aperol spritz

I was around 15 years old when alcohol came bursting into my life, just as I’d wanted it to. I’d waited patiently for my turn, flicking through the MySpace pages of the kids in the years above me at school, drinking under-age at parties. Wow, I wonder when I’ll get to do that, I hope it’s soon. Sure enough, whether it be by manifestation or simply just following the path of every adolescent in the Belmont region, it was time. There was no need to knock, I had the door open for alcohol when it came. I had our dinner cooking in the oven and a glass each, ready to be poured. Maybe sometimes I’d prefer people to scuff their feet on the mat before coming in, alcohol, no rules apply to you. Come in, leave your footprints and make a home here, please and it did, just as I’d wanted it to.

From that point forward, every social outing was surrounded by alcohol. It wasn’t “what are we doing?” it was “where are we drinking?” And I loved it. Alcohol allowed me to let loose a little, be silly, make mistakes and have someone else to blame them on (omg vodka is the devil lol). Growing from a teenager into an adult is a vortex, this little time in your life’s chapter to try it all out, without boundaries, who do you want to become out here in grown-up world? Sometimes these discoveries as we age with alcohol are wonderful, exciting, euphoric, like when you and a friend are 10 jagers deep on a tacky dance floor and the DJ plays a song you’re vibing at the time and you jump and sing and nothing else in the universe exists. Oh those sweet, sweet moments. Sometimes these discoveries as we age with alcohol are painful, uncomfortable, suffocating, like when you and the same friend part at 4pm the next afternoon and you’re left with KFC gravy over your t-shirt and crumbs through your bed, distracting yourself with Netflix because you’re left with the horrible dread of “what the fuck am I doing with my life?” (If anyone has any idea, please let me know). Most of the time for me, the balance of these two sides was favoured to alcohol. The hangovers/come downs never outweighed the way my blood would rush on a Friday afternoon in anticipation for a cold drink. It was a lubricant to do all the things I wanted to do, then and there, like telling people things I didn’t have the guts to sober, dancing vibrantly, however I felt, speaking to people I didn’t know confidently, telling secrets on the tip of my tongue and feeling liberated in doing so. There really are so many little beautiful stories that have come from alcohol. Like all the girls I’ve met in the bathroom, instant best friends, who we say hello to every time we see each other in the bar again, this time with our own friends, to then never seeing each other again after that evening, besides every time their photos pop up on my instagram since we decided that following each other was necessary. The spontaneous nights that lead to 4ams snuggled up with your friends on a random persons couch, a warm can of cider in hand, without a care for what was to come tomorrow. I loved those days of growing into who I am now and although I do wonder what they would’ve been like without the gallons of alcohol to get me through them, I wouldn’t change a thing, it all lead me to here.

I woke on the 1st of January this year with about 3 hours sleep, a puffy face, pounding headache and a horribly sprained ankle. 3 of these things being a common weekend occurrence since I first opened that door to my dear friend alcohol, a sprained ankle only popping in every now and then. As I crawled down the stairs to my friends lounge room, it didn’t feel like a “funny drunk injury” like it may have in the past, this time it felt like shame. This was the second bad drunken injury I’d had in 3 months, a concussion and a hospital trip only happening three weeks prior. I spent the whole day on the sofa, which was also not an uncommon way for me to spend the “morning afters”. I was drinking less water to save crawling up the stairs for the bathroom and needed to ask others to get me water when I really did need it, I hate dependence. I’m not really sure if it’s more mid January when those post Christmas broke days hit, but either way, not working was not something I was really able to afford to do, yet I realized I was hardly going to be able to run around a restaurant bringing demanding drunks their beers if I couldn’t even get my ass to the toilet. If I want to be here, living abroad, working to afford a life here, I need my body and I need to change something. I publicly announced to whoever else was in the lounge room with me at that time that I would be cutting out alcohol out until my ankle healed, or maybe just a “dry January” for bragging points to those who continued to party into 2023. It felt like some kind of little joke I was telling everyone, or playing with myself. Me, giving up alcohol? HA! Alcohol is my closest friend and if anything, we have kind of merged lives. One does not exist without the other, so this probably isn’t going to last very long. But somehow, I persisted. A month of hobbling around on a painful, injured ankle kind of made that easy. “You still not drinking?” “Nope, ankles not better”. Working in a pub may have it’s disadvantages to those on a path to sobriety, like watching people take shots of tequila at 8pm on a Wednesday evening, knowing work is in the morning, missing that freeing feeling of just saying “fuck it”, I’ll deal with the consequences later and let alcohol take the wheel. It’s also an advantage to watch people take shots of tequila at 8pm on a Wednesday evening, knowing work is in the morning, knowing you’re skipping that horrible feeling in the morning when you’re left with the consequences of your own actions. But it really is about that freeing feeling, the one that keeps us running back to it, like a bad ex boyfriend. Hurt me, hurt me and make me hate myself, take the wheel and cause some drama, I’ll still love you. But that’s just it, it does take the wheel and it took the wheel from then til now. I never considered the risk in handing someone/something else the keys to your life.

It is now May 3 and I’ve still somehow restrained from ordering myself the Aperol Spritz I desperately crave at stupid times of the day. It’s quite interesting to see the circumstances that have lead me to finding myself craving that warm buzz; when I want to send a risqué text, when I need to yell, when I need to get something off my chest, when the world feels boring and I want to act chaotic to spice it up a little. The craving isn’t in a “geez would love a beer right now” way but a “I need to feel the warmth in my soul from that first sip of wine and then I need to feel my inhibitions leave my body immediately after that”. A lot of the times I have craved it, I have just been craving chaos and that forces me to ask myself the questions why? Why was I self sabotaging this whole time? To avoid boredom? I know part of the reason my feet are so itchy to be moving or somewhere new all the time is to avoid the boredom, but did I really keep sabotaging myself to avoid the quiet? There are patterns that have been crafted around alcohol and it wasn’t until the absence of it in my life that I was able to see the concerning way I’d placed it as a centrepiece.

As the sun starts to peak back into my days, bringing light for longer, I find myself becoming ready to welcome my old friend back into my life, but with terms. From now on, I want alcohol to be a passenger in my life, an accessory, not the driver, not the main event. I’ve shown myself I can go out dancing without it, go on dates without it, enjoy the company of friends and my weekends without it. I’ve shown myself that waking up alone in bed the morning after without a concussion or sprained ankle is filled with a lot less dread. I’ve shown myself that more drinks doesn’t necessarily mean better memories, in fact more drinks usually means less memory (whoops). I want to show up to the world as the best version of myself, I want to keep going on this path of being better, doing better and growing everyday. I’ve shown myself that I can live this life without it, that this life is on my terms and sure, alcohol, you can jump in the car, but I’ll be taking the wheel from here on out.

If you read my blogs and enjoy them, please do reach out and send your love, it is always appreciated. - Holly