SOBER sex

MINDFULNESS HAS MADE ITS WAY BETWEEN THE SHEETS, WITH SOBRIETY HELPING ONE WOMAN TO FIND HERSELF – AND HER DEEPEST DESIRES.

- HOLLY WHITAKER

Nearly a decade ago, about a year before I stopped drinking alcohol, a friend of mine showed up at my door. She lived in my neighbourhood. It was early on a Saturday afternoon, and my friend was carrying a Solo cup full of whiskey because some man she’d met on OkCupid had broken her heart.

It seemed a reasonable solution to me at the time: to walk around the streets sipping Maker’s Mark to dull the specific pain of being rejected by someone she met on the internet who wasn’t good enough for her in the first place. Only, I would have chosen Jameson.

We called a few friends to come over, and we sat in my little studio apartment smoking pot and drinking even more whiskey and cheap wine when my dear, broken-hearted friend announced to the group that she was pretty sure she was going through an “alcoholic phase”. Alcoholic phase. I looked around the room at the faces of my other friends for a hint of the same reaction I felt, which was relief. I saw not only looks of relief but also ones of deep knowing – we’d all experienced something close enough to that to empathise. Huh.

When you’re terrified that maybe your drinking has gone off the rails, nothing will rein in that hysterical, ridiculous thought more tightly than a group of successful, intelligent, attractive, “together” women who normalise your affliction with a new term: alcoholic phase! This scenario is only one of a few hundred examples of why I couldn’t figure out whether I really had a problem with alcohol, or if maybe I was just going through a little “thing” that would straighten itself out.