I quit drinking just before last New Year’s Eve.
I told people it was a health kick. A reset. Something sensible women do after a boozy festive season.
The truth was messier. I was scared. And tired. And starting to wonder who I was when I wasn’t holding a wine glass.
Alcohol had always been stitched into my marriage. Friday night wines. Long lunches. Catch-ups that turned into sessions. Kids’ sport sidelines with eskies. Holidays planned around where we could drink cheaply. I honestly thought taking alcohol away would calm things down. That it would soften the edges of our sometimes volatile relationship.
Instead, standing there at midnight with a soda water in my hand, I realised how little was left without it.
The silence felt loud. Awkward.
My husband joked that I was ‘no fun now’ and kept nudging me to just have one.
I didn’t.
‘From the start, our connection was about booze…’ (stock image)
And something shifted that night that never shifted back.
I met my husband when I was 28. He was 26.
He was a nice guy. Polite. Respectful. Funny. He’d had one serious girlfriend before me and had spent years travelling with his mates. Party countries. Pub crawls. Big nights.
I’d had a few longer relationships too. Most of them built around drinking. Looking back now, I can see how much of my own baggage I dragged into them. The insecurity. The neediness. The stupid fights over nothing. I used to think the relationships were doomed because the men weren’t right for me. Now I can see I wasn’t right for myself.
The guys I chose were always… fine. Nice enough. Usually labourers who liked a beer after work. Safe to bring home. Not really going anywhere, but neither was I.
When I wasn’t in a relationship, I partied hard. Pre-drinks at someone’s place. Bars. Too much alcohol. Sometimes pills or lines if they were around. Picking up someone I barely knew. Drunk sex. Then the shame spiral that followed for days. Rinse and repeat.
That was how I met all my partners. Including my husband.
Nobody was more surprised than me when a one-night stand turned into something more. I hate admitting how grateful I felt when someone asked for my number. How giddy I got when a very average man rang me back and wanted to see me again.
When I met my husband, I’d travelled into the city for a friend’s birthday. I was bored of the same suburban pubs. Sick of sleeping with the same men. I remember feeling excited but anxious, like maybe something different would happen.
‘We slipped into a cycle that would last decades. Big weekends. Snappy, tired fights. Make-up sex. Start again,’ (stock image)
From the start, our connection was about booze. He was drinking stout and encouraged me to try it. I pretended I liked it, even though it felt heavy and bloated me instantly. I slept with him that night. And the next morning. Then we went straight to another pub for hair of the dog.
Our first ‘date’ was at a pub. I told him I had a bottle of vodka in my bag if he wanted to head back to his and keep partying.
On our second date, we watched a local band play and he pulled out a bag of MDMA.
There was no romantic moment where he asked me to be his girlfriend. We just kept drinking and sleeping together until one day, in another pub, he introduced me to someone as his girlfriend.
I wanted something bigger. More romantic. But I was relieved to be off the market.
We slipped into a cycle that would last decades. Big weekends. Snappy, tired fights. Make-up sex. Start again.
We bought a house. Had kids. Made friends who partied after school events and sports games. Fought with in-laws. His family was loud and boundary-less. Mine quietly disappointed, always feeling I wasn’t reaching my potential.
For 23 years, we lived like a lot of middle-class Australians. Always a bit stressed about money. When there was extra, we went to Bali and worried about the mortgage when we got home. We drank through the good bits and the bad bits. Sometimes we used drugs. Sometimes we loved each other the best we could.
I turned 50 in September 2024 and blacked out.
It hadn’t happened often in my life, which is why it frightened me. My kids were worried. My husband thought it was hilarious. My friends laughed and called me a legend.
I decided to stop drinking ‘for a while’.
Summer hit and the BBQs ramped up. I told people I was on a health kick. But it was more than that. I wanted an overhaul of my life. I wanted to know who I was without booze. I was sick of fighting about dumb things. Sick of feeling foggy and ashamed.
I went to my GP and got a mental health care plan. Found a counsellor. For the first time, I started joining dots between my childhood, my stalled confidence, my drinking, and an eventual ADHD diagnosis that explained so much. The impulsivity. The shame. The sense of failure that followed me through careers and hobbies and life.
There was a lot to unpack. A lot of confusion. But one thing was crystal clear. I never wanted to drink again.
It wasn’t a lightning bolt moment. Blacking out at my 50th was a warning, not the whole story. I just knew my life would be better without alcohol.
The kids were getting older and I wanted to be a better grandmother than I was a mother. That thought hit hard and didn’t let go.
By Christmas, my husband was struggling. He liked how I looked. Slimmer. Less bloated. Younger. But he didn’t like who I was becoming.
He wasn’t supportive. He pushed. Joked. Sulked. Drank more. Alcohol had always been the glue of our marriage and without it, there was nothing to distract us from the fact we didn’t really know how to be together.
That New Year’s Eve, I stood there sober while everyone else toasted. The silences between us felt unbearable. By January, we were barely talking. By March, we were separated.
Almost a year on, I’m starting another sober year.
Christmas just gone was strange in a quiet way. We did it together for the kids, who are mostly adults now but still needed things to look familiar. Same house. Same food. Same jokes. But everything felt slightly off, like a set that had been rebuilt after a fire.
We didn’t want to be around the wider family. It was too new, too exhausting.
Ironically, both sets of parents were devastated by the split. I always assumed they’d be relieved.
I watched everyone drink and felt a mix of relief and grief. Relief that I wasn’t waking up foggy or ashamed. Grief for the woman I used to be, the one who laughed louder after a few wines and smoothed over cracks with another pour. I could see how much effort it took my husband to pretend things were normal. I could also see how impossible it would be to ever go back.
On New Years’ Eve there was no big party. No countdown surrounded by noise and booze. I was at home, in bed early. I woke up clear-headed and steady, without the dread that used to creep in on January 1.
I don’t feel triumphant about what I lost. I still mourn the marriage I thought I had. The story I told myself about growing old together. But I also know, with a certainty I’ve never had before, that staying sober saved me. It gave me my mind back. It gave me honesty. It gave me a future that doesn’t depend on numbing myself to survive it.
Quitting alcohol didn’t just change my marriage. It showed me what it was really made of.
