Losing friends when you quit drinking

 

In all honesty, I didn't expect to lose many friends when I quit drinking and using drugs, because I didn't drink with other people in the first place. For a long time I was drinking alone, but as with everything, getting sober has its surprises. 

This solo drinking was happening for several reasons. For one thing, I was drinking at the pubs where I worked and eventually those jobs. I say lost even though I wasn't actually fired; I quit right before I was fired. I was on my way to being banned from the places I worked/drank at and simply quit before my employers could get there first. When I stopped being able to go to my regular watering holes, I stopped going out. 

Another reason I was drinking alone was because of the money I was spending. At the time I was living in Darwin, and although drinking culture in the area is insane, the cost of a night out was getting equally ridiculous. All-night drinking sessions with two drinks per visit to the bar were taking a serious toll on my bank account, and I figured that $25 on two bottles of wine was better than $25 a round. 

The final reason was quite simply that I like being alone. This wasn't out of shame or embarrassment about the amount I was drinking, as I've heard other recovering alcoholics or drug users have said, nor was it because I was reluctant to share my drugs or alcohol. I'm simply a massive introvert. 

Because I wasn't drinking with any friends, I didn't expect to lose friends when I stopped, and

I haven't really lost that many. The friends I have now either knew me before I became a hard-core addict and have maintained their friendship, or haven't seen me at my worst, so I haven't been able to push them away. I expected to get a lot of "Haha, nice try, I know you'll never stop drinking", "Do you remember when you did this?" and "That's probably for the best; you were definitely drinking too much" messages, but none have appeared. People have been really supportive. 

Obviously there are exceptions to this. Some people seem to have pulled away, but these are people that also drink a lot. When you're friends with someone who has always drunk more than you or used drugs when you don't, it's easier to look down on them as having a bigger problem so you don't have to acknowledge your own. As my friend put it, I removed the ceiling, and now they are the ceiling, and my getting sober seems to have impacted my relationships with people I've known throughout my drinking and drug use. 

That, or I'm reading too much into it, and they just don't want to talk to me. Either or.

Fellow recovering alcoholic Cam Thompson demonstrates it really well in this YouTube short. 

The friendships I've lost unexpectedly are with people whose behaviour I no longer want to engage with, because I don't think I deserve to be treated badly anymore. I hated myself for so long that I put up with being hurt because I felt like I deserved it. When you're vulnerable and don't like who you are, you believe that you deserve bad treatment, and so you'll put up with pretty much anything. 

The friendship "break-up" in question happened last week with someone I'd known for a few years. We met on Bumble when I first moved to Darwin. Although we hung out a few times with the intention of something romantic happening, we eventually decided that we were better off as friends. For months, he had been asking me really inappropriate questions about my body and sex life. Ranging from whether certain types of underwear are comfortable to whether I'd lost any sexual function after taking SSRIs long-term. The nature of these questions made me uncomfortable in general, especially because they often came out of the blue when we'd be having a completely different conversation about art or books, but they also bothered me for another reason. 

They bothered me because each time he asked them, I told them they made me feel uncomfortable and asked him to stop. Instead of apologizing, he would immediately get defensive and gaslight me into thinking that I was the one saying these things. When I was drinking, I didn't know any better; I often woke up not knowing what I'd said to people, and so I'd apologize. When I stopped blacking out, I stopped doubting what I had said to people, and so this time I knew he was lying. Instead of apologizing, he was trying to deflect from his own behaviour by manipulating and gaslighting me into apologizing for something I hadn't done. 

He also became rude and aggressive when I asked him not to talk to me this way. With responses ranging from "I won't tolerate being dragged into validating your mindset", still no idea what that means, to calling out my "tone". The final message he sent told me that our friendship would be over if I kept making these non-existent comments and ended with a condescending "Got it?". 

One of the positive side effects of not drinking anymore is that I'm not as impulsive with the things I say. I'm no longer lashing out when I'm angry and saying the first thing that comes to mind; instead, I either choose not to reply, end the conversation or wait to send a response. Luckily, I was with my friend Anna at the time, so I had someone there to read it and reassure me that my reaction was justified. We discussed how saying I'd said inappropriate things when I asked him not to was akin to if a student hit someone and then claimed it was okay because they'd hit them two weeks ago.

She teaches first grade. 

I didn't reply at first, probably because I'd intended to let it go, but after a day of the message playing over and over in my head, I realized that I had to take some responsibility. By repeatedly putting up with this behaviour, I was showing him that it was okay. There were no consequences for his actions, so nothing was changing.

So I blocked him. 

The message I sent wasn't combative or aggressive, nor did I call out his hypocrisy. I simply said that I didn't want to be spoken to like that either and went about my day. I will miss the conversations we had; it's nice to be able to talk to people about shared interests, but I'll make new friends. Friends that don't make me feel uncomfortable or ignore my boundaries. One of my New Year's resolutions was to stand up for myself more, and I'm slowly learning how. 

Have you lost any friends in your sober journey? 

xXx

How I'm feeling today

My anxiety has been pretty bad lately. I always feel like I'm running out of time and that I have to do things straight away when I wake up. I had an hour lie-in today and woke up at 8 instead of 7, and was already having chest pains thinking about the time I had to get things done before I leave for work, even though I don't leave for work until 12. I have plenty of time and not a lot to do, but I still feel worried and upset, convinced that I have to do things straight away. 

Some of this is probably to do with the fact that my time here is coming to an end, and some is probably because I don't want to do what's on my to-do list. I have to tell a friend that I can't come to her leaving drinks. Part of the reason that I don't want to go is that I don't feel comfortable being around alcohol, and the other part is that the last time I saw them was a night that I thought I could give myself time off from my sobriety, and I ended up getting high. I'm very ashamed of this, and although I know this isn't important to other people, I still don't feel able to go. I've asked when she's working to see if we can meet another day, but she hasn't replied yet. 

I'm also worried about a present I have sent her. I don't know if she's going to receive it. I didn't understand how mailing things to her apartment works before I got it sent to her from the Etsy seller I chose. I'm worried that it's not going to get to her and that it'll be sat in the delivery locker without her being able to access it. This would make it a waste of money and a waste of the time and effort that the kind lady who I ordered it from put into trying to get it to her and making such a lovely product. It would have been helpful if she'd explained the process to me properly before I ordered it, but she would not have known that I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get the parcel to her. I am scared of contacting the lady who sent it because I don't want to find out if it has all been a waste of time and money. 

Looking at my blog this morning also made me a bit sad. No one reads my posts, and I am embarrassed to share them on Facebook because social media makes me uncomfortable and I don't want people to laugh at me. I don't have the skills or the confidence to take photos myself, so I can't post on Instagram because I use Pixabay photos, and so I paid for an ad campaign on X. I don't 100% know if it has worked, but it only cost me $8, so it doesn't matter if it doesn't work. At least I've made the effort. 

Now I've written my feelings down, I feel a little bit better, and hopefully people will read my post from yesterday. My anxiety comes and goes, and I don't know where this particularly bad patch came from or what set it off, but as long as I keep doing the things I absolutely have to, like taking care of myself and going to work, I will be okay until it eases up. These things just take time. 

xXx

Runaway

I want to run away today from a place that I'm not even in. 

In two months, I leave Brisbane for England and will get back to London on October 24th. I don't know where to go when I land; my dad doesn't want me to go to his house even though he has told my mum that I am okay to stay there, and I can't go to my mum's house because of her boyfriend. I have always made a point of not being in places where I'm not wanted; it's why I moved out of my mum's house at 18 in the first place, and I don't want to start doing it now. 

I hate being in places where people don't want me around. It's obvious when you are not wanted somewhere, and the awkwardness is stifling. When I was at uni, I moved in with a couple who immediately broke up. My other housemate was away, and I couldn't be in rooms with them because of how they acted around me; they had the secrets that permeated the rooms and made them sticky and uncomfortable. I vaguely remember asking what the problem was, but there was never an answer, and so I hid myself away like I'm doing right now. My aunty Jackie has a dog called Betty who sleeps in a crate. Jackie refers to Betty's crate as her safe space, and that's how I feel. I can shut out the world in here. Be alone. Read my books and watch my shows, and I don't have to worry about anyone not wanting me there. I have a right to be here. My four walls and my bed are my safe space, but I have to leave soon, and I won't have a safe space anymore. 

My friend has said I can stay at his Monday through Thursday when I get back to England, which is one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for me. He works away during the week and has a spare set of keys, so I'll be able to stay once I get back from Dublin and then again when I get back from Berlin. I have other friends I can stay with here and there to make up the days in between but the first night back is what's scaring me.

There's no question of me not going back. My flights are booked, and even if they weren't, I can't go to New Zealand unless I get my proof of residency from being at home first. From there, I have the money for my flight and my visa, thank-you tax rebate, and once it's approved and booked, I can go. New Zealand will be the first place I move to sober and the first place I move to where I'm not running away from the denial of my alcoholism. Each place I've moved feels like it has fulfilled a different purpose; New Zealand feels like the place for me to clear my head. To take time and space to let go of some of the last parts of my life in England and see how I feel about the future before I decide if it's time to set down roots and if it is, when, where and how. It's a completely different feeling to how I've felt about moving before, but I have an idea in my mind of what I want and what I need, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it pans out. I might want to run away from England even though I'm not there yet, but I'm not running away from myself anymore. 

I ended up asking my fairy Glenn mother for a favour, and hopefully I'll be able to stay with him the first night I'm in England. At the very least, there'll be somewhere for me to stay the first night I'm there where people want me around. 

Fingers crossed he says yes 

xXx

Fairwell to Fluoxetine

When I was a teenager, the medical field's understanding of mental health issues in young people was only just developing, to the point that it was burgeoning on non-existent. My parents and doctors tried, but the resources available to me were limited as I didn't fit into the categories that were usually set out for young people. The people I saw didn't really know how to help me, even though they really tried.

One of these good intentions was the idea that medication was the right choice for me from very early on. Lamotrigine saved my life, but it took a long time for doctors and psychiatrists to find the right medicine for my condition, and I was prescribed multiple different medications and dosages until I found the right one. One of the ones that they tried, the very first one they tried, was Fluoxetine. 

Commonly known as Prozac, Fluoxetine is an SSRI or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor that I was first prescribed when I was 15. Although I was prescribed multiple other medications throughout my diagnosis journey, I stayed pretty consistently on fluoxetine to the point that I didn't really know what it did anymore. A quick Google describes long-term SSRI use as anything over two years. I was taking fluoxetine for 18 years.

After a lengthy conversation with my doctor and a rather stupid incident whereby I cut my dosage by two-thirds overnight, it was decided that slowly reducing my dosage and eventually weaning myself off the drug was a good idea. I began lowering my dosage in September and eventually stopped taking them in February. 

It turns out, even after 18 years, fluoxetine was still doing its job by treating my anxiety. I was very young when I started to experience feelings of anxiety, too young to really know what anxiety was. After working this hard to wean myself off of them, I really don't want to start taking SSRIs again, and so now I'm having to find my own ways of managing my anxiety.

In the past, I would simply have used drugs or alcohol; nervousness was often one of the reasons that I drank. Now I'm getting sober, this method isn't an option, and so I'm having to find other ways of calming myself down. Pain helps, which is what has led to an increase in alternative methods of self-harming such as biting my arms, but that's not a healthy choice either. After all this time medicating with prescribed, legal and illegal drugs, I'm having to find healthy ways of making myself feel better, and it's proving to be a harder task than I thought it would be. 

So far, I've been working out what triggers my anxiety and what helps ease it. Being late, for instance, really upsets me, as does spending money. But listening to Agatha Christie books read by Hugh Fraser on Audible and watching Cleanwithbea, a lovely woman on YouTube who cleans people's houses for free, calms me down. I've still been getting quite upset, but I'm doing my best to remind myself that what I deem "bad" things aren't punishments, and that I don't need to hurt myself to feel better. 

But that's a conversation for another day

xXx

Sober stories, the first gig.

As of tomorrow, I will have been clean and sober from drugs and alcohol for 12 weeks. This is the longest I've gone without alcohol since University, and is coming pretty close to the longest I've been sober since I started drinking in the first place.

The alcohol free part hasn't been as difficult as I thought it would be. Not to say it's been easy by any means, but it hasn't been the hardest part. One of the things that has helped me stay sober is by telling people I'm sober. Not in an "I'm vegan" way, but just by saying that I don't drink if the subject comes up. By telling people that I'm sober when I've been in situations that involve alcohol, it's been easier to stick to soft drinks or alcohol-free beer. By not keeping it a secret, I don't have to worry about slipping because I'm trying to keep it a secret. 

Friday night, I went to my very first sober gig and saw Mojo Risin' - The Doors Experience at The Crowbar. The irony of the fact that it was a Doors tribute band was not lost on me. I was anxious about going because I didn't know if I'd be able to stay away from alcohol when I was in a situation where I'd normally have a drink. I can stay away from pubs, but seeing live music is something I really enjoy, and I don't want to give that up. I knew I'd enjoy myself, but I was scared that I'd be too tempted and try to rationalize why one shot of whisky or a pint of beer would be okay. Worrying that I wouldn't have a good time without alcohol didn't factor in as much as I thought it would. 

Staying sober that night was hard, but I managed it. Turns out Heaps Normal make a decent alcohol-free lager, and I chewed so much gum to keep my mouth busy that I woke up feeling like I'd spent the night gurning my tits off on speed. I'm not usually a huge fan of being around drunk people, and the people standing behind me were high, which drunk me would have seen as a segway into getting high myself, but it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. I enjoyed myself and, more importantly, I was proud of myself. 

J

Brisbane updates

At the beginning of the year, I decided that I didn't want to move around as much in 2026 because of how much I travelled in 2025. Obviously, this didn't quite go to plan, and in March, I moved to the third city I've lived in in 3 months and headed to Brisbane. This was partly due to an amazing Pulp gig I went to and partly because Cairns kind of sucked. 

When you live in a city filled with backpackers, it can be difficult to find work. After applying for over a hundred positions I was only successful at one position that I absolutely hated due to my being terrible with numbers. Cities where international travellers can extend their visa through working in hospitality are difficult to find work in because employers know that they can treat them like trash and they won't leave. They're there not just because they need the money, but because without the work they have to leave Australia. Work aside I found it difficult to settle in Cairns and, as Brisbane is the largest city in Queensland, it made sense to hop on a plane and head over. 

Brisbane has been good for me, but I'm still struggling. I'm using this move to get sober and I thought that finally quitting drugs and alcohol would mean that I would finally feel in control. Finally feel at peace. This hasn't been the case and I'm feeling worse than ever. I feel so ugly that I want to hurt myself every time I look in the mirror and spent a morning not too long ago smacking myself around the head and biting my arms because I felt so hideous. I was telling myself over and over that I'm so ugly I should be dead and, no matter how many days of sobriety I have under my belt, this feeling isn't going away. 

I have nobody to talk to here either. My friendships from back home are disintegrating and I'm realising more and more that it's not just people I date that I let treat me badly but a lot of people in general. People say things that are spiteful and vicious and mean and I just sit and take it because I'm so afraid of being alone or rejected. Even though these people say things that they know will hurt me I sit and take it. Because if I stand up to them and they decide they don't want to be my friend anymore I will be alone. 

I'm also exhausted. I'm working two jobs to get by and I still can't work my sums out. I feel stupid and useless and pathetic and alone and although I'm trying to make sure my job isn't my entire personality I still find myself stressing about how many hours of work I am getting. I can't talk to people about my job though because they mock it, say I'm going to quit or tell me it's toxic. People are so hell bent on telling me my life is bad and I have no idea why. 

Not drinking is actually proving to be easier than I thought. It's still hard and the temptation is still there but the longer I go the more I want to continue. I went out for drinks when my friend left work the other day and I only drank alcohol free beer, which is disgusting by the way, and I made it through my birthday and April 20th completely sober. Tomorrow I'll have been sober an entire month which is probably the longest I've been without a drink since before I moved to Toronto. It's nice to not feel hungover, to know what I've said or done and to not be afraid to re-read the conversations I've had the night before when I wake up but I still feel the same. I'm still broke. I'm still out of control and I still want to hurt myself. 

I also don't remember the last time I craved cocaine this much. 

Brisbane is lovely though and I've been doing lots of fun things that I haven't been able to do in other cities. I went to see a screening of Toy Story played by a live orchestra, I have tickets to reading of the sequel to a book that I really love in June and next week I went to see Jeff Goldblum's jazz band.

I'm just working hard on focusing on my sobriety, being more present and not making my job my entire personality. I think those are good goals to have. 

Jess

Side by Side, Jordan Clayden-Lewis

 

They say to never judge a book by its cover, but it is also important to never judge a book by its title. Unfortunately for Side by Side by Jordan Clayden-Lewis, I was able to immediately work out the plot by doing both of these things. 

Side by Side is a MM romance about a man that moves to Brisbane for a job at a marketing company. I have to say he was a pretty relatable character. LGBTQ millennial, moving to Brisbane after travelling round Europe, he ticked a lot of boxes in terms of relatability. However it was these characteristics that made it seem that Clayden-Lewis was either a) determined to tell the reader that he's a millennial gay man or b) someone who had never met a gay man in his life and was running exclusively on cliches. 

This is not a comment on authors shoving LGBTQ agendas down reader's throats, but more a criticism on how one dimensional the characters seemed. He made each character's gender/sexuality their entire personality, and made little to no attempt to flesh them out into believable characters. There was one character involved in a weakly written  B-plot who sold a bookcase to one of the main characters, but it had zero influence on the actual plot. She asked him to writer her memoirs for absolutely no reason and it inexplicably involved the Vietnam War.

Don't get me wrong, Why are we in Vietnam by Norman Mailer is one of my favourite texts and I'd highly recommend it, but the conflict had nothing to do with the love lives of a twenty something gay man and a widow in her 70s.

It's clear that the author was trying to write a beach read that appealed LGBTQ readers but the cliched language choices and obvious plot lines fell short. If you want to read something that requires less energy than reading a grocery list I'd recommend it, but if not I wouldn't waste your time.