Accepting That I Needed Help Changed My Life

After three years of sobriety, actress Sarah Kozlowski, 33, feels ready to open up about her journey battling alcoholism. She chats to Essentials about the steps she took to get – and stay – sober…

If I asked you to picture a typical alcoholic, you’d probably think of someone huddled under a bridge, swigging from a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. But I’m an alcoholic, and I had a country club upbringing in the leafy suburbs of Bryanston with parents who loved and supported me. This disease can affect anyone, manifest in different ways and – for me, at least – it’s not easy to ‘blame’ it on any major life struggles or bad experiences. It really doesn’t discriminate. This is my story.

I distinctly remember when I went from being a moderate drinker to actually having a problem. Like most teenagers, I sometimes dipped into my parents’ liquor cabinet, and I got drunk for the first time when I was 14. Since then, I’d always enjoyed the social aspect of drinking and would do so heavily with my friends in Joburg for many years. It was only when I suffered from burnout at 26 that things started to change.

I was running my own business at the time, and the stress of a major downturn in the company knocked me. I was diagnosed with CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). I was bed-bound for months and couldn’t stomach the idea of having a drink. Once I’d recovered, I decided to close my company and got into acting and modelling for the fun of it. I didn’t take it seriously at first, but after a few auditions, it turned out I was pretty good at it, and my first role was on Isidingo. By this time, I was back to my old habits of going out with friends and weekend binge-drinking. Except something didn’t feel right; my brain no longer treated alcohol the same way after my burnout.

The downward spiral