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CHAPTER 1

Thinking

“You don’t drink like other people.”

That was the first time I ever really thought about it. About my drinking and whether or not it was a problem. It was in 1995, after a 702 concert at the zoo. I had had the mother of all fights with my flatmate Zev – I still don’t remember exactly why. We were sitting in my car at Zoo Lake, in a dark car park opposite the zoo, and let rip at each other. Was it because I’d forgotten where I’d parked the car and we’d had to walk forever? Maybe. It wouldn’t have been the first time. Or was it something he had done or not done? Possibly. He wasn’t always an angel either. But it didn’t matter because the fight ground to a halt when he said that.

“You don’t drink like other people.”

I hadn’t thought about my drinking before that. I did drink a lot and when I drank, I drank. But I was 21, didn’t everyone at that age? I worked in a pressured newsroom; I worked intense shifts. It was a crazy time in the country’s history – everybody drank. There was an honour bar at work every Friday and a lot of us would gather there, propping up the counter, drinking beer and wine and hard tack at ridiculously low prices. And it wasn’t unusual for us to take the party to one of the bars or clubs across the road or to the pub on the ground floor of the building next to us, an Australian-owned gastro-pub-type place called The Outback. That’s where we would go and have dinner and then more drinks and it was great. It really, really was. I was very shy before I joined 702. At university I flew under the radar as much as I could. I never left an impression; maybe more of a watermark. Everything made me nervous and anxious. But after a few drinks, the world got warmer and conversation got easier and it felt good.

“You don’t drink like other people.”

Didn’t I? How did other people drink? It’s not like I drank all day. I only drank when I was with other people. And, anyway, it was a fun day! It was meant to be a fun day. The wine was flowing freely – everyone was drinking. Even people with kids, although not as much, obviously. Those were the days before Uber and Good Fellas, but it was also a time where roadblocks were few and far between, so we didn’t really worry about them. And, besides, it wasn’t as if I was the biggest or the worst drinker that day. Someone else at the concert lost her car for real. She phoned me the next day to try to work out where she might have left it and, together with a few other people, we managed to piece together where it might have been. She found her car 24 hours later, nowhere near where she thought she had left it. And we all laughed! It was funny! And no one got hurt. It’s not as though there had been an accident or anything.

“You don’t drink like other people.”

So why did he say that? How was I different to other people? I didn’t understand. But it was the first time I wondered whether I was indeed different. Whether wine made other people feel as happy and confident and relaxed and … calm … as it made me. Whether, when other people drank a glass of wine, their fear centre shut down and their happy place rolled up the shutters and opened for business.

I asked Zev what he meant. I probably shouted. He shrugged with irritation.

“I don’t fucking get you, Sam. You’re just different. I don’t know this person. You just aren’t … you.”

But it was me. The process of flicking the switch from social drinker to heavy drinker to full-blown alcoholic had already started by then. I didn’t realise it that night. But someone else had.