Sarah's story: from a totally out of control country-party-girl to eight months of sobriety... and why.

(from Shanna Whan's Sober in the Country project. See end for details).

‘’I don’t remember my first drinks l, but I do know I started about 15-16 years old. I remember I’d drink a six-pack of Lemon Ruskis at social events and it was so sugary sweet and easy. I could drink them faster than water.

Back then I thought beer tasted like eating vegemite straight from the jar, and spirits burnt my throat. As a country kid, dad had given us beers to try but it took ages to like the taste. My dad is a typical farmer - with beers being his ‘thing’ after a long, hard day - but my mum never drank and was trying to keep a rebellious teenager out of trouble. I also think fondly of beers with dad as the way we connected and yarned as I grew up - but in the early years I was all about the alco-pops.

My drinking got out of control at Ag College. I’d really struggled at boarding school with my confidence so in O Week at Gatton Uni 2002, I quickly jumped on board to keep up with the drinks and found that my “networking skills” were finely tuned. I was drinking several nights a week and had a part time job only for my beer funds. I would choose a carton of beer over milk and bread often. I looked like a train wreck rocking up to lectures with sunglasses on and I could barely focus on any of the content.

I made so many bad life-choices as a messy life-of-the-party girl. But I don’t feel shame, just sadness that I didn’t feel other options at the time.

I put myself in dangerous positions and became extremely promiscuous. But I was just following the same path as everyone and it was completely accepted. I was classed as the fun chick who’d drink to black-out every weekend and we would have laughs over a bacon-and-egg burger the next morning as my friends helped me piece the nights events together.

I was kinda’ proud how interesting my drinking stories became very memorable and think it’s funny how no one thought it was scary when I got alcohol poisoning (which I blame my $80 win on the Melbourne Cup for as it allowed me to afford many extra rounds). Or then there was that time I slept in the gutter outside my house because I couldn’t make it inside. Or all those times I woke up full of regrets with wherever I woke up or even worse that feeling of not knowing where I was.

My anxiety went through the roof and was aggravated as my weight increased after countless binge drinking sessions so in third year I decided to quit to drop the excess. The only drinking memory I have of this time is when I went to the uni keg party armed with a bottle of Diet Coke and boys at the party tried to hold me down and poured beer into my mouth as they couldn’t deal with me not drinking. So I learnt it’s better to just hide during a health kick. I repeated this many times where I’d quit drinking until I’d lost the weight and then I’d feel so great I’d go out and get straight back into the partying.

I had many ‘’rock bottoms’’ …. but Wine was always there to support me and pick me up. I loved wine. My motto was ‘boyfriends come and go but wine is forever!’

My brother once pointed out that I loved “anything wet” as it was a running joke that I could adapt to whatever alcohol was on the table. Cheap or classy.

When I decided to quit drinking on my 35th birthday I told my closer friends about it and labelled it as an experiment. I could get through the occasional Dry July but suddenly something had changed in me. Only 2 years earlier, my naturopath begged me to consider quitting and I negotiated to boost my liver with herb tonic instead as there was no way I could stop. The herbs tasted like death - which proves I wanted to heal but I couldn’t quit the toxins.

I laugh now at remembering once that I was at the bottle shop and I sent him a photo of a bottle of “organic” red wine to highlight I’d found a healthier alternative and his reply was “I think you have missed the point”. He gentling guided me to awareness in his own way but at the start of my wellness journey it was more about eating well and drinking wasn’t a factor. I would be eating clean vegan diet and feeling oh so healthy but still had rules on my drinking so that I wouldn’t allow my body to recover. The main general rule was no drinking on weeknights (unless a special occasion).

Then in 2017, I lost a friend to cancer and had another in a tragic accident.

Along with moving towns and starting a new job at the same time, I just lost it.

One of my wild partying friends said she couldn’t handle me anymore as I was “nuclear”, which I’m certain no one would like to be called and I was really shocked but completely understood. I couldn’t handle all the stress at that time so every Friday I’d drink a bottle of red at home by myself and pass out. There would even be some stress tears as the drinks kicked in. At work I was high-functioning but come the weekend I was avoiding the discomfort and numbing myself the only way I knew how. Then pretend I hadn’t noticed my puffy eyes the next day and go hit the pubs on Saturday night for cocktails and spirits and sometimes probably a few lazy Sunday beers just to relax and pretend that Monday morning stress wasn’t about to arrive.

Rock bottom to me was August 2017 with a 24 hour bender where there were loads of shots and even more tears for my friend in the coma. I felt helpless with all the bad news I’d recently encountered and this seemed like an excellent plan.

The drinking that day started at lunchtime Saturday ended with me ‘falling asleep’ in the uber on the way home on Sunday afternoon, feeling the anxiety building to the point that I knew this was killing me.

In my head I just flat out said: “ENOUGH.”

Then for the next few weeks I mentally started preparing ‘cause I just knew I was done. So done. Therefore I picked the date in September as my birthday and began to increase my awareness of toxins. My birthday weekend was spent drinking up a storm and all the while saying “this is the end” and so on my birthday I had the last 2 drinks in my fridge and threw the bottles in the bin with a huge smile.

The new dance.

The lessons I’ve learnt over the last 8 months and the awareness I’ve gained have been so much more than I could have expected.

I decided to be honest with myself that drinking wasn’t serving me well anymore and found that many of my friends have reached out to me to express their struggles as I confessed mine to them. I’d like to thank you for your patience in letting me get a mocktail and not questioning why (even though I’m shocked how many times I’ve been rejected at a bar for ordering a mocktail (true story) and told “sorry we don’t make mocktails at this establishment” and felt really unwelcome only to go to the next bar and be told the same thing. Looking back in it now, I wish I’d had the guts to complain but I’d only been sober 2 months and wasn’t confident. I’ve now made it through the festive silly season, a beach holiday and basically a whole lot of stressful events that would all be amazing reasons to drink I’m feeling it has become so much easier.

The result is that my anxiety is almost non-existent. I have saved nothing but only because I spend the drinking money on massages and green smoothies instead. I do not question a $6 Kombucha drink now when I could have $50 of cocktails before I’d even start to think the night had started.

There is still an internal discussion about ‘’would I consider to attempt drinking in moderation after my one year is up?’’

I told my friends that this experiment was just for a month. Then 3. Then 6. And now it’s going to be 12 months! In 20 years I’ve never gone longer than 3 months sober. Deep down I am so proud to even be getting so close and the strange part is that I’ve had several drinking dreams where I’d get trashed in my sleep and wake up feeling so disappointed for a second.

My confidence is increasing with my sober momentum but I find social events both energy-draining and uncomfortable. Dancing sober is funny, but my heightened awareness is hard not to focus on the bad dancing, glasses being dropped and smashed around my feet and drunk/annoying/slurring people and how my feet hurt in the heels I chose to wear. So I opt out of heavy drinking environments now and instead I do hikes on Sunday morning and embrace a healthy lifestyle.

I still miss wine sometimes but all the positives outweigh the negatives and I feel like I’m getting to meet the new me.

I believe there are all kinds of people with issues. I never thought I was an alcoholic but I remember the day I googled “AA Toowoomba” to try to see if it even existed and I just knew driving 400k was not going to work out as the kind of support I needed. But I couldn’t easily access it so decided I didn’t have a problem and continued to ignore it.

Not long after I had quickly given up, I had a sponsored ad on Facebook for a page called Sexy Sobriety which was a 90 day online program to quit drinking (I hate the online big brother stuff but this was my sign!). It opened my eyes to the fact smart educated women all over the world were online together showing they wanted to change. I’ve never kept this from my friends but I haven’t previously been ready to openly tell the rest of the world.

But I think there is a sobriety movement that’s getting stronger every day and whether you want to quit or cut down - only you know when it’s time to be honest with yourself.

Yes there have been people that were uncomfortable with me drinking water but you realise who your true friends are and some friends you will suddenly have nothing in common anymore. Just let them go and new more positive people will take their place. As your confidence grows you will wake up and feel empowered and you know it’s their problem not yours.

On my first day of Dry July 2017 I had a friend say “I can’t hang out with you sober- how will I find you interesting?” and knocked my water out of my hands. This is exactly the kind of friends you can let go and realise they just hold you down.

It hasn’t been easy yet once I knew I was going to quit, it hasn’t been that hard. It would be easier to just have a wine but it just wouldn’t feel like I’m living to my full potential.

I want to be living my full potential.

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A NOTE FROM THE CURATOR

If you are a rural or remote Australian with your own experience or thoughts to share about cutting back or quitting booze in the country - and it can be short or long, or just a photo with a caption - or an anonymous submission. It doesn’t matter - then please message me for a chat at [email protected]

*Shanna is a speaker, MC, national health ambassador and recent Rural Woman of the Year finalist who took her story of near-death from alcohol addiction four years ago, broke her own silence, and began dedicating her life to connecting others who felt alone in what she now knows is a very real, and frighteningly common battle. Especially for those - like she was - isolated by geography and distance and lack of relatable and useful support in outback and rural Australia.

She is currently in the process of securing funding to develop and launch a rural national platform specifically for other rural and remote peers and professionals to gather, talk, and learn about what ‘’sober in the country’’ might mean, to them.

For more, visit www.shannakwhan.com

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