My Relationship with Alcohol

Of all the things I’ve written about, this one is the one I’m most certain will speak to a whole lot of people. It’s about my relationship and attitudes towards alcohol. How it began and how it developed over time. I know there are a lot of people of my age who have had very similar experiences.

The first time I got properly drunk in (what felt like) an unsupervised environment was when I was in third form. I was with the rest of the school Water Polo team and had managed to get my hands on a bottle of Midori and some lemonade. I had no idea what I was doing. But about half an hour in I felt way more relaxed. A few more poorly mixed cups and I felt my nervousness about being with the older guys melt away. They all seemed to think I was quite funny. It was awesome.

If you’ve read many of my other stories you might have picked up that I’ve struggled to ‘like’ myself. Well, that’s really always been the case for me. Because I felt that way about myself, I projected that on to people around me. I didn’t think they really liked me. I thought they found me entertaining and funny. But they didn’t like me for who I was. So alcohol was a wonderful discovery. I could be funny and do dumb things with no worries about the repercussions. It put those feelings to bed for an evening. Everyone laughed and I was too drunk to know or care if they were laughing with me or at me. As long as they were laughing, it was great.

I carried on that way as a teenager. Overdoing it from time to time. But it helped me build up groups of friends who enjoyed being funny and doing dumb things too. It was all good, I had nothing to lose. There was no downside to doing any of this. Still too young to truly know what a hangover was. It was a victimless crime.

Then I finished high school. My first year out of school I met my now wife and got a part time job. You know, the things that are part of growing up. A lot of my confidence socially was linked to my persona when drunk. So when I first got together with my wife, I’d put on my usual routine. Try to be the life of the party. If everyone thought I was ‘classic’ that was just points on the board for me. But now, occasionally I’d go too far. Do something or say something I’d regret. Cause harm to someone who could walk away from me if they wanted to.

This was all binge drinking at this point. I was drinking to get drunk. The aim was to get myself in that place of feeling invincible. Finding that sweet spot of being drunk enough to have no fear, but not so drunk that I became unintelligible. Inevitably, I regularly went too far.

By the time I reach my early twenties I’m starting to get proper hangovers. Feeling rubbish for a full day or more afterwards. All of the things you get, headaches, still feeling slightly drunk and nauseous. But then I do a few things that really embarrass myself. So along with the hangover I get a nice side dish of anxiety too. So along with my hangover I get a tight chest and find it really easy to slip into panic in that fragile state.

By my mid to late twenties my brain and body has paired those two things up. So even when I haven’t done anything I need to be embarrassed by, I still get the anxiety. I’ve trained myself for over a decade that getting drunk means doing dumb things that I’ll regret. So now when I have a few drinks my body automatically fires up the anxiety meter. I wake up the next day not only feeling like crap, I’m also in full on self beat up mode.

So I try to cut back the binge drinking. I set myself limits on the numbers of beers I’ll allow myself. This is a really hit and miss tactic. Sometimes I’ll have just enough to drink that I get very little enjoyment from it. Then still get the full dose of anxiety the next day. My body and brain is yelling at me. Stop this you idiot, you’re going to ruin your life. But instead of taking that advice, I try to renegotiate.

My next tactic is to start drinking less in one sitting, but with more sittings. So I’ll have a few beers, but most days of the week. I’m doing less dumb stuff I tell myself. It’s got to be alright, surely. So on some nights I’ll enjoy some craft beer and wake up without the anxiety or hangover. It’s perfect I tell myself. I’ve taken control of this relationship.

But this doesn’t account for the occasional blow out. The trip away for a stag do. The time a good mate comes to visit while we’re living in London. I just have to deal with it. It’s the price of being social and having a good time. It’s the culture we all grew up in. It’s how we learnt to do this stuff. Catch up over a few beers. It comes so naturally. But now so does the anxiety the next day.

This arrangement works in the early days of having kids. A beer or two in the evening to unwind is what dad’s do right? I get asked by a psychologist how much I drink. I shave a few drinks off my estimated weekly consumption in my answer.

‘Could you stop drinking if you needed to?’

‘Yeah sure, but I don’t think it’s a problem.’

‘Would you be angry if someone asked you to stop drinking?’

*I smirk* ‘Na, probably not, but that wouldn’t happen. I don’t have a problem.’

‘Alcohol is a depressant’

*My smirk disappears.

During lockdown I start drinking every day. The days are long. Three kids under 5 at home while trying to work full time. I deserve it, right? Just cracking a cold one at 5 is what I need. Sometimes 4.30, maybe even 4. We’re just doing what we need to get through these crazy times right? Then we get out of lock down, but I keep up the tradition. My anxiety and depression now have a baseline level that I’m never free of. I’m miserable, but sometimes the only thing that can pick me up is cracking that beer. A nice little spiral of negativity.

So on the 25th April 2021 I decide I’m going to stop drinking for a while. I’m on antidepressants. It seems stupid that I’m actively taking two drugs that try to cancel each other out. I’ll give it a break for a while.

I haven’t had a drink since. Am I anxiety and depression free? No. But am I sabotaging myself every day in trying to get better. That answer is no as well.

I’m not preaching that everyone should give up drinking. That’s why the focus of this story is on ‘my relationship’ with it. I was reflecting on the fact that I had developed a negative/toxic relationship. This could be with other things in peoples lives. If you have built up this kind of relationship over time with something the challenge is to recognise and do something about it. Both the reflection, and taking action are hard to do. But on the other side could be progress.