Long before I became a daily drinker, a dear friend once told me that he feared alcohol would be my “great undoing”. I took great, bristling umbrage to this.
The observation — or the warning — he was trying to make was that I was using alcohol to inhabit a part of myself that I struggled to access when I didn’t drink. The appeal of booze, what made it so dangerously beguiling, was that it took a blow torch to my reticence, shyness, and fear. It loosened up this cautious introvert; it made me more of a risk-taker, bolder, flirtier and bubblier. The friend could see how I used it to silence my inner-critic, to smother the hornet's nest of intrusive, obsessive compulsive thoughts.
Booze was the grease that lubricated the awkwardness of exhibition openings, book launches and other events that required charm and chitchat. It was the oil poured on troubled familial waters (difficult conversations with my parents softened by the segue into petrol-strength sundowners). Indeed, I'd grown up in a family that had always had well-stocked wine racks topped by a shelf crowded with spirits. Indulging in alcohol liberally was both acceptable and encouraged.
In my early 20s, booze seeped into my working life, too. In London: Friday drinks with colleagues at the pub; late nights in the office washed down with Sauv Blanc1. Back in South Africa, one of my favourite assignments was the regular “In search of the perfect cocktail” feature for Wanted magazine, where I got to interview bartenders and sample their cocktails. (They were never perfect, so the search continued, deliciously.) There was a Karoo brandy tour and a gin-making workshop; wine-soaked media lunches in the Cape Winelands, and elaborate dinners with elaborate pairings. As a copywriter, my main client for nearly a decade was a wine farm; I put the discount I got from that gig to abundant use (“research”!).
When COVID-19 sent the world into hiding, I was living with my husband on the California coast far away from friends and family. There weren’t any book launches I needed to medicate myself against. Instead, I used booze to smooth out the frictions of life shared, round-the-clock, with a significant other in a cramped cabin; I used it to fight off ennui, to muffle loneliness, and to numb myself against the ambient stresses and uncertainties of a torturous immigration process and a global pandemic.
My tendency to over-indulge had become entrenched. I couldn't stop at one drink. Or two, or three. I was dimly aware that most other people didn't drink like this. (Or if they did, they didn't every day.)
This drinking cast a long shadow across most mornings. One of paranoia, anxiety and unease (had I done or said something wrong, I kept wondering). And even if I hadn’t (and in most instances, I had not2), I still felt regretful and annoyed at myself (here we go again!). The irony wasn’t lost on me: that the thing I had used for so long to shield me from anxiety was exacerbating it. And yet I was trapped in a predictable cycle. By early evening, the sheepishness had faded, replaced by craving, by the desire to commemorate the passing of another day with a libation. Here we go again.
And yet I was afraid of stopping drinking. Worried about being bored, or ill-at-ease. Worried about what it would be like if I was unable to numb my feelings, unable to drown them.
And so I tried the reduction thing. My psychologist encouraged me to keep track of what I drank each day; I kept fastidious records3 — spreadsheeted tallies that meant it was impossible to ignore or dismiss how much I was consuming. Sometimes I met my targets, and I seemed to be making some incremental improvements. Then my dad died, and the desire to obliterate grief put paid to that; I was drinking as heavily as I’d ever done.
In late 2022, I went on a 32-day hiatus from drinking, inspired by the psychiatrist Anne Lembke’s book, Dopamine Nation. It was the longest time in years that I had abstained from alcohol. It felt like an eternity, but not particularly difficult. I resumed drinking with the hope that I would now be more adept at moderating, at cutting myself off. But no. Soon, I was imbibing as much as previously. It was like the 32 days had never happened.
In March 2023, on an ordinary late summer’s evening in Cape Town where I was visiting my mom, my brother (also visiting from overseas) noticed me opening the second bottle of the evening. Knowing full well that I had drunk the first one entirely on my own, he told me “Alcohol’s really bad for you, Zandy!" I nodded sheepishly. He told me about a podcast episode4 that unpacked the health impacts of alcohol. I said I’d give it a listen.
When I did, I was struck both by the manifold ways in which alcohol is damaging — and how even moderate amounts of it was unhealthy. I could no longer plead ignorance. Something had to change.
The hunch I had — that I liked alcohol too much to be able to moderate my consumption; that I needed to give it up entirely — grew into certainty. I knew, though, that I couldn’t do it alone. I considered rehab5 but, in the end, decided first to give AA a try6. The first meeting I went to was an exuberant young people’s one in my nearest town. I sat at the back, terrified. The woman next to me encouraged me to put my hand up when the room was asked if there were any newcomers. My voice cracking, words stumbling, I announced “I’m Alex, and I'm an alcoholic.”
When I first made that admission, it was steeped in shame, embarrassment, failure — you blew it, Alex, you’ve had to give it up. Thankfully, though, those feelings have faded7. Instead, I’ve found that admitting I’m powerless over alcohol has been a liberating, relief-filled starting point. Surrendering to this fact has meant dropping a whole lot of struggle8 (for starters: no more Chardonnay poured into measuring cups; no more meticulously recorded spreadsheets — and a whole lot less self-recrimination).
13 months since my last drink, I remain certain I couldn’t have gotten — or stayed thus far — sober all on my own. Fortunately, I didn’t have to. One of the great joys of sobriety has been getting to meet, listen to and learn from many other folks who loved alcohol as much as I did, and who — like me — realized it no longer served them.
In AA meetings from Athens to Oakland, I’ve found so much wisdom, vulnerability, humanity and inspiration9. The connection and camaraderie I’ve encountered there offers some of the best inoculation against the allure of buzz-chasing/oblivion there is. I still skew shy and awkward, but AA has given me ways to get out of my head, to think of others — and to feel less alone. As I work its 12 Steps with the help of my sponsor10, I’ve found myself slowly getting better at navigating discomfort, at making space for difficult feelings rather than numbing them. Swimming and meditating regularly help immensely with that too.
Alcohol hasn’t entirely lost its appeal, but I don't spend a huge amount of time thinking about that. If I see my favourite cocktail, the negroni, on a menu, of course I'll feel a pang. But this nostalgia is tempered by knowing that if I order one, I'll want to drink six — and likely will. That’s how it works. That’s why I gave it up11.
Thankfully, my greatest fear — that life without alcohol would be boring — hasn't come to pass. I notice more (both internally and externally), and that’s sometimes exhilarating and sometimes exhausting. Life sans alcohol has harder edges, brighter colours and louder sounds. I am pricklier, less socially exuberant — but I have a higher baseline level of energy and I wake up without a pall of dread.
Sobriety, it turns out, is not a panacea or a magic wand: it doesn't fix the things that are broken or loosen the things that are stuck. But, for me at least, it’s been a helluva better place to build, untangle, mend and accept12 than the hangover-haunted alternative. That alone is a priceless gift.
White wine was an acquired taste. Back then, I far preferred red, but that was banned: the boss thought it would stain our desks.
That said, when I make a list of things I regret having done, alcohol tends to have been in the mix more often than not.
OCD isn’t all downsides, I guess.
Which apparently ended up being the most shared podcast episode on Apple Podcasts for all of 2023. How cringingly zeitgeisty we were!
I was tempted — my psychologist’s descriptions of the Betty Ford Clinic made a stint there sound rather enticing.
Following much gentle prodding by my psychologist.
Attending AA has helped melt away this stigma. So has reading the phenomenal recovery newsletter
and Julia Wertz’s graphic memoir, Impossible People.“Dropping the struggle” is a phrase I’m borrowing from Dr Russ Harris. His course The Happiness Trap (also a book) — unpacks the key concepts of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in powerful and actionable ways. I’ve found ACT’s tools to be incredibly helpful in navigating grief, sobriety and my OCD.
Initially I was rather discomfited by all the references to God. But I came to learn that this is a God — a Higher Power — of your own understanding. How you define that is entirely up to you.
A sponsor is someone who acts as a sounding board and recovery mentor. Super helpful!
I actually used to think — hope? — that abstinence would rewire me; that time would infuse greater agency, an ability (and a willingness) to drink “normally”. As the months have passed, though, I’ve become less and less convinced of the likelihood of that — I strongly suspect the die is cast. Either way, I think it’s likely prudent I don't put that to the test. I suspect my long-suffering liver would agree.
Because some things in life — like losing a parent — can’t be fixed or changed. Only acceptance will do.
Brave. Beautiful. A timely gift.
The writing, that is. Also the writer.
Alex—terrific essay.