If I were to list all the places I’ve ever been sick, I’d be here til next year. From the very first time I got drunk, all the way up until 2018, when I finally gave up, I was always a ‘vommer’. Usually the day after, when I’d be nursing the hangover to end all hangovers, and sometimes during a night of boozing, my body would reject the copious amount of alcohol I’d consumed, letting me know I’d done it again. Yep, I’d abused my stomach, liver and kidneys to the point where I could no longer physically continue without violently ejecting the many vodka lemonades (or whatever else) I’d knocked back.
I started drinking when I was 15, I stopped when I was 37. You’d think at some point in those 22 years I would have listened to my body, which was screaming out for me to stop bloody drinking so much. At university it’s par for the course. I had a couple of blackouts, waking up on a pillow full of my own tepid vomit both times - on one of those occasions a friend had to undress me and put me in bed. I woke up with a face full of sick and had to wash my duvet in the shower. Charming. Not to mention how dangerous it was.
After uni I went straight into work as a freelance journalist, working for ‘lads mag’ Front. Needless to say there was a very testosterone-fuelled drinking culture there, access to swish parties and clubs in the West End and debauchery week in, week out. I loved it. In 2004 I went to work in Manchester for a few years, where I lived alone and got into a bad habit of solo drinking, knocking back bottles of wine more regularly than I would have admitted at the time. I moved back to London in 2007 where I started work at The Sun. Things tailed off a little during this period as I was working nights, but whenever I could get out it was vodka lemos all night long. Nine times out of 10 I vommed my guts out the next day.
The amount of times I’d be at my desk absolutely hanging was ridiculous. Often I’d go and sleep in an empty toilet cubicle in a far-flung part of the office (usually before or after being sick, or both). I once threw up on my desk. Luckily it was a Sunday and no one was around to see me. By 2010 I hadn’t slowed down at all. In fact, I was ramping it up. I’d be on Twitter writing things like “Slave to the rave” or “128787458th hangover this year!”. I wore my hangovers with pride and I lived for the party, boasting about my antics on social media. By this point I was working at the MailOnline. I had a bit of a reputation there, I was always hungover and I revelled in being known for my week-long partying. I went back to The Sun in 2011 and became a full-time showbiz reporter. I embraced the showbiz life, going to parties, events and launches all week long. How I managed to actually do my job I don’t know. But that was the journalist's life as far as I knew. If that wasn’t enough, I then moved over to freelancing as a music writer, covering dance music and festival culture.
In January 2018 I was fed up with being fed up. My habitual need to drink made me so unhappy. My partner and I took a much-needed winter holiday to Thailand, staying at a wellness retreat. It seemed like a good time to take a break from drinking. We were invited to a spiritual ceremony, taking place towards the end of our trip and one of the precepts was that you couldn’t drink for at least a week beforehand. We did it and I continued for another 18 months until the following summer. I decided to start again in July 2019 and carried on until my partner’s birthday party in mid-December. This time I’d finally had enough. Both times I did it through pure willpower. Having had that first 18 months of sober festival adventures, weddings and so on, the second time I was confident I could navigate my life without drinking ever again. In fact, not drinking was the easy part for me, it was the reactions from people combined with my own fears and social anxiety that made it difficult. Many men face particular resistance when they decide to cut down - read more about my experiences here.
Every step of the way, my career has led me into industries where excess is enabled and often encouraged. I realise my life experience is very different to a lot of people reading this, in that I’ve worked the media for a long time, with easy access to things a lot of other people might only dream about. Lucky me that I had all of that at my disposal, it really was a dream. But also unlucky me for getting so wrapped up in it that I neglected my mental and physical health for such a long time.
This is the second time I’ve gone sober, it’s been 18 months now and, honestly, I simply cannot imagine having another drink ever again. It has zero appeal to me. No more groggy 5am cab rides home, no more hangovers and no more trying to stop myself being sick on the train to work (and failing miserably). There was no magic turning point for me, just lots of moments that I realised were better when I wasn't drunk or hungover. If you're thinking of cutting down, or quitting altogether, I'd say - go for it and do some trial runs in social situations to see how it feels.
