Come play... During my Dry January experience

Once the clock hits 12 tonight I will be 1 month sober! Funnily enough, I never thought of myself as an alcoholic, but I'd never stretch so far as to say I was only a moderate drinker. Especially over the month of December last year, when I ended up taking on more shifts at work at the pub and consequently, supplied myself with plenty of free booze (all legit of course).

However, I noticed that my drinking was starting to take it's toll when I'd find myself going through a bottle of wine at least a night. I had this issue where I could say no to a glass, however once a single one was consumed, the bottle could not be left unfinished. When considering the term of the glass being half full or half empty, in my case, the BOTTLE, should be neither, it should always, be completely, FULL, and then, EMPTY, and then another sourced to be devoured without delay!

This was all fine and well, I suppose, in my teens and early twenties, however now I have reached the year that I should (hopefully!) hit my 25th year of existence on this planet, and with my life not having turned out entirely as planned, still juggling bar jobs with my studies at university, whilst most of my peers had graduated a long time ago and are getting well and truly stuck in to their careers, I found a sober moment to contemplate my life choices and deliberate them in detail.

I thought about all the key points in my life that had lead me down then path that I find myself on. Why didn't I reach my predicted grade in school or college? Why didn't I pass my first year in university first time around? And why did I choose to work in customer service for 3 years instead of push myself to get a job I had any remote interest in?

Then I noticed a running theme, I started drinking 3 months before I was due to take my GCSE's, spending the majority of my free time down the beach with my friends getting wasted on Bella or Glen's vodka. Instead of attempting to revise for my exams. How I managed to pass them all (though some just barely) I'll never know.

This trend followed suit through college, especially once I moved out from home. Most of my 16th and 17th years of life are a blur, with only photographs on MySpace and Facebook to remind me that I got off with the majority of my friendship group and was lucky that I never ended up getting smacked by anyone since my actions were similar to that of an infant child pouring drinks over myself and just about anyone within a 5 meter radius of me.

Subsequently I failed my A Levels, no surprise there.

Then I gave myself 4 months to think long and hard about what I wanted to do with my life, and I stumbled across the Aerospace Engineering Btec at Newcastle College. It looked and turned out to be, pretty awesome, well, for the 43% of the time that I attended, the remaining 57% of the time I was either inebriated, or hungover. Due to the high quality of my level of work when I did bother to attend, I was predicted a DM (Distinction Merit) however, due to the course being mostly being put on the back burner behind my budding social life, I only ended up with a MP (Merit Pass). Which is barely acceptable for most universities and required me to do a foundation year where ever I decided to go. I can only assume that it was due to "positive discrimination" that I got into Manchester, because I didn't even hit their very lenient conditional offer target of a MM.

In my defence, I screwed up in Manchester predominantly due to financial issues, I didn't receive a single payment from Student Finance until March the following year after my course started, and I relied entirely on handouts from my fairly cash strapped estranged (according to the law at least, but not so much in real life) father. Most of this money ended up in my local bar, and I only decided to pull my finger out and do some real work one my payment came through, far too late, being unable to pick up the marks squandered from the first semester.

Once I received my confirmation from Manchester University that I'd not be allowed to resit the year, as they didn't consider financial difficulty to be a mitigating circumstance, I found myself at a real low point, and did what I always did when I was down in the dumps. I got drunk,

From that point I scowered the internet to find any job I could, and ended up doing the only job that those with wasted talent end up doing... I went into customer service.

I then spent as I said 3 years of my life getting up, going to work, hating work, finding kindred spirits in the form of my colleagues who also hated the work, finished, went out and got mind numbingly drunk with said colleagues and woke up hungover and miserable at the thought of going through the whole charade all over again.

But I persevered, I needed the money to pay for the booze, and after rent, that's what 90% of my salary went on.

After this time I eventually got fed up and decided to go back to university again. Which I have done, and completed my first year of last summer. The first real achievement that I have been able to put under my belt in 5 years. But the road ahead is still long, and as I grow older I find that now not just my body, but also my mind was being affected by my relationship with alcohol.

I constantly found myself stressed and uneasy, breakdowns in my job and at university were a frequent occurrence as I struggled to complete tasks or assignments with a hangover. And as I had my last breakdown at work in the middle of last month...

I decided enough was enough.

I needed to stop drinking. And not just cut down, I mean completely stop due to my entire lack of self control.

So I did. For 31 days for the month of January 2016.

And what did I find?

That drinking yourself into oblivion is fucking stupid.

I also saved 65 quid.

Come play… With Anxiety

As I’m writing this, I find myself with a strange sense of uneasiness. I found myself yawning almost constantly, with my heart feeling like its racing, fingers tingling, and almost certain that I’m dying.

I’ve grown to hate my job, I nearly had a breakdown (actually, I had an ACTUAL breakdown) at the prospect of even entering that office. I’m always fine by the time I get in there, and when I’m leaving I feel like I want to crawl up in a ball and never be disturbed. Either that or shop until I’ve spent the days earnings on another bag or pair of shoes. Which renders the whole exercise entirely pointless.

The job itself isn’t even all that difficult, I just find myself forgetting stupid things, and I have the inherent need to be the best, the most efficient, always moving forward. But as I’m working so hard through the week at uni, it feels like every weekend it feels like a month since I’ve last been in there. So I find myself constantly having to relearn my job.

And then when I make mistakes it is always noticed almost immediately and I am penalised for it, rather than anyone actually looking into why I make said mistakes and offering support and advice into how to combat these issues.

But instead I feel like a huge failure, and to make it worse my managers like to remind me of that fact each and every shift. My confidence is at its lowest point and I’m constantly wishing that I could be anywhere other than where I am. I find myself feeling like I’m going to have a panic attack every Saturday morning, and I cannot wait until I can get back to uni and spend my days feeling fulfilled and positive. Rather than lost and withdrawn.

One of my lecturers told us that he’s never had a job that he hated, because life’s too short, especially when you spend the majority of your conscious existence working. And you cannot be the best you can be when you hate what you do.

Every shift for the last month I’ve told myself I’ve got to hand my notice in. But that would admit that I failed. I know that any of my old mentors would tell me that it’s not I who failed, it is they, who failed me, for not having the capability to assume the slightest bit of compassion to an employee whose spirit they have completely crushed with their lack of acknowledgement of what they are putting us through on a daily basis.

Perhaps I’ve just been spoilt by working with companies that actually value the people who are making them money. Then again that explains why they were multimillion pound businesses while these guys are struggling to break-even.

I think the fact that I’ve spent the length of time to pine over the matter to the extent of spending my Saturday night writing this short essay is reason enough for me to let this go down as a moment in history where I made the wrong decision and take from the experience that I shouldn’t accept a job just because the pay is half decent.

Well. Lesson learned.