Kia Ora.
I’m 16 days into my new life without the turps. Life hasn’t really changed too much for me apart from the obvious - Not drinking beers on the weekend. I’m actually quite enjoying it, I wish I could say that I have had monumental breakthroughs in the way I look at life. Like how good food tastes on my taste buds, how soothing the sound of my children’s laughter is to my soul or that I've learned to appreciate how spectacularly cerulean blue the sky is. The truth is - The sky is still just fucking blue, food is still just food and usually always tastes good and as for the laughter of my 2 year old daughter - Well, that was an extremely bold statement - If I get to hear that sweet little innocent laugh every day for the rest of my life, I’ll die a happy man. What do I miss? I miss that first beer on a Friday afternoon. Most Friday’s I would look forward to that first sip more than anything else in life, come Friday arvo I felt like I had ‘earned’ that beer and more importantly - I DESERVED it. I had made it through another week and that was my special treat for being such an outstanding human being in both my work and personal life. I mean hell, I had not had a beer since the previous weekend and now it was time to spend some quality time with my pals in both the small brown bottles with the red labels and the big clear bottles with the black label and white letters. They never had plans with anyone else and would always make time for me. I am grateful for the warmth and constancy of their friendship over the past 20 odd years or so. So, it’s difficult for me to see alcohol as an enemy and as something that’s detrimental to me and my life and not as a friend and close companion. After all, it’s been my best friend and been at my side providing amplification, hype and comfort for some of the biggest moments of my life. The biggest of those moments was when I lost my mum to cancer on the 9th December 2010 after a 2 year battle. She was 51. FUCK YOU CANCER. For those of you who have lost a parent at a relatively young age (or any age) you know how heartbreakingly difficult it is to get yourself back on the road that you were on while they were still in your life. The truth of the matter is that you’re no longer on that same road and you’ll never be back on it, no matter how hard you try; that onramp and timeline is closed to you forever. You’re now stuck in the Alternate 1985 timeline that Biff Tannen created when he stole the DeLorean & went back to November 12th 1955 on the day of the ‘Enchantment Under the Sea’ dance and gave himself the ‘Grays Sports Almanac’ book. Everything is pretty shit. You’ve lost one half of the unconditional love that you’re guaranteed when you’re bought into this world. 50% of it - gone, never to return………..The worst thing about it is that it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t have a say in any of it yet it’s you that has to bear the brunt of it and carry that hefty bag of shit and emotions for the rest of your life. There’s not one thing that you could have done differently that would have altered the final outcome of this terrible situation that you’ve found yourself in. They’re gone and will always be gone. Deal with it. I dealt with it by spending a lot more time with my friends (the ones with the different coloured labels I mentioned earlier) and they did help me get by. I guess John Lennon was right, after all. “I get by with a little help from my friends”. I remember saying to my older brother on the day that mum died (while she was desperately trying to cling to the life that was being pulled out of her with every breath) “Don’t let me go too hard on the bottle after she’s gone, bro” To which he replied: “Bro you do whatever you have to do to get through”. Now, I always ALWAYS remembered everything that happened after a night out on the piss. There are maybe 2 times when someone has said to me “Oy. Remember when you did this XXXXXX last night”? That I didn’t remember. I have without a doubt, the best memory of anyone that I know. I have never told anyone this before (not even my wife) But I have no memory of the 2 months that followed my mum’s passing. I remember the 3am trip to Denny's to get a chicken club sandwich and curly fries with my wife and friends the morning after she died. I remember speaking at her funeral and I remember getting told to get out of the spa pool at 2am the night of my mum's wake by my dad and I remember laying in bed one night crying in Nikita’s arms and her cuddling me and rubbing my head and back until I fell asleep. To this day it is the closest I have ever felt to her and was the best cuddle I have ever had in my life. After that - I have nothing…..So from the 9th December 2010 ‘til maybe February 2011 - It’s blank. Nothing, nada, zip. I have my friends with the labels to thank for this. I was so deep in a hole that at any time I could have been given ‘the hose’ and told to ‘rub the lotion on my skin’. I never really understood the term ‘self medicating’ and thought it was a load of bullshit - some people might just drink because they enjoy it and not to repress unresolved trauma. If that’s you - Good on ya! I salute you. I wish I was someone that could ‘take or leave’ the booze and while I wasn’t someone that would drink every day, I was someone that would drink once a week without fail and the amount that I would drink had become more and more scary in recent years. I despise people that boast about how much they drink and who go as far as saying shit like “Last night I had 10 drinks here and then had G&T’s when we got to the bar and then a box of Bourbons at the kick ons” I don’t give a good god damn how much you can drink and i certainly don’t need to hear about it in detail. I am also acutely aware of the irony that it is exactly what I’m about to do now (kind of). The average night on the piss for me would (or could) consist of the following. Fucking heaps! Enough to get 3 or 4 people hammered and keep them hammered for the whole night. Anyway - I Digest…… I was self medicating and had been for quite some time. Alcohol soothed and relaxed me when I needed it to, pumped me up and had me raring to go when I needed it too and helped me cope when I needed it too. “Take 1 box of pre mixes and 1L of Jack Daniels (with Coke) and consume by the can or glass as often as needed. If your symptoms persist, remove the Coke and proceed to consume two fingers over ice or neat depending on your need”. Now there was a prescription I could get behind! Not anymore. Lee Weir M.D has been struck off, never to practice his own rogue methods or malpractice again. Slightly off topic but whoever coined the phrase ”Time Heals All Wounds” needs a swift roundhouse kick to the noggin. Time doesn’t heal shit! It’ll be 14 years this year that Antonia Maria Weir has not been in my life. 14 Birthdays that we’ve been robbed of. 14 Christmases where we’ve not been able to exchange presents. 14 Mother’s Days we've not been able to celebrate and thousands of hugs and kisses that I’ve not been able to give or receive. Don’t tell me that time can heal that, it can’t! I guess the saying “Time heals fuck all, and I guess that over time you just get better at dealing with it” doesn’t really have the same ring to it. Time has zero healing properties. If you take the time right now to think about something or a certain ‘life event’ that has happened and made you incredibly sad - you’ll get sad about it and it will hurt. Something that I have found that helps is what I like to call ‘Micro Grieving’. It takes about 10 - 15 minutes and it will 100% help you. Make sure that you’re by yourself. Put some headphones on and listen to a piece of music that resonates with how you’re feeling or just a sad song that will evoke those emotions from you and just have a good cry. I do this at least once a week (mostly on my way to or home from work in my car). For me it’s a Pearl Jam Song called ‘Come Back’ a Coldplay song called ‘The Scientist’ and as embarrassing as this is for a Rock Radio Announcer to admit - A certain Celine Dion song. I promise you that once you’ve done this, you’ll feel so fucking good. Feeling things is good. Being emotional is good. Crying is good. It lets the ‘Boo Hoo’s out. I wasn’t too sure if I should share this deeply personal and somewhat unorthodox & weird exercise with you or not but hey, it’s out there now and if it works for you - You’re welcome. Back on point - It’s been two (nearly three weeks) since I last had a buzz from alcohol and while the cravings are still present, I know that I have made the right choice. I have made a promise to myself that there’s just no room in my life for alcohol anymore. I think about all the time that I have wasted on being drunk or hungover and how much ‘family time’ has been sacrificed/sabotaged by me and my drinking habits and it makes me sad. Don’t get me wrong, at the time in my mind the decision to drink and not do whatever ‘bullshit family thing’ was being pitched to me was 100% the right call to make. It’s only now when I realise how much my presence was missed that I feel shitty about it. I’m not in any of the cool photos of Nikita and the kids, I wasn’t there for many of the experiences that my children had had and I can’t join in on the ‘Remember when we went to XXXX and saw that cool thing’ etc etc. That’s on me. I fucked up. Bad Lee! YOU NAUGHTY BOY!!! Every time I think about knocking the froth off of a couple dozen golden throat charmers - I now think about my children and how I’m not going to deprive them of doing something (anything) with their dad because he wants to thunder pump some tins. Whether it be jamming a few solo battles on Fortnite & chasing that elusive victory royale with the boy, having a game of Cribbage with the girl or doing the same god damn puzzle with the toddler 10 times; it’s what gets me through my ‘go on bro, have one’ cravings. FYI - That puzzle is currently the absolute bane of my existence. I have had so many people reach out to me to wish me luck, offer advice and say that me publicly addressing the fact that I’ve decided to quit drinking has sparked something within them and that they’re going to join me on this journey. Which is pretty bloody cool. The amount of love and support that I’ve received is incredibly humbling so, thank you to everyone that has reached out to me. I’ll continue to write shit like this as often as I feel led to. Also, I do not think that now that I’ve said ‘see ya’ to the suds that I’m any better than someone who drinks. I’m simply sharing my personal journey and thoughts on the matter in the hopes that someone at the very least, gets a good read out of it. If anything that I have written or said here resonates with you and you want to start making some changes to the habits you have then by all means - Give it a hoon. If not - Don’t. You do you. Until next time ~ Cheers & no beers, Lee.
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AuthorLee Weir - Radio Announcer, Marriage Celebrant and Guinness World Record Holder. Archives
January 2024
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