Some alcoholics I know talk about the intense feeling of bliss that comes with their first sip of beer. That was not my experience. My descent into problem drinking was slow and painful.
Like a story from your mother about how she got from the airport to the hotel when she went on holiday. One of those ones that goes on for so long you can’t quite remember where it began and you don’t know if it’s ever going to end. All you know is, at some point, you sort of ‘come to’ and realise that this is your new reality.
My alcoholism took many people by surprise. And they weren’t the only ones. I was blindsided too. How the fuck did this happen? I wasn’t even one of thebad ones growing up. I didn’t start drinking until I was 14. Most of my friends began at 12. The astonishing cliché of people assuming that in order to be an alcoholic one must be horizontal on a park bench, sipping from a brown paper bag with a skull and crossbones on the front rings true. In fact, since I got sober, I’ve even had a few people tell me that I amnot an alcoholic. I think some people would like to be presented with a certificate of insanity from the local asylum before accepting someone may have an issue with the booze. Until they see me getting chased down the dual carriageway by two men holding butterfly nets, I simply need to ‘rein it in’.
But look, that’s none of my business. I don’t want to focus on them – and let’s be clear, this book is not an attempt toprove to anyone that I am an alcoholic – but I think it’s interesting that many of us have preconceived notions of what it takes to be one. I was the same. I thought that until I drank in the morning, I didn’t have a problem. Until I crashed a car, until I lost a job, until the girlfriend left me, until I slept beneath an ATM or crouched beside the toilet in the cubicle of a train station, draining a miniature bottle of vodka just to endure the morning commute, I was not a ‘real’ drunk. The never-ending, miserable catalogue of ‘not-yets’ that I desperately clung on to as justification to continue drinking.
My poor relationship with alcohol likely stemmed from the poor relationship I had with myself.
Like many works of Irish literature, it began in a field. Well, almost. It began on a riverbank. It began before I was ready. I hadn’t started drinking yet but my friends all had. It wasn’t nice. I remember feeling like this whole thing was happening far too soon. It was reminiscent of the afternoons spent with the older cousins in my granny’s back garden when I was a child. There’d be a game happening and I would desperately want to be involved. But before I’d even had a chance to ask how to play, everybody would be running to their hiding places and the captain would be counting down from 30. ‘Wait, please, can everybody just slow down? This is all happening far too fast a
