Call the Midlife (6 page)

Now obviously I’m not a man of science, but even I am aware that while this cacophony of emotional and intellectual conflict is taking place inside me, I am almost certainly pickling several of my internal organs beyond what is perhaps good for them. Which is not what a sensible person would voluntarily do to themselves, is it?

Yet I persist. Along with millions of others.

So why do we continue en masse to do something we intrinsically know is detrimental to our general well-being?

And when should we be concerned that perhaps we might have a genuine problem? Are we already there and have been for years? Or is drinking part of the new ‘us’ generation? Civilizations long before ours have drugged themselves into happy oblivion. Is it all right? All wrong? Are we hamstrung somewhere in between the two?

I decided I wanted to go and find out for sure.

In my wilderness years, little of what I had meant anything. But now the opposite was true. And yet here I was still with my finger hovering over the trigger of a gun pointing directly back at me. Why on earth would I do that?

I’ve worked so hard to get the cake. Why would I now willingly and intentionally stick two fingers up to the icing?

We have the rest of our lives to change our minds but we need all of our minds to change the rest of our lives.

Alcohol affecting my mind and decision-making has been the single biggest and most constant threat to my happiness and well-being. Therefore I decided I needed to go and investigate how far towards the point of no return I may or may not be when it comes to the demon drink.

The Wounded Healer

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I went to see an old friend of mine. Her name is Amanda and for the last ten years she’s been part of an organization that helps people try to help themselves where alcohol is concerned.

Amanda is more than qualified to know what she’s talking about, as she’s been to the darkest side of what alcohol can do to a person. It’s not for me to divulge exactly how dark her night became, but suffice to say it was black enough for her to realize it would be best for everyone concerned if she tried to abstain from drinking ever again.

Seventeen years later – so far so good.

‘What exactly is an alcoholic?’ I ask her to begin with.

‘Well, there’s no simple answer to that. I mean, there are various tests and questionnaires one can partake in, but they’re more of a rough guide than anything approaching a definitive diagnosis. In my experience, alcoholism is different for everyone. It’s very cunning in as much as it’s very adept at becoming bespoke to the individual.’

All right, let me put it differently then, because, in the past, I successfully set myself a challenge to not drink for a hundred days and found it infinitely more manageable than I ever imagined it might
be. Does this mean I’m not an alcoholic?

‘Again, I don’t know. This is all too simplistic. What immediately is more interesting to me is why you thought you needed to stop at all?’

I did it because I wanted to know what it felt like to be totally sober for three months. (This was a lie, I did it to prove to myself that I could. Not that it mattered; Amanda was already on to me.)

‘Ah, now, there you see, that’s not a thought that just appears from nowhere. It’s a premise that suggests to me you’ve been thinking about your relationship with alcohol for some time, perhaps longer than you care to admit, or at least feel comfortable admitting. Now, for one reason or another you felt like you wanted to do something about it.’

Talk about cutting to the chase! But of course she is absolutely right. Bang on the money. I have increasingly thought alcohol was becoming the puppet master rather than the puppet. Certainly more of an issue than I would like it to be. And certainly more than it has ever been before, even though I did successfully complete a hundred-day booze fast and am now drinking far less than I have done for years.

But I suppose that’s part of the reason in many ways. During my three months and eight days of total sobriety, my life was so much more liveable. I smiled more, I thought more, I achieved more, I had more extra capacity, awareness and energy to do more of all the things I liked.

Not only that but I didn’t miss ‘the taste’ of beer, wine and spirits at all – the main reason I cited for liking them. In fact, during my self-imposed period of abstinence I often smelt friends’ wine and brandy and found it almost repulsive.

This reminded me of when I was little and my dad offered me a sip of his pale ale one Christmas; I thought it was utterly disgusting. I truly believe learning to enjoy alcohol is a three-stage process: firstly we close our eyes, hold our nose and try merely to bear its disgusting taste, then we become used to how horrible it tastes, before convincing ourselves that we’ve actually come to love it.

‘I stopped because I was no longer sure I could or wanted to handle what alcohol was doing to me,’ continued Amanda. ‘It began to make me feel paranoid as soon as the first drop passed my lips, or even the thought of it. Like I’d walked into another room, but one I wasn’t used to. Almost like I knew it was the beginning of the end of whatever it was I’d been doing as another state was about to ensue. A definite line between before and after I am drinking seems to have emerged. A line that, once the line is crossed, brought in a whole new set of terms and conditions.

‘Where this had once felt like a place I couldn’t wait to get to, it had somehow become a place I began to dread and eventually fear.’

So can drinking ever be a good thing?

‘Absolutely, yes, but it’s very much a one-hit wonder rather than a whole back catalogue of timeless classics. One of the things alcohol does is gradually and systematically shut down every part of your conscious brain, including the ability to control one’s behaviour or inhibitions.

‘This is why it can be so useful at parties to help break the ice. But taken to its extreme (which begins to happen startlingly quickly), this is also how come otherwise perfectly reasonable people go on to do dreadful things. When they’re said to be “under the influence”.’

Oh dear, this was all sounding a bit too close to home. Meanwhile Amanda had yet more home truths up her sleeve . . .

‘Alcohol is often perceived to be liberating, but it’s really only a one-trick pony. Sure it can maybe take away the fear and awkwardness of a situation but it also simultaneously blinkers you as to where you might end up as a result.

‘Ultimately I found alcohol did for me exactly the opposite of what I wanted it to do. Instead of facilitating my freedom, what it actually ended up doing was reducing my ability to be free at all. When I thought I was escaping, what I was in fact doing was wilfully jumping into a rowing boat already floating off downstream without any means of getting back to dry land.

‘What alcohol does is dull everything in its path and put all the useful bits of our personality into lockdown. We may think we are
being more interesting or profound or funny or cheeky, but only if we’re surrounded by people who are also drinking; anyone who isn’t will be able to run rings around the lot of you.

‘Once I’d had a drink the treasure chest of my natural strengths and abilities was slammed firmly shut until I either went home or passed out – usually the latter.

‘And it didn’t end there. The next day, or days, even if I went a week or two without drinking, which I did a lot, I would still be picking up the pieces from the fall-out of my last few drinking sessions.’

Oh my goodness, so you were (are) an alcoholic even though you didn’t (don’t) drink every day?

‘Well, of course, Christopher!’ she laughed. ‘Some people are alcoholics who barely drink at all. There’s myriad differences between drunks and alcoholics. Neither are pretty, both have issues, but everyone who drinks suffers in their own unique way as a result.’

Is there not a single trait therefore that you can identify that all alcoholics have in common?

‘Well, I used to have all sorts of theories along those lines. But eventually I realized there are always exceptions to any rule – and times that by a thousand where alcohol is concerned.

‘One of my favourite theories used to be that, generally, alcoholics are consumed by low self-esteem and all that other unfortunate nonsense where such fragile personalities are involved.

‘I classified them via a phrase I really rather liked for a while – here it is:

‘
A lot of alcoholics are egomaniacs with huge inferiority complexes.
No wonder they struggle with life and themselves if that truly is the case.’

How do you feel about the claim that sometimes, when grieving for example, alcohol is a helpful catalyst to get things going?

‘I’ve heard this countless times and I’m afraid I’m just not an advocate of such thinking. It’s the booze that’s doing the crying, not the person. Whatever sorrow it appears to alleviate on the day is still in residence and will come back to bite you on the behind unless you deal with it properly, i.e. soberly.

‘By all means, if you feel it may help and if you can cope with it, apply alcohol as a temporary sticking plaster. But bear in mind that’s all it is. You must be prepared for the mess and gunk to ooze out again the instant you rip it off.’

Amanda is almost convinced that for her and her fellow recovering alcoholics there is no such thing as healthy drinking. Furthermore, in a bizarre twist of the tale, she also believes that she and people like her need alcohol less in the first place than those who end up being able to cope with its more destructive effects better.

What an entirely positive force for good she has become. She’s gorgeous and sparkling and full of life. Like champagne without the side effects.

Why don’t we not drink?

That’s one way of saving a shitload of money.

I don’t know about you, but for the brief period I arrive somewhere before drink is in play, regardless of how little or how much, I am fairly flying. I’m funnier (not difficult), I’m more thoughtful, I’m more tolerant, I’m more of everything that’s good for me and everyone else.

If I continued to ‘not drink’ as the night went on my options would remain open whereas everyone else’s would begin to narrow. I would leave when I intended to, largely because I would still be able to drive home – bliss, driving at night is one of life’s underrated pleasures. And, like my son, the next morning I would be good to go straight off the bat without having to write off at least the first half of the day to recover.

Not drinking increases our chances of becoming more successful.

Here’s some proof.

I have a pal who started working for a record company around the same time as I started working on the radio, back at the beginning of the Nineties. He is now the global head of a huge media empire. He couldn’t be any more successful in the corporate world if he tried. There’s nowhere else left for him to go.

He has also never drunk in his life. Has he missed out? Not for a moment. He has led one of the most exciting, stimulating and rock-and-roll existences imaginable.

‘How did you do all this?’ I once asked him.

‘Chris, it really wasn’t that difficult. A) I’m good at my job. B) I love what I do. C) It doesn’t do any harm when most of your competitors have spent the vast majority of the last thirty years partying and not being able to function properly anytime this side of three in the afternoon.’

Mmm. I want to be in his gang.

We shall see.

Marriage

The Marriage Guru

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