Resisting the irresistible pull of denial in sobriety
It's so easy to see why so many of us drink too much
I've recently emerged from a self‑imposed sanity-saving news ban, after joining the ranks of the breeders and having my first baby.
It’s not the first time I've run from reality. I have a long history of it (see heavy drinking from age 13-33) I find it hard to stay in touch with the reality of what is happening in this world. The reality of my privilege and comfort, even my interests and knowledge - do my subjects matter enough etc, etc.
I need to DO something but don’t know what so I do... very little.
Not enough.
Donate where I can, but it's inadequate.
I’m not especially smart and can’t keep up with politics very well, let alone the behemoth we call ‘current affairs’.
Excellent novelist and newsletter writer
recently snapped me out of my solipsistic freeze about attempting to write on (yet another) subject I am woefully under-informed on.
Not turning away from manmade famine and genocide is what matters here.
We all need to pay attention and use any platform we have.
Talk to family and friends and ask them to donate or help in any way they can.
Don’t look away.
I’m often too swamped to function at what is apparently the basic level expected for ‘neurotypicals’.
Another way to say this is capitalism asks way too much of everyone.
Engaging with the news always throws me into semi existential crisis. How can I sit here, opting into the news cycle, with a well-fed happy child, trying to finish writing a book, while other parents watch their babies starve to death?
It's wrong that it takes such deprivation to make people care. Like men don't matter. Or women. It has to get to the children to wake some of us up. To draw us from our protective bubbles…
This is why I used to drink.
Denial is powerful. It's lure is irresistible. It comes in so many forms.
Life without alcohol and the cover it provides is really hard.
I don't know how to live in the conditions in which I find myself living, a lot of the time. So I look away. From so much.
After decades drunk or heavy drinking my great hope was that sobriety would help me engage and try to improve things but I still don't know where to start…
I’m looking for things I can do to help. To stay awake. Feel free to inform me (kindly, please).
And in case you need a next step, here are some places you could donate if you are also horrified by what you are witnessing and have anything to spare:
UNICEF – Gaza Children in Crisis Appeal
Provides life-saving nutrition, medical support, mental health services, safe water, and child protection. Even a monthly gift of £10 can supply therapeutic food for a week to a child in severe malnutrition.
Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF) - Gaza Relief & Recovery Campaign
Provides medical care, trauma counselling, food, water, and rebuilds healthcare infrastructure - direct aid tailored for children and families on the ground.
Chelsey Flood is the author of award-winning novels Infinite Sky and Nightwanderers, and a senior lecturer in creative writing at UWE.
She is currently working on a book for Jessica Kingsley Publishers about the connection between undiagnosed neurodiversity and addiction + her first domestic noir.