This is just a thought experiment I thought I'd try to combat the blankness I feel when I ask myself how I'll have fun without drinking.
If someone had asked me the question: 'How do you have fun without drinking?' when I was 10 years old, I would have said: Riding my bike, building a raft, playing with my toys, having a sleepover, being around animals, reading, playing the piano, doing gymnastics, watching my favourite movies, going swimming, exploring the countryside, building a den, climbing a tree, playing tennis, writing a story, playing by the river. If someone had asked me the question: 'How do you have fun without drinking?' when I was 20 years old, I would have said: Going for a bike ride, eating delicious food, poetry, travelling the world, being around animals, writing, watching my favourite movies, playing a card game, playing the piano, exploring the countryside, doing gymnastics, going for coffee and curling up with a book, learning new things, listening to music.
If someone asks me the question: 'How do you have fun without drinking?' now that I'm 28 years old and trying to quit drinking, I would say something like:
Well I like good food, but it's better with wine; I like watching movies but I couldn't do that without a beer in my hand; playing card games can be fun while drinking; I like playing the piano but my co-ordination isn't great as I'm usually drunk while playing it; I like exploring the countryside but I'm always hungover when I do it, so it can be a struggle; I used to like reading and writing and learning new things, but I haven't had the concentration for any of that since I became a heavy drinker; I like being around animals, but my hangovers keep me inside a lot of the time; I don't really like listening to music unless I can drink while doing it; the best thing about travelling the world is drinking in all the cool different bars and kicking back - I wouldn't enjoy it if I couldn't do that. I guess there aren't that many things I enjoy any more. What I do for fun is drinking. I don't know what to do for fun without it.
In the first two questions (when I'm ten and twenty), the 'without drinking' part is irrelevant, the question is really 'What do you do for fun?'; but in the third question the 'without drinking' part means
everything. When I phrase the question like that, the problem is obvious: the reason I don't know how to have fun anymore without drinking, is that my drinking has replaced everything in my life that used to be fun. It has also stopped the old things from being fun, as I'm either too drunk or too hungover to enjoy them.
So I'm hoping that what someone asks me the question 'What do you do for fun without drinking?' in the future, my answer will be a list of many of the things on the first two answers from when I was ten and twenty, plus a whole load of new things I'll have discovered along the way. And that will be my new life
*I'm aware this doesn't really deal with the problems that led me to drinking, but then drinking didn't deal very well with those problems either.
If anyone wants to have a go themselves, here are the questions again:
1) If someone had asked you 'What do you do for fun without drinking?' when you were 10, what would you have said? 2) If someone had asked you 'What do you do for fun without drinking?' when you were 20, what would you have said? (If you had a drink problem when you were twenty, maybe you could either pick a teenage year when you were a bit more grown up than ten but not yet a drinker, or pick a period of sobriety in your adult life, or just skip the question)
3) If someone were to ask you 'What do you do for fun without drinking?' now (or when you were a drinker), what would you say? 3) If someone were to ask you 'What do you do for fun without drinking?' in the future, what would you like to be able to say?