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 moving as far away from Rusholme as possible.

It's that time of year when your tenancy ends and the place that you've called home for the past 12 months becomes history. You take the lessons learned from living in a certain area/with certain people/paying a certain amount to live there and reflect on your experiences and lessons from being there.

Well I learnt that Rusholme is a less than desirable place to live in, that you cannot wander the streets past the watershed in a dress/skirt and not be propositioned by the local community for a bit of the old fellatio.

That each day cycling on the curry mile is a gamble with young men speeding down the street chasing after you like a bowling pin.

That it is perfectly acceptable to break into someone's house and have absolutely no potential to ever get caught due to the police giving absolutely zero fucks for the residents wellbeing and are too busy avoiding/ignoring the very blatant local drug dealers.

That each morning the streets reek of rotten meat and vomit and that the stench only gets worse throughout the day.

That absolutely nobody cares about one another, that the young and illiterate are left to run riot and prey on the meek and the old... and the politically correct.

This is not a multicultural place, it's a series of ghettos and dives where no one takes pride in where they live. The only place where there is a rat and pigeon obesity epidemic and where people are too scared to talk to one another for fear of being stabbed, shot or having acid thrown in their face.

What's sad is anyone who moves there never stays for very long, because it's easier to move somewhere better than to recognise and fix the deep, damaging and depressing issues that are associated with living in such a tiny area of the country. And those unable to leave will produce offspring that will either leave as soon as possible, or contribute in continuing the cycle.

I guess you can't help those who don't want to help themselves, and I don't ever want to be scared to be in my own home alone again.

So here's to moving, it can't get any worse surely?

Come Play... With Change & Goodbyes.

My friend left the business I work for today, it feels so weird to think that he won't be around anymore after seeing him about every day or so for the past 8 months. Then I realise how long it's been and how much time has passed since I moved here.

From starting a new adventure, going to uni, then failing and being the saddest I had ever been up to that point, as an adult anyway; to entering the world of work at Missguided, working stupid hours for minimum wage and still having to borrow money from my then-boyfriend just in order to make ends meet.

Then taking my two fingers and sticking them right up at the company which abused my hard-working nature and stifled my potential, and moved on to the world of Laterooms.

There I've met a wider range of people, from different backgrounds, different countries and all with their own stories to tell. I've not left the UK in almost 10 years, yet I've learn't much about the world through their stories and I'd love the opportunity to live them through my own eyes.

Now after he's left it's really hit home that life is full of change, but what's more strange for me is that I'm used to leaving other people's lives, not having it be the other way round, we've got it pretty cushy here, so I partially worry for him and hope he'll be alright without the financial support from working here, but more than that I envy him, for being able to leave, and having a future to look forward to elsewhere, our part of his life has now ended and he's moving on, it's a weird feeling knowing that I'll be stuck in the same place come Thursday evening.

Despite this I know that my time too will come, sooner than I'd like, the past 9 months since I started working at Laterooms have absolutely flown by, especially the last 4, where I went from realising that English wasn't for me and dropping out of college, to visiting MOSI with my dear flatmate and falling in love with aircraft again, to reapplying for university, to receiving my place and confirming it and confirming that in a further 5-7 months time, I'll be living in a new city, starting fresh, doing what I love, finally.

It's a bitter-sweet moment though, as I have become fully comfortable within my surroundings, hating it, but being comfortable nevertheless. I like that I earn just enough to get by, and that I can sleep for 12hrs a day. That every spare day is an opportunity for a new adventure which I'm now taking full advantage of, spending a Friday in Leeds with the most beautiful boy I have ever met, then the following Thurs/Fri taking my beauty of a best friend to my home, and still being able to make it to work for Saturday after getting the bus back to Manchester for 9.30am.

My plan was to get out of debt before I went back to University, now it's to create as many experiences as possible before I leave this city forever.

I am terrified, and have grown to dislike change, but it's one thing in this life you'll never be able to avoid, so I'm doing all I can to attempt to embrace it once again.

But despite this, though things may change, I hope that this is not the end.