Christmas without booze? Derbyshire Times reporter Dean shares his 'reinvented' festive season

At my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting I heard a story of a man who spread nail varnish remover onto bread so he could eat it and get the alcohol kick. Another man said he used to throw empty bottles over his fence into a field so his wife didn’t know how much he’d drunk, but then when he ran out of booze he’d go into the field and suck the bottles, hoping for dregs. I remember thinking ‘Wow, why am I here when I’m not that bad?’ Just because I like barley wine for breakfast then I wake up on the floor surrounded by cans half-full of wee, because it was an effort to get to the toilet… Oh.

And trust me, mistaking one of those cans as a half-finished Stella isn’t pleasant.

The second AA session, a lady leant over to me and said “Do you realise they have alcohol in them?” She pointed to the little cigar I’d just lit. I looked at the pack. ‘Dipped in finest rum’. Oh. These cigars were meant as a treat. Surely I deserved something nice? I’d just gone through three weeks of cold turkey, going bonkers in my bedroom scratching my tongue because everything itched, and that weird old ghost lady I kept seeing at the bottom of my bed staring at me certainly didn’t help.

I was told this was quite normal. Withdrawal. And if you’ve seen that bit in Trainspotting where he sees a baby crawling across the ceiling when he’s coming off heroin, then there’s your reference point. Fact: quitting booze can be just as hard as quitting hard drugs.

And the next bit? How do I now live my life? Everything I do has booze attached to it? I watch the footy on telly: I drink. I go to a gig: I drink. I go out with my mates: I drink. And Christmas is coming… how in the name of Rudolph do I do that? Jingle bells indeed.

And imagine turning down a sherry-flavoured chocolate, only to be told “Don’t be daft, you’re not going to get drunk on that!”

Twenty years down the line, it’s much easier. Humour helps. And re-inventing, for me, was vital. It is very (very) easy to feel that everything around you is as always is. Your life patterns. The things you do… the things you don’t. Society and tradition can be a warm norm if it suits, or, if it doesn’t suit, it can be a cloaked pressure to do what you’re whispered to do. Turn it off. Do what’s right for you.

If it suits eating pizza for both dinner and tea on Boxing Day while watching Back to the Future 1, 2, and 3, then do it. If it suits swapping a Christmas tree for Bobina, a gender-fluid four-foot sculptured CD rack wearing tinsel and an elf hat, then do it.

Merry Whatever-mas, and a happy New You.