High Sobriety (31 page)

Organisers have to take some responsibility for reinforcing this association. What used to be called ‘Super Saturday' — the biggest day of the tournament's first week, allowing the public the chance to see some of the best players for the cost of a ground pass — has been renamed ‘Heineken Saturday'. On the front page of the Australian Open's website, an article in which Heineken was named 13 times appeared to be little more than an advert for the Dutch beer company. Writer Matt Trollope enthused: ‘Assigned with the task of writing about Heineken Day, I meandered over to Grand Slam Oval at 15 minutes past noon. The first thing that stood out was the queue. Hundreds deep, it proved that the Heineken Beer Garden was the place to be.'

With my beer goggles removed, I can see the inherent absurdity in the fact that alcohol underpins practically every social pastime that our culture values. It seems as if our enjoyment of the game — whether it's tennis, cricket, rugby, or football — can only be complete by adding alcohol. Having a few drinks as you watch sport can be fun, but it will be a shame if the Australian Open ends up like Melbourne's Spring Racing Carnival — an event now synonymous with epic levels of binge drinking, where the sight of punters passed out, facedown in the Flemington turf, is not uncommon, and thousands of racegoers are lucky to get within 100 metres of a horse.

Drinking is an intrinsic part of our sporting culture. It's tied up with notions of coming of age, male bonding, and community cohesion, particularly in small country towns, where the local sports-club bar is a central meeting point. Run well, sports clubs can be the lifeblood of communities, providing purpose for young people and allowing families to spend time together at the weekends. But there's growing evidence that the link between these clubs and drinking is causing damage. Studies carried out by the Australian Drug Foundation found that almost a third of 13- to 17-year-olds had participated in unsupervised drinking at a sports club. Most were not asked for proof of age. Twenty per cent of 18- to 20-year-olds drank ten or more drinks every time they visited the club. Across members of all ages, more than half drank at hazardous levels on each visit.

This culture of heavy drinking can spill over into violence. In 2009, 37-year-old Nathan Alsop died after being punched in the head by teammate Daniel Singleton at a party to celebrate East Geelong Football Club's grand-final win. Alsop was estimated to have drunk 39 drinks over 13 hours at the team's clubhouse before the altercation. At a later trial, Singleton was acquitted of manslaughter. A week before Alsop's death, New South Wales rugby league fan Geoff Larnach died, after suffering a cardiac arrest and suspected brain damage following an all-day drinking session that started at the Bathurst Panthers Leagues Club. The 27-year-old is believed to have sculled half a bottle of rum to mark the team's season-ending loss. He was described by one of the club's players as their ‘number one supporter'.

But what happens if you take grog out of sport? Would, as the alcohol industry claims, grassroots clubs fold? Across Australia, more than 4300 sports clubs have discovered that far from going under after kicking alcohol out of the game, they're thriving. The clubs, all members of the Australian Drug Foundation's Good Sports program, which aims to turn around sport's heavy-drinking culture by promoting a more responsible approach to alcohol, are seeing the benefits, both on-field and off, of reducing the influence of booze in their game. The program was set up in 2000, after Victoria Police asked the ADF for help in reducing the high rates of underage drinking, violence, and drink-driving associated with the boozy culture in community sport. Under the scheme, clubs achieve accreditation for meeting standards around the use and management of alcohol. Measures include banning post-match beers in the dressing room, along with alcoholic raffle prizes and rewards for on-field performance. Sponsorship from pubs or alcohol companies is not accepted. More soft drinks and low-alcohol alternatives are offered at the bar, and meals are served in a bid to attract more families. Club-wide policies that make sure staff, players, and supporters are on board have seen drink-driving, as well as underage and risky drinking, plummet.

At the North Eltham Wanderers Cricket Club in Melbourne's northern suburbs, alcohol sales dropped by 30 per cent when they signed up to Good Sports. But the losses were offset by greater spending in the club canteen, as families previously deterred by the ‘boozy boys'-club culture' returned. On-field performance also improved. An analysis of Good Sports clubs earlier this year found that, on average, there were 36 per cent fewer people drinking at risky levels than in clubs not affiliated with the program. Most importantly, many clubs have seen sponsorship dollars grow by getting rid of alcohol sponsors, as organisations previously unwilling to be associated with clubs notorious for heavy drinking have backed the new-look teams. One club has cleaned its image up so much that it's now sponsored by a local church. Perhaps calling last drinks doesn't have to mean game over.

I AM NOT
a runner. At least, that's what I've been telling myself for years. Until recently, even ten minutes of road running would leave me wheezing like a two-pack-a-day smoker. But cheered on by my brother, Neil — who, in the last few years, has taken up running with the dedication of a professional athlete — I decided to change that. When I gave up booze, I started going for long runs on the treadmill, increasing my time and speed gradually until I could run five or six kilometres without too much effort. Running in the outside world was a tougher challenge, and I struggled at first. But again, I built up my strength and stamina until I could run on the road for seven or eight kilometres at a time.

Today, I aim to top that. I've entered the ten-kilometre event in the Melbourne Marathon. It's my first-ever race. I'm nervous that I won't finish, or that I'll have to walk part of the way, or that I'll collapse in a heap metres from the finish line.

When my fellow runners Nat and her husband, Gary, pick me up at an ungodly hour, it's still pitch-dark. The roads are quiet. As we drive through the CBD, we see countless young men and women staggering out of nightclubs and strip joints, yelling and swearing, forming queues outside kebab shops and wandering aimlessly in the street. Girls with mascara-streaked faces teeter on shoes with ice-pick heels. Boys, glassy-eyed and incoherent, lope around like injured animals. As we park near the race start line, I bounce out of the car and start stretching in the crisp dawn air. How strange yet satisfying it feels to be on the other side.

I used to laugh at people like us. After my leaving party at The Rose Hotel, Loretta and I and some of the locals ended up at the Tankerville — a 24-hour Fitzroy pokies emporium and bar that can only be tolerated in the early hours of the morning, when you're too wasted to notice the scary-looking dudes at the next table or the neon-blue anti-junkie lights in the bathrooms. As we staggered out at 6.00 a.m., making faces at the hippies doing a hot yoga class next door, we spotted some people running on treadmills on the first floor of the gym opposite. We laughed and mimicked their running as if this were the most hilarious thing we'd ever seen. Now Loretta is a yoga teacher, and I'm at the starting line of a ten-kilometre race at seven o'clock on a Sunday morning.

When I start running, I'm mesmerised by the strangely soothing sound of hundreds of feet hitting the tarmac. The noise reverberates in otherwise silent streets that for today are ours alone. I'm happy to discover I'm not the slowest contestant, and I'm even running faster than I was in training. At the three-kilometre mark, a few people have already started to walk, and I vow to myself I will not be one of them. I will finish the game. My brother's pep talk, delivered to me this morning via text message, repeats in my head like a holy sacrament: ‘Just remember — PAIN IS TEMPORARY, GLORY IS FOREVER!!!! Persevere, dig deep, enjoy and triumph!!'

There are some funny running styles. Teenage girls in full makeup, with fake tan smudging on stick-thin legs, look awkward as they try to bob along without messing up their hair. One guy runs with his jacket in his hand, while a middle-aged woman wearing a visor and a steely expression appears to be vaulting invisible hurdles. A man wearing board shorts and a singlet looks like he's being chased by the police. I start to get weary around the six-kilometre mark, but find a second wind when I think about all I've achieved in the last ten months. I can do this.

As I reach the seven-kilometre mark on St Kilda Road, there are more spectators lining the street, cheering us on. I feel ten feet tall. I'm smiling. The sun is out, Melbourne has barely woken up, and I'm running towards the MCG, the city's spiritual home. How nice it will be to arrive there, and to feel triumph instead of disappointment.

My body is being pushed to its limits and I realise how far I've come. Would I ever have got here if I hadn't taken a break from drinking? Suddenly, it occurs to me how ridiculous it is that our elite athletes are sponsored by a substance that's simply not conducive to sporting success. How many times have hangovers kept me from the gym, or stopped me from even putting my trainers on and going for a walk?

As I reach the nine-kilometre mark, I'm hurting, but I know I'm home. I can't believe I told myself for so long that I couldn't do this. Maybe now, I can do anything. My legs ache and the balls of my feet are burning, but I power on, sprinting up the hill. I cross the finish line, and it's one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. The weirdest thing is I don't even feel tired at the end. It takes only a minute or so to catch my breath. I'm so energised by the thrill of finishing, I actually feel like I could keep running. When I receive my race medal, I look at it in awe. I've never been more proud of myself. I am a runner.

November

I CAN'T PUT
it off any longer. It was on my list from the start of the year: find love. As much as I've achieved since I gave up drinking, this definitely needs some work. But how do you meet guys if you're not rolling drunk in a bar at 2.00 a.m.? My usual method, falling on top of someone while plastered, is not so easy to pull off when you're in full control of your faculties. Besides, something (perhaps the fact I'm still single) tells me that this strategy wasn't really working.

So I'm left with no choice. Friends tell me everyone's doing it; there's no stigma anymore. It's the modern way for busy singles to meet. But there's something about internet dating that leaves me feeling flat. And more than a wee bit scared. I imagine that the process of dating complete strangers would be excruciating enough with a few drinks to smooth the ride, but the prospect of doing it sober is positively petrifying.

It's not so much that I need a drink to calm my nerves — I know now that poise and self-belief are not measured by alcohol consumption — but that I worry my sobriety will be a barrier to easy conversation in what will already be an awkward situation. Refusing a drink might make guys self-conscious and wary. Maybe that's just something I have to get past if I want to find out how to connect with the opposite sex without being tipsy. I can't remember one alcohol-free first kiss before my break from booze.

I ask my friends for their drunken horror stories and discover that I am far from alone: many of them have used booze as a way to get through the ghastliness of the singles scene. One friend remembers the ignominy of her only attempt at proper, grown-up dating. It was a singles night at a city restaurant, and she and a friend had been slipping tequila shots into their champagne for courage. It worked a bit too well. My friend made a beeline for the most attractive man in the room and shouldered the girl he was talking to out of the way, striking up a flirty conversation. After some chatting, she suggested, ‘Shall we try a little kiss now?' This, in her drunken state, seemed like a perfectly reasonable proposal. He said yes. Later, he offered her a lift in his BMW to a bar for more drinks. This meant that he was sober. Mortified by her behaviour, and developing that uniquely intoxicated paranoia that has no connection to reality, she began imagining a future where she was chopped up into pieces and dumped on a waste ground. So she and her friend legged it out of there, leaving their would-be Ivan Milat to train his sights on someone else. The night ended with a vomit in the gutter.

Another friend estimates that she's pashed more than 200 guys in her life, but has experienced only one sober first kiss. Others tell me of boozy travel tales: making sweet love in the laundry room in a Barcelona hostel, or being seduced by a seemingly single neighbour in a London apartment — only to have his girlfriend burst into the bedroom while he was ‘heading down south'. One girl recalls working for an investment-banking firm in the United Kingdom and developing a ‘massive crush' on the cute Irish boy with whom she shared a desk. ‘Cut to a week later at the Christmas party, and I decided if I got just a little tipsy it would be much easier for me to mingle and talk with cute Irish boy. Three hours later, all I remember is begging this poor man to please, please marry me, and then throwing up in his face!'

One friend, who doesn't drink much, says she's been out with several guys who drank heavily, and that proved to be its own challenge. A guy that she'd been on a couple of dates with but hadn't heard from in a few months tried to pick her up in a bar, using the same lines he'd used when they first met. He was smashed, and oblivious to the fact they'd already dated. Yep, it's rough out there.

It makes me wonder how many Australians would be hooking up at all if it weren't for the matchmaking properties of booze. For young people like Beth and her friends, who told me that drinking gives them the confidence to meet guys, alcohol is a key part of sexual attraction. A 2007 survey by the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education found that 63 per cent of 18- to 24-year-old Australians admitted they'd had a one-night stand while drunk. In the United Kingdom, a 2009 poll of 3000 women found that almost half preferred having sex after a few drinks because it helped them to lose their inhibitions and made them more adventurous in bed. Forty per cent of the 18- to 50-year-olds interviewed said that they were always a bit tipsy before sleeping with a new partner. Six per cent had never had sex sober. Given my experiences and those of my friends, I imagine similar results would be found if Australian women were surveyed.