You have turned orange  

My name is ……………….And I’m an alcoholic 

Bewildered is how I felt on my first day of sobriety. Although when I got up that morning, I didn’t know it would be the start of a recovery from alcoholism. I hadn’t planned it. And nothing bad had happened. No one had said anything to me about my drinking. Id not got stopped by the police. In fact, everything was remarkably calm and quiet. And I hadn’t shouted or broken anything. But ‘Rock bottoms’ come in many different forms, different times in life, and for me when I least expected it. I didn’t know the word ‘Rock bottom’. I didn’t plan to stop, but something within me knew I needed to. I had known for years my drinking was a mess. Decades if I am honest. But the consequences, were just not bad enough. After all I paid my taxes. I had a home. I have not lost my driving license. My children were fed. I worked every day. I’m still married. Still with my partner. The electric gets paid on time. I had used excuses like this for years. 

On the first morning of my sobriety, there was no calling out for help. There were no tears of remorse. Certainly, no regrets or resentments. I had just had enough. I was beaten. My big plan in life had just not worked. And I gave in.  

I had admitted defeat. And with my decision to stop drinking came the phone call to Alcoholics Anonymous. Within an hour, I was sat with a member of AA. He told me his story. Gave me a where to find. Told me to use it. And sent me home with a list of things to do.  

I knew as a left him that morning, that my drinking days were over. I knew this was the end. I just could feel something within me had changed. I was a different person than I was when I woke up that morning. The list of things he told me to do was short, sensible, and important. I smelt. All alcoholics do. I needed to shower, tidy up my bedroom, have something to eat. And ring him once I had done them. I did them and I rang. 

I was to Buy some orange juice, and every time I wanted a drink, have a cup of orange and some sugar. The sugar and orange juice would replace the sugar and carbohydrates I use to get from drinking. I was thin. Painfully thin. I didn’t eat, I drank. I never had puddings. I had a drink. I ended up drinking rather than eating. I smoked too much.  

Unusually that morning, I did everything that was asked of me. Without question. And I went back for more. I walked into a room that morning, with no friendly directions left. I listened to a member of AA tell his story. And walked out with a beginning of a plan for living. A sober plan. I was happy. And now I was sober.  

Ans so to the supermarket I went. A trolley load of sugar and a trolley load of natural orange juice. And every time I felt like a drink, I drank a pint of orange juice and a cup of sugar. 

When I ever I shook, whenever I got withdrawals, I drank more orange juice and sugar.  

I got to the end of my first day sober. And then my second and my third day without a drink. 

Pint after pint of orange juice. Pound after pound of sugar. I was drinking maybe ten pints of orange a day, definitely two pounds of sugar a day. Day In day out. And it took six weeks for the shakes to stop. 

Sometime later told me quietly, that he thought I’d overdone the orange juice thing a bit, that id most definitely turned a strange shade of orange.  

Anon