The longer I’m sober the more I realise how utterly bonkers the way alcohol is viewed in western society is. The main thing I remember now from my drinking years, which are already starting to feel like the dim and distant past, is shame. I was so ashamed of how I behaved with alcohol. I was ashamed that I didn’t know when to stop. I was ashamed that I couldn’t contemplate a weekend without at least one bottle of red. I was ashamed that I would often get drunk when I didn’t intend to (that question on the ‘am I an alcoholic?’ questionnaires always gave me the cold dreads). I was SO ashamed every time I blacked out, behaved bizarrely, upset people, injured myself, threw up – the list goes on. I was ashamed every time I had to get up with a crushing hangover and look after my kids. I was ashamed every time I breastfed my little one without being entirely sure how much booze was still in my system. I was ashamed every time I drove the morning after when I knew deep down I was over the limit. So much shame.
But most of all I was ashamed of not being ‘normal’. I was so utterly convinced that there was something wrong with me that alcohol affected me like this. Because this stuff just isn’t talked about. Women don’t say on girls night out or at bookclub or over brunch ‘I’m really worried about my drinking’. Men don’t say at the footie ‘I think I might be addicted to booze and I want to quit’. Because it’s just not done, there is so much stigma attached to the idea of becoming addicted to the addictive drug alcohol. The perception (and make no mistake this is hugely fuelled by the alcohol industry) is that most people can and should drink ’responsibly’. What does that even mean? No one is advised to smoke responsibly. To take heroin or cocaine or pot responsibly. Because no one is expected to be able to control those drugs. If someone is a heroin addict, sure they face all kinds of stigma, but the stigma relates to them taking the drug in the first place, not failing to control it. Because it is widely accepted that heroin is highly addictive, which is why the vast majority of people don’t take it, however good it may make you feel.
When I was on holiday this summer I swam (briefly) in the North Sea. And there was a strong current, so by the time I came out I was a good 50 metres up the beach from my family. But I hadn’t even been aware of it. That‘s addiction. The sneaky undertow pulling us along without us even noticing. The bottle of wine that becomes two. The home poured measures that get bigger and bigger. The weekends that start on Wednesday and end on Monday. And anyone who drinks is susceptible to this. Yes some people are naturally stronger swimmers and they may stay in the water all their lives and never get swept away. But no one who chooses to swim in the water is 100% safe from the rip tides. And it takes so much energy to swim against the current – it occupied so much of my headspace, I neglected so many other parts of my life because I was so busy desperately paddling against the tide, trying not to be swept away. Until I realised I could just get out.
I was not ashamed of being carried down the beach by that current – why on earth would I be? That’s just what the sea does and it was in no way my fault. And it’s taken me a year and a half of living sober to get to this point but, now, I am not ashamed of becoming addicted to an addictive drug. Because that was in no way my fault either. I am just so grateful to have made it safely on to the shore, where I fully intend to remain – not because I have a disease or because I’m abnormal. But because it’s treacherous out there. And so very lovely here on the beach.
