Elizabeth Cracroft's new improv show, REHAB, challenges the stigma of addiction. Photo / Alex Burton
A rehab centre is the unlikely setting for a new improvised "dark comedy" by Elizabeth Cracroft, who's been in recovery for more than a decade. She talks to Joanna Wane about the stigma of addiction – and believing you're worthy of love.
Elizabeth Cracroft was 16, standing a little self-consciously at the edge of a party, when she had her first proper drink. It was sweet, like pink lemonade. However, what she remembers most is not how it tasted but the way it made her feel.
"The sense of relief was instant," she says. "That night I was confident, I could talk to boys. It was like, 'Wow, this is the answer! I just need to keep doing this.'"
And, for the next eight years, that's exactly what she did. At first it was fun, although alcohol seemed to flick some kind of switch in her brain. A well-mannered teenager from a comfortable home in Auckland's leafy eastern suburbs, she'd binge and black out – waking up with a hangover and barely able to recognise herself in the "horrifying and embarrassing" stories friends would tell of her exploits the night before.
By her late teens, the returns were already diminishing as she chased an elusive high that always seemed just one shot away. In the final year of a communications degree at AUT, she'd turn up to her 8am class with vodka in her water bottle.
By her mid-20s, she was somehow holding down a full-time marketing job and drinking every day. Half a bottle of wine first thing in the morning, another half-bottle sculled at lunchtime in the park, then a bottle or two at home after work – an extraordinary amount for someone her physical size. Most of the time, she thought she'd covered her tracks well enough that no one would notice.
"There was a huge element of delusion," she says. "I'd tell myself I was only young and it wasn't that bad. I could control it, next time would be different. What confused me is that my friends seemed to be able to drink around the same amount but their behaviour wasn't like mine. That created another layer of shame.
"Addiction is very fear-based. I drank to shut out that fear and get relief from the constant anxiety and restlessness in my head."
What cost Cracroft so many friendships is that she was such an obnoxious drunk. She still cringes recounting a 21st birthday party where she caused a scene, although it's a second-hand memory because she blacked out on the night.
"I dropped a flute glass in the middle of the speeches and ended up saying a lot of things I would usually never say and upset a lot of people, then threw up in the taxi on the way home," she says.
"The next day, a friend at med school who knew a bit about recovery and addiction told me you didn't have to drink every day to be an alcoholic. I remember being so offended – I could never be one of those."
It took a few more years before Cracroft could look at herself honestly in the mirror. Now 36, she's been sober for more than a decade and is in her fourth year of a law degree, with a particular interest in criminal and family law, and her eye on a long-term future in politics.
Next week, an improv show she's devised that's set in a residential rehab centre opens at Covert Theatre in Ponsonby as part of the Auckland Fringe Festival. Darkly comic and brutally honest, REHAB draws from Cracroft's own experience. She is one of nine performers in the cast.
Addiction is an incredibly isolating experience, she says, and humour helps break down the barriers. "In recovery groups, we laugh a lot," she says. "We've all gone through challenging and even traumatic things in our addiction and laughter provides a sense of release."
It's the first time she's devised and produced a live theatre show, which is nerve-racking. But in March, she celebrates an even more significant milestone when her daughter Scarlett – "the love of my life" – turns 5. Cracroft met Scarlett's father in recovery. The relationship didn't last but she says becoming a parent has taught her about unconditional love.
"I'm really conscious of wanting to be a strong role model and I'm so grateful to be a sober mum. When she was first born and times were a bit stressful, it would have been so easy for me to get wasted. Being able to be present in that was such a gift."
As an addict, she felt unlovable and pushed people away. Now, deciding when to tell a Tinder date she doesn't drink can be awkward. Despite New Zealand's binge-drinking culture, the stigma around alcoholism means often people don't know how to respond.
The message she wants to communicate in her show is that addiction doesn't discriminate between age, gender, culture or social background. Being in rehab is a great equaliser, she says.
"No one cares what job you do. It's about the strength of your recovery and your humility too. What struck me was that it's such an eclectic mix of people from all walks of life, baring their souls so intimately. The sense of connection and the richness of that is really quite amazing. There's a level of authenticity you develop through having to look so deeply at ourselves. We jump into everything with this refreshing level of openness and honesty, which people don't always expect because most of us are so used to always wearing a mask.
"A lot of people think drug addicts and alcoholics are just these defective, weak-willed people who have this moral failing but it's a condition that is often beyond your physical and mental control. And it's not the only thing that defines you."
There's no neat explanation for why Cracroft became an alcoholic. No history of addiction in her immediate family, no traumatic incidents in her childhood, although her parents' separation and a change of schools in Year 11 was dislocating.
An all-rounder, she was sporty and did well academically. But despite her "preppy, good-girl front", Cracroft was reckless when she drank and often put herself in danger.
One night, at a party in the Coromandel, she slipped away from her friend's house to go drinking with a rough crowd down the road. By the time she finally got back, around 5am, the parents had sent out a search party.
"You're a nice, smart, young woman," her friend's mother told her. "But you really need to look at your drinking. Something bad could happen."
Later, Cracroft would try to outrun her drinking, constantly moving flats in the hope that somehow things would be different in the next house. Once, she went on a lemon detox diet and quit alcohol for 10 days. After completing the programme, the first thing she did was pre-load with a few drinks before going out on a date.
"I met a lot of great people and I let a lot slip by," says Cracroft, whose despairing parents would come over and find dozens of empty wine bottles stashed in her wardrobe. "I had this hope that if I got all the outside stuff right – the right flat, the right boyfriend or whatever – somehow my drinking would magically improve. I think I was hanging on by a thread."
If she had to pinpoint a low moment - and there were many of them towards the end - it was when she found herself between flats and temporarily moved into a hotel. Each day, she drank the minibar dry. Eventually, she was banned from the restaurant next door.
"It was just tragic and embarrassing," she says. "By that time, I was so isolated. I drank alone a lot. I drank secretly a lot. I was a really lost, muddled young woman. I'd burned quite a few bridges and, even though I had friends who loved and cared about me, they didn't know what to do."
Change becomes possible, it's said, when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change. Physically, the years of alcohol abuse had taken their toll. A blood test showed her liver was swollen, and a drug and alcohol counsellor bluntly told Cracroft she'd be lucky to see out her 20s if she didn't stop drinking.
She signed up for an outpatient rehab programme but couldn't stay sober long enough to make it past the pre-entry stage. Then the boss at her marketing job asked her to resign. On July 22, 2009 – aged 24 – she went back to rehab. This time, it stuck, and she's been alcohol-free ever since.
"It wasn't through any great wisdom or foresight," she says. "I'd just come to the end of the road. I'd tried every other way to get sober and literally ran out of options. My friends were going on their OE and getting on with their lives. By the end of my drinking, I felt so alone and scared. I'd become more and more isolated, to the point that I couldn't stand it anymore. There had to be a better way."
A year ago, Covert Theatre's artistic director Wade Jackson was looking for new concepts to develop for the company's 2021 summer comedy programme. Cracroft, who's part of the improv team, pitched the idea of an unscripted show set in a rehab centre.
Jackson, who is mentoring Cracroft in her debut as a producer, bought into the idea of a "dark comedy" straight away. He has a good friend in recovery – a successful businessman who doesn't fit the stereotype either. "Laughter brings a light to dark times," he says. "REHAB is an insight into part of society most of us just wouldn't see."
Each member of the cast (which includes a couple of stand-up comedians) has developed a backstory for their character, designed to show the varied cross-section of people trapped in the insanity of addiction. There's a former athlete-turned-meth addict, a disturbed entrepreneur. Cracroft has talked openly about her experience, and friends in recovery have come to rehearsals and shared their stories.
Taking up acting classes was one of Cracroft's first steps back into the "real world" after leaving rehab. Regular group meetings remain a lifeline that keeps her tethered to reality, and until recently most of her close friends have also been recovering addicts. There's no point of graduation, she says, and sometimes it's challenging to live in both worlds. She's also a member of Te Hapori, the community advisory group to the Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Court.
Looking back, she thinks her friends and family did the best they could by challenging her behaviour and not enabling her drinking – "detaching with love", is what she calls it. They'd tell her they missed the old Liz and wanted her back.
While the show is loosely structured, each night's performance of REHAB will be different. One day, Cracroft hopes to adapt the idea as a web or television series to reach a wider audience. Being in recovery is about finding out who you are, she says. "Because addiction takes that away from you. It takes away your soul, it takes away your talent, it takes away all the things you were good at as a kid.
"It's also about knowing how life can be on the other side. Hopefully people in the audience who are struggling with addiction will relate to that and feel inspired to reach out and get help, and realise there's nothing fundamentally wrong with them in a moral sense. If these people [portrayed in the show] can struggle with addiction, it's okay for you. And there is a way out."
REHAB opens at Covert Theatre in Ponsonby next Thursday as part of the Auckland Fringe Festival, which runs from February 14 to March 6. For the full programme and bookings, see aucklandfringe.co.nz.
*Alcoholics Anonymous hosts more than 500 meeting groups nationwide, both in person and online. To find out more, see aa.org.nz, call 0800 229-6757, or email help@aa.org.nz
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