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No, and I think, I now realize it was foolish to sit out to try and do it by myself, because you do need other people. And I found them through my blog. I found this amazing online community. And the first comment, Oh, my gosh, it was like a hug. And then, they started coming more and more. And that’s when I realized there’s a whole lot of people just like me, and we need that peer support. And there’s a growing, emergence and recognition in the addiction sector of the power of peer support. That is crucial. And that’s the one that’s really improved. And I’m sure that all the people around me benefit from that. And I’m just so grateful also that I’m modeling to my children. Yes. And I, yeah, yeah. I love that too. And also modeling that mommy doesn’t need to get drunk every night to cope with life. Yeah, that was and as you said, in your intro, you know, I set out to do this on my own, and my blog was gonna be my only tool. But the thing about that first book, which is based around the blog is it’s not really a drinking book. I mean, I talk about my, my drinking, but it really is a sobriety book. It’s a book about that first year of recovery, because it’s hard. And I wanted people to have those, sort of steps of this is what it’s like, this is what it’s like, when you go to your first wedding. This is what it’s like, when you got him and you, everything is so strange and foreign. And I now know as you do, you know that there are similar steps along the way for people. And I think it’s really good just to have that laid out. Because there are a lot of people that embark on it, and you know, quitting, and they’re terrified, understandably, because our world is awash with booze. And we’re convinced that it’s the only way to have fun and relax and everything. And so, learning how to live without it is massive.
Yes, like countercultural men. You know, I was a rebellious teenager. And now I’m a rebellious woman in their 40s. Because I’m saying to the world, stuff there. Yeah, sorry. But no, I’m gonna push against the grain. And I’m going to do it my way. And that really appeals to the rebel and me It’s incredibly countercultural to be a nondrinker. Yeah. And you know, we are the cool ones, trust me. Most of us who have quit drinking used to think our booze habits were so deeply ingrained we’d never shift them. We couldn’t imagine life without our ‘best friend’, alcohol. We were terrified at the thought of resisting cravings, socialising sober, celebrating events and dealing with emotions in the raw for the rest of our lives. Perhaps we also thought our mental-health issues were too difficult to manage, or our childhood trauma too awful to get over. Whatever the circumstances surrounding our drinking, most of us genuinely thought it would be impossible to change things, and that we’d never sort it out. Until, that is, we did. Yeah, and that’s what we need. Because as we’ve said, you know, throughout the environment we live in outwardly, doesn’t tell you that stuff that just doesn’t and all you’re seeing is happy people drinking. You genuinely think that everyone’s having a great time, and you’re the only one who’s not. And that’s just not true. It’s a madness. I mean, I just get frustrated sometimes because I just get frustrated because I think this is crazy land, crazy land and harmful crazy land. But I have to kind of calm myself down and just accept that we don’t always get everything right. And at the moment, this is just a big problem. That’s one day that we fixed. But right now, we do live in crazy land. And we have to somehow remind ourselves, we’re not crazy. I have to, I listened to the bubble hour on walks constantly, you need that because you really are deconditioning yourself from, you know, like you said, alcohol has been put on this pedestal that we’ve been sort of indoctrinated into believing that it’s the be all, end all. So, the work that that you were doing, you know, long before it was common, is so important, because you’re giving other people the idea that it’s okay. Dann managed to cope with the physical effects of her excessive drinking, but it started to take an increasingly heavy emotional toll. “I just felt wretched in terms of guilt and emotional disconnection, and that’s what saved me.”Professor Carol Emslie heads up the Substance Use and Misuse research group at Glasgow Caledonian University and has spent years researching gender and alcohol use. “There’s been a move from campaigns in the past which would sexualise and objectify women to sell alcohol to men,” she tells me over the phone from Scotland, “to campaigns now trying to link their brands with fun, sophistication, female friendship and, perhaps most worryingly, with empowerment.” To highlight the cynical linking of booze with female empowerment, Professor Emslie points out how the liquor industry has recently moved to align itself with the modern-day movements #MeToo and #TimesUp. One beverage company released a sparkling wine in a can called #TimesUp on International Women’s Day, the same day that Johnnie Walker released their limited-edition Jane Walker scotch, “celebrating the many achievements of women”.
The truth that if you are struggling to moderate drinking, you are not alone and you are not the problem: alcohol is the problem. Yeah, I mean, especially 2020. Hello. I mean, look at what we’re all dealing with. Like, it makes sense that we’re struggling. Yeah. And so, it’s just being connected into that. I mean, I, gosh, I spent 20 years trying to avoid feeling anything, especially sadness, that is my big emotion that I really, just didn’t want to feel. And I’ve had to learn how to be sad, and I now know that I’m actually naturally a very watery person. I’ve just, that’s, that’s my kind of go to emotion. If anything hurts me or I, I don’t get angry, I get sad. That’s just who I am. And it’s taken me a while to get used to that, but I actually feel quite good about it now, because it’s, I don’t know, it’s just real. And I feel kind of tender. towards that said part of me and it’s, it’s, it’s lovely. Yeah, I mean, I, I’ve always had pretty good people around me with my family and my husband. It’s mostly it’s an inside job, honestly, mostly, it’s the relationship with myself. Because we really need to rely on ourselves. I mean, it’s lovely having someone who is understanding and supportive, but it’s about how we respond to ourselves. We’re the ones with ourselves at 3 in the morning.
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Yeah. And I love how positive you are about quitting drinking and how it’s changed your life and, and how empowering it is. Because I do also. I feel like quitting drinking is a brave thing. And it is a badass thing today. And we’re really cool. This is an important read, it is educational, emotive and will leave you questioning your own relationship with alcohol. Yeah, and it makes you more empathetic as well. Because you’re just more in touch with being human. Not mean being human. It’s hard. Life is hard. Stuff happens all the time. I love that. So ,what did you find in sobriety that had been squashed so much by the alcohol for you? What’s really risen up in terms of your authenticity? And the fact that alcohol also negatively affects the lives of millions of people is practically invisible in conversations about or representations of drinking in popular culture.
And what I loved about your book is that you take people through each day, through day 3 through day 5, because there’s such a similar cadence for what we go through in different phases. I mean, day 5 is so hard for everyone, you know, day 16, somehow, it’s really difficult. And you didn’t even intend to document that. Right. It was just for yourself. Lotta built a successful career as a TV reporter, producer, and director, while simultaneously developing a remarkable aptitude for drinking a lot of alcohol.
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For her, the turning point came in September 2011 when she woke up one morning at 3am after drinking nearly two bottles of wine the night before and remembered that she had hidden the empty first bottle so her husband wouldn’t know how much she had drunk. She was so horrified at what she had done she decided to quit drinking. Almost 9 years later, she’s a happy sobriety advocate who, rather than pouring herself a wine at 5pm, slips into a pair of comfy trousers. Other relaxation triggers that work for her include lighting a scented candle or listening to a favourite album while she cooks. Lotta now lives sober with her TV-journalist husband and three sons in the hills of Wellington, New Zealand. Okay, number one, be really honest with yourself, because you know the truth, you know the truth, you are waking up at 3 in the morning, you know the truth, to be honest, number two, know, really know deep down in your bones, that change is possible. And that you will get to a place where you don’t miss that stuff at all. And number three, reach out and connect with people who understand what you’re going through. Because that will really help turn things around. And you can do that in person. You can do that online anonymously. You can completely hide who you are online. At first, you know, to feel protected, but connect with others, because that will really empower you. What I do 100% agree with the author on is that there needs to be more transparency about the facts. Everyone knows smoking causes cancer, and I was aware that excessive drinking can cause cancer too, but I didn’t know that the occasional drink also increases your risk. It definitely needs to be talked about more, so people are drinking fully informed, but the conversation has to start with real people and books like these. Sure, it’d be great if politicians were more vocal about it, but the fact is we can’t rely on the government or the the alcohol manufacturers to relay this information. That is exactly how I believe and look at alcohol and becoming addicted to it. Like, of course, with enough prolonged exposure, you become addicted to an addictive substance. It’s, I feel like it’s a spectrum of, you know, slow dependence on this addictive substance. And you know, anyone with enough exposure will go down that trail, and a lot of that is societal it is where what you grew up with who your friends are, how much you drink, how often you drink. A lot of times, of course, it’s what’s underneath why you drank right?
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