High Sobriety (12 page)

Fifteen drinks a day? My mouth drops open, and a snort escapes. I spot my face contorting in the monitor opposite and realise, to my horror, that I'm on camera — the image of my dumbfounded face is at that moment being beamed live to the nation. I compose myself as she continues to tell her audience about why I quit drinking. ‘After one too many hangovers and a few regretful alcohol-related incidents, she decided to turn her life around.'

The interview is a train wreck. She infers I was a booze-hag, calls me Irish, and asks if I had ‘big issues' with alcohol; the implication is almost that I was sneaking gin in the toilets at work just to get through the morning. She introduces Chris as someone who ‘wrote a blog', without offering any further information, and depicts him, too, as a problem drinker. But it's live television, so we keep smiling and try to bring her back to the point: that we live in a culture that makes not drinking increasingly difficult. We're no different from thousands of Australians our age. It's disappointing that she either doesn't accept this, or chooses to ignore it. Even more disappointing is the caption — ‘Jill Stark, reformed alcoholic' — posted beneath a link to the video on the Channel Nine website the next day. When I call up to complain, the producer apologises, telling me it was a ‘human error'. But it feels like a stitch-up.

In hindsight, I shouldn't have been surprised. It's not the first time I'd had this sort of reaction to my temporary abstinence. The assumption is that if you have to cut alcohol out completely, you must have a problem. This idea fails to take into account our culture's unrelenting social pressure to drink, and drink to excess.

Tellingly, as we left the set, Chris asked Kerri-Anne what it would take for her to stop drinking. She rolled her eyes theatrically, saying with a smile, ‘Oh, there'd be manslaughter charges,' and proceeded to regale us with tales of the entertainment industry's proud tradition of heavy drinking. ‘Work is my handbrake,' she said, with a forced laugh. The hypocrisy nearly choked me. But I smiled and said nothing. What would be the point? I was learning that although this drinking culture touches us all, not everyone's ready to own their part in it.

IT'S GOOD FRIDAY
and I'm invited to a friend's place for dinner. I'm working through the Easter weekend, and have just knocked off. My four friends have been drinking beers all afternoon, and by the time I arrive, they're quite merry. It's a longer holiday weekend than usual, with Anzac Day falling on Easter Monday, making Tuesday a day off too. Everyone's in the holiday mood, and the vibe is super-chilled. But I'm not feeling it: I'm still carrying the tensions of the newsroom, and I have to work tomorrow. For the first time in a while, I really miss beer. I just want to be on the same plane as my mates.

Knowing that I can't drink, I opt for Plan B. There's a joint going around; I take a few puffs. It hits me immediately. I'm not a big dope smoker — I'll have the occasional joint if it's passed to me at a party, but that's all. It usually takes a while before I feel the effects, yet today I'm stoned off my face after the first few tokes. It's not a good feeling; my body's become so accustomed to being in control that it doesn't react well to this foreign substance. I feel sick and my head's spinning. It makes me realise that taking drugs to circumvent my sobriety is not a great idea. The whole point of taking a break from drinking is to find out what life's like in an unaltered state, so getting stoned feels like cheating.

In the taxi home, I see dozens of people streaming out of bars. I've never paid much attention before because I'm usually working, but it seems that the Easter holidays have become a major event in Australia's drinking calendar. The next day at work, I look up some figures. Data from Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre shows a huge spike in alcohol-related injuries, hospitalisations, and assaults on the day before the Good Friday holiday. The number of people hospitalised due to serious motor-vehicle accidents also peaks on this day, as people celebrate the start of the long weekend.

What's more dispiriting is that Anzac Day — a day to commemorate the Australians who gave their lives in battle — has also become an occasion to get plastered. The rate of ambulance attendances for people who have passed out from drinking, and the number of presentations to emergency departments for alcohol-related assaults, increases by 50 per cent on this day. The 24 hours before Anzac Day are also associated with a higher risk of traffic accidents for people under the age of 25.

Arguably, public holidays are always big drinking occasions — people who don't have to work the next day are more likely to over-indulge. But the association between drinking and a day to remember fallen war heroes has recently been fostered, or at least co-opted, by the alcohol industry. The most obvious example of that is the VB Raise A Glass Appeal. This Carlton & United Breweries campaign began in 2009, and encourages Australians to show their respect for fallen diggers by raising a glass of VB, and donating money to the Returned and Services League and to Legacy, which cares for the families of deceased and incapacitated veterans. The adverts, shown each year around Anzac Day, are designed to tug at the heartstrings. We hear from Bill, who reflects on his service in the navy during World War II. Sitting at home in his armchair, stroking black-and-white photographs, he talks about his mate Paddy, who was ‘sent to God' when a plane hit them. The ad ends with a shot of Bill holding a beer as he gazes out the window, an empty chair next to him, overlaid with the words: ‘Wherever you are, whatever you're drinking, raise a glass for our fallen mates.'

The campaign is unquestionably for a good cause, and has raised over $2.4 million since it began, with VB donating $1 million of that. CUB makes no money from the campaign, as 100 per cent of funds go directly to the RSL and Legacy. But you have to wonder about how much goodwill these adverts buy the brewing giant — to have your brand associated with helping Aussie diggers, the most enduring symbol of national pride, has got to be worth its weight in gold. And telling the public that they can show both patriotism and respect by drinking beer is marketing genius. Every time someone donates online or sees one of the adverts, they're exposed to VB branding. For the public, this perpetuates the notion that drinking not only makes you more Australian, but is also the way that we commemorate the casualties of war. When you knock back a beer on Anzac Day, you're doing it for your country.

Another advert from the series features General Peter Cosgrove, the former chief of the Australian Defence Force, sitting at the bar in a pub. ‘There are many departed friends I'd love to be sharing a beer with at this time of memorial,' he says, before urging viewers to honour the soldiers' sacrifice by going to the campaign website. ‘On behalf of all our fallen heroes and their families: cheers,' he concludes, raising a glass. Although Cosgrove retired in 2005, for many he is still one of the most recognisable defence leaders of recent years. I'd expect army chiefs to show respect for the dead, but I'm surprised that they'd get into bed with a beer company, good cause or not, when the defence force is struggling with a drinking culture that its own leaders admit is out of control.

The chief of army, Lieutenant-General Ken Gillespie, stated that in 2009, more Australian soldiers died from alcohol-related misadventure than in the war in Afghanistan. He declared that the drinking culture had been condoned, if not actively promoted, by the organisation's leadership; soldiers often saw heavy drinking as their reward after long tours overseas. They'd been living in confined conditions for months, often in fear for their lives, and by the time they got home, they felt they'd earned the right to unwind by drinking with their mates. The problem began in the post-Vietnam era, Gillespie said, when defence cuts sapped morale and the army's public image took a battering over perceived failings in Vietnam. As a result, the leadership, himself included, spent far too much time at the bar. In an email to commanders, Gillespie wrote that he was sick of seeing near-daily reports of soldiers being killed, injured, or arrested due to drunken bad behaviour. His comments were a wake-up call — this year, the defence force advertised for a team of alcohol and other drug coordinators to set up support programs for soldiers with substance-abuse problems.

It is not a new thing for soldiers to have a beer to unwind after the horrors of battle. The idea for the Raise A Glass campaign came from a photograph found in the old Victoria Brewery, which shows soldiers from the 2/1st Australian Machine Gun Battalion in Egypt in 1941
—
the men have formed the letters ‘V' and ‘B' out of empty beer bottles. But there's a difference between kicking back with a couple of beers, and drinking so much that you injure yourself or a comrade. If even the army, a proud symbol of nationhood, has an alcohol problem, Australia's drinking culture could take a long time to change.

I'VE BEEN OFFERED
a publishing deal. The book will be a tale of a whole year of sobriety. When I was offered the contract, my first thought was: I can't wait to tell my folks. My second was: I can't wait to get pissed and celebrate. It's going to take a while to recondition my brain not to reward myself with alcohol for all of life's triumphs. Instead, I celebrate with a lovely dinner in an expensive restaurant with some of my closest girlfriends. I raise my glass (mineral water) to theirs (pinot grigio) and toast the start of a new chapter.

My friend Jodie gives me a desk as I prepare for the writing process. It has good genes; it gave birth to her PhD. I buy a high-backed leather chair with padded seat and ergonomically designed arms. I buy expensive stationery, and place framed pictures of my family on the desk to gaze upon for inspiration. Everything's as I'd imagined it: the inner-city traffic hums outside my window, and the skyscrapers twinkle in the distance as darkness falls over fabulous Melbourne. But when I sit down to write, I'm blank. I'm gripped by interminably long periods of nothingness. Something's missing — I need a drink.

The irony, of requiring a glass of wine to write a book about the benefits of not drinking, isn't lost on me, but I can't help worrying that I have cauterised my creativity by removing alcohol from my life. History is replete with artists, musicians, and writers who relied on alcohol to expand their minds and enhance their creative talents. It was the drug of choice for many of the world's most celebrated writers. Welsh poet Dylan Thomas liked a drink — so much so that it killed him (he succumbed to alcohol poisoning in 1953, after downing 18 shots of whisky). William Faulkner, a gothic writer from America's Deep South, favoured the mint julep, a bourbon-based cocktail. Oscar Wilde's drink of choice was absinthe, a potent anise-flavoured spirit that was once banned for its apparently hallucinogenic properties. Wilde described it like this: ‘The first stage is like ordinary drinking, the second when you begin to see monstrous and cruel things, but if you can persevere you will enter in upon the third stage where you see things that you want to see, wonderful, curious things.'

I wonder if my writing will be less wonderful without alcoholic assistance. I need advice from someone who knows. I contact Australian author and columnist John Birmingham, who wrote
He Died with a Felafel in His Hand
, a comic, semi-autobiographical novel about share-house living that became a cult classic and was made into a movie. On Twitter, he often spruiks the merits of a good drink as an accompaniment to writing. Sometimes, while on tour, he uploads pictures of the martini or whisky he's about to enjoy. His prolific drunken tweets have become a must-follow feed of profanity and comedic entertainment. Alcohol seems to be a fundamental pillar in his book-writing process, as evidenced by tweets such as this one: ‘Superchilled vodka? Check. Dangerous stimulants? Check. Freshly shaved Playboy bunnies? Double check. OK. Looks like we got us a book plan.'

We've never met or spoken, but when I call him at his Brisbane home and introduce myself, he responds warmly: ‘Maaate, what can I do for you?' I explain that I'm writing a book, and I'm worried that my creativity will be muzzled by my sobriety. He's a successful novelist who enjoys a drink — could he have done it completely straight? He tells me that
Felafel
was written in five weeks of 18- to 20-hour days, living on ‘hot chips, whisky, and amphetamines': ‘It was written largely under the influence because it was such a grotesque time pressure to get it done that I needed a way to keep myself up, so pills and booze was the way I did that, and specifically whisky. Beer just bloats you and you don't feel like [doing] anything; wine puts me to sleep, like a soporific effect; but whisky, I found, for some reason, fires me up at night. It's probably why they used to call it firewater. I know from long experience that if I have to work through until one, two, or three in the morning, the way to do that is to have my first whisky at about 11 o'clock at night. Not to get absolutely shit-faced because you'll just pass out eventually, but one whisky an hour, for some reason, acts as a stimulant for me and lets me go for a couple of extra hours.'

This isn't exactly the answer I was hoping for. But he assures me this is not his habitual writing practice. During the day, he only allows himself non-alcoholic liquid refreshments, such as green tea or iced water. ‘In the natural course of events I don't drink at all, and if I'm going to take a drink in the evening, it's because I'm editing. There's something about editing — you're not relying on any creative centres of the brain; you're just going through what you've done previously. It's process work: you're looking at sentences, the rhythm of them, and it's almost like you're taking them apart like a motorcycle engine and trying to put it back together in a more efficient manner. Particularly if you're using the George Orwell rule of never use ten words when two will do. There's no poetry involved; it's just mechanics, and, in that sense, it's easily done with a drink in your hand.'