Can't Keep My Mouth Shut - Life Lessons I Learnt From Going Sober in October

Episode Date: November 2, 2020

Fare thee well, hangover. You will not be missed. Want to live your best (and healthiest!) life? Start with what you eat - find out more over on Sweet Life Asia by clicking here. 

This podcast contains strong language and discussions about relationships and sex. It may not be suitable for younger listeners. This is the Sex in Singapore City podcast and I'm Nick Salina-Watson. hello it's me nick selena i'm back with another episode of my awesome podcast and today we're talking about being alcohol free namely life lessons i learned from going sober in October. So to put it in perspective, because it's not a major thing, but it's also quite a major thing. I have never ever stuck to anything like this in my life. Of course, I've said I'm going to give up smoking. I'm going to give up drinking. I've said how, you know,

I'm going to be healthy for a month. But I've never, ever, ever, ever actually seen it through to the end. So for me, going sober for the whole of October, I was just so fearful that I couldn't do it because my willpower is shit, but also so determined to do it to prove that my willpower isn't shit. The whole idea come up for me personally because a girlfriend, a couple friend of mine, they did Sober September and we all went out for a meal, my fellow at the time and these to and they managed to get through the whole meal without drinking. Me and my partner were drinking and I just thought, wow, that's like seriously kudos to them for being able to do that. And I was wondering whether like, could I ever do that? You know, it sparked off a kind of thought

process in me. Would I be able to go out for a nice fancy meal, sit at a table, everyone else is drinking and enjoying themselves, you know, and have a good time, but I'm, you know, completely sober. So I wanted to see, yeah, once they completed their month, whether I was able to do the same. Also, on top of that, I had been noticing that my alcohol intake had definitely crept up during lockdown. I know that globally, that's a thing anyway. We're all going to be in AA by 2021. I laugh about that. It's not even funny because it's probably true. So yeah, I'd been drinking a lot more. I think during lockdown, my thought process felt like no one's going to work we can't go out we're always stressed so like every night's the night to

have beers on the balcony and I've realized I tend to when I am stressed want to have a drink which is not nothing to do with just me it's how everyone is so I was a bit worried that I started to drink a lot more than I like to so I wanted to see whether it was in my control or not I think is the right phrase to say is it still in my control do I choose to drink a lot because I like drinking do I drink for an emotional comfort do I drink through stress you know so I just wanted to see how this would play out and the main factor for going sober October for me was that it coincided with a separation I'm going through and I wanted to go through it sober because I didn't want to numb any feelings and drink away any kind of pain because I'm aware that if you do that,

you kind of heal a lot later on. So I believe that if I'm dealing with it sober every day and I do with it head on when I need to, like the current time, it should mean that I can heal faster and I can move on mentally quicker. I mean, whether that's true or not, I don't know. Ask me in January, February 2021 how I'm doing then. But yeah, I just didn't want to have alcohol mind fuck me into thinking or feeling anything that I shouldn't be feeling because alcohol is a depressant. We all get the high. We love to get drunk, but it is a depressant. And as you get older people young gen zed listening as you get fucking older your hangovers get worse okay it is not fun anymore so having done sober october and completed it the first thing that i've learned

is that i can do something i put my mind to even something for me as difficult as not drinking because I'd love to drink. I work at a Sky Bar, which is insanely difficult. I'm around alcohol all the time. All my friends drink. I've gone through probably the worst month so far of a really bad time for myself. And I did it sober. So I can fucking show up for myself. And that's what I like. That's my number one and my key thing and my takeaway from this is that I can do it. and before I've always said oh I'll do this I'll do that one weekend two weekend I'll fall off the bandwagon and it's so nice to say hey I fucking did it and I did it when I had such a real want and need to get drunk and get numb and I didn't yeah so proud of myself point number two is my

sleep I've noticed that my my sleep got a lot better and I feel more awake when I'm awake in that usually when I wake up I'm like oh god I want another hour oh I can't get up my arms tired my legs are tired and my bones are tired and my soul is tired whereas not drinking I'm kind of like wanting to go to bed early like 10 30 oh I'm so rock and roll at 33 I want to go to bed by like 10 30 11 and then I'm wide awake by 7 a.m at the latest so my sleep has improved a lot I'm not up and down in the middle of the night using the bathroom I'm not tossing and turning I'm not tossing anyone off anymore no if you can't laugh you can fucking cry so yeah my sleep's a lot better which is fantastic

because then I feel like I'm a bit more you know I'm waking up earlier I'm more ready to take on the day I'm more ready for my workouts in the morning and ready for work it sounds like a cliche and I know I'm kind of telling you all what you already know but yeah alcohol regularly does fuck with your sleep tried and tested it's so true and you don't realize until you take some time out how much sleep you'll get and better quality as well point number three is I've learned that social gatherings are highly based around alcohol including just dinners as well of course we have no bars and clubs open still and we're still in phase two but even just dinners is based around getting drunk now these days you know I'm drinking until 10 30 and I've learned that I am

able to be in a social situation and enjoy myself and not drink it's not easy but I can do it would I choose to keep being sober I don't know potentially not for brunches with my girls I love a bubbly brunch so I'm pretty sure I'm just going to go straight back into having my bubbly brunches but I will curb that down and make it less frequent and any other social gatherings if I can have alcohol alternatives I absolutely will you know if I can go out for a Sunday roast and have a seed lip or lye gin and tonic or if they do you know the Heineken alcohol-free beer which is my favorite then yeah this by the way not sponsored not sponsored and I mean fucking should be. Yeah, alcohol-free alternatives would be fantastic. My next point that I've learned is

habits. It's actually habits that we don't realize we have. So my drinking was a habit. I like to spend a Thursday or a Friday either at my Sky Bar drinking with my colleagues or on my balcony with some beers on the phone to my friends and family at home I'd really formed a habit that I didn't realize I had and when you break out of those habits even just for a month it takes you back and go oh my god like I just don't need that you know it's a bit like smoking which is my next point but yeah you go wow that's actually just habit I didn't want that drink I did that because I usually do that I sat and had those alcohol-free beers on the balcony what it's alcohol-free do you mean so what's it giving me um it's habit and it's it's always good I think to step back

and check yourself of any kind of not just alcohol habit but any habit that you have like is this really serving me that includes your partners not bitter not bitter oh yes so my next point, as I said, is smoking. I smoke when I drink. I bloody love smoking when I'm drinking. Annoyingly, I started smoking when I was at uni. I was so against it before then. And now I'm like, shit, it's nearly 15 years of my life I've been a smoker. I used to smoke much more, but now I only smoke socially, which is when I'm drinking. So I also feel when I'm drinking, I find reasons to drink so I can have a cigarette. I've obviously cut down on smoking since I stopped drinking. They pair go hand in hand and I feel like there's huge benefits to that as well. Obviously,

any smoker who stops smoking or cuts down, you'll feel the difference in your throat, your lungs, your mind, your head. It's really nice to kind of be able to step away from cigarettes. Will I go back to smoking when I'm having bottomless Prosecco? Yeah, probably. But once again, I'd like to be able to keep curbing that and say, okay, I'm only going to now do that when I'm out drinking with my girlfriends. And I'm only going to do that a couple of times a month and start addressing those habits to make my health a little better and really moderate the kind of lifestyle I was living before. My next point is something I never thought I would learn from the October challenge, but my nighttime routine has completely changed. I now enjoy doing yoga. I now

enjoy like reading a book, doing more blogs. I've had so much more time when I'm not drinking or hungover. So I kind of like changed my habit and my nighttime routine. It's so weird. I'm like, fuck, I can go home and write like two more blogs. I can go home and plan a YouTube video. I can go home and plan my content I can go for a walk or a jog I can do 90 minutes of yoga and even then I've still got time to have some dinner to chase you're like I got so much more fucking time and that is one of the major life lessons I didn't think I'd learn is time how much more time I would have I've got loads more and I love getting in from work now and having an evening routine that Like, I didn't have before because I was either pissed or hungover as hell.

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The main point I'm bringing up next is what everyone talks about when they're not drinking and that's of course money. Unfortunately I didn't really get a chance to scope how much money I've saved because I'm moving out at the same time so obviously you've got like deposits and one month of rent up front and rent for the current place and all that drama but I believe looking at my bank account and keeping a check that obviously the lack of drinking has really changed my spending. I'm not buying alcohol. I am buying alcohol-free beers for home, but I'm not even buying alcohol-free wines. They're about 21 bucks, 24 bucks. So I've just been buying like sparkling white grape drinks and whatnot. Elderflower Press, just sparkling stuff

to enjoy. Does the job for me. And it's like four bucks a bottle from Sainsbury's at Red Mart. also not sponsored but love it so yeah the money side I can imagine if I'd been going out burying my feelings in alcohol with all my girlfriends every time they were out I would be definitely a lot worse off one of the major life lessons coming up is um my mood swings I gotta be honest my emotional reactions and moods have definitely changed since giving up smoking for the month I um I've got so much more clarity on how I react and I react in a way that I'm proud of so and when I say I'm proud of I mean I still go fucking off on one right I'm just going for a breakup I'm not like la la la the sun is shining all the birds are singing you know I'm fucking

livid and I'm frustrated and I'm upset and I'm angry but I genuinely feel all those things whereas when you're drinking alcohol it's all heightened and you can often do and say stuff you don't really recall thinking or saying or doing and you wake up the next morning like where the fuck did that come from I didn't even think that I didn't even feel that why did I say that? Why did I do that? Whereas I don't have any of that. So when I am reacting or I am in a mood or I'm really sad, I'm like, oh, okay, I'm sad because this happened or I'm sad because of PMT or I'm sad because I watched David Attenborough and God, that guy, man, he just gets to us all, doesn't he? Oh, David, never leave us, please. I know you're 93, but never leave. So with no

alcohol, you've got just an intense clarity on your mood, your reactions, your emotions, and you feel very in control because obviously when you're drinking so much you're out of control so yeah that's a real game changer for me to be honest and a real highlight for being a lot more sober than I was my final life lesson is the main thing of hangovers hangovers put your hands up if any of you really love a hangover of course you fucking don't although i bet a lot of you wanted to just immediately put your hand up then because when anyone says put your hand up if you just go yeah my hands up fuck it i don't know what i'm putting my hand up to the hangovers for me as i said at the beginning of this episode i just get worse and worse and worse and worse

right and whilst free throw bubbly brunches are getting cheaper and cheaper and cheaper I was drinking a lot more and the hangovers were going in for the fucking kill but it's not just a feeling of you know oh my gosh I think I died last night and you wake up and everything aches and your head aches you can't look directly at sunlight it's not just that for me I get overwhelmed with a lot of anxiety and shame and guilt I get a lot of blackouts if i drink too much this isn't fyi like daily i'm not you know an alcoholic this is my general what happens when i drink over the past x amount of years of my life right it's a summary um but yeah i do black out if i drink too much especially like champagne and prosecco or if i

mix but i know we all when we all mix our alcohol we usually end up in a right state so i just get so much anxiety and guilt so i maybe i'll wake up the next day and i'll be like oh, okay, I can sort of down a coffee and off I'll go to work. But it will take me two or three days to get out of this mental little negative bubble I get into, just feeling very shameful, just feeling like regretful, or just anxious. And I don't even know why I'm feeling really on edge and anxious. And it's just the aftermath of, I guess, the alcohol come down because it is a antidepressants. So this isn't just me. I know this will go for a lot of people because that's how the alcohol is as a drug, I guess, works. But not having those hangovers is like a fucking

blessing. Oh, my God. It really is wonderful. Am I going to go back to drinking and get more hangovers? Yep, I am. Am I going to try and be more mindful with my drinking to lessen those hangovers? Yes, I am. And I'm pretty sure I'll have one major hangover in the next couple of months, especially because it's festive season. It's like Christmas away from my family. I can't go back to the UK. I haven't seen them all year. I've just split up with my partner who I thought was going to be with forever. It's just me and the cats, which is not a problem because those are awesome. But still, it's a lot of emotions going on. So I'm predicting I will go back to drink and have one almighty hangover and go, God, never fucking again. I don't want to feel like

this again. Because obviously, it's so easy to forget how shit you feel when you've not had a hangover. And I started Sober October before even October began. So I was actually a week ahead. So I've done five weeks of not drinking. It's been five weeks of hangover-free mental clarity bliss. do I miss drinking yes I do would I like to be able to return back to that casual drink here or there three drinks on a Friday maybe you know accept invites to bubbly brunches yeah yeah I do have I changed my habits and have I really learned life lessons from this little challenge yes I have I'll only be stocking alcohol-free beer in my fridge for myself. I'll only be drinking now on rarer occasions rather than, you know, a random Tuesday during lockdown is what I was getting

like. You know, I will choose to be less drunk and more just tipsy, I think. And I will keep on the level of staying a bit more sober, looking after my sleep a bit better. And yeah, and just in general i guess find the balance but yeah so there you go that's what i've learned since becoming alcohol free i'd love to hear your thoughts are you alcohol free permanently did you do a sober october or likewise and then carry on forever what's your relationship alcohol and would you are you considering going sober for a month but you feel like you can't do it or you think there's no way or whatever yeah just let me know as always you can dm me on instagram It's at Nixalina, N-I-X-A-L-I-N-A.

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