When my partner found me unconscious after drinking cooking wine, I knew I needed help

For Charlie, trying ‘Dry January’ planted a seed that something was wrong. Years later, he made the decision to quit drinking.

Charlie drinking beer.

At twenty-five I quit drinking. Five years on it’s still the best decision I have ever made.

Australia has a complicated relationship with alcohol. It can be the social glue that binds many together. But there is a dark side.

I grew up on the outskirts of London. I remember long summer days playing with friends in the garden, our parents sitting on the patio drinking together. Alcohol was always around. On Christmas day family friends would take turns hosting a morning party. The champagne would flow for the parents, whilst we each showed off our new gifts.

It can be the social glue that binds many together

Charlie Wright

By around fourteen, the desire and opportunity to have my first drink coincided. For the following years, alcohol played an increasing role in my social life. At first, it was a couple of cans of beer, or a swig of neat spirits that some brave soul had smuggled into a birthday party.

The consequences seemed relatively low, and the upside was huge. But for me there was more. I had always been overweight, and once I drank, I didn’t feel that gnawing mental thrum of self-loathing. By about sixteen, I was drinking every weekend.

Everyone had a fake ID. The quantities increased, as did our ability to tolerate it. We did the circuit of festivals, gigs, and parties.

Charlie

In 2011 I packed up and left London, attending university in the north of England. Things quickly started to get out of control. I was no longer bound by the routine of home life. The structure that had kept my alcohol and drug use in check disappeared. By the age of twenty I was in hospital with pneumonia. I spent a year back at home in London recovering.

I had always been overweight, and once I drank, I didn’t feel that gnawing mental thrum of self-loathing.

Charlie Wright

Once I had a drink, I could never tell where things would end. Occasionally, I would take the sensible route and stop. But rarely did I have any control. I was like a bottomless pit. No amount of alcohol quenched my thirst. I could never tell whether I sought oblivion, or it sought me.

I did a Dry January challenge in 2013, days after my 21st birthday. It was an excruciating 31 days of white-knuckle sobriety. At the end of the month my physical appearance had transformed. The colour was back in my face, the weight gained by drinking beer had gone. When the clock struck midnight on the first of February, I hit the booze with a vengeance, foregoing sleep and making up for lost drinking time.

From the outside, it must have looked like incomprehensible self-annihilation. To me, it felt like I finally had my medication back. It was clear I wasn’t ready to face my demons. I then returned to university. Straight back into the milieu of cheap alcohol and chemically induced destruction.

On the verge of a heart attack at 24

After I graduated, I bounced between jobs. I felt lost. My drinking led to anxiety and depression and thwarted any positive opportunities that I came my way. At first, I got a sales job in the city, but I quit after six months. I started experiencing panic attacks during meetings and I had no idea how to deal with it.

Then, attempting to lean into exercise to keep me on the straight and narrow, I picked up a semi-professional rugby contract. Eventually, this became too much when my off-field antics made it impossible to keep up with the physical toll on the field. Girlfriends came and went as I offered up countless empty promises of better behaviour.

Sitting at my desk looking out at the glistening water across Sydney Harbour, I felt like I was going to die.

Charlie Wright

In 2017 I decided I needed a change of scenery if I was going to make something of my life. Australia seemed to make sense. I could speak the language, and I hoped the sunshine would be a reprieve from the darkness I felt. In May I arrived in Sydney. As much as I loved it, my drinking continued unabated. I had started a role in recruitment.

I was great at the job when I wasn’t hungover, but it was clear I was highly unreliable. After one particularly bad weekend, I dragged myself into the office. Sitting at my desk looking out at the glistening water across Sydney Harbour, I felt like I was going to die. I took myself to a walk-in medical centre. After taking my blood pressure, they called an ambulance. I was twenty-four years old and on the verge of a heart attack.

I tried moderation. I tried only drinking beer. But that resolution only seemed sensible when I was sober. I felt desperate. In November 2017, things came to a head when I went to a work-sponsored event for the Melbourne Cup. The following day, I peeled my face off the sofa at around noon. I was four hours late for work. I arrived at work in a state of panic and pleaded with my manager for a few days’ reprieve to get my life in order.

I called my parents that night, knowing I needed help. My dad, who has suffered his own challenges with addiction, had then been sober for around five years.

Charlie Wright

I called my parents that night, knowing I needed help. My dad, who has suffered his own challenges with addiction, had then been sober for around five years. He suggested I might get something from a 12-step recovery meeting.

Charlie and his son Theo.

Filled with trepidation, and a weariness from years of struggling, I attended my first meeting. The local school hall was full of strangers: tradies, lawyers, stay-at-home mums, retirees, all packed side-by-side chatting away to each other.

Each took turns standing at the front sharing their stories, I was overcome with relief as one-by-one they described exactly how I felt. We were bound by a common inability to stop drinking, despite the outward differences in our lives, and a shared knowledge that our actions were causing serious harm to ourselves and others. What struck me was that many of them had the colour in their cheeks, and a shine in the whites of their eyes. It reminded me of how I looked back in 2013. Only, they seemed to have a calmness and an equanimity I had never achieved.

What they promised was freedom from my drinking, and I knew I desperately wanted it. Here I was at twenty-four years old, wondering how it had gotten to this, but knowing deep down that if I wanted any shot at a happy, peaceful, meaningful life, it would need to be this.

I can’t say I left that meeting and never drank again. It took me until Easter weekend 2018 before I was broken enough to listen to the suggestions. I had been drunk for three days. My partner, now wife, found me unconscious on the sofa, having polished off the cooking wine.

Socialising without alcohol

I threw myself into recovery and sought help. I learnt about the power of spiritual practice, finally accepting all the things I could not control. It has not been an easy road. Many times, I have felt stress, excitement, or worry wash over me, and the voice in my head says, “you need a drink”. But, with the right direction I have been able to reflect on what that one drink would do for me. Short-term relief, followed by long-term pain.

I met a diverse group of other recovering alcoholics through my local meeting. Having others in their twenties and thirties, all committed to the daily work of sobriety, gave me the support and friendship I needed. These relationships started from a place of desperate survival and have grown into lifelong bonds. Socialising without alcohol doesn’t seem like a big deal anymore, but at first it felt uncomfortable.

Charlie and his wife standing by Sydney Harbour.

I am grateful for that decision to try ‘Dry January’ all those years earlier. It planted a seed that germinated over time. I now believe that if going without alcohol for thirty-one days seems a tall order, then that is a sign that a problem might be present. If your friends and family will pay money to charity for you to stop you drinking, what does that say about your relationship with alcohol?

After almost five years, my sober life has provided me with dividends I could never have dreamt of. I no longer wake up in the morning full of dread. I can show up for what I commit to. I am happily married to the partner who helped me get through those tough early years. I’ve become a dad, and I am proud when I think about the example that I can set for my son. I am also glad he will never see me drunk.

My career has been moving at a steady pace, and I even started that law degree. For me, I don’t think about how hard it would be to have this life if I was drinking, because I know none of it was available to me when I was.

Charlie and his wife hold their newborn baby.

You don’t have to be at the proverbial rock-bottom to start thinking about the role that alcohol plays in your life. There is help and there are many options. Try a 'Dry January' or 'Sober October’. Australia has a thriving 12-step recovery community. Seek help from a mental health practitioner. Or join an online community like Hello Sunday Morning. For me, I did all of the above.

The best part is that you don't have to do it alone. You can't do it alone. Find people to go on the journey with. As a young person, the greatest gift my dad gave me was showing me I didn't have to wait until I was his age to make that change. That is why I am doing my part to help others. Not because I must, but because I get to watch people transform their lives. I used to think giving up alcohol would be the end of my life, now I know it was just the start.

If you, or someone you know needs help you can find out more at Hello Sunday Morning - an organisation of which Charlie Wright is an advisory board member.

Readers seeking support with mental health can contact Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636. More information is available at beyondblue.org.au. Embrace Multicultural Mental Health supports people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.