This week, I’m looking closely at the purpose of alcohol in my life. What did it actually do for me—or more accurately, what did I think it did?
I’ve read This Naked Mind by Annie Grace and Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Quit Smoking. The core lesson of both is simple: the drug creates the very anxiety it claims to cure, and society tricks us into thinking we need it, so theoretically my mind should know better, but frankly it does not.
The imaginary unwin(e)d
For years, my evening wine was my “unwind” button. I’d rush home from work, transitioning instantly from one stressful environment to the next. Alcohol was my shortcut to taking the edge off. In reality, it didn’t matter how stressful my day actually was; I always felt justified in pouring a glass because “life is hard, and wine helps.”
This week, I went back to work part-time. Transitioning back is doubly exhausting because I’m balancing work and motherhood, all while nursing a busted foot that swells like a balloon every time I overdo it. But surprisingly, I don’t feel like anything is missing and I don’t think I’m any more stressed or irritable than normal (the family may beg to differ). My evenings actually feel longer, leaving me space for things I love, like reading and writing, stuff which is truly relaxing and enjoyable.
Self-medicating a dead social battery
I’ve also been thinking about the social side of drinking. It’s so easy to meet a friend “over a wine.” We can just as easily meet over a cuppa, but coffee doesn’t seem to carry that same expectation of deep connection. Or maybe coffee just doesn’t invite the mindless waffling that alcohol does?
The truth is, I’ve realized over the last few years that I have social anxiety, particularly at parties. The warning signs were there when I was younger, but I lacked the self-awareness to see them.
I am also an introvert. People who know me as loud or outgoing might dispute that, but I just have different personas for different spaces. It’s not fake; it’s just an environmental adaptation. The real me has a very small social battery that gets drained just by everyday interactions. Yet, for some reason, I daftly chose a career in social work, where intense human connection is a daily job requirement. By the time the weekend rolls around, the expectation of spending weekends mingling with a large crowd of varying acquaintances has me breaking out in a cold sweat.
In the past, I masked that awkwardness and anxiety by drinking heavily. In my youth, I was the girl who got rip-roaring wasted incredibly fast, lost all inhibitions, did something most likely regrettable, and ended the night hugging the toilet or passed out in a bush.
During my previous sober stretches, I still went to dinners, birthdays, and weddings. Watching from the sidelines, I realized alcohol isn’t anyone’s friend. I usually left early because things got embarrassing, and I never wanted to be the sober person recounting everyone else’s drunken mistakes the next day. The events were always more fun before the drinking hit that messy peak and conversations lost all coherence.
Eventually, the toxic combo of social anxiety, introversion, and heavy drinking led to a bad habit: I started bailing on plans. I’d make up poor excuses with varying degrees of truth just to avoid the situation, which honestly just made me a shitty friend.
Alcohol definitely forced open my social boundaries for years, but whether that was actually a good thing is up for debate. Now, I have to figure out how to navigate social spaces sober. Maybe that will be a little easier now that I’ve just told the world exactly why I’ve been hiding away.
Unarmed in the trenches
But before I even get to a dynamic party, I have to survive the immediate horizon: the school holidays. With nothing to take the edge off, I am fully aware this fortnight might actually send me over the edge.
If we are talking about what alcohol did for me, it was my ultimate parenting pressure-release valve. Navigating the delightful blend of school holiday scheduling, refereeing siblings who are actively trying to kill one another, working, and managing a throbbing, swollen foot is a literal recipe for peak sensory overload.
Normally, 5:00 PM would be my cue to pour a glass to numb the noise and artificially reset my patience. Though if I’m being honest, on non-workdays, that clock operated on a sliding scale starting as early as 11:00 AM.
This week is a massive test of my new reality. I’m learning to sit with the chaos of parenting instead of drowning it. I’m realizing that the wine didn’t make me a more patient mum—it just made me a checked-out, more volatile one.
Case in point: I actually “emotion coached” one of my kids through a massive meltdown over the weekend. It felt strange to sit calmly in the room while he processed the intense emotions involved in trying to choke his brother. But instead of the usual screaming match, he broke down and ran over for a proper Mum cuddle. So, turns out there might actually be something to what those parenting experts are talking about after all.
So, cheers to week two, I guess. It turns out parenting and social anxiety are a lot harder to face when you aren’t mildly anesthetized. Who knew? But for now, if I can just get through these school holidays without someone ending up in ED or me drinking the house dry, I’ll take it as a win.
Hopefully, I’ll be back on Wednesday—still sober, and not out on bail for throttling a kid when the emotion coaching inevitably failed—to talk about habits and why it’s always so much easier to do the bad stuff than the good.
Awesome. We have a bit in common