The first time I drank during the workday, I was 29 – and if I could pinpoint the moment my problems with alcohol started, that would be the day.
I left a job where I knew almost everyone hated me. I’d been acting like a brat and taking a sick day every month for a while, so it wasn’t surprising, but it did mean my last day (doing the fake nice speeches, the passive-aggressive gifts, the sparsely attended departure) would be stressful.
And my numero uno coping strategy for stress was… drinking.
I was taking the train back home and told myself I wanted to get changed for later (hello, denial), and then I happened to see a New Zealand sauvignon blanc (my favorite drink) in the fridge, and just… Coincidentally I poured myself half a glass. After all, it’s my last day!
It made me feel better. Fuzzier, warmer, less tense for what would come later. Huh, my brain thought, that worked. Day drinking: winning.
By the time I was thirty, my old boyfriend told me he thought I should stop drinking. And shortly afterwards he dumped me.
My naturally slim body had developed a bulge over the top of my jeans; I stopped wearing jeans. I was now putting away five bottles of wine a week, for four or five nights. But I kept getting promoted at work, so I told myself I was doing well.
Yes, I sometimes got shaky hands after a long night, but it went away when I ate, so no problem. Low blood sugar probably.
Catherine Gray’s problems with alcohol started when she was 29
By the time I was 32, I had a crushing recurrence of the cystic acne that had haunted me in my early twenties. My love life was a train wreck. I was now freelance and considered effectively unemployed. I was putting away six bottles of wine a week, and the shakes no longer disappeared when I ate.
My low point, aged 33, was not a dramatic story: it was internal and invisible to the naked eye. By then I was drinking as many as seven bottles of wine a week, with only one or two evenings off.
Then, one day, the realization hit my mind, fully formed: Alcohol will cause my untimely death. Either I would stumble and fall off the rails after one too many, or it would take decades, as wine got cheaper, my circle of friends got smaller and smaller, and the amount of money I earned dwindled, until I might as well get on welfare .
I could see it. My anti-future in social housing. Or maybe I would meet a rich man who would put up with my nonsense and die slowly in a penthouse. Either way, I knew I was going to die.
So I made the wisest decision of my life and quit drinking. I’ve been sober for ten years now. I started with six months of AA meetings, which were great, decided it wasn’t for me long term, and then put together my own “program” of reading voraciously about addiction, meeting sober friends through social media, daily exercise to de-stress, meditation apps, nightly gratitude lists and, oh my God, I feel like such a middle-class cliché with this list, but I have to end with: yoga.
There is a silent epidemic of women secretly drinking too much. That’s why frightening data shows a 44 percent spike in the number of women dying from alcohol-related causes.
Basically, I rewired my brain with all the reading and started treating my body like a temple instead of a piñata. When I was four years sober, I wrote a book about my experiences that became an instant bestseller: The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober. It has now sold almost half a million copies and I have received thousands of letters from readers.
Dozens of expert interviews and hundreds of case studies later, this is my key takeaway: Addictive drinking is a spectrum. I stopped when I was a nine on the scale. But I wish I’d quit when I was six, at 29.
Second, I discovered that there is a silent epidemic growing of women secretly drinking too much. That’s why frightening data shows there has been a 44 percent spike in the number of women dying from alcohol-related causes. That could have been me.
It is also a myth that the heaviest drinkers are broke and unemployed. A 2020 study found that the biggest drinkers were from the middle class. And the biggest drinkers of that subgroup? Baby boomers aged 60 to 78.
If this sounds familiar, here are the signs that your drinking has entered the ‘gray area’ – a land that can last many years – between non-addicted and fully addicted. If you identify with two or more of the following points, act now.
1. You Googled “am I an alcoholic?”
People who drink healthily don’t Google whether it’s difficult, just like people who don’t have marital problems don’t look for relationship therapy.
The amount and frequency of intake are largely irrelevant.
I’ve met people who consider themselves recovering alcoholics, yet only drink two bottles of wine a week. Because they did this in a secretive, Gollum-like, “my precious” way, it caused problems in their relationships and because of their bird-like frame, their two bottles were not my two bottles.
2. You are secretive about your alcohol consumption
My father apparently hid vodka bottles behind lampposts on the way to work – as a prominent businessman – so it was easy to trick myself into saying I’m ‘staying up to watch another episode’ and then drinking the bottle that I would replace later, it was not ‘hiding bottles’. But that’s what it was. Because I hid when I finished it.
Other “hiding strategies” I’ve used: taking the glass recycling outside after dark to keep the neighbors from seeing the volume, “pre-gaming” by starting at home or going to the bar early, and deliberately buying a drink that ‘not visibly alcoholic, like a vodka tonic.
These are all ‘hidden’, they just aren’t as bare as hiding a liquor bottle.
3. Tried to control your drinking
I started a ‘moderation experiment’ when I was 29, where I kept track of daily units in a gold notebook to try to stay under my goal of 30 units per week (the recommended 14 units for women – one bottle and one bottle ). (half the wine) was laughable. I knew this would never happen). I kept it for a few months and since I only managed to get below 30 units twice, I ended up angrily scribbling down the careful cards.
I now know from thousands of readers that this ‘count and check’ phase, and the omission of it, is very common. The attempt to gain control is actually a sign that you have lost control.
4. You would say you drink moderately
They are the people who protest too much about the fact that they are decidedly moderate, and that they always stop at two o’clock and never get a hangover… these are the people who ask me, ‘How did you stop? I’m just asking for a friend.’
They also cast (as I did) on people who are worse than them: “And John, he drinks every night!” I collected stories of people who were “worse than me” to protect my own toxic drinking. If you have nothing to protect, you do not need to prepare a defense speech.
5. You drink more than you intend
This is the deciding factor. You go out with the intention of only having two white wine spritzers, or three bottles of beer, and you end up having more. Consistently and repeatedly.
To give this perspective, think of other consumables in life. I’m not buying a family cheesecake and plan on having one slice and eventually having three. That’s why I have no problem with cheesecake.
If any of this article rings true for you, please know that you are far from alone. The nature of alcohol means that it literally erodes our ability to say no to more of it, as it reduces inhibitions and increases impulsiveness.
There is a catch-22 built into the alcohol itself; it is devilishly more delicious, socially defended, and an addictive drug that we are expected to use regularly in a non-addictive manner. Drink, but not too much, okay?
My dad always said, “I thought the fourth drink was the problem, but it was the first.” For me it turned out to be true.
Catherine Gray is the author of The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober, available now.