One day, not so long ago, I drank so much alcohol that I bled into the toilet.

After five silent, appalled seconds, I numbly flushed, got on a trans-atlantic plane and ordered a double gin and tonic. And another one. Don’t think I don’t know how strange that behaviour is. To intentionally hurt yourself like that. How does one get to that stage, you might ask.

Easy. So easy. Let me tell you.

First, be born into a well-off family on a small island reeking of the stench of ale, beer, vodka, whiskey, sambuca, and if you’re really fancy, wine. You may know this strange island as the ‘UK’.

Then, at the age of 11 or so, accept a goblet of some hellish-smelling, amber liquid from your Dad. Take a sip of the apple brandy, then run full-speed to the nearest tap as the fire of hell itself explodes in your mouth, in your throat, in your very soul. Extinguish the fire. Give your Dad a ‘How could you?’ look. Cry a bit. Try to ignore the one cell in your body that cries out for more.

Hold off on the booze until the age of 15, then make up for those lost years with a collection of alcoholic lemonades (you may know of ‘Hooch’. If you don’t, you may know ‘Mike’s Hard Lemonade’), Coke mixed with anything, and if you’re a real hard man—whiskey.

Then, in your adolescent years, quickly build an association between alcohol and sexual success, or at least the prospect of sexual success (I rarely hit the bullseye in my teens and I rarely hit it now—it’s all about potential).

Now, having established this connection, use it to get you through four years of excessive drinking at the ale-stained University of Edinburgh. Suitably ill, graduate to the epicentre of world alcohol abuse—the London advertising industry.

Try so hard to break into this world that you never turn down a free drink. Not at lunch, not during work, not after work. Laugh them down, one after the other, praying that someone will give you a job or make your idea into something more real than scribbles on a page. Discover that the more you drink, the more people laugh. Choose to believe that they’re laughing with, not at, you. Choose to ignore the rotting feeling coming from inside.

Get the shots in.

Eventually break into the tequila-soaked world of advertising, then climb high enough on the ladder that you can buy as much alcohol as you want, but drink it in your own flat so no-one really notices except you, and your girlfriend until she’s not there anymore.

As your wallet grows, so mysteriously, does your appetite for alcohol. Employ a new strategy—that of the ‘connoisseur’. Espouse the superiority of this or that drink, this or that liquor. Insist that your friends try it (after you, of course). Create wonderful, crisp vodka martinis with friends until the bottle is empty (they weren’t wonderful, they were just strong). Buy another bottle.

Insist on going to only the finest cocktail bars because there is something that your friend ‘just has to try’. Finish your drink before your friend is halfway through theirs and order another one—after all, there’s a queue building and we don’t want to wait, do we? Comment on the masterful herbal infusions in the cocktail, the ‘echoes of marshmallow’, the delicate fizz on your tongue and the elderflower aftertaste.

Keep drinking.

Then one day, see your own blood in the toilet. Marvel at this crimson offering from your insides. Wonder how it got there, from what part of your insides it bled from. Was it your stomach lining or an organ? Wonder if it will stop.

Then flush the toilet, wash your hands, look at your blood-shot eyes in the mirror, and exhale. Nothing is wrong. Just another step on the journey. No pain, no gain. Collateral damage. War is hell but who wants to be in heaven anyway? All the interesting people are in hell, plus heaven is too close to the sun for Scottish skin.

Such is the ‘nurture’ side of this coin, but what of ‘nature’?

I never knew my biological Dad. My only memory of him is of a bearded man not being allowed to come into the flat when I was about five. A flash of bristles, a hint of desperation in the eyes and he was gone. As far as I know, I’ve never seen him since. It’s possible that I have of course, but how would I know? Over the years, I have tried to mentally subtract my mother’s face from mine, like a mathematical equation, to get his, but all I see is a beard. Though logically sound, this is a shitty way to figure out how someone looks. Faces aren’t numbers.

Yet I feel like I know him intimately. Just as I have an affinity with all left-handers, or all people who know for certain that mangoes are the best fruit or that Ryan Gosling is now over-exposed, I feel an affinity with alcoholics. Just to be clear—I am not, and never have been, a full-blown alcoholic.

But I have glimpsed the depths. I have felt the magnetic pull of hand to bottle too many times for it just to be boredom. I don’t reach for cigarettes in the same way, or the bums of attractive women I don’t know, and I don’t trip up strangers unprovoked, though all these things would bring me great pleasure. No—alcohol’s whisperings are unique. Or were.

Six months after the ‘Crimsonbowlgate’, my eyes are bloodshot once more. Bright red lightning forks jaggedly from the rim to the centre. If I could see the back of my eyes, I’m sure they’d be bloodshot too. I am so congested that I can’t breathe through my nose, and my muscles ache to a depth I can’t fully contemplate. No matter how much water I drink, I piss orange. It’s been like this for 13 days now. Sobriety hurts.

But with the passing of alcohol comes the arrival of this strange new thing—the whole rest of life. See, when you’re not crawling around your flat/hostel, with a headache as powerful as the big bang itself, you can actually do things. Things other than facebooking or watching masterchef (obviously, I still do those things too—I’m not an a**hole).

When you stop drinking, there’s nowhere to hide from yourself.

You’re always there, soberly considering yourself. And there’s only so many coffees you can drink and inane cat videos you can lobotomise yourself with before you have to actually do something.

In the 13 days since I broke from the pied-piper’s intoxicating melodies, I’ve managed to, almost without thinking, half-write four or five pieces, and started teaching yoga, which has yielded the first income I’ve been genuinely proud of since I washed cars as a baby-livered teen. Heck, I think I’ve even started being slightly less of an asshole to my friends and family. That could be an overclaim though. You’d have to ask them.

I still hear her whispers of course. After 15 years of marinating in her starry-eyed liquor, who wouldn’t? Then there’s the fear. The sickening hit of daily panic that perhaps I won’t be able to connect with people without it, that maybe the friendships I’ve made over the years are really only a shared adoration of beer.

Then there’s girls. How could I ever sleep with one without being drunk? A terrifying prospect, I’m sure you’ll agree, and an almost intolerable risk. Though I’ve been informed by the internet that this is biologically possible, I remain deeply cycnical. Time will tell, I suppose.

In the meantime, I have to find a new drug to become addicted to. Any thoughts? I’m told crack is fun but might get in the way of my yoga.

 

Like “I’m not spiritual, I just practice being a good person” on Facebook.

 

Ed: Elysha Anderson