don't go chasing waterfalls

unexpected reflections on a life spent drinking, and a year spent sober

I swig sticky cherry Lambrini from the bottle as the bus lurches towards the city below, rain blurring the lights, squiggly lines of red and white. Flecks of gold spin in a shot of Goldschläger and my fingertips are sticky with Sambuca. The warmth of midday sun at a festival matched by hip flask-vodka, smuggled past security in my knickers. Gin is sipped from teacups and tins and I clutch giant, ice-clinking globes of Aperol Spritz as the condensation drips down my wrist. Cheap pink wine becomes more expensive white, sometimes orange, never red. Cocktails get shorter and stronger - Negroni, Manhattan, Old Fashioned, a lavender martini on my wedding night. Whiskey at noon the day I know it is over. 

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I can pair a drink with each past love the same way a record plays in the background of every memory. The taste of whatever they’d been drinking swirled into my recollection of our first kiss, cider spilled in a bed, beer on the beach, Prosecco sitting out on a fire escape on a sunny Easter Sunday. Alcohol is woven through my life like an unbreakable thread, the haphazard stitches that held together my first gasps of adulthood. Bubbles, always bubbles, when there was something to celebrate, the slight headache from champagne at 3pm after a ceremony, a full bottle of Moët when I got the best news yet. 

Booze and I have never been co-dependent. There may have been a point in my mid-twenties, the era of me+guestlist+9!! Who’s out tonight? status updates written by a person I no longer recognise, where obliteration was habitual, but it passed. We reached a point where I could no longer work through the hangovers, my face thick and clammy. Even a few glasses of something would have me zombie scrolling into the early morning, avoiding the inevitable influx of unwanted thoughts. Drinking stopped being fun, yet continued to play an integral role in every social event, every stressful day. It felt, at times, unavoidable, and gradually we drifted to the point of distrust. There was no major incident of chaos and subsequent recovery. This isn’t your typical redemption story. 

I latched onto the idea that not drinking was the secret cheat code – I’d finally be cured, saved, made new. Giving up booze burned in the bulbs around the sign guiding me on the steep and often irritating path to self-betterment, because I’d tried near enough everything else (apart from the ice baths, it can never be the ice baths). I need nothing to encourage the anxiety that reverberates daily, the melancholy that just won’t fucking budge. 

There are occasions where my stubbornness proves useful. The first few dry weeks stretched into months without too much trouble, and I patiently waited for the TikTok-promised, euphoric, lethargy-shattering revelations to kick in. 

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387 days later and I feel like I’ve been duped. I haven’t stood crying in front of a waterfall that I hiked through a forest of sequoias to get to, or quit my job, or broken up with my partner, or given up my possessions to travel the world in a van. I still don’t really understand how anyone does that without going insane. I don’t miss alcohol itself, and won’t be going back to it, but it’s taking longer to let go of the mental conditioning that associates it with glamour and adventure and living life slightly outside the lines. A sparkling water will never feel quite as decadent as champagne from a coupe, and there is a small, very specific hole in my life that can only be filled by the conversations that happen in the velvet booth of a cocktail bar late at night. Living without booze is the only way to truly realise how many of our weekend activities, our friendships, even relationships (there are a lot of dates that would have ended differently, in retrospect) are centred around it. When you don’t drink, it’s difficult not to feel locked out, isolated from the pack, and I’ve had to find a new way to live. A new way to exist. 

The changes might not be dramatic or social-media worthy, but they are apparent. I’ve read a lot of books. I’ve written more than I knew I was capable of, even if I can’t share all of it yet. I have turned my face to the rain for the first time since I was a child. Bought myself a secondhand raincoat - an ugly, stinking thing - and a beanie, so that even on the days it is difficult, I can drag myself out of the house and to the seafront, where I walk down to the waves, watch them swallowing the stones in huge gulps. I have woken up on a Saturday morning with no plans and booked a flight to Chicago - that day - in order to surprise my partner, then driven to the airport through a low level panic attack, talking to myself the whole way. I have run through the streets to meet him like something out of a terrible film. I have cried at the end of a beautiful ballet and risen before the sun for half of the year. Walked along the seafront at the same time as people leaving the clubs in their sparkly, shiny clothes, smiled as they raised their beers in salute to my sleepy morning eyes. Lit a fire at dawn on my birthday and drunk tea in bed while watching it burn. Made friends with many street cats. Said goodbye to the city I thought I’d die in and allowed myself to think about life somewhere new. Started paying attention to the health of my body, instead of ignoring myself from the neck down. Got painful clarity on my relationship with my mother. Danced at two weddings, and sung karaoke just as badly as I did when I was drunk. Cut off my hair, mostly stopped wearing makeup, worn clothes that are comfortable and driven myself home. Taken a bath outside, and haven’t given up on life, again, which feels like a win. 

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I had expected life would become dazzling and bright, that I’d be looking at it through clear-cut crystal. Instead, it became soft and quiet. My bad days are worse, but the days after are better; I am forced to tackle my demons, rather than drowning them, which requires more effort, but offers the reward of more time spent calm. Days do not lurch like they used to, instead the week glides along, to an extent, with routines maintained. It can feel fucking boring, at times, but euphoria is only ever temporary. A year into this experiment, I’ve realised I can’t outrun myself. But I have survived. I have lived. There were no waterfalls this year, and that’s ok.  

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Thank you for reading. There will be more essays in this vein - loosely reflecting on how we got here and who we are now, as well as news about my personal writing, at least once a month for the rest of this year. I’m constantly thinking about change, so that will likely be something that links a lot of my newsletters together, as well as mental health, music, feminism and discussion of the millennial curse™. Free subscriptions make a huge difference, and if you are in a position to support with a paid sub, I have set them to the lowest amount possible.