Escalating Backwards

The main point for writing this story was to write about drinking -- my own in particular. But I can't seem to find a natural segue into it, so I'm just going to have to launch in.

I've been reading recovery memoirs, and sober blogs, and it seems like my drinking story goes in the opposite direction to a lot of them.

I didn't binge drink when I was a teenager. I didn't drink at all until I was 18, and didn't enjoy it much when I did. I drank a bit in university, but didn't get drunk. I drank during my 20s but moderately. The point is that I remember it all -- so I wasn't overdoing it. Some highlights:

The laboratory I worked at had a home-brew department out the back, where Bill got his elderberry and blackberry wine on. The first time I got drunk was on that wine. My co-worker kindly drove me home to her place and put me to bed. She phoned my mother and said I wouldn't be home for dinner, and she took me home later when I'd recovered. I don't know if mum knew what really happened, but nothing was said.

That same job. Christmas party time. One of the managers arranged for me to go with one of his friends -- a sort of blind date. This guy got totally rotten drunk, and had to be carried out of the event.

In my early 20s, during the university holidays, the Ward side of the family had a big family reunion. We were all together for about 10 days, and I drank with the adults every day at "five o'clock drinks" or happy hour or whatever it was. Then I stayed on and worked in the rest home. We continued to have after work drinks, and I remember this was the first time I felt the "urge" to drink at a particular time of the day -- a habit was forming. But it wasn't lasting. It went away when I went back to university and a different routine.

A beach hut somewhere in the Carribean, eating white tuna just out of a boat, with breadfruit chips, and cold Heinekin. I remember this because it was Gerard's first beer since he was 17, and had an epiphany that he should stop drinking. We were 26 at the time. Same trip, getting to Chile, mid 1980s before Chilean wine was world-famous and widely available. We'd picnic in parks with wine, bread, chocolate. We'd order massive steaks and chips, and drink red wine. I remember a christmas celebration in Puerto Montt, with some other travellers. There was drunkenness and hangovers, but I don't think I was afflicted.

London. Drinking was huge in London. The Brits in the publishing house I worked at went to the pub for lunch and drank. The Australians and Kiwis were pub mad. There was a wine bar on every corner. We drank regularly, but not a huge quantity. I do remember that we picked a laundromat with a pub across the road, so we could sit and have a pint while the clothes were washing, whip over and stick them in the drier, and have another pint as they dried. We went out for pub lunches on Sunday, and had cider with a pie and spuds and peas.

I was in London the day they abolished pubs closing between 3pm and 6pm. That day we all went to the pub for lunch and didn't go back to work. I was pretty drunk and a little hung over.

Spain, out drinking one night in a pub in Gibralta, meeting Irish Louie, agreeing to go to Morocco with him the next day, waking up in the morning hung over and regretting that promise... but we did remember it at least. No booze in Morocco, and it didn't matter one bit.

Vancouver. Wine Festival. We had Kiwis staying with us. Everyone got totally rotten, passed out, vomitting out the flat windows. It was brutal.

But all those years, drinking was something of an occasion, not a daily activity.

Then I was in my 30s, separated, living alone, and working in a big office where after-work drinks happened during the week. I drank more often. I would have beer in the house, and that was the first time I'd have a drink on my own -- not as part of a social gathering. I didn't do it a lot, but it was a change worth noting. I say I had my adolescence in my early 30s. It involved quite a lot of drinking, partying, socialising.

It's really weird to be writing this, but it seemed that as I got older, and got my shit together more, got into a stable relationship and married again, grew a successful business and got some financial stability... they more sorted out my life got, the more I drank.

Some time during my 40s, daily drinking became the norm. We ate out a lot, and our local bar tender had a very generous pour. Wine was cheap, and we had a stash in the basement storage cupboard... which we didn't need, because there was a big liquor store at the corner.

I did not feel like there was anything amiss. Life was good. I was really happy and enjoying myself.

The last year we were in Vancouver 2003 - 4 was particularly intense. I was trying to keep the business running, and sell it before we left, I was training for a triathalon, and getting ready to return to NZ after being away for 18 years. I was constantly hungry because of the training schedule. I started going to the Greek restaurant down the block for a cooked meal at lunch time, two or three days a week. And once I ordered a wine. They had a generous pour too. It really took the edge off my work stress, so I kept doing it. All that year I was training hard, stressed at work, eating like a horse, and drinking cheap white wine with my lunch. I had had wine with lunch before, but not by myself, and not regularly. This was a change I noticed, and wasn't that proud of. Put it this way, I didn't tell anyone.

When we got to NZ, nothing turned out the way I expected. I had been gone for 18 years, and built NZ up to be a paradise that it wasn't. We landed in our dream spot, didn't really settle, moved to a new town, moved houses a few times, got jobs, changed jobs... and generally the whole thing was a huge stress to me. Being in New Zealand was stressful -- I felt that my dreams were dashed. I didn't know myself. I felt like I'd been slung back into that horrible place I'd been as a child... it was cruel and depressing. But I was being brave, and probably nobody had a clue about how shitty I was feeling. And I was drinking more. And more. And more. Every day now, as soon as I got in the door from work, I'd have a wine to bring me down from the day -- take the edge off. Except the edge was still there, and it kept taking more wine to smooth it. I don't know how it ended up being a whole bottle of wine most days, but that's what it was.

Not long before we left Arrowtown, I decided I was turning into a lush, and needed to quit drinking for a while -- to prove to myself I didn't have a problem. So I stopped drinking wine, and started drinking a bottle of sparkling grape juice every day. Very soon my whole body started to stiffen up -- rheumatoid arthritis symptoms. My arms wouldn't lift up, my hands were stiff, my feet wouldn't move properly... I woke up in the morning in agony, and could hardly move. One night, about three months into this very frightening time, David was about to go to Wellington for a new job, and I drank a glass of red wine with him while we had dinner. I woke up the next morning with no pain. I started drinking again, and I was soon good as gold... well not that soon, but I did fully recover. There are various theories about that episode, including sugar poisoning, massive stress about leaving Arrowtown, dreams dashed. Who knows? It doesn't matter.

Working in Wellington, I was thrown in to a crowd of wonderful people who liked to party after work, and I joined them quite often. We drank at home, drank with neighbours, drank alone. It was just woven into the daily routine. I didn't really think it wasn't normal. It was what my parents had done, and what people seemed to do -- take the edge of whatever stresses you with a few drinks.

I wasn't falling down drunk. I did have a few bender-type nights, when I went out with my work mates and got a bit stumbly, but it was pretty benign compared to what other people managed to achieve! I didn't break the law, get wild and crazy, hurt myself or others overtly, miss work... I was just drinking myself into a nice stupor every night, blotting myself out, sleeping badly, waking up annoyed and angry at myself for being such a looser, promising myself I'd cut back, and doing it all over again, day after day after day.

Writing this out brings up a heck of a lot of questions I could ask and answer... but the real point is that I felt out of control. I was constantly drinking more than I intended to drink. That was a problem. It might not have looked like one, and my life looked together. But I was worried. Scared, defeated. I had achieved so so much in life -- overcome so many obstacles, escaped my crazy family and made a life for myself, but this was the one thing that I couldn't get a handle on, couldn't keep under control.

It went on like this for several years.

Then in 2010, in August, I got a virus that knocked me totally flat for three weeks. I hadn't been sick for years, and this was the Big One. I couldn't eat, was in a fever-chill cycle around the clock, had a severe headache, and I think I was delirious a lot of the time. It occurred to me that as well as having the viral infection I was probably going though an alcohol detox. I didn't get a repeat of the arthritis symptoms. When the virus cleared up, and I got my appetite back, I pragmatically thought "Well, I've just had three weeks off drinking, the hard work is done, I might as well stick with this for a while." And I did. I didn't drink again for 9 months. I didn't drink on my 50th birthday -- that was strange but true. I hadn't even thought about giving up drining forver, I just was having a break.

I remember very little about this time. I didn't talk to anyone much about not drinking, I just grit my teeth and didn't drink. I didn't keep a journal,and I'm gutted about that, because I'm really curious about what was going on in my head for those 9 months -- and I can't remember much at all.

What I do remember very clearly is ordering a beer in a bar in Melbourne in April 2011. It tasted great. I felt good about it. David did ask me "are you sure you want to do that?" and I was. I thought I'd broken the back of my alcohol issues, and would really enjoy a beer every now and then. And so it was for a few weeks. I mixed a splash of red wine with soda water for a drink with dinner. In the back of my mind was the idea that I'd be fine as long as I didn't start drinking full-strength white wine again. I didn't know it at the time, but I was right on track to be drinking full-on again in no time flat, and I kept it up for another 18 months, stunned at how that happened, but re-trapped in the daily drinking cycle, like nothing had happened. I wasn't cured afterall.

I'm aware that is just a big dump of information and I will re-visit is, and edit. But it feels good to get this out on paper. To Admit It, commit it to print.

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