I will never drink alcohol again

I will never drink alcohol again. I wrote this in a WhatsApp group with the same seriousness of writing a will.

No jokes! I was dead serious and wrote it with the conviction of a person who had reached the edge of untold suffering and come back wiser. 

This was after two nights of drinking more than usual without much care or respect for tomorrow. Fun, happy times

The first night ended when the cock crowed and almost as if on cue, the Muslim call to prayer started. That alone should tell you the evening had blended seamlessly into morning. When the mosque is calling people to begin the day and you are still deciding whether to drink water, remove your shoes, or just collapse as you are, that should be a moment of personal reflection. I remember thinking, Peace, enough. Morning has found you still here.

So I went to bed.

I surprised myself by waking up just on time for a 9am online meeting, but of course I washed my face in ice water and slapped on some lipstick. That day my body dealt with me seriously in suffering. I spent the rest of the day weak, trying not to throw up, promising myself that I would be good to my body.

The following day, you will not believe it, I was drinking again. I met friends of friends, and it was the case where the plan was to have one glass of wine, a sip at a time. Not before long, there were empty bottles of wine. At least unlike before by the time the clock struck midnight, I was safely at home and in bed. 

The next morning I was up before seven, did my walk, ran errands, even drove from Entebbe to Kampala and back, looking like a woman whose life was under control.

But the body was simply waiting for afternoon, and that is when everything collapsed.

Strangely, I did not have a headache. Just terrible nausea and weakness. I had a trip planned and had to postpone it because there was no way I was going anywhere. I remember seeing people moving normally and wondering how they were doing it. How was everyone functioning as if life was ordinary?

That was the moment I went to a friends' WhatsApp group and wrote: I will never drink alcohol again.

I wrote it many times, like someone writing lines in school punishment.

My friends laughed immediately.

They laughed not because they are bad people, but because apparently this statement has history. Instead of sympathy, they started sending screenshots of older messages where I had said the exact same thing. Same words, same energy, same suffering. It turns out I have made this announcement before, several times, each time sounding like a new woman entering her season.

One of the friends I had been out with came over later that day looking like he had had it just as badly as I. He sat on the couch and within minutes he was asleep, passed out.

When he woke up, we made a serious pact, a pinky promise.

Imagine, two adults, recovering from poor decisions, crossing little fingers promising not to drink alcohol for six weeks. At that moment it felt wise, necessary even. We had experienced enough suffering.

Day one was easy because my body still remembered everything. I drank water like medicine, took multivitamins to help with recovery as I had to work, and moved around gently, fully convinced sobriety was now my character.

Then the body recovered. That is when I realised that the body is a very unreliable witness.

By day two I was already less committed in spirit to the pinky promise.

By day three I was checking dates. End of May? That is not nearby. That is many sunsets. It is even longer than Lent, and at least Lent comes with group encouragement and structure.

By day four I texted my friend because I was hoping maybe suffering had exaggerated things.

I asked, Please confirm, did we say end of April or end of May?

He replied immediately: End of May. We said end of May. We are making it.

That reply disturbed me a little because I was no longer speaking from nausea. I was speaking from recovery. Having recovered my mind was saying things like, Surely one glass cannot destroy a promise. Recovery become my lawyer, my judge, my catalyst, my influencer, my therapist, etc.

And that is what interested me, how quickly conviction changes once pain heals.

When I made that decision not to drink alcohol for 6 weeks, I meant it completely. In that moment alcohol was the enemy. But once the body became strong again, once appetite returned, once tea started tasting normal and the world stopped spinning, I began wondering whether I had made a serious decision in temporary suffering.

Yet the reason I made it had not changed, only the feeling had changed.

That happens in many parts of life. People sell land when pressure is high, then later when things have settled, they wonder not only why they sold it, but why they sold it so cheaply. People resign in anger, then reread the message the next day with calmer blood. People decide things when pain is still speaking loudly, then start trying to reverse decisions or make amends when peace returns.

Here I am sitting with my own decision, held together by one pinky promise.

What is most troubling for me is that I am travelling soon and I anticipate being served beautiful multi-coloured and harmless looking drinks with names that sound expensive enough to count as cultural immersion. I already know there will be that moment, somewhere beautiful, where somebody places a fancy cocktail nearby and I remember that my hungover self entered an agreement without consideration of future enjoyment.

Still, a promise is a promise.

It could be that the real test of many such decisions is whether you still respect them after the suffering that created them has gone.

So yes for now, I have gone ten days without a drink and please this is not because I am disciplined but because from where my feet were, two friends tied pinky fingers while suffering from poor choices, and now, having recovered, it is about honouring that pact.