“My Year of Not Getting Shitfaced”

My reflections on Pamela Power’s new book.

Sometimes a book comes your way at exactly the right time. At an occasion at the end of last year I got horrendously drunk, and in the aftermath, re-evaluated several of my life choices. One of them being how much I drink, why, when and with whom. I feel like I have had the question of whether I drink too much buzzing through my mind for months but ignored it because I did not like the answer. Hannah, you drink too much. And when you’re on the razzle, you don’t know when to stop.

Pamela Power’s diary of her “sober curious” journey felt like reading my own thoughts. Starting with how much she enjoys her vino, in and of itself, (a good red for her, for me it’s a crisp white), but also how it functions as a conduit for so much else in our lives. It is a portal we go through when we’re happy, sad, stressed, celebrating, commiserating, passing time.

Let me honestly say this: I love wine. I love the taste, the feeling, the ritual. But I also love getting buzzed, and I hate that I do, but I do. I have long wanted an off switch, but never been disciplined enough to police my own boundaries.

What do I love? I love the feeling of recklessness and the immediacy of oblivion. All that stuff that swirls around in my mind, I can finally say. I am not self-conscious (probably good to be a bit self-conscious methinks). I love laughing and being unfiltered and ridiculous. All the random connections in my mind I struggle to piece together when sober, the feeling of trying to solve a maths problem I just can’t, in drunkenness, well, I reinvent the rules and all those synapses melt into each other and so does my theory of being and the universe and I love you, and I love life, and I love myself.

Obviously, the connections I am making are dodgy, but who cares when you’re the life of the party, the wittiest person at the table, the wildest dancer. (Or are you maybe not that person? Do you want to be that person? Could you not be that person sober?)

The acute depression after a big night is visceral. The self-hate crawls in my veins.

…

Since January, I decided to kick weekday drinking and to be more productive and healthier, and practise temperance on the weekends. This has proved successful so far, so for Lent I decided to give up alcohol. I was about 2.5 weeks into Lent, having failed twice in that two-week period, when I saw Amy Heydenrych’s post about Pamela’s book on Instagram. I immediately took myself off to Love Books and bought a copy. Stu, who works there and went to Rhodes with me, looked at the title and chuckled. ‘Aspirational,’ I said to him. ‘All of us that went to Rhodes need this,’ he said.

…

Pamela’s book encouraged me to examine my own drinking closely. I mapped my drinking history – from reckless varsity drinking to young adults who have time and money to spare and do soaked brunch-lunch-dinners, to the moody solipsistic PhD student, to the new and overwhelmed parent longing for escape. And she so rightly notes that ours is a culture comfortable with inebriation, we excuse it, encourage it, and shrug it off. There is no judgment from me here, the reasons we drink are as many and as legitimate as there are forms of alcohol. Pamela shows us this – financial insecurity, children, crime, loadshedding, parents, career; the pressures are overwhelming, and the outlets for stress relief are few.

But booze is bad for our health, bad for our wallets and in some cases bad for our relationships.

I do want to enjoy my glass of wine. I love sitting down with a glass of vino in the same way I love my morning coffee, putting on Bill Evans when I cook, writing my name, date and city in a new book, doing my grocery shopping at a fruit and veg market with a friend on a Friday. For me it is a ritualised way of pausing time, let’s have a drink, savour this moment, as a couple, as an individual, as a reader, and sometimes a cup of tea just doesn’t cut it.

…

I love how Pamela (do you mind if I use your first name, Pam? I feel like I know you now) cycles through emotions in the same way I do.

Today is the best day, I am booze free, there is a kind God.

Today I feel like shit, and if I have one drink I will definitely drink the entire bottle because I am so undisciplined.

But I am SO disciplined! I work hard, I am self-motivated, I watch what I eat. Can’t you see the weight is falling off me since I gave up carbs at 6pm yesterday?

Her all or nothing approach to life is delightful and makes her vulnerable. Part of me thinks that this type of personality is particularly predisposed to binge drinking because of her/our/their lust for life, the love of celebration, the need to channel our passion. We are nothing if not ALL-IN. And as with anything, our greatest strengths are also our greatest weaknesses.

In her humour there is the self-deprecating vulnerability of someone re-evaluating their life choices. It is brave and hopeful, and most of all, honest. I love that she mourns the silliness and exuberance that being pickled allows, because really, getting tipsy with a friend can just be so much fun.

“I miss that moment of euphoria, though, when I could forget all my troubles, not be anxious, and also be looked after because I wouldn’t have to drive home” (p. 187).

“Be looked after”. For someone who is always in control and organised and self-disciplined and hard on oneself, that feeling of abandon and someone else caring for you is attractive. Sure, it’s not always fair expecting others to take care of you when you get sloppy, but I get it. It is the same as that macabre wish that I would be the one man-down with flu in my family, rather than constantly playing caretaker.

                              …

I devoured this book because for the longest time I have wanted someone to tell me whether I have a problem or not, and more than this, what I want is for someone to tell me, Hannah you don’t have a problem, and it is okay to drink X amount. I want someone to take the decision to drink or not to drink, and how much, out of my hands. Like a child who needs a parent to say, ‘it’s too deep for you over there, stay in the shallow end’, and they feel safe and confident while swimming, knowing that they are not in danger.

In large part, Pamela’s book did this for me. I am not physically dependent on alcohol; I can easily not drink. But I am a ritualised drinker and can be a binge drinker. I think I’m okay with a tempered version of the former (no-one is perfect), but not the latter. I do not want to ever wake up again not remembering something, doubting my behaviour, and hating myself. 

I am inspired by her goal of drinking mindfully. I also plan on having a year of not getting drunk. Thank you for this book, Pamela Power. Go and buy this book for a light-hearted look at the complex role of alcohol in our lives.