Change happens by degrees. Rarely does one wake up one morning and just ‘decide’ that things will be different. Perhaps it might come across that way from the outside, but usually, there have been a myriad of moments. Moments that build and collect. Moments that turn into a tsunami of change.

If we let them.

…

— March 2013 —

I’ve driven to Portsea for the day to hang out with some of my work friends. I have a brand-new baby Hudson in tow and we are smack-bang in the midst of what has become the hardest point in my life to date. Constant screaming, doctors visits, pacing up and down the floor with a writhing baby. We are living with another family and the cracks are beginning to show. I’ve started to buy cask wine because it’s easier to refill without people seeing.

Another lady I don’t know very well is there too.

‘Yeah, I had to quit,’ she’s saying, matter of factly. ‘I was up to drinking a bottle a night, and I just woke up to it one day and realised I had a problem.’

No kidding, I think in horror, searching for some wipes in my nappy bag. One whole bottle a night? I definitely wouldn’t ever drink that much. 

I don’t realise how those words are going to come back and haunt me.

…

It’s June 2018. I’m reading The Dry by Jane Harper. I come across this line:

‘Her face was the purple-red of a woman whose drinking was crossing the line from social to serious.’ 

The vanity in me rears up. I don’t want to look like that! ‘Could it really show up on my face?’ I wonder in horror. At this point I haven’t stopped to really think it through. I like my wine, but doesn’t everyone? I mean, all the memes practically tell mothers to drink. It’s our medicine, our happiness, our means of socialisation wrapped up in one. Wine can’t really be that bad, can it?

The line floats in my subconscious as I pour and refill that night. I start scanning the faces of those in the school yard. Do I… could I… have a problem? 

…

‘Can we listen to that song again?’

‘Yeah! The ships one! Can we?’

I sigh and scroll to the requested song, finding it on YouTube. Burn the Ships. It’s an odd video of two brothers singing and then blowing up an old-fashioned pirate ship. I don’t really get it but the kids are obsessed with it. We watch it again, and then I kiss them goodnight.

Later, I find out the real meaning behind the song. Luke’s wife, Courtney, became addicted to some pills that she was prescribed for morning sickness. She kept the addiction a secret for a while until she reached breaking point and called her husband who was away for one of their shows. He came home and she ended up being admitted to a psychiatric facility so that she could stop taking the pills, but the pull still remained.

One day, he came home to find her with the pills in her hand and asked what she was doing. She replied that she felt like she needed to flush them down the toilet: ‘I’m done. I’m done with the guilt and the shame. I’ve got to move into a new way. A new life.’

The idea for the song came to Luke as he stood there watching – a story of sailors wanting to explore a new world but being too scared to leave the comfort of their ships. Burning the ships is the only way they can find the courage to step into the new reality.

I weep every time I watch it.

…

— December 2018 —

I’ve made bucket loads of Christmas fudge and I yell out to see who wants to come with me to deliver the neighbour gifts. Four enthusiastic sets of hands shoot up and we traipse chaotically out the front door. It’s the only real time we get to see some of the people who live only meters from us and bringing the kids gives me the opportunity to get out of any weird conversations at least.

We get to the house five doors down. They are new. I’ve met him once before when we brought over a cake to welcome them to the street. He begins the process of unlocking both doors and then settles in for a chat.

‘I’m sober,’ he says, conversationally, and I hope he can’t smell the wine on my breath.

‘Oh?’ I respond, using surreptitious hand signals to stop Hudson from stepping in the garden bed.

‘Yeah, been that way for years now. I still have to be careful though. It’s not something that ever really lets you go. I go to AA, but I see it all the time, people who think they’ve conquered it. But then they trip up.’

I walk away with the words tumbling over in my mind. Sober. It seems inconceivable. I tuck it away for later.

…

It’s Christmas. 2018. We arrive at my parents’ house dressed for celebration. I’m carrying a bottle of champagne.

It’s the only way I know how to celebrate now. That buzz calls to me. I know it will come. All I have to do is pour.

We unwrap presents and prepare dishes. I make sure my glass is never really empty. ‘It’s Christmas! If there’s any time I should be allowed to indulge, it’s now!’ I think brightly to myself.

I don’t pass out drunk or say anything stupid. But the night is lost in that blurry haze of memory that comes from never quite being present in the first place. And at one stage I pause, mid-pour, to really look around.

It’s then that I realise: no one else is needing this as much as me.

What does this mean?

…

— January 2019 —

Dave and I have trekked to Nhulunbuy for a work trip and we are relishing the experience. We spend our days meeting the most amazing people whose hearts are filled with adventure and who relish the chance to live life at a slower pace.

I had started the year with high hopes of having a real break from alcohol, but it only lasted seven days. I’m on a trip, I should be able to enjoy myself, I reason as I order another glass from the bar.

We are eating dinner as the storm rolls in across the bay and drenches the red dirt around us. Conversation flows around us and we marvel at the depth of character in the people who make their lives up here. The complexity with which they interact every day. No one else is drinking. They don’t seem to need it.

On our final night we dine at Macassans with the Principal of the school and her husband. The conversation wanders over to alcohol after we order drinks (I’m the only one who chooses wine).

‘Do you drink?’ I ask them, curiously – unable to comprehend those who don’t need it like I seem to.

‘I felt called to stop,’ he replies.

The words settle over me like a weight. It is a strange way of putting it. Could there possibly be something to a life without wine? I mull over the words as the plane bumps its way back home.

…

— Early February 2019 —

I’m sitting in the front few rows of church, blessedly child-free for 45 minutes. Dave’s upstairs in the parents’ room playing with Harvey and I’m listening to Kim share about his journey with food and trying to reach a healthy weight.

‘I didn’t really want to share this with you guys until I’d conquered it, but I felt challenged that I should just be real about it now. It’s hard. And I have to show up every day and try again. But it’s worth it.’

I’m frozen in my seat. The words shoot like an arrow and I know they are meant for me. I don’t know what it will look like but if I do decide to take the plunge, at least there will be a safe space for the messiness of the journey.

10 days later it begins.

…

Life has a funny way of bringing things to your attention. I was just going about my life, doing my best to numb all the pain, but somehow these moments broke through. When I look back, I see how they were part of a larger story – a call from the Universe – from God, if you will – to something better.

At the time, I was convinced that sobriety would only mean pain. That all the things I had been hiding in the fog were meant to stay there, and that dispersing that fog would only lead to horror.

It was a lie.

The fog was what was hurting me – the choice to ‘not look’ at what I needed to see was far more destructive than what was hiding there.

I’m so grateful for the nudges along the path and the chance to bump up against people who were living a different way. Some have no idea that they even had any impact on me. I guess life is like that.

If you are struggling with the nature of addiction (whatever that looks like for you) and want to chat, please reach out. I know what it feels like to be stuck. It isn’t easy to change, and I’m going to lay out the ‘how’ of what I actually did to give up alcohol next week, but I can tell you with 100% certainty that the short-term pain is worth it.

I wouldn’t go back to that hell if you paid me millions of dollars.