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'I don't drink!' How to quit alcohol - a drinker's tale
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A massive inspiration to us all...

17/10/2015

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Sometimes there is so much bad news in the press it is easy to despair of the human race altogether. If you are trying to inspire yourself to throw away the crutch alcohol might have become to you, this seemingly depressing world we live in can make things doubly difficult. What you need is a heavy dose of ‘can do’ spirit!

This week I went to the Cosmonauts exhibition in London’s Science Museum. I ever you want to marvel at the courage, ingenuity, endeavour and sheer ‘because it’s there’ will to succeed of the human race, you need go no further.
 
I stood entranced and humbled before the actual Vostok 6 spaceship that Valentina Tereshkova used to fly to space and back in 1963. The outside is just a mass of burnt and charred material whilst the inside is as cramped as anything you can imagine.

To think this young woman travelled alone to space in this vehicle in the earliest days of space exploration is a wonder in itself. I imagined her being strapped into this tiny ball sitting atop a massive rocket and then being blasted at colossal speed out of Earth’s atmosphere. Next she had to endure the loneliness of space, the cramped confines of her cockpit with only a tiny porthole to peer through, and then discover to her horror that the basic computer had been programmed wrongly to send her into a higher orbit and away from the Earth, never to return.

Managing to re-programme the fault before she ran out of oxygen, she then had to sit in her spinning orb as it descended through the atmosphere. The thick layers of material coating the spaceship would have turned into a ball of flame as she effectively became a meteor blazing its way through Earth’s tenuous shield. Next, at a height of six miles above the Earth she had to open the hatch and eject from the spaceship, finally descending strapped to her chair. If she hadn’t have done so she would have been crushed on impact.

When you stand and look at this burnt out ball you really do wonder if there are other creatures somewhere in the Universe as brave and adventurous as us humans, prepared to give it our all and risk everything to explore new horizons. We really are a species that can do anything we want if only we try hard enough and we believe in ourselves!

Next to Valentina’s Vostok was another similar burnt space craft, but this one was flown by two male cosmonauts two years later. It was from this ball that Alexey Leonov climbed out to make the first ever space-walk. Unfortunately once he entered the low pressure environment of space his suit expanded to the extent he discovered he couldn’t fit back through the hatch! But that is another story…

You can do it!



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Facing the impossible

10/10/2015

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As followers of my blogs will know, I have been sober for over 1000 days having previously spent 40 years (150,000 days for the statistically minded) being a wreck-head alcoholic. Despite loving every second of being sober, having written and published a book about how I managed to quit alcohol, and certainly not wanting or being scared of wanting a drink again ever, there is however something I had been putting off doing - until now.

Whether it’s because somewhere along the line I had read or heard of the rigorous guidelines some alcohol-help organisations put about I am not sure, but for some reason I had it in me that once you have quit alcohol you should avoid any future significant involvement with anything alcoholic at all cost. I have a friend who went to rehab to cure his alcoholism and he was indoctrinated with this very message. He now won’t use mouthwash with alcohol in it, he has to be especially sensitive with his diet to ensure no wine has been used in the food preparation, and has other alcohol related eccentricities such as not having after-shave in the house. All these were instilled in him when at rehab on the basis that ‘one drop of alcohol from any source and you will become a raving alcoholic again!’

I admit I avoid food cooked in wine or beer but simply because I don’t want
any alcohol so I don’t see why I should have to eat food prepared with it – it is unnecessary anyway, there are other ways of bringing out the flavour. I also still keep my star chart going every day where I proudly tick off how many days I have been alcohol free so I don’t want to feel guilty that the fish I ate was prepared in white wine. I do use alcohol based mouthwash however, nothing else seems to be any good (apart from some stuff that turns your teeth brown), but I don’t swallow it of course and I do use after-shave, so I am not paranoid about using alcohol.

So what was I putting off and what was I actually and quite honestly ‘scared’ to do?

For most of my life I have made home-made wine and/or beer. This started as a hobby when I was about fourteen and my mum bought me my first kit (bless her soul), but the hobby continued off and on, and when I was drinking lots of wine it became a cheap substitute for the shop bought variety, and also a great excuse to drink far more than usual without either feeling guilty or my wife knowing what I was up to.

‘I am just bottling another gallon’ I would shout when questioned, and as any wine maker will know, every gallon will provide you with five full bottles and ‘a little extra to experiment with.’

When I finally quit alcohol I had some ten gallons of home-made wine on the go in demijohns. I didn’t throw it away at first just in case I failed to quit and needed it to drink after all, and I also had a lot of money’s worth of equipment I was loathe to bin. I kept the wine under the stairs.

A year went by and still the wine remained under the stairs. Another year passed and my wife started to moan it was taking up space and that it had to go, it stayed. My 1000 days approached and we needed the space under the stairs for toys for my grandson. Even I agreed that the wine had to go. But why had I been so loathe to throw it away?

In my book I mention going to a wine tasting in South Africa last year, asking for a glass of my favourite ever wine purely to ‘smell’, and walking away having given myself thereby the ultimate test of my resolve. This was different. I knew when I took out all those demijohns and popped the corks, all the memories of hot summer days, gathering fruit, mixing ingredients, racking the wine and sampling my efforts would come flooding back. On top of that as I poured it away I knew the kitchen would be filled with fantastic aromas from all the different types of wine. I wasn’t scared I’d be tempted to drink any, I was scared I would have regrets.

I lined up the demijohns by the sink, I cut off the labels for posterity and removed the first cork - the contents smelt disgusting. I opened another one and it too smelt horrible so I started to pour the wine down the sink. As gallon followed gallon my wife came into the kitchen to see what I was doing as the stench of strong wine had invaded the entire house. She said the smell was so strong she even felt high on the fumes but I was having a great time.

I asked her to photograph me because I should have poured the wine away years before, and I don’t why I had been so scared - it was like cleansing myself of all those years of drunkenness and wasted life. I loved throwing it away and watching all those horrid drunken yesterday’s swill around the sink before they went down the plug-hole forever. 

That was last week. This weekend we brought in the apple harvest from our small orchard, it was a bumper crop this year. Once upon a time the apples would have made some wonderful cider and a few gallons of wine as well. Instead we filled the freezer with peeled and prepared apples by the bag-full, all ready for a host of delicious winter apple crumble puddings, and if there is still any left, all washed down with some delicious sweet apple juice!

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New Video

6/10/2015

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Have a look on my video page for a new video with me talking about how I cured type 2 diabetes.
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1000 days - over 1000 books

5/10/2015

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Well done all of you who downloaded my comedy book for free this weekend. There was a huge response and I hope you all enjoy the stories. As you can see it put me on the number one slot in amazon for free travel books. If you enjoy reading the book please be kind enough to leave a supportive review on amazon. Here's to the next 1000 days. 
Myself, I was too busy to sit and read. I went kayaking, swimming, walking and wrote another chapter of my next book 'The naughtiest boy in school'. It should be out by Christmas.​


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