Welcome to the first of my four June Showcases for Write On! Extra. I’m Lisa Scully-O’Grady, a writer with an interest in writing for creativity and healing. I’m delighted to return to Write On! for the month of June to select pieces for the weekly Showcase. Our theme continues to be ‘Mindset’ – something that, ideally, evolves with us over our lifetimes.

Over the course of the next four weeks, I aim to bring you some thought-provoking prose, essays and poetry relating to our theme.

Even as I select the pieces for this Showcase, I’ve had to change my own mindset several times: how I approach each week, which pieces to put where. At first, I have a fixed idea of how to do it and then, after I’ve read all the submissions, I realise I need to change my mindset, treat it like a jigsaw puzzle, place a piece here and then move it there until it flows. Stop over-thinking and just do! I can always change my mind if it doesn’t work.

With that being said, I hope you enjoy my selections for this week.

What better place to start, than to introduce this extract from No Drink For Me by Lisa Peacock. This speaks to me about the power of choice we have once we become aware of our unhealthy or outdated habits and patterns; thus improving our quality of life and our relationships.

No Drink For Me

I’ll get straight to the point; there is no dramatic story, no major incident in my life that made me say “I’m going to start drinking”, I have nobody to blame except possibly myself for not having control or not seeing how big this problem was earlier. I just like a drink, that’s it. Party Lisa.

You can depend on me for a wild night; one thing I am good at is partying. You fancy a bevvy, you know who to call, I should have had flyers printed. I am/was the life of the party and home was just a noun. Growing up nothing else really mattered to me, education, career, driving, saving, getting on the property ladder. I just lived for the weekend; in fact, I didn’t hang about waiting for the weekend. It was only years later I realised I had lost relationships over it; I was blinded by the party lights and the temptation of alcohol.

Why is that? Why am I different? Why can’t I stop?

I can’t remember exactly how old I was when I had my first drink, but I was less than 10. We were in a social club, each year we would visit Cayton Bay holiday park in Scarborough, imagine a Butlins holiday but low budget. We would stay in a static caravan; it was always cold at night. I remember being sat on my dad’s knee wearing a light-coloured dress, there was some sort of band on stage and people were singing along and dancing. The grownups on our table were Mam, Dad, my aunties Rose and Vera and uncles Griff and Danny, they were having such fun, I remember it being a party atmosphere, everyone on holiday and feeling loose. These are such fond memories of my family. I am the only girl with 2 older brothers Darren and Stephen and a younger brother called Sean. My older brothers were allowed go off and play by themselves but myself and my younger brother had to stay where we could be seen. I watched my dad picking up his huge glass and drinking something brown coloured with fluffy white on the top, all the other adults had one and so I wanted one. I pestered him for ages for a sip until he finally gave in. I knew it was kind of naughty because my mam said it was mucky beer and that I wouldn’t like it. But I still wanted a taste. The pint glass was huge, and my little hands couldn’t quite hold it, my dad had to hold its weight. I took a sip; it was ok at first but then tasted bitter in the back of my throat. I pulled a face, and everyone laughed at me, once the taste had gone, I wanted another one just to be sure. I was allowed one more, it made me giggle a lot and I liked the feeling it gave me, I felt like one of the adults. From then on, I often pestered grownups for just a sip, just one was acceptable but little did they know, I was asking every adult for “just a tiny taste”. My parents would go out to the social club and end up bringing friends home for an after party, I would be allowed to stay up late. I remember playing dolls with one of the ladies and she let me sip her wine, it was from a brown bottle with a picture of a nun on the front. I really liked wine, ladies drank wine and men drank beer. I couldn’t wait to be a grown-up lady drinking wine. To me drinking was what adults did to have fun, I didn’t see it in the house during the week but the weekends, well everyone seemed to come alive. Anyone drinking would be having such a good time, joking and dancing around. My parents and uncles loved a good party, us kids loved it as we got to stay up late and the drunk people would sneak us pocket money.

Being the only girl in the family I was expected to be girly and prim, I just wasn’t like that, my dad would often call me calamity Jane. I wanted to be grown up like my big brothers, I wanted to be tough like them and impress them. They would dare me to do stuff and I would happily oblige to prove how brave I was, I wasn’t just a stupid girl. Once they dared me to drink some beer from my uncle’s home brew, easy. He kept a barrel under the stairs, the hardest thing was getting the tap open fast enough, so it didn’t make a noise. We sat Sean with the grown-ups and Darren was in charge of closing the lounge door without attracting attention, Stephen had to watch me to make sure I did it and didn’t chicken out. I had such a nervous knot in my tummy, but I was excited, we often got up to no good. We would slide down the stairs on the toy box lid in a sleeping bag, climb on the garage roof, roll Dad’s van down the hill with the handbrake off and play knocky door run. They were the 3 musketeers and I was Calamity Jane. I turned the tap and the beer shot out into my face, I quickly got some in my mouth and showed Stephen before closing the tap. We fell about the kitchen floor laughing, my brothers holding their tummies and me with my sticky beer face. We had gotten away with it. After this we would love visiting aunty Vera’s house and drinking straight from the beer tap became a regular thing. Is this where I got the taste for it? My penchant for booze?

(c) Lisa Peacock, 2025

You can get a copy of No Drink For Me here.

*****

This poem, by US poet Destiny, speaks to us about the importance of keeping an open mind in order to create new steps towards change, and how you can change the course of your life by changing your mindset.

Keep An Open Mind

Keep an open mind
and you will find
there’s a chance for you to see
who you can truly be.

Keep an open mind
and you will find
there’s a chance for you to see
your choice and destiny.

(c) Destiny Hankerson, 2025

Connect with Destiny on LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/in/destiny-hankerson-a6a226361 or via their website: destinyhankerson.carrd.co