No false promises or fireworks, just a lovely slow day

WHEN I was a drinker, every Monday morning was New Year's Day.

- Carrie Carlisle

A fresh start. Second chance. Opportunity for atonement.

My redemption came at the end of every seven-day cycle.

And I needed every 52 of them, or my year didn’t work.

My life didn’t work. Which is a pretty big sign that it wasn’t working, anyway.

And if every Monday was my shot at a clean slate, can you imagine how I felt about New Year's Day?

And how I behaved in the run-up to New Year's Eve?

Talk about the most destructive time of the year...

But my addiction to day one; the promise of a do-over. They were harder habits to break than my drinking, as it turned out.

The high of January 1. I spent years trying to let it go.

Because what was I, if I could not be improved upon?

Crash diets were a great way to fill the empty behavioural hole, that dearly departed hangovers left in their wake. The more extreme and all-consuming, the better.