'Beer with breakfast': How a teen's love affair with alcohol escalated

At the age of 14, Rosie Redding* began drinking, and by Year 13 couldn't make it through a school day without a drink. Now 31, based in Auckland and the author of a book about her hellish journey to sobriety, co-written with her mother Madeleine, Rosie shares her story with Lucy Anderson.

From the beginning I found alcohol exciting. Drinking seemed to resolve my low self-esteem and anxiety, which felt like a big hindrance to my life during my teenage years. However, everything spiralled downhill quickly, and there were many moments of utter despair and desperately wanting to just give up. Alcohol became my medicine for self-hatred, guilt, and remorse, which created a vicious cycle.

By the time I was truly ready to address my drinking, it was hard to stick to sobriety because I didn’t feel like I was worthy of a good life. However I did think my parents deserved to be happy, and in the early days my sobriety was solely for them. Learning to be kind to myself, forgive myself, and discover who I was and what I enjoyed in life, ultimately kept me sober. As cliché as this might sound, I would describe my journey as one of discovering the reasons that I, too, deserve to be happy.

My first time getting drunk was age 14, on a bottle of tequila stolen from my parents’ liquor cabinet shared with friends at the beach. I will always remember this night because of how damn good the alcohol made me feel. My drinking escalated quickly through my teenage years, as I found preloading before parties completely cured my social anxiety and it also seemed to make other people like me more.

By year 13 I was sneaking alcohol at lunchtime and I spent a lot of my days figuring out how to drink as much as I needed without alerting my friends and family to exactly how much alcohol I was consuming. Drinking a bottle or two of wine at night seemed to really help my sleep, especially as sleep was a huge cause of my anxiety. My first year of university saw many lunchtime beers at the university pub, and by second year I was waiting outside the uni bar to open so I could have shots before class.

At that age, while the amount I was drinking surpassed anyone in my social group, nights out were still fun and nothing to be overly worried about. It was expected that we would get pretty drunk when we went clubbing or to parties, and I did this as often as I could to have the excuse to drink the way I wanted. Unfortunately the more I went out, the worse the consequences became, and soon my parents and my friends hated those nights with me. For this, I started dating people who would take me out without anyone else having to know and worry about me.

By 22 I was going to bed with 2-3 bottles of wine after spending the day at a vaguely acceptable level of tipsy so that it wasn’t immediately obvious to everyone around me that I was permanently under the influence.

I would say that very first time getting drunk cemented in my brain that alcohol was something I was willing to chase, despite potential consequences. The psychological addiction to alcohol started very early, and the amount that I consistently drank meant that by 23 when I finally went to my first detox, I needed a high dose of benzodiazepines to stop the physical withdrawals. My relapse at 24 saw me quickly dive straight back into how much I had been drinking - and more - and this was the first time I noticed I would be shaking in the morning before my first drink.

I think it would be a tie between my second relapse, and the death of my closest sobriety friend. Before my second relapse I had been sober for 18 months and I had a decent idea of what sobriety entailed and I had seen that life could actually be good without alcohol. Unfortunately I had not developed the inner strength needed to deal with the curveballs life sometimes throws, nor did I want to be accountable to myself for bad decision making. So I started drinking again. What really scared me was, even though this relapse was relatively short lived, it should have killed me. Yet with the knowledge that it was only luck that I had stayed alive through this, I found it near impossible to put the drink back down. Deciding to do whatever it took to stay alive instead of just giving up was something that took a lot more strength than I thought it would.

My best friend in recovery died two years ago. I was nearly three years sober. She was killed by this disease and I really struggled after that, especially because she worked so damn hard to keep herself alive. It just shows how unfair alcoholism is, and though I didn’t pick up a drink over it, I can’t say I didn’t want to.

It was more my mum’s idea than mine, as she had done several courses through the NZ Writer’s College and really enjoyed it. She’s passionate about writing and she’s good at it. When she broached the idea with me, my first thought was “my story is no better or worse or different than any other alcoholic’s – will people find me incredibly conceited for this?” But I knew there was a massive gap in the literature for families struggling with alcoholism, and ultimately I see it not so much as my story, but my family’s story. My hope is that it could shed light on what alcoholism does to a family, and to let other families struggling with similar stories know they aren’t alone.

For families of alcoholics – find support from people who have been through similar. CADs for Family and Friends and Al-Anon are two great avenues. There is something incredibly powerful in sharing your story with people who you know a) won’t judge you for it, and b) can actually empathise with what you’re going through. Try to connect with people who let you know you are not alone.

For alcoholics – being honest with yourself is probably the hardest but most valuable advice I can give. We are great at making excuses, at minimising, at pretending things are a lot better than they actually are. And alcohol lies to us – it tells us that we can’t live without it. It may be comparable to an abusive relationship; everyone tells you to leave, deep down you know you should leave, but it’s so difficult to give it up and terrifying not knowing what’s on the other side.

I have not met a single person in recovery who thought their life was better when they were drinking. Lastly, my experience was that self-loathing and immense guilt kept me in active alcoholism way past the ‘fun’ stage. So I would advise taking responsibility for your actions and realising that self-pity can be lethal to people like us.

When you love somebody, whoever that person is to you, it hurts to see them suffer. Mental health covers such a large range of issues, and I cannot speak to these. Regarding addiction, however, I’ve seen first-hand both in my family and in others just how deeply impactful this disease can be. Most addictions, whether substance-related or behavioural, encourage behaviour that is antisocial and abnormal.

Most addictions are detrimental to the health and wellbeing of an individual, and they therefore extrapolate to harm everybody that cares about the addicted person. I’ve heard it said that “alcoholism is a family disease” and I could not agree more with this statement. Though their experience was from a slightly different angle, my family suffered through my struggles with alcohol just as much as I did.

Ha! "Delightfully normal" comes to mind. I find joy and excitement in things that 18-year-old me would have been incredulous at. I recognise how lucky I am, and with this comes a lot of gratitude for what I have now. I am good at things I never thought possible – like postgraduate study and socialising with new people. I like doing homey things, like gardening, and I try to keep myself reasonably healthy (though I do not enjoy cooking and order Uber Eats far too regularly). I have two cats, a loving family, a cute little home, and people I am close to.

The things I thought I would miss so much about drinking, I just...don’t. I think a part of this is just normal growing up also – I found myself in detox at 23, which is over seven years ago now.

*Rosie and Madeleine Redding are pseudonyms.

Hold My Hand Rosie, Don't Let Go, by Rosie and Madeleine Redding (published by Mary Egan) is out now.

If you would like to reach out to Rosie and Madeleine contact them via email: maroredding@gmail.com.