Dearden's dad's drinking habits over his last 15 years had gone from jovial bon viveur to downright problem drinking. Photo / Getty Images
OPINION
The last time I spoke to my Dad was on Christmas Day 2020. He’d been admitted into hospital two days before, suffering from lung cancer. He seemed in good spirits, while I was a teary, tipsy mess.
It was that lockdown Christmas, and no one was allowed to visit him. He joked to me about whether he should try to get my Mum to sneak him a miniature bottle of wine – we both knew it wouldn’t happen, but laughed anyway. After a lovely chat and a few tears, we said goodbye.
As I hung up, a festive memory from my childhood popped into my head. Every year, my Mum would gently encourage a sleepy Dad to come downstairs on Christmas morning. Me and my two brothers would be waiting impatiently at the front room door for the big reveal, which wasn’t allowed without all members of the household present. It was only looking back as a grown-up that day in 2020, that I could see that all those Christmas mornings in the 1970s and 1980s, Dad was probably hungover.
A week after this phone call, and four weeks after his cancer diagnosis, on New Year’s Day, my dad died. He was only 65. Dad was a heavy smoker, which was obviously the biggest issue, but his drinking over his last 15 years had gone from jovial bon viveur to downright problem drinking. So much so, he had a permanent stain around his lips, where he’d taken to drinking red wine from the bottle.
Every year when Christmas comes around I sit here with a festive fuzzy mouth, and idly wonder if I’m drinking too much. But deep down, I know ultimately that I have that off-switch.
I don’t think Dad was a really heavy drinker when we were kids. He worked really hard as a welder and was always up and out of the house by 7am. But I grew up in England’s northeast, which had a big working men’s club culture (i.e. lots of drinking). Going out three or four times a week was not unusual. Neither of my parents drank much in the house though. The real problem probably came decades later, along with the popularity of drinking at home.
My parents split up in 1996 and my dad had a really tough time then, and over the years his drinking steadily increased. He liked nothing more than watching his beloved motorsports on the TV. A red wine or two with dinner, turning into a bottle or two. He loved his job as a welding inspector for the National Grid – I was so proud of him retraining and passing all of the exams – but he was often away at hotels and B&Bs for weeks or even months at a time. And what better way to have a nightly tipple than with a dinner being prepared for you, right next to a fully stocked, and paid-for, bar.
We all knew Dad drank too much. But we only knew the truth when he got admitted to hospital a couple of years before he died. Mum had asked the nurses what one of the tubes was for and the nurse replied that it was because he was an alcoholic. When Mum mentioned it to Dad, he just said she’d misheard, and she didn’t push it. I guess we didn’t need the label to see what was in front of us. I felt desperately sad when she told me. He was such a proud man, and so hard-working. He’d really provided for me and my two brothers when we were growing up, and had, in all the social settings, always been the life of the party. But the party always included alcohol.
An expert once told me that children of alcoholics apparently have a higher likelihood of adopting the bottle. That in itself is a sobering thought – especially as I lost my youngest brother to addiction last year. He wasn’t an alcoholic, but he was an addict. A drug addiction that plagued him over two decades, to varying degrees. And whether that’s nature, nurture or both, it’s a coincidence I don’t want to take a chance on. I’ve never seriously thought that I’ve got a drink problem and generally have a good off-switch (mostly), but there were times in my life when I was definitely drinking above the 14-unit limit.
I tasted my first alcohol when I was maybe 11 or 12, at a party in Pembrokeshire. It was some fancy hotel and I was allowed to have a little try of the champagne. I got a bit light-headed but never really touched it again until 15/16, when I started going out with my mates in the northeast. I remember going to a nightclub where we’d try to buy halves of cider but mostly get a soft drink because we knew we’d get asked for ID. Next step was university, where there was a standard level of drinking, but I very rarely got properly drunk.
My drinking levels probably escalated with my job as a journalist. There were lots of lunches and premiere parties. Lots of free drinks. These were the days where you went out for lunch and slid into dinner without ever making it back to the office; often with some illegible interview notes, scribbled on the back of a cigarette packet (yes, that really did happen). Bars and eateries were the meeting rooms of the 1990s. From swanky Conran restaurants in west London to spit and sawdust pubs in Soho, it wasn’t unusual to drink most days – and drink we did.
I don’t think I ever made any connections with my Dad’s drinking, as it felt so different – the working men’s clubs and the London life. But it wasn’t really: both included excessive levels of alcohol – just in different wrapping.
There were a couple of occasions I couldn’t remember going to bed, which was worrying. After one all-day work session, I remember boarding my train at St Pancras to go to Wellingborough in Northamptonshire; the next thing I knew, I was at Nottingham station at 2am. I called my husband at the time. He was not impressed, especially as we had a young toddler. I slept in a Photo-Me booth on the platform – it wasn’t my finest moment.
Having kids was amazing, but all of the parents we hung out with drank quite a bit. We’d have wonderful dinner parties, where the volume of the booze stayed the same, but the quality went up. The fun times kept on rolling.
Dad visited occasionally, and we’d giggle about the size of his drinks. We had those red wine glasses that are quite large, but you only fill to the widest part of the glass. Dad laughed in the face of those measures.
I usually tried to have three alcohol-free nights a week, but that was sometimes hard if we were cooking dinner because it was enhanced by a glass of wine. I’ve always been more of a fan of wine with dinner than binge drinking on a night out, so I never really thought it was a huge problem. Also, I’m queen of the French exit – they cut drinking down a lot. As it gets later, and more drunken, I quietly take my leave. All my friends are used to it, and even if you have slight fomo at the time, you never regret it.
I’ve never done Dry January or Sober October. My Birthday is in January and half-term in October, and my ex-partner and I would always go away for half-term. Foreign holidays to Greece or Turkey, a cottage in Wales – it was all enhanced by a couple of drinks. Saying it out loud, they sound a bit like excuses… maybe they were.
After Dad died, it gave me the impetus to nail down a more moderate drinking life. I wouldn’t say a wake-up call as such – I’d already been reducing my alcohol intake – but it was a very big nudge. I think after age 45, reducing my drinking just felt like the natural thing to do. Mostly because I wasn’t enjoying the following day as much. And I’m an early bird, so 5.45am always feels better when you’ve not had that extra glass of vino.
Alcohol-free beers have been a godsend. And once I’ve had dinner, the craving magically passes. Still, all the low-alcohol drinks and kombucha in the world can’t take the place of a full-bodied, real red wine, so I sometimes just intersperse the two.
One thing that works and always makes me smile is, even if I’m drinking, I note down those extra drinks I said no to (that previously I would have said yes to). You’ll be surprised how many you don’t drink while still enjoying a couple. And it always spurs me on. It doesn’t mean I don’t over-indulge on occasion and I’m okay with that. It’s easy to go hard with critical self-talk. But these days I give myself a break. The benefits of sociable, shared drinks with friends are not to be sniffed at, and life, as they say, is short.
As with most things, it’s really about balance. And as I approach my 50th in January, I like these calmer, slightly healthier days I carve out. I live in Northamptonshire with my partner of six years and my 23-year-old son, who has moved back home after uni. My daughter is 19 and at uni in Glasgow. Although I’m still a journalist, there’s definitely not as much entertaining involved these days.
I think about my Dad often. How he’d be up and out of the house at the crack of dawn for an extra shift on a Saturday, then busting his dance moves that evening at the Queen’s Club, when the band would invariably play Simply the Best. A snapshot of him, head tilted back with the most infectious of grins.
His discipline clearly rubbed off on me. Most mornings I’m up way before everyone else, so I do a short meditation, even though I’m terrible at it. Then it’s an hour’s walk in the local country park with our dog Stella. I even enjoy going to classes at the gym or a swim and sauna, and I spend hours listening to podcasts.
Since Dad died, I’ve found lots of things help to reduce my booze intake – but the upshot is, I definitely still enjoy a tipple. Cheers.
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