Three years, no beers

on letting go of a dodgy relationship with alcohol

(This voiceover is an audio version of the newsletter below. As always, it’s unedited, and today features my croaky voice. If you like/need to listen to these posts I hope you enjoy it!)

At a brewery in Nederland, Colorado 2018

Three years ago, almost to the day, I had my last alcoholic drink. It was a glass of sparkling shiraz at brunch. It was nice. I didn’t get drunk and say something horrible, I didn’t wake up with a monster hangover, I don’t think I even finished the glass. There was no Big Terrible Moment where I realised I needed to stop drinking. I just…stopped.

Like most of the big decisions in my life, it was both a long time coming and made on the spur of the moment. I’d played around with on-again, off-again alcohol-free experiments for years, but never gone longer than a few months. Eventually though, I paid attention to the voice telling me I needed to try a longer period without booze. To see if I could. To see if I felt better. To see if it was as boring as I thought it would be (first yes, then no).

“I think I need to stop drinking,” I said to Ben one day, sometime after that glass of sparkling shiraz. And that was it.

I initially blamed the decision on health reasons, telling others (and myself) that the medication I was taking didn’t mix with alcohol. Reading the leaflet inside the box, that actually turned out to be true, but really, it just felt easier to pin this counter-cultural decision on something like “doctor’s orders” than it was to say out loud the thing I was actually thinking: I didn’t like my relationship with alcohol anymore. It no longer felt good or intentional.

My twenties were a years-long, mostly very fun booze-fest. I’d been a hyper-self-conscious teenager who discovered some time at Uni that I was super fun* when drunk. The kind of fun I’d always wanted to be. Life of the party fun. Always keen for kick-ons fun. Staying out til sunrise fun. So, I drank to find that fun. I drank to cover up my insecurities. I drank to break down barriers with people. I drank because at some point Party Girl had become a big piece of my identity and booze helped unlock the part of me that could dance and carry on and make stupid jokes until 3am.

*I was probably insufferable.

The early years of parenting brought another kind of drinking. Drinking to escape. Drinking to alleviate stress. Drinking to tell myself I could still be fun if I wanted. It was peak Mummy Wine Culture and while I may not have had the t-shirt, I definitely had the hangover and the rolling anxiety to go with it.

By the time I stopped drinking in my late thirties, we were two lockdowns into a global pandemic and while I would have told you I didn’t really drink a lot by then (at least not in comparison to my twenties), I still loved a glass of good, peaty whiskey and was fond of a couple of shiraz on a Friday night (What’s the plural of shiraz? Shirazzes? Shirazii?). I didn’t usually binge, I didn’t usually wake up hungover, booze didn’t usually stop me from doing things. But I did view that glass of red or a couple of beers as a shortcut to relaxation and celebration. I reached for it whenever I was stressed, whenever I was having fun, whenever I felt awkward.

How else was I meant to party? How else could I unwind? How else could I smooth over the social bumps that had become more frequent the older and less inclined to abide endless small talk I got?

Still, it was this gradual tapering that made the decision to stop much easier than it would have been a decade ago, and I’m glad for it. Because while the idea of not drinking again seemed like a big deal, most of it was more trouble-free than I expected.

I thought it would be the celebrations and social get-togethers that would be the hardest to navigate sans alcohol, but after a few months of readjusting and trying lots of different alcohol-free beers and wines, those occasions weren’t hard to navigate. It turned out, however, that there were two other, slightly unexpected challenges to overcome. Looking back now, I think it’s taken me the better part of three years to come to terms with them.

The first is probably not that surprising, given how much of Australian social life revolves around drinking, but I really struggled to make new friends. I knew that if I hit it off with someone, there would be the inevitable invitation of “let’s grab a drink at the pub” soon after. I didn’t know how to do that without drinking, and I didn’t want to have the conversation about why I don’t drink so early in the makings of a new friendship. People tend to look at you as though you’re either a recovering alcoholic or a complete killjoy, and no-one knows what to do with either of those. (I’m neither, by the way.)

So, for a while, I withdrew socially, and I know that cost me opportunities for friendship. I can think of at least a handful of specific instances. I eventually found my way forward though, and have since made some amazing friends. I just needed to give myself time. Unpicking the knots always takes time.

The second challenge surprised me more, and it had to do with shifting definitions — both mine and other’s.

I knew even before I started this experiment that I was happier, more emotionally stable, more content in myself, more creative, more forgiving, more engaged, more honest, more steady and more active when I didn’t drink. So I had no real concern for what I would become as a result — I knew this change, and whatever redefinition came of it, was good for me. So it was a little unsettling when other people, especially those who only knew me socially, seemed to feel bad for me.

For me, fun used to mean having a few drinks and dancing until I was a sweaty mess. Relaxing used to mean sitting around a backyard campfire, glass of wine in hand, listening to music on a Friday night. Celebration used to come in a champagne bottle.

And those definitions weren’t wrong. In fact, they used to be great. They fit me at the stage of life I was at. But now, fun and relaxation and celebration look like a million different things — camping, a sleep-in, boardgame nights, gardening, going to concerts and dancing (usually with an earlier bedtime attached), a walk or a coffee with a mate, working out, meeting family at the pub, going on holidays, soccer at the park, Mario Kart, listening to music, taking myself to the movies, laying on the grass and staring at the clouds, swimming at the beach.

I felt for a long time that I was doing something wrong, making other people feel uncomfortable with my new definitions. And maybe I was, but it was only because their idea of my idea of fun was outdated for a while. It took some time, but I settled into these new definitions, and people who know me can see that now.

Lessons learnt in three years with no (alcoholic) beers:

• It gets easier

• It’s okay if things that used to be fun stop being fun for a while. I spent the first two years of boozy social occasions (the ones I couldn’t opt out of) a bit bored and frustrated. Listening to a bunch of drunk people at a party is funny for, like, an hour. Then it gets boring. That’s okay. This is now when I change the subject, go to bed, hang out with the kids or find a dog to play with

• It will feel awkward sometimes, and eventually, it won’t. I felt awkward dancing sober, until, eventually, I didn’t. We went to a concert last year where I happily danced completely sober. It shouldn’t be a strange experience, but it was. Strange and wonderful and I still get a warm feeling in my chest when I think about that night

• Society (particularly for Gen X and us Millenials) revolves around drinking. Finding other things to do with friends (go for a walk, have a coffee, play a game of soccer, meet up at the beach, go to the movies) helps

• Sometimes I still miss a good glass of whiskey and that’s okay

• Non-alcoholic red wine tastes like Ribena, no matter how expensive it is. Unless you particularly like Ribena, don’t bother buying it. (Or better yet, just buy Ribena, it’s cheaper)

• Sobah makes the best alcohol-free beers in the country — Pepperberry IPA and Davidson Plum Sour Ale. (Heaps Normal’s Half Day Hazy rates a mention and while it’s only available in NYC for now, I reckon Good Time Brewing’s IPA sounds dynamite too)

• I actually drink way fewer specialised non-alc drinks than I expected to. When I first stopped, I had a lot of them (mostly ‘spirits’ and soda water, n/a beers, even a few average non-alc wines) and it was good to bridge that gap. Now, it’s a rare thing. I typically have just the soda water

• Not drinking means I feel a lot more and not drinking means I have to feel those feelings. It’s hard sometimes

• Walking is so good for me (see above)

• My brain looked for other outlets for a while — I ate a lot more chocolate, looked at my phone more. That passes

• When I tell someone I don’t drink and their response is, “Oh cool. No worries,” it’s a weight off

• I am acutely aware of every time I have tried to force other people into drinking in the past. I’m so sorry

Will I ever drink again? Maybe. Maybe not. All I know is that for now, I don’t have any desire to. This was never a moral experiment, or something that I would classify as sobriety. I think there are people who deserve to use the word ‘sober’ and I don’t think I’m one of them. Like most changes I try, it was about “What would happen if…?”

Turns out that what happened was good.

💚

Have you ever tried a long-term experiment, like quitting booze or going vegan or catching public transport everywhere? What did you learn about yourself?

Currently

Listening to Shred Kelly’s new album, Blurry Vision. I’ve yet to listen to it without crying. It’s a mix of slower, bittersweet songs and foot-stomping, banjo-melting anthems that I hope I get to hear them play live one day.

If I had to pick one track to listen to in the car, singing my guts out while driving along the highway (ahem, it may have happened more than once) it would be the final track, Nothing for a While. If you’ve found yourself wanting to get off the never-ending scroll of social media and live your freaking life, this might be the song for you.

Planning for next year. I’m excited!

Sitting at just under 70,000 words in my manuscript. If anyone is following along on my little SlowMoWriMo experiment, I think I’m going to go way closer to my 80,000 word goal than I expected. It’s amazing what happens when you completely release expectations! Things can be terrible and it’s okay! Yay!

Feeling the humidity ramping up. It’s meant to rain all week and I’m pretty happy with that.

Wondering if it’s perimenopause, plain-old hormones, regrowth or the aforementioned humidity that’s sent my hair into ringlets? I am currently sporting a very curly, very unexpected head full of hair. It’s wild, in more ways than one.

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That’s it for now, mates. I hope you enjoy the rest of your week and we all find some time for gratitude. (I’m thankful for my wild hair — this time last year I thought it was all going to fall out).

Much love,
Brooke xx

PS. This post is for everyone, so if you think you know someone who might enjoy it, please feel free to share.