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This story was published in Woman
After experiencing blackouts, anxiety, and, yes, denying her drinking, Amy Prebble reveals why she finally corked it.
I never thought I would stop drinking during a pandemic. But I did it. I am now six months sober and being confined to my house during the lockdown helped me say goodbye to drinking.
It seems that I was not the only one who decided to re-evaluate my alcohol consumption during that strange moment. Author of The myth of the wine on point, Lotta Dann, who also runs the website Living sober, saw an influx of new members.
“We had a huge increase in member subscriptions on our site,” she says. “And the community chat area has been much more crowded than normal in the last six months since the pandemic occurred.”
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“Covid-19 produced a great deal of fear, anxiety and stress, but the resulting blockage also created an unusual break in the norm and the space to focus on things that might otherwise have been neglected,” he adds.
“So we had people who were signing up ready to get on with sobriety, and others who were really struggling with drinking and looking for the strength to prepare to quit.”
If these people look anything like me, they were probably worried about drinking long before Covid-19.
This is because I am good at my job and always prepare nutritious lunches for my children and pick them up on time. Also, I go to the gym or yoga at least three times a week, even if I had a bottle of wine the night before.
As far as I’m concerned, alcoholics are people who drink liquor as soon as they wake up to stop the shakes. And there were no morning drinks for me.
I never received a DUI, spent a night in jail, attacked anyone, or experienced any of those other “sand bottom” moments you heard about. I saw myself more as a party girl (albeit aging), a fun, warm, rosy, bon vivant, so to speak.
Being a Gen X-er, my drunkenness was heavily influenced by the “ladette” culture of the 90s.
Kate Moss, who was nicknamed “The Tank” for her ability to drink endless glasses of champagne, was my hero. I thought she and her Primrose Hill mates, who always looked drunk with a Marlboro light in hand, were great. I’m pretty sure my mother’s generation wouldn’t have been so impressed.
My mother and her friends were also not subject to the aggressive marketing of the drink that was launched in the 90s and is ubiquitous today.
Lotta confirms all those glamorous ads, cheesy “mummy gasoline” memes, and glasses adorned with “Goodnight kids … Hello wine!” have played an important role in normalizing alcohol in the lives of women for the past three decades.
“Women are a huge target of the alcohol industry through advertising and direct marketing, and also through the production of persuasive content online on social media,” says Lotta.
“We are also the ones who mainly do the shopping in supermarkets where alcohol is easily accessible and extremely cheap.
“Everything in our environment is pushing women towards alcohol and we have lost sight of the fact that it is an inherently harmful and dangerous addictive drug, especially for women.”
So my generation was in the sweet spot of having a drinking problem. Sure, I drank a lot in college, but so did everyone I knew.
I continued through my twenties, but nothing crazy, just the occasional blowout here and there. After all, he was a publicist.
He was also a real gym bunny in those days, so he spent more time doing aerobics than shooting. From 29 to 35, I didn’t drink anything for two pregnancies and then I was babysitting, which tends to hamper your drinking style.
It was when I got back into the saddle again in my mid-thirties that I really noticed that I still drank like it was 1999 and a lot of my friends weren’t. I’m small so I’m pretty upset about two wines.
After those two wines, I want more wines. All the wines I can get frankly. Meanwhile, most of my peers usually stopped after a couple of drinks, citing deadlines, kids, and other adult responsibilities.
But of course, I could always find a lot of people who were just as happy to drink sauvignon blanc as I was.
Gradually, I began to relax all the rules I had about liquor.
Don’t you drink on Mondays? Pfft – I don’t have my kids on Mondays, I need to make the most of it. Don’t you drink before 5 in the afternoon? But I’ve had such a hard week! Not drinking alone? Well my cats are here so I’m not really alone am I?
Little by little, drinking didn’t seem so much fun anymore. He began to feel compulsive.
I found myself desperately waiting for the waitress to refill my glass at a restaurant. I began to notice how much wine other people were drinking and I was worried that there would not be enough left for me. I also started drinking at family gatherings (something I hadn’t done before).
Christmas 2017 was fantastic!
I promised myself that I would not drink at work, and then I gladly did. Then there were the blackouts.
I had to text my friend to find out how the hell I got home from lunch at Prego, and I literally can’t remember anything after 8pm from a party I threw in January. I kept getting away with it because I’m a pretty nice drunk, but inside I was dying of shame and my anxiety was through the roof.
Lush lockdown
I really started drinking at the beginning of the confinement. We were all (rightly, as it turned out) concerned about our jobs.
My team and I had to send a magazine to print from home. I felt enormously guilty for trusting my children to do their own school work while I was working. An afternoon rosé or two (or three) helped.
Then they fired me.
Drinking the morning you got fired is quite acceptable, I think.
But being unemployed means you can drink a lot and not worry about having to get up and make yourself presentable to go to the office. It also means that you can drink at lunch and spend the morning waiting for lunch.
It’s no secret that the purchase of alcoholic beverages soared during the closing.
Nielsen The figures showed a whopping 36% increase in sales in the four weeks through April 19.
Then once we were confined to our homes, middle-class drinkers like me flocked to organize rosé deliveries, so we could get our fix without braving the supermarket. Hell, I went and picked up a box of champagne from my friend Anne so I wouldn’t run away.
But I ran out of it. Quickly.
As Lotta says, I finally had the time and energy to really see what I was doing. It was not good. My children are old enough to recognize when I am drunk.
He didn’t want them to think that drinking alcohol was the way he should spend all his free time. Me too, and this was the most important thing, I finally admitted to myself that I couldn’t just cut back. He had been trying for years.
I even gave up for 90 days in 2018 (after the Christmas incident). I thought that period of abstinence showed that he was not an alcoholic. It was actually alarming how quickly I got back to drinking heavily. Even more than before.
The reason I was resisting was that I didn’t want to have to give up alcohol forever. Why would you do it?
They tell us it’s fun, perfect for celebration and commiseration, and only the boring ones abstain. I am one of the worst culprits for trying to get a sensible soul drunk with a drink who would rather stop, accusing her of being boring.
However, there are many good reasons not to drink, and health is one of them.
A 2016 survey conducted by Australasian College of Emergency Medicine of alcohol-related hospital admissions in New Zealand and Australia revealed that one in four patients was there as a result of the harmful use of alcohol.
And a 2017 survey by alcohol.org.nz showed that 25 percent of kiwis who consume alcohol are classified as “dangerous drinkers.” But it’s not just young people who drink at dangerous levels: one in four drinkers between the ages of 45 and 54 has a dangerous relationship with alcohol.
Alcohol is also much more harmful to women.
We are at increased risk for alcoholic hepatitis, hemorrhagic stroke, and heart disease. Studies have found that even moderate amounts of alcohol consumption in middle-aged women can also contribute to an increased risk of cancer.
“Women also have smaller amounts of the liver enzyme that helps break down alcohol,” says Lotta.
“Our hormones also play a role, particularly as we age and go through menopause; The likelihood of experiencing stress and depression during that time has been shown to trigger the onset of alcohol abuse (or worsen established abuse).
There is also seemingly strong evidence showing that women’s brains are more sensitive to alcohol than men’s, and that many of the behavioral aspects of alcoholism progress more rapidly among women than men. “
Starting over sober
I bit the bullet and stopped drinking on April 25.
I signed up for One Year No Beer. They send you encouraging emails every day and you can join a Facebook group with around 12,000 people trying to kick the booze just like you. It is very comforting and inspiring to see people of all ages and lifestyles benefiting from sobriety.
I have also read around 30 books on how to quit drinking and my Instagram account is heavily skewed towards sober influencers and articles on sobriety. My old partner Kate Moss showed up recently, turns out she’s been sober for two years!
Being locked up made it so much easier. No one can tell what’s in your wine glass during Zoom drinks. I also didn’t have to drive home from work and start cooking (where I would start drinking).
So what happened to me after six months without alcohol?
I am much less anxious. I lost 5kg, started running, and my Sunday mornings usually include hot yoga followed by a smug green juice instead of hangover. If you are concerned about your drinking, I would definitely recommend at least trying a break. You have nothing to lose.
Lotta agrees and says, “Hear that worried little voice inside your head, that’s the wise part of you that knows something must change.
“Trust that change is possible and that you can get to a place where you don’t miss any of it (despite all the conditioning and the messages that tell us that alcohol is necessary for a full and fun life and that we will be miserable without it).
“And above all, communicate with other people who are in the same boat. We need each other and we become very strong when we come together. “
