I shelve it. The information pack and questionnaire gets shoved in the hall cupboard and I decide to press on as normal. I mean, what exactly am I supposed to do with that knowledge anyway? Will cause or may have already caused you problems sounds way too severe, way too dramatic. I have no idea what to do with that so I shelve it and move on.
I do decide, however, to talk sternly to myself about my drinking and my need to moderate it, and so I write myself a note. Two notes actually, on two pages of a reporter’s notebook. One I title ‘Goodbye’ and the other ‘Hello’.
Goodbye
– To the ‘rebellious’ Lotta
– To the Lotta who throws common sense out the window when it comes to drinking
– To the Lotta who ignores the inner voice that knows it is stupid
– To hangovers, headaches + sick guts
– To wasting time worrying and beating myself up about drinking
– Say goodbye to a need to GET HAMMERED every time I drink
– To telling myself ‘stuff it, it’s okay to pound it harder’
– Say goodbye to allowing the HUNGER for drink to dominate
– Say goodbye to thinking the only way to have a good time is by drinking LOTS FAST
– Say goodbye to the old Lotta
– Grow up, move on, embrace a different second half of your life.
Hello
– Say hello to the Lotta you want to be for the rest of your life
– Say hello to a Lotta who is grown up, reliable + sensible when it comes to drink
– Say hello to a Lotta who is happy to stop drinking when the feeling is enough (think about going to bed, sleeping + waking up in the morning)
– Think about that image of the person you want to be; who feels together, sorted
– Hello to a mother who is not going to cause her sons any worry or harm
– Drink slower. Enjoy it. Remember the effect is delayed
– STOP.
I scribble the notes off quickly, rip the pages out, put them in my bedside drawer then dive back into my life.
And I try to moderate, I really do try. But you know, when that sweet nectar hits my throat and the tingles start around my body, when the warmth spreads from my backbone up to my brain, I’m lost. I’m a goner. I just love drinking wine. And so pretty soon I’m back into my same habits. My heavy-drinking Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and my lighter drinking Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Pretty soon I’m looking for excuses to drink more (let’s have a disco with the kids after school on Friday—I’ll get the bubbles!) and am chatting to the man at the local bottle store about my studies. He knows about my life.
I love drinking, yet I hate it as well. I love it at 5 p.m. and fall more deeply in love with it as the evening progresses. I’m still loving it when I fall into bed around 10 or 11 p.m., but sometime in the wee small hours the love morphs into hatred and time and again I find myself awake at 3 a.m. burning with guilt and disgust. Come 7 a.m. and the guilt and hatred have turned into a deep misery. I put on a smile and get on with my day and by lunchtime the misery is lingering only slightly. Once the afternoon is underway the negative thoughts have all but disappeared and the longing and desire starts to grow again. And then it’s 5 o’clock.
I’m locked in a ridiculous, vicious, nasty, insidious, twisted, sick, exhausting cycle of booze drinking. I am completely obsessed. I drink. I regret. I drink. I regret. I drink. I regret. I’m lost, drowning in a sea of vino and mixed emotions. And I’m lonely with it. It’s a private miserable drinking hell and although I might try to draw Corin in, my split personality makes it incredibly hard for him to really help. The Jekyll in me—the worried person—cries and moans to him about my drinking, but the Hyde—the enthusiastic boozer—just wants to keep imbibing and shuts him out. I’m my own worst enemy and as a result my inner angst is largely mine alone.
Also, to be fair on Corin and the others around me, there’s not a lot for them to point at. Outwardly my drinking, while clearly of the ‘enthusiastic’ variety, manages to dance just inside the line of social acceptability. Outwardly I’m still a busy, high-performing, high-functioning woman. I’m still running the household, mothering full-time, working on my thesis part-time, dragging my sorry ass to the gym a couple of times a week, maintaining friendships and a social family life. I’m sure if my friends and family were pushed they’d probably say, ‘Yeah, Lotta likes her wines’, but nothing more than that. I want our house to be known as a warm house—open and social and busy and fun. I love fun! And I love community. The more friends we have the better, I say, and what better way to entertain them than by popping a cork?
My brother-in-law comes to stay with us for a few weeks and after he returns home my sister tells me that he remarked, ‘Every night’s a party at their house.’ I laugh the comment off and try not to admit that deep down it makes me feel uncomfortable.
A neighbourhood friend drives past our house on her way to school and on rubbish days often says to me, ‘I see you guys had another good week!’, in reference to our overflowing recycling bin. I laugh along with her and act like it’s a badge of honour—See how cool and fun we are!—but secretly feel embarrassed that our huge pile of empties is so visible. I’m delighted when the city council changes the recycling bins to large wheelie ones with lids.
Inwardly and privately my drinking is anything but cool and fun. Somewhere in the past few years I’ve crossed over that blurry line between normal, healthy drinking into abnormal, dysfunctional drinking. No one else knows the full extent of my steady, heavy wine intake, nor can they hear the sick, obsessed voice in my head regarding the stuff. All of the patterns of behaviour and instances of regret are lining up only in my head. The chattering, mounting concern is only audible to me. It’s my concern and mine alone, and even for me the concern comes and goes depending on what time of the day it is. I feel trapped and lonely inside my own sick, flip-flopping mind. How utterly fucked up this is.
Then one Friday evening we head up the road to visit some friends for an early meal with the kids. A small party of sorts for us hardworking parents. The adults all have a few drinkies while chatting and making pizzas and the kids have a disco dance with glow sticks then settle down to watch a DVD. It gets dark and the fireworks come out. We’re all boozing. Is everyone boozing as fast as me? No idea. But I’m going for it. It’s Friday night! I’m out! Wine! Wine! Wine!
I hit the vino so hard I can barely walk straight as we leave around 9.30 p.m. . . . It takes an immense amount of effort and focus to get the kids sorted with their shoes and coats. Corin carries our eldest on his back and I push the two little ones in the double buggy the two blocks home. I’m moving fast because I can feel my head spinning and my guts churning. I barely make it home before racing to the toilet to puke my guts out. Classy me once again on my knees heaving into the porcelain bowl. Inviting Ralph and Chuck to the party. Talking to the great white telephone. Whatever happened to saying goodbye to a need to get hammered every time I drink? What happened to saying goodbye to the rebellious me? What happened to saying goodbye to allowing the hunger for drink to dominate? What the fuck happened?
I decide a more drastic measure is required if I’m going to get on top of my boozing and so I resolve to completely stop drinking for a month. I’ve done this before after heavy-boozing periods and it always works to lower my tolerance and slow me down. A whole month off, I decide, will sort me out.
It’s a tough month with me white-knuckling my way through. Some evenings at around 5 p.m. I’m so tense all I can do is sit on the sofa with a magazine and not talk to anyone. After two weeks I start fantasising about what I’m going to drink when I start up again. I make it to three-and-a-half weeks before I decide that’s long enough and get back into it. It’s Wednesday when I start drinking again and soon after I realise that this time my month off didn’t have the desired effect. I’m already back to drinking at least a bottle a night. Friday I hit it hard. Saturday we have friends over to watch the rugby and I hit it hard again. I hit it so hard that before they even arrive at 7.30 p.m. I pause momentarily at the kitchen bench and think, ‘I’ve got a whole bottle of wine inside me and I can hardly feel it.’ It’s a strange and uncomfortable thought but it doesn’t worry me enough to stop me drinking.
I have no more wine in the house so I knock back a couple of Corin’s beers then fidget and obsess internally until I gain the courage to ask one of our guests if I can please have a glass from his bottle of red. I’m dimly aware of how unhealthy I am being, but there’s no stopping this hunger I have to drink. I feel like I’m on a strange theme park ride that is hurtling me towards some unknown doom and I can’t get off. Is it a rollercoaster where I’m simply strapped in the back and not in control? Or is it a racing car with me at the wheel and my own foot stuck on the gas? Whatever the case I’m speeding headlong deeper and deeper into a drinking madness. It’s almost as if I’m willing myself there.
And so it is that I hurtle towards my last night ever of drinking.