'(2) As often used in Alcoholics Anonymous and other mutual-help groups, refers also to the individual' s achievement and maintenance of control over and equilibrium in his or her life in general. Synonyms for sober, particularly referring also to illicit drugs, include "clean" and "straight''.

'(3) Now less frequently, moderation or habitual moderation in drinking patterns, as in the earlier meaning of temperance.' (Source)

In turn, the WHO defines the psychoactive substances it refers to above as:

'Psychoactive substances are substances that, when taken in or administered into one's system, affect mental processes, e.g. cognition or affect. This term and its equivalent, psychotropic drug, are the most neutral and descriptive term for the whole class of substances, licit and illicit, of interest to drug policy. 'Psychoactive' does not necessarily imply dependence-producing, and in common parlance, the term is often left unstated, as in 'drug use' or 'substance abuse'.' (Source)

In sum, therefore, sobriety is a most witch-like thing, of returning to a state where one sees things as they are, from a point of view where one is who one is. Sobriety is of personal reference to me in two ways. I have an addiction – although my substance of choice is nicotine rather than alcohol – and therefore can see the way an addict relates to their substance or behaviour from a mile off. I also have a bit of a funny relationship with alcohol. My mother was brought up as a primitive Methodist and so for her drinking alcohol at all tends to be alcoholism. I have been in the homes of genuine teetotallers where there is no alcohol at all – although what makes people think grown adults want to drink orange squash with a meal, I can't begin to think – and the fact that as a child our sideboard always groaned under the weight of the bottles, which bizarrely were never drunk from, is a contradiction my mother seems never to have noticed. I have a little drink in the evening, and am cautions to make sure I only ever have one of the tiny glasses I have and to have nights off so that it will not increase and I won't transfer my dependence to another substance. I cannot smoke at all, because I cannot keep that under control.

This to me is a sensible way of dealing with addiction. For me it is the result of getting my shit together over a long period of years. And it is particularly the result of a full and frank inventory of my own shit, without being under the influence of anything psychoactive. I'm not going to publish the exact role that tobacco plays for me, because it is simply too embarrassing.

You were wondering when Golden Boy/Cock Tease was going to make an appearance here, weren't you? I abandoned my candle spell in mid hissy fit. How obvious does it have to be that we are going to have one of those tempestuous relationships where we circle round each other until we eventually get it together and are bound together like glue in a relationship which nobody else can understand?

Anyway, in one of my periodic times when I tell myself we're off for life, which are always the times he pursues me like nobody's business I had a dream in which I told him I wished he would stop drinking for the reason that I wanted him to – ahem – retain his sexual function. Of course in my dream I didn't phrase it like that and went into explicit detail about what I wanted him to do to me for years to come. So given that he wasn't going away and I wanted him to at that point, I thought I would just plain tell him. Even he had to acknowledge the irony that he was reading my text suggesting her really ought to do something about his alcoholism, with a hangover. He tried to turn it into a joke, so I just went there. If you should be reading this in London, the glow you've seen this week is his face!

I have a funny feeling about this, though. He's gone quiet, and my friend who's a snapchat friend with him tells me he has stopped posting pictures of what he's drinking every night. Alcoholics only admit it to themselves after a shock, and I have a feeling I may be one of those shocks. I'm just a man-magnet, in my own peculiar way. It must be the real me that does it. The sober one.