Kate’s Story

Ever since I was a child, alcohol had peered out to me as something akin to adult candy. Colourful bottles in a cabinet, grown-ups walking around with glasses filled with bubbles or rich golden liquid that seemed to make them happier, to smile more, to laugh more. Nobody ever spoke about it in a negative way, ever.

I grew up in London in a house full of interesting and creative people. My father was a publisher so there were always authors around the dinner table, telling me and my three siblings about their latest adventure or catastrophe. I loved listening to them, and as they spoke, joked, ate, argued, debated and drank late into the evening. I knew that’s what I wanted to do when I was older. I used to dream about the day I would be able to sit with friends, drinking wine, discussing adventures until the sun came up. I wasn’t even 10 years old and alcohol was already something I wanted in my life.

Growing up, drinking alcohol was just something people did. By the time I was 14, I was drinking cheap beer in the park with my friends after school and on weekends. Then, as the years went by, the beers turned into cheap wine in local pubs, then more expensive wine in nicer bars, then nice wine in fancy bars. By my early 20s, I was working in the media industry in London, and I didn’t know anyone who didn’t go to the pub at lunch and then and out to a bar after work. At one of my jobs in the “creative” department of an advertising company, there was even a tab at the local pub for us, because our boss thought we produced better work when we were “half-cut.”

I was “living the dream;” I honestly believed that. I was meeting interesting people, going out every night, I had lots of friends, a nice enough place to live, I partied, laughed and had London as my playground. What more could anyone want? Well, quite a lot it turned out. I didn’t realise back then that I wasn’t evolving as a person. I was stumbling, intoxicated, around London, lucky to make it home most nights.

But I didn’t realise that, and I didn’t consider stopping. Why would I? I could manage the hangovers, nothing really bad had happened to me, and everyone I knew was doing the same. What would I do, who would I be, without alcohol?

Although I may be painting a pretty picture, in reality I had awful blackouts, woke up in strange flats, got hit by a car, fell through a glass shower door, got in arguments, found myself in a heroin den in a really scary part of London at 2 a.m., got lost, got bruised and forgot whole chunks of time. A good night wasn’t one that involved fun, but one that ended with me back at my own house, safe.

In addition to the danger that I was unaware of (or not willing to accept), was the endless messages the next morning. The “Are you ok‘s?” The “Do you remembers?” And all of the other messages asking questions about evenings I couldn’t remember.

But despite all of this, I loved alcohol more than myself so on it went, into my 30s, stopping during two pregnancies but picking straight up again once the babies were a few months old. Society presented me with the perfect excuse to carry on. Mummy wine culture was booming, and so I picked straight back up with a new set of friends. Just in houses with children around this time.

I enjoyed the feeling of numbness that alcohol gave me. My brain works quickly and I found alcohol gave me instant relief from it. Society told me it was ok. My friends all drank. Maybe not as much as me, but they drank regularly. I was as committed to my evening wine as I had ever been. My sidekick. My self-medication. Even though by the end I was drinking a bottle a night, and it was hardly touching the sides.

Every morning I woke up with a puffy face, red eyes, hating myself for drinking the night before. I felt unfulfilled with my life, I felt like a bad mother, a grumpy wife, but still, my love affair with wine was too strong to stop. That is until the night of 20 December 2021.

Many people speak of rock bottom, but for me, that didn’t happen. There was no ultimatum from a loved one, no arrest (although that did happen once, it just didn’t stop me), no awful accident. For me, it was just a normal night, and I’d had over a bottle of wine and it all just got emotional. I took out my phone and pressed record. I spoke to myself, to my sober self, and the words slurred out of me. I was crying, begging myself to stop doing this. “I don’t want to be this person any more,” I cried into the camera. “I am not happy, please listen to me. Stop doing this to me.”

If someone tells you to stop something, many people would react by being defensive and carrying on. But when you tell yourself, when you beg yourself to stop, it just hits differently. The video was hard to watch and it took me nearly a year to watch the whole thing. But, the bit I did watch, made me “wake up,” and gave me the strength to stop. I felt like I was fighting for this other version of myself, the part of me I had pretended was ok for so long, but clearly wasn’t. I looked in the mirror on 21 December and saw a woman who was tired and had no trace of the cheeky, interested girl she used to be. The happiness and confidence were nowhere to be seen.

Over the next few days, I got angry. Angry for letting it get this far, angry for not being able to stop. Angry at the people who pushed alcohol in front of me in magazines, on TV, in the supermarket. I was angry at me, them, it. I saw the damage it had done, what I had allowed it to take from me, and what it would continue to take. I had stopped moving, feeling, growing and developing. I had stopped living. I was just going through the days waiting for the time of night I could open a bottle. 

Photos courtesy of Kate's Instagram page @walking_the_straight_line

I jumped into sobriety headfirst. With a heart full of rage, a mind full of hope and a tiny beam of something I hadn’t felt since I was child starting to shine inside me. Pride. I wanted this like nothing before. I wanted to see who I was without alcohol. What I was capable of.

My husband still drinks, so I couldn’t get rid of all the alcohol in the house, but I decided to do this for ME. That meant that I had to change my mindset, and not rely on never being near alcohol (although I realise that works for some people, and I know someone who won’t let alcohol into the house, even if it’s in someone’s bloodstream!). I listened to podcasts, read QuitLit, and walked whenever I got a craving.

I know some people wouldn’t be able to do that as they have little kids at home, but I was lucky enough to be able to just put my trainers on and leave and walk until the craving went. Sometimes that meant in the pouring rain, but I still did it. There is something about nature that really brings stuff home and reminds you how small yet important you are in the bigger picture. I had lots of VERY long baths, too, away from any temptation. I put a podcast on and just soaked until the urge to drink passed, which it ALWAYS did in an hour or so.  Bit-by-bit, day-by-day, I did it; I got through without picking up that glass.

I have just passed one year sober, and since I eliminated alcohol from my life, everything has improved. I have found a sober community (Instagram) that is full of generous, supportive, kind people many of whom are genuine friends. I am off for a weekend this month with two of them!

My relationships are better with everyone. My kids are so proud of me, and it fills me with emotions. Not only because of what I could have lost if I had carried on, but because they see me and know the real me, and they look up to me. My work is better, despite being worried I would lose my creativity. I feel like I am finally growing, not just standing still, and I know that I can’t ever go back. I want to see what I am truly capable of and this is the only way I can give myself a fighting chance of finding out.

My advice to anyone who feels like alcohol is having a negative impact on their life is to cut it out and see what happens. For me, I found the meaning of true connection. I eliminated all of that shame and started to look to the future with excitement and a sense of adventure.

I feel like me, finally.

Author’s Bio: About Kate

Kate is a writer who grew up in London and has since lived in New York, Rome, and currently resides in Shropshire. She’s a mum of two who went from passed-out to present when she ditched her bottle-a-night wine habit. Known as @walking_the_straight_line on Instagram, Kate talks daily online about her journey into sobriety in a fun and light-hearted, but candid and honest way.

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