Emily.

When I was 19 I thought I was turning into an alcoholic.

My drink of choice at the time was beer, which obviously isn’t like necking straight vodka but it was more my state of mind than the drink I consumed.

Every morning I would wake up needing that buzz, you know, that little flutter in your heart that wakes your soul.

It was the summertime and my step dad had bought home a couple of crates that he’d got discounted from the supermarket he worked at.

The boxes were damaged and so was I.

I had just lost my virginity to a boy I didn’t know if I liked and the boy I did like, didn’t like me.

I wanted to escape, which I recognise is the biggest cliche but not a feeling I was new to.

From being 14 sitting at a school desk wondering what I was doing with my life and why the town I lived in was so boring, to being 18 and skipping college, wondering what I was doing with my life and why the town I lived in was so boring.

I had wonderlust in my bones but didn’t yet have the balls to put any plans in place. Plans I might actually go through with. Anyway that’s not what this story is about.

So part of what I saw as my spiral into alcoholism is, I would go to work, to the same supermarket with my little hip flask filled to the brim with beer and on my breaks, on my toilet trips and whenever I felt like it I would go to my locker and take a sip.

I don’t know what I was hoping to achieve from this. Bad breath and drowsiness? It’s common knowledge alcohol is a sedative and I don’t remember if I had the forethought to take gum with me. Something else I would need to hide from the shop floor.

I’m grateful this phase didn’t last long. One night the boy I liked picked me up and we drove to our place. I cried and told him how I felt and what I was doing. He, as always gave me some wise words that I didn’t appreciate and sent me on my way.

I’ve never liked the idea of being a victim, or playing one. So I stopped.

Like the town I grew up in, I thought for a long time that I was average and I wanted to be the opposite.

When I was 7 or 8 we had a test in primary school and we were told what the average grade was, that was the grade I got.

At the beginning of my first real relationship I told my then boyfriend about my summer of hiding my alcohol consumption. I wanted to impress him, look at me, I’m not boring, I was almost an alcoholic. Then I met someone who really fit the definition and it was not the opposite of boring.

Photo by Joshua Hoehne