I had rules which I thought would boost my immunity against alcohol addiction. These social rules were especially important as I craved everyone’s good opinion. Regulations concerning alcohol were constantly under legislation in my busy mind. As if starred with an asterisk and written in fine print, the exceptions to my rules included: Don’t drink in the day (*unless you are at a wedding), don’t drink while traveling on public transportation (*does not include airplanes), and don’t drink on Mondays ( *unless it is a bank holiday ). One rule that I clung to as if biblical truth was “don’t drink alone.” As a child, I was impressed by the scene in Gone with the Wind when Scarlett O’Hara douses herself in cologne after drinking brandy alone in her bedroom. The dashing Rhett Butler sees straight through her deception and offers this worldly advice: “Don’t drink alone, Scarlett. People always find out, and it ruins a reputation.”
Everyone I knew was now on the other side of the ocean except my husband, who was very busy adjusting to his new job. I, on the other hand, was emailing out job applications as if into a black void. It felt like a luxury to spend long days writing in our empty rented townhouse, but it was also isolating. I came to depend upon a solitary glass of wine as a reward that marked the end of my working day, my only commute being to the local grocery store and back. I then had the good fortune to become a research fellow in residence at Jane Austen’s family home in Chawton, Hampshire. Studying in the very place where one of my literary heroines once wrote filled me with joyful inspiration. In the evenings, I was free to roam about the idyllic countryside, rustling the autumn leaves under my knee-high boots. I shared the spacious house with a young professor from Italy. Each night, we would discuss our research on Romantic women writers as we cooked together in a perfectly appointed kitchen. My new Italian colleague made delicious pasta and a heavenly tiramisu. I bought beautiful salads and fine French wine from that marvelous British store, Marks & Spencer. I noticed that the Italian professor drank just a tiny amount from the glasses of wine that I poured for her. I worried about leaving any wine in the bottle, lest it go bad overnight, or worse, be drunk up by an unexpected visitor. II had a perplexing compulsion to finish any wine that was left over. Late one evening, I sat with my laptop in the grand living room, getting ready for a Skype call with a friend in America by drinking a large glass of wine. My Italian friend came in, already dressed in her pyjamas, to collect some books. She surveyed the scene and said quietly, almost as if to herself: “In Italy, one would never drink alone.”
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I didn’t have to drink alone throughout my twenties and early thirties. Alcohol was ever- present throughout my progression from college to graduate school as I pursued my PhD in English. Drinking seemed to go hand in hand with writing, and I surrounded myself with writers who enjoyed drinking as much as I did. There were always campus events with a drinks reception to attend, and one always politely brought a bottle to dinner. The glasses of wine held at a literary event seemed a symbol of sophistication. I thought then that alcohol made me less painfully shy and more confident. After a few drinks, I felt less like an imposter in the very competitive world of academia. But when I was 36 years old, a move from America to England ended my social drinking career overnight.
HOLA SOBER | MADRID
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