Why mummy gave up drinking

I’ve always liked the idea of blogging since becoming a mum, but I’ve never managed to put fingertips to keyboard until now. It’s not like anyone would care about my life specifically. I mean, it’s not like I’m a celebrity. I’m just another single working mum, 39 years old, trying to make it through the daily grind like everyone else – what could I possibly say that would make people want to read – to sit up and go ‘Ohhhhh. I know exactly how she was feeling when she wrote that!’ I love reading. Especially words that make me reflect on my own life, pause for thought and sometimes, when the message is really compelling, actually make changes for the better. This is why I’ve decided that now is the moment for me to start writing and sharing – because I do have something to say – and I think have a message that will help and improve the lives of anyone who is brave enough to be open-minded to changing their world for good.

I have always been your archetypal party girl. I’m the friend who you first think of when you want a night out. Ummm. ‘Who do I call who is going to be up for a huge night drinking? Someone who I can have guaranteed fun with. Someone who will certainly get utterly battered and make more of a fool of themselves than me?’

Me. Rachael. I’m your girl.

I’ve been this girl for 20 years. Having children inevitably slowed me down for a while but as the nursery years finally ended and the school runs began, I could finally pick up the pace and party once again like its 1999. Bridget Jones used to be my inspiration as a young single woman. More recently (now I’m a mum of two boys and soon to be divorced) the Unmumsy Mum has taken Bridget’s place as my role model of choice. Sarah Turner – a delightful author whose words I found completely soothing whilst trying to navigate the mammoth task of motherhood. Finally. A mother who understood me and was prepared to write it down on paper, who also referred to her children as arseholes. Another role model – Gill Sims, author of ‘Why mummy drinks’ – who recognised that wine is the only solution to pretty much everything – especially parenting.

I am a particularly busy woman. I work 40 hours + a week, I run a small gift shop business on the side, I’m a single mother of two boys, aged 4 and 7 and frankly, considering how crazy busy I am, I’m smashing it! I spend my weekends doing countless activities with my children, I cook from scratch daily, I bake, I run 3 miles most days, I read – both alone and with my children, I help with homework, I am loyal to my friends and devoted to my work. I’m your typical high achiever. Shame it’s all a sham, because in spite of my achievements, the truth is, I’m actually just a high functioning alcoholic.

I drink two bottles of wine a night, every night, without breaking a sweat or suffering a hangover. I manage to get up and function like superwoman and I’m still killing it. I’ve worn the ability to drink wine like it’s going out of fashion, as a badge of honour. Something to be proud of. When I announce to my fellow drinking mummies at the school gate that I ‘smashed two bottles of wine to myself last night’, the response is always one of commendation. ‘Well done Rachael. Good girl!’

For the longest time I’ve congratulated myself on having the ability to do it all. Work, parent and continue the party. But….and this is a big BUT…..there is a dark side to my life that I have mentally buried for a very long time, because I don’t want to face the truth. I haven’t been strong enough. I suffer with crippling anxiety. 10/10 overwhelming anxiety – all of the time – until I drink wine. I wake up at 3am every morning like clockwork with a huge jolt of anxiety. I mentally trace back through the evening. I had wine. A lot of wine. I don’t remember going to bed. What day is it? Ah it’s Tuesday. I didn’t go out. It’s a school night. Phew! Nothing to worry about.

Then there are the those nights….where I wake up at 3am with a surge of overwhelming panic – like I’ve been shot. What day is it? Saturday? How the hell did I get home? Where did I end up last night? Did I upset anyone? The blackouts go hand in hand with panic. Then come the health worries. How long can I keep drinking like this before my body gives up? I might have liver cirrhosis already. I really need to cut down. I have to learn to moderate. I’m going to end up seriously ill. How can I do this to my children?! I’ll leave them motherless if I die. The self-loathing. Fear and guilt. Fear, guilt….and overwhelming anxiety. Over and over this is the cycle I’ve lived in for 20 years. Some days I really overdo it and end up with a hangover; a rarity as I’ve become pretty adept at cracking on with life in spite of feeling dog rough. On those rare days I sometimes think to myself – I have to quit. At some point I have to quit drinking for good. I can’t carry on like this. I’ll die. Until 4pm that is. When the fear and self-loathing has worn off and that itch for wine starts to irritate from under my skin. The creeping feeling of emptiness. Like hunger. I walk through the door following the school run, I’ve slogged out a day at work feeling like utter shit and picked up the children who are now fighting in the hallway before I’ve even got through the front door. Fuck this. I need wine. I need wine like I need air. No one can parent in this day and age without drinking. If I die, I die. Who fucking cares. Pinot will fix that. One glass and I won’t care about anything. Everyone does it. 90% of adults drink. I’m normal FFS!

The sad thing is that it’s true. I am normal. I don’t believe in defining myself by the dreaded ‘A’ word but I’m a mummy and I also have a major problem with alcohol. And so I think, do most people. I don’t believe any of us are to blame, which is why I don’t like the stigma of the ‘A’ word. We live in a society where drinking is socially acceptable and ultimately, actually expected. The reality is we collectively consume the most addictive and damaging drug known to man – so of course we are all bloody hooked!

Drinking has become such an integral part of our culture. We are constantly surrounded by positive images of alcohol packaged in beautiful bottles. We give cards to each other on birthdays, joking about alcohol consumption. We celebrate and commiserate pretty much everything by popping a cork. We’ve gone from opening bottles at funerals, weddings, birthdays and nights out, to daily events – such as celebrating Tuesdays. The reality is that we’re all ingesting poison. Ethanol. You know….the same stuff we use to sterilise medical equipment with. We all laughed at his utter stupidity when Donald Trump suggesting ingesting disinfectant as means to combat Covid. What an absolute moron. Well people, don’t laugh too hard – you’re doing exactly the same thing by drinking booze. It’s just Ethanol – a poisonous disinfectant. Think about it. Every alcoholic drink has the same base drug. 50 ml of pure ethanol will make you permanently blind. Just 100 ml will kill you. Really stop and think about this for a minute. One tiny shot of pure alcohol will kill you. All we do is water it down, package it in pretty bottles and we tell ourselves it’s a treat. How insane is that? A poison so toxic it can kill you – so we just take it in smaller quantities and kill ourselves slowly.

How, as a society, have we opened our eyes to the dangers of smoking but we still treat alcohol like a friend? We laugh about hangovers, we accuse anyone who doesn’t drink of being boring, we suggest alcohol as a solution to pretty much everything, we admonish those who don’t drink and yet it’s the single biggest killer of all the drugs on the planet and scarily, the only one that’s legal in the UK.

There are no positives to drinking (I know this is hard to believe – bear with me) and all of the myths we believe about alcohol being in any way helpful, are simply not true. I am going to regularly blog to dismantle these myths one by one over the coming weeks. I’ll also throw in some very amusing drunken stories for good measure – because no great story started with a fruit juice right? Mmmm. We’ll see.

I decided to quit drinking for good just 21 days ago. It’s a long story that will unfold in my upcoming blogs, but the decision to quit booze for good has come at the end of a tumultuous couple of years. I very suddenly and unexpectedly lost my darling mum, endured a horrible marriage, left my husband (go figure) and am currently going through a nasty, acrimonious divorce whilst working full time, running a small business, raising two young boys alone and supporting my poor bereft dad who lost my mum after 42 years together. It’s been tough and I’ve coped – as one would fully expect – by numbing myself with copious amounts of wine. Until now!!!

I have gone from drinking around one to two bottles of wine a night to absolutely nothing, zilch, completely t-total….and I have never felt better. I’m still in disbelief. Me!! The nightly heavy drinker. The ‘anxiety’ I have suffered for over 20 years – gone. Depression – so much improved. Random pains in my stomach – gone. Bank balance – much healthier! There are so many more benefits I can’t wait to share with you but the biggest one of all – I am now a mummy who is present. I thought I was a great mum. I did some fabulous things with my children, granted. I have always showered them with affection and love, but great mum? It’s only now I look back and think ‘Thank God I quit whilst they’re young. Hopefully they’ll have no memory of who I was when I was drinking.’ I’m ashamed of what I became. A mum who put her kids to bed, kissed them goodnight and then drank herself into a daily coma.

I’ve known that I needed to quit for so long, but I’m ashamed to say that my biggest worry was about becoming boring!! When I used to meet a new mummy and she would come to my house for the first time, I would offer tea, coffee or wine and if she said ‘tea please’ I internally thought ‘Ah shame…I thought we could be friends but now I can see we’re completely different and you’re not my type of person. You know. The fun kind.’ Terrible hey?

I’m a rebel at heart. I’ve always been a rebel I think. So since 90% of the adult population drinks alcohol I’ve decided to continue my rebellious streak and go against the masses. I entirely believe I’m ahead of the curve on this one. It wasn’t so long ago that I loved to smoke. It was cool to smoke! Even as a child I would mimic the adult smokers by puffing away on a candy cigarette. Remember those? How horrified would you be now if you saw a child pretending to actually smoke?! We widely acknowledged smoking as cool for many years – so widely accepted you could even smoke on a plane, in restaurants, the cinema, Dixons! It’s only now we see smoking for the vile and disgusting habit it is. Did it suddenly become disgusting and abhorrent? No!! It was always exactly the same. The only thing that changed was our perception. As a society we collectively opened our eyes to the truth, at the same time. Smoking became socially unacceptable. Decidedly uncool. The world over our mentality shifted and did a 180 degree flip. How can the entire world completely change it’s view collectively? Media. And in the era of social media, how long will it be before this message begins to spread – because it will. Why? Simple. It’s the truth.

I truly believe alcohol will go the same way as cigarettes. We currently look at alcohol as our social-accepted, universal, well-loved treat. We ‘deserve’ it. We work hard. Life is tough. We need to be able to relax! Of course we do. But here is the thing – alcohol doesn’t actually help us relax. It’s a drug. We feel the effects of the ethanol soothe and numb our pain, worries and inhibitions. When it wears off, we get withdrawal symptoms – which incidentally are exactly the same as anxiety. What helped when I last felt anxious? Ahhh! Wine ! That will fix this! Alcohol doesn’t help is relax. It’s a lie. More alcohol merely stops the symptoms of withdrawal. This is our cycle.

I’m new to sobriety. I was ‘party girl’ less than a month ago. I’m hoping that people will read my blog and just perhaps think….mmmm…..maybe there is some truth in this. I hope over the coming months as I progress through sobriety, motherhood, potential relapse and falling off the wagon (God forbid), that you can reflect on your own lives. Maybe this will resonate and help you to make small positive changes. If just one person reads this and thinks ‘I’m going to have a break from alcohol’ I’ll be pretty chuffed – because any time away from the sauce is beneficial and who knows, you might decide to try sobriety for good once you see and feel the extraordinary benefits and pleasures that come with being clear-headed. I’m not preaching to convert everyone to sobriety. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to stick to this yet and I’ve certainly not kicked the cravings. I just feel like I’ve discovered the most wonderful secret, I’m desperate to share the benefits and hopefully I’ll acquire some support through my tough days. This is a steep learning curve for me. I would love to help and support anyone who wants to join me on this journey, or tag along for the ride. Most of all, I want to dismantle the theory that being sober is boring. Alcohol does not make me a fun person. I am a fun person. And if I can be a party girl for 20 years, smash it harder than most men and then quit, anyone can. Including you.

I’m not going to lie, the idea of the rest of my life without wine absolutely scares the shit out of me. I have loved wine for so long. The thing that scares me the most is the perception that I’m going to be no fun. Being fun is who I am. I’m scared of losing friendships because I’m now the ‘boring sober one.’ I’ve been drinking since I was 14 and the only time I’ve ever taken a decent break from alcohol was during my two pregnancies (and even then not completely!). Alcohol has been a daily part of my life and my lifestyle for two decades. I feel like I’m starting again. I literally feel like I have to learn how to live again, because like so many people, when I feel any emotion other than happiness, I want to immediately squash it. Alcohol has been my crutch for so long I am learning how to deal with the most basic of emotions instead of opting for chemical help. It turns out, I’m not much more emotionally intelligent than my children. I spend my days trying to teach them how to deal with playground disputes, how to share, how to cope with failure etc etc…..when my way of dealing with all emotions is to head to the fridge and grab the Pinot. I’m so scared of life that I spend half of it totally numb and the other half feeling like crap and counting down the hours until I can get numb again. When I look at it like this I just think ‘Wow. This is so sad. I’m going to live a whole life and miss out on so much of it because I wasn’t actually present.’

21 days sober has taught me a valuable lesson already – every positive feeling we get from alcohol is actually a debt. We borrow tomorrow’s happiness. It’s not given to us for free. Alcohol offers you a fun time but there is always a trade-off. Always. Have a glass of wine. Alcohol will take 30 minutes of your life and give you a little perceived relaxation. It would be ideal if we could leave it there – but alcohol is sneaky and the need for more creeps up on you – because it’s highly addictive. We want the second glass, recognising that it will take a little more from us, but it’s already lowered our inhibitions and it’s easier to say ‘fuck it’ and take the drink. This glass takes a little from our memory and replaces it with a headache in the morning and some delightful dehydration for good measure. It’s no different than a credit card. Enjoy now. Pay later. Three, four, five glasses later and the trade-off just gets bigger and bigger. At best you’ll have a dreadful hangover after a skin-full. At worst, blackouts, no memory of being rude / abusive, lost friendships, being an easy victim for sexual assault and violence, risk of drink drive, suicidal ideation, losing a job, home, families, loved ones. The list goes on and on. The more you drink, the higher the risks. Alcohol robs you of so many wonderful things.

How many times have you been on a night out and stumbled past a drunk homeless person on the street and thrown change at them, thinking ‘what a mess that person’s in.’ The only difference is that the homeless person is further down the slippery slope of addiction that you are. The homeless person on the street drinking Special Brew and the banker in a beautiful London bar sipping Dom Perignon are taking exactly the same drug. Ethanol. We view alcoholics as the ones who have lost everything to booze. Those people who drink in the morning. How many times have you thought that? I can’t be an alcoholic. I don’t drink in the morning. Alcoholics have no self-control. They’re disgusting. The truth is if you drink alcohol you’re on the sliding scale whether you like it or not. You might be lucky enough to be in a great job with lots of money, where drinking nightly is not only common, it’s positively encouraged. It’s essential to entertaining clients. You can have a serious alcohol problem and you’re probably headed towards a promotion. The trade-off? Who knows? Liver cirrhosis at 45. Losing your driving licence. Stroke at 50. Heart-attack. Suicide. Sound extreme? An astronomical amount of suicides are by men in highly paid, pressurised jobs. The figures are shocking. With the highs come the lows. Depression and anxiety are an epidemic. I can only but wonder, if doctors prescribed 30 days sobriety to every person who presented with depression and anxiety, how many people would discover that actually they’re ok and alcohol is responsible for all of their massive lows? I’ve been there. Alcohol has taken me to the absolute depths of despair. The last 21 days have been the most calm, peaceful, anxiety free days I’ve had in over a decade. I really hope I can help to bring some peace to your lives too.

Much love to everyone who has taken the time to read. If you want to follow my story and read about my journey to sobriety then I look forward to sharing this with you.

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