Overcoming alcoholism as a woman can be a challenging journey, marked by self-doubt and societal pressures. I, too, once walked this path. At 31, I found myself married to a sober AA member, and living two lives – one mostly as a respectable teacher, and occasionally continuing to be a wild party girl when I drank. These drinking binges I hid from family and friends, as I had from when I first started drinking. Without my drinking buddy husband, they showed me I could not predict my behaviour, and exposed my lack of control and my own problem-drinking. Until then, I had mistakenly attributed my drinking habits to my husband’s influence.
My drinking had been overshadowed by my husband’s as he was 12 years older and already a huge drinker when we met in a university pub. Not the best place to find a life partner. To this day, I’m not sure who picked up whom.
In itself, this should have rung huge bells for me. Before university, I was a committed Christian and an active member of my church and other Christian activities. Uni girlfriends had introduced me to smoking, and then maybe to take one of the “goodie-two-shoes” off convinced me to join them at the student bar.
That drinking occasion was a life changer. I no longer felt self-conscious, shy, awkward and a misfit. In fact, I did not care what anyone else thought about me or my behaviour. Freedom. Within a short period of time, I was trying to encourage those girlfriends to come with me.
I missed lectures, had blackouts, drank too much and had no boundaries when drunk. Promiscuity was a bit part of my drinking behaviour. Looking back, I understand very early child sexual abuse had groomed this behaviour and left me confusing sex and attention with love and acceptance.
In fact, my drinking affected every part of my life – my studies and therefore my first career in teaching, my friendships (as these would have taken time away from drinking ), my family relationships (I lied about where I was and what I was doing ), any hobbies or interests I might have developed – because any free time was spent at the local.
This was an early opener in an inner-city area, frequented by people whose night work and activities were mostly on the wrong side of the law. An extremely risky place to be, but with drink on board, I never thought twice about it.
My husband’s entry into AA began my education about alcoholism and a desire to work in the alcohol and other drug field. I was fortunate to be able to make that change from teaching by adding further studies to my science degree. A community D&A worker role in a city health centre came my way.
I loved the work, using my education skills to run workshops and classes for staff and clients. In one class, we used a film about some young people at a treatment centre. One of the girls had been gang raped after accepting a lift home from a rock concert with a few boys. Her girlfriend had wisely declined the offer and made her own way home.
What was so striking about this film was the young woman saying, “I know if I had not been drinking, I would not have put myself in that situation’. That did not excuse the boys’ crimes, but somehow I found her expression of responsibility for her behaviour uncomfortable.
A few months later, I found myself in a similar situation. I had been out on Sydney Harbour drinking with some old and new acquaintances. My husband was at the races entertaining visiting relatives of his. The white wine was refreshing, the wind cool in the heat of summer on naked flesh, the water sparking, music playing, and the day rolled on. The party banter became more personal and my flirting more pronounced. The day did not end well. I was sexually assaulted and left traumatised. And having to try to explain what had happened to my husband when he came home.
Here I was a D&A worker, with the same sort of problems as my clients, feeling confused, and frightened of drinking because the consequences were becoming much more obvious. Fortunately, a fellow worker was someone I felt comfortable enough to share my dilemma with. How could I admit I had a drinking problem? How could I be a knowledgeable support for others and not have seen this in myself? How could I be so stupid?
He explained how the unconscious defence mechanisms (denial, minimisation, rationalisation, projection etc.) keep our psyche safe from the enormity of a problem until we know we have a way of dealing with it. Besides he said “Do you understand alcoholism as a progressive illness? You say there is alcoholism in both sides of your family history and major drinking problems among your siblings, what makes you think you should be immune? If you were a doctor, would you think you could not have a heart complaint, or some other serious medical problem?”
Not long after I attended my first AA meeting to listen for myself. I had the only requirement for membership – the desire to stop drinking. I knew my story could have become a lot worse if I continued drinking, that was not the issue. I simply “never wanted to put myself in that situation again.” It was a risk I was not and am still not prepared to take.
