The first lockdown came at a pretty poignant moment for me: the government announcement was made just a few weeks after I decided to quit drinking alcohol, for the benefit of my mental health. People stop drinking for all kinds of reasons, of course, from pregnancy, to being on medication that doesn’t mix well, to save money or to lose weight, the list goes on…
But for me, it was the intense, soul-shredding anxiety that accompanied every hangover that made it no longer worth it. Ditto making decisions I never would sober – some of which left me shaken up and bruised when the booze wore off. The regular memory loss after night outs was a big factor too (trying to fill in the blanks with what I might have said or could have done, even if my friends insisted, “Nothing, you were fine!” only further fuelled the panicked brain-fire I experienced most Sunday mornings).
The fact that I could never quite pinpoint which drink had tipped…
