‘Functional alcoholic’ is a meaningless term - I was a drunk

"Sober October had never worked on me, neither had Dry January, nor adding extra mixers to my drinks to water them down."

OPINION:

Nikki Rushin had her first taste of alcohol at 11 years old; by 48, she was drinking three bottles of wine a day. Here, she describes how she hit rock bottom - then turned her life around.

On one side of the bath were the empty wine bottles and glasses from the night before; on the other, the bottles and glasses lined up for me to drink that evening. It was July 2020, and I had spent the week off sick from my job as an A&E healthcare assistant, my two black eyes the result of a man punching me in the face after I’d tried to stop him attacking a younger colleague.

By that stage, I was 48 and drinking three bottles of wine a day, topped up with shots of rum. I would hide upstairs so my husband and 10-year-old twins could not see the mess I had become, bloated, vomiting blood, with rocketing blood pressure. Making my way out of the bathroom that night, I tripped, fell over, and burst out crying. I heard a voice in my head clearly telling me that if I did not stop now, I was going to die.

Sober October had never worked on me, neither had Dry January, nor adding extra mixers to my drinks to water them down. “I’m OK, because I’m functioning” – how many times had I told myself that over the previous 30 years? The term “functional alcoholic” is meaningless: I was a drunk.

"People in emergency medicine work hard and play hard ... at least, that was my excuse." Photo / Simplefoto

The first time I drank alcohol, I was 11 years old. I’d been on my way to school in north-west London when a man on a bike cornered me in an alley and put his hand up my skirt. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but later that day I found myself with a can of Coke in my hand, topped up with vodka. I felt numb, and I liked this feeling.

My parents were constantly throwing parties and always had a well-stocked drinks cabinet, so over the next few years, I was constantly helping myself. They didn’t seem to notice. I was tall for my age, and felt odd and left out at school. So I’d lock myself in my room and drink – I can still taste and smell the Blue Nun – and listen to heavy metal. Sometimes I’d add in a few of my dad’s prescription painkillers.

At 17, I dropped out of school, and got a job in the music industry, first in sales, then in promotions, accompanying bands to radio appearances. There are no surprises that, in this world, I could drink and take drugs, and not stand out at all. Still awkward, I was unsure how to interact with people, and didn’t have any serious boyfriends. I was just the “party girl” – I wasn’t noticed, or questioned. But I’d often end the night in the loos, feeling paranoid and afraid.

As I hit my 30s I decided I needed a new start, so I moved up north to Nottinghamshire where I retrained as a healthcare assistant, working in a hospital emergency department. I enjoyed the work, helping people who had self-harmed. But even though drugs were no longer part of my life, I continued to drink. People in emergency medicine work hard and play hard: after the things we see, it’s not surprising. At least, that was my excuse.

I often found myself on the night shift, where I’d witness terrible things. I’ll never forget seeing my first dead body: a young man who’d been stabbed – I had to hold his chest together while we put him in a body bag. After a 10-hour shift, I would leave work, drive home and have a shower. At 9am, I’d need a drink to fall asleep; after a really bad shift, I’d finish the bottle. Then I’d wake up at 7pm, go back to work and do it all again.

I was always careful not to be intoxicated at work. I breathalysed myself before leaving home, and was never over the limit in the hospital. On the odd occasion I had drunk too much the day before, I’d take a sick day. Looking back, part of me wishes I had got into trouble; at least it would have forced me to address my drinking back then.

On the other hand, I found myself increasingly making a fool of myself in social situations. In my late 30s, I went to a friend’s wedding. I remember arriving, sitting down at a round table in a massive room: then everything is a blur. I woke up in my hotel room the following morning to find a series of messages on my phone. Apparently, when the bride had stood up to make a speech, I’d yelled: “Go on girl!”, I vomited at the table, then passed out. I was mortified and apologised profusely. Unsurprisingly, the couple have never forgiven me.

A few years later, when I was 38, I met Martyn, an office manager, and we married in 2005. Martyn was a rugby lad and a drinker, so my behaviour didn’t initially stand out. But my consumption of alcohol took a new turn. I moved from bottles of wine to boxes: they lasted longer, and didn’t clank us much when I took out the recycling. I bought enormous goblet-sized glasses that didn’t need refilling as often.

Martyn would stop drinking at a reasonable hour, but I’d carry on. The next day, he’d tell me I’d been verbally nasty to him, and I honestly couldn’t remember. Why did he stay, people have asked. I think he stayed as he knew the real me, the sober me, the caring person I was, not this alcoholic monster. He never seriously sat me down to try to help me as he didn’t really know the extent of my drinking: no one did, I hid it so well.

My behaviour became increasingly secretive: I would carry a bottle of vodka in my bag, and put the empties out with the recycling, very quietly. I was even kidding myself: it was OK to drink a bottle of champagne while I was getting ready to go out – champagne was sophisticated.

The only time in all these years I managed to stop drinking was when I was pregnant with my twin girls, from October 2008 to May 2009. I didn’t touch a drop until I’d finished breastfeeding. But slowly, within a few weeks, my drinking started up again.

As well as ruining my health, the alcohol wreaked havoc on my finances. I was spending a minimum of £150 a week on wine, and at one point was £10,000 in debt. We could have had holidays, we could have paid off our mortgage – if I wasn’t spending every single penny on booze.

By the time the pandemic started, I wasn’t sure how I was still alive. But that violent incident in the summer of 2020 made me seriously re-evaluate. I recalled a 60-something nursing colleague I had visited in my hospital, her skin jaundiced from alcohol-induced liver failure. I imagined that woman as me, and pictured my daughters visiting me in hospital, saying, “Why didn’t you just stop when you could?” My colleague later died.

So that night, I sat my 10-year-old girls down and told them I was going to give up drinking. “But Mummy, you like wine so much,” they said. It was heartbreaking.

Since July 26, 2020 I have been sober. I simply stopped cold turkey. In hindsight, this wasn’t the wisest tactic: I was shaking, I couldn’t walk properly, but luckily I didn’t have any seizures, which can happen when an alcoholic quits drinking suddenly. Three days later, I made my way to a 12-Step meeting – there were very few in-person sessions going on during lockdown, but I found one of them, and it made a difference being “in the room”. I decided to be accountable for my drinking.

I haven’t drunk a drop for over three years now. There’s no way I can become an “everyday drinker” these days – I don’t have it in me, in the same way I can’t just eat one biscuit or buy one plant: I empty the entire nursery. Any temptations I have are fleeting – and I use the tools I learned at my 12-Step meetings not to succumb.

My name is Nikki & I'm an alcoholic in recovery, I wonder if I said hello how many would be kind enough to not judge me & say hello back, showing others struggling with alcohol that the stigma of alcoholism is reducing?

The photo below shows clearly the damage alcohol does.

I… pic.twitter.com/w2fUvRwVDc

— Sober Lady (@ASoberLady) July 28, 2023

A change in career has also helped: this January, I left my job in the emergency department and started working in drug and alcohol services, offering peer support to people. I find this incredibly fulfilling. Working in substance misuse suits me because I’ve been in that dark pit: I know how it feels. Addiction cannot be understood unless you have been there – that deep compulsion that pulls you to keep picking up the drink when everything around you is being destroyed.

These days, when I come home from work, I don’t open a bottle of wine: I tweet as @ASoberLady, where I have 22,800 followers. If I can help just one person, I will have done my job.

Over time, my health has improved dramatically. The bloating has gone, the life is back in my eyes, my skin is glowing – even without makeup. I have lost two stone. When I compare pictures of me now with when I was drinking, I can barely believe it’s the same person.

Three months after I became sober, one of my daughters came up to me. “Mummy, will you come and look at the sunset with me?” she asked. It was a bittersweet moment: how many sunsets had I missed, I wondered. But then I gave thanks, as I do every day. I’m so grateful I’m still here, alive with my family to witness a future of glorious sunsets.

- As told to Miranda Levy