Based on the fact that it’s Ramadan and I have decided this year not to fast as have done before, but simply to cut back on other indulgences; based on the shocking figures in this recent report on drinking in the Middle East; based on the fact that I saw a woman/girl/TEACHER stumble out of the kitchens at McGettigan’s last Friday during the obviously very messy last brunch before Ramadan – barefooted, listless – lift up her dainty dress and sit bare-arsed on a chair in front of me (I think she thought it was the toilet she had clearly been looking for for a while); based on the fact that I have been trying for a while to work on my personal issues with drinking and convince my father that it is not, in fact, his fault for sending me to study in the UK, but the fact the he shipped our family out here, a place which is definitely safer than home (Trinidad) but where drinking is shockingly rampant; based on the fact that I am tired of having a problem and am not for laughing about it like my other boozy friends then drinking liver detox tea the next morning at work…
I am starting a blog about my struggles with binge drinking and/or alcoholism, which has mainly come to light during my five years spent in Abu Dhabi/Dubai.
The point is, everyone around me is avoiding the mirror, avoiding admitting the truth – I ask my friends about their drinking habits and they wave me off with a ‘trust me, you’re fine’. But I remember what too much drinking used to be, and that cut-off point seems to have gone up significantly in social circles without anyone really realising it.
As a writer, maybe I am the one who was meant to address it. I hope this series sheds some light, locally and internationally. And I’m sorry in advance if I embarrass/offend anyone. I’ll change all names, but basically everything I talk about here is going to be real. It has to be, or else I’m afraid I am going to die (as well as others).
I’m only 25, have made quite a decent name for myself already in media, made some decent money, quit my job earlier this year to travel, write fiction, and just became a certified yoga instructor. (yes, ironic). I believe, as well as have been told, that I am full of talent, wisdom, creativity and promise. But I also believe that I am also an alcoholic, and I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore, especially as I didn’t realise how many people are inspired by me, as well as how much more I am capable of inspiring if only I drank less. These are my chronicles.
…
#1
All three pictures above are of me practising or making fun of my frequent practice of underaged drinking (Listerine, not my thing lol). Actually, do you remember that one apologetic song Akon had to write about his accidental dry humping of an underaged girl on stage at his concert in Trinidad? The first picture is actually taken in the very same club. I, and all my friends there (aged 17), could’ve had a song by Akon by now. Trippy…
Anyway, the club (Zen) have obviously since pulled up their socks but drinking from young is not an unusual thing in Caribbean countries. In fact, parents try to semi-supervise it. I was able to convince my mum to go behind my dad’s back and distribute booze at my Sweet 16 birthday party (sorry daddy), which she caved and did because we were at home (and I would’ve hated her forever. FTR, Smirnoff Ice only).
She even picked me up from a club once, when I was the same age, and I was lying spread-eagled on a table outside with my two friends who were apparently panicking and wondering which, between CPR and just-let-her-sleep-it-off, might be the better recipe. They were shitting themselves trying to explain that one…poor everyone.
I know, you hate my mum already. I don’t think she is to blame. My mother is a wonderful role model, my best friend, my confidante, and was devastated, each and every single time, but at some point you have stop tying your teenager down and let them learn shit the hard way.
And actually, despite my individual case, I’m not sure I really oppose easing into drinking at a young age. Not ENTIRELY anyway. Nearly all my friends turned out fine because they learned of alcohol’s effects early on having been surrounded by drinking adults, were terrified by it and so eased into it, as well as eased off. Also, and in other words, since we knew we could have a teensy taste on the weekends, we weren’t so bothered to really want it. Teenagers prefer a rebellion.
The truth is, my father worked as a pilot for an airline that was not even based in our country – he even had his own apartment, we saw him a couple days every two or three weeks (not his fault either, he was putting the family’s welfare first, or he thought). They were not happy. My mother near raised us on her own and I was a very unruly, tiring teenager, the eldest of three, suffering from depression and even more frustrated by my father’s absence. This drunk-on-table incident was after I had tried again to slit my wrists and had announced that I was dropping out of school.
That I have become this bright and high-achieving today (bar the drinking), I owe to her, really…After dragging me to the principal’s office in my pyjamas following a third successful day as a high school dropout, I graduated, she sent me to live with her sister in London for the summer and I was accepted into the Creative Writing programme at Roehampton University where I graduated with First Class Honours and was immediately offered a job as a Staff Writer for Abu Dhabi Week. Yes, by the time I had graduated my family had been living in the Emirates a solid four years, an attempt at mending their once separated lives. It worked. My father’s new airline job was not only more money, but more time spent at home with family.
But I didn’t intend to stay in the UAE for long..to a bright-eyed, now happy and healthy, 20-year-old fresh out of London, London was the only place I could ever imagine being, of course! And it really wasn’t about the drinking culture – in fact, I was a terrible example of a Uni student, I had a long distance relationship so I worked three jobs while studying to save up to go see him often, and very rarely indulged. And besides, there is so much in London to do/see/experience that I was often easily steered away from a life of bottles in brown paper bags.
Unfortunately, I graduated smack in the middle of its economic crisis, so when I went to visit my parents in the UAE ‘for a few months’, that quickly turned into five years – in fact, my fellow graduates, themselves British citizens, to this day are still searching for related work, while I’ve held a few great writing jobs to date, thanks to the UAE’s constant want of labour.
I can’t blame the UAE entirely, but I do a little. It was dull, dry, uninspiring, lonely, culturally backward, at least in comparison to London. My long distance relationship had fallen apart because I could not get a job out where he was, and had actually moved even further away from him than London already was… to the Middle East.
I tried not to be sad and focused on my Carrie Bradshaw-esque future and possibilities, working in non-fiction… But what I really wanted was to work in fiction, as I had studied. But I couldn’t find any inspiration to write in my surroundings. I went out on my own often with pen and paper to try, and one day, my excursion ended very abruptly, frustratingly, in a bar, and the staff were really friendly… I was already suffering from depression, what better way to try to nurse it than with alcohol; that is, after all, what all the greats had done before me.
I have always been attracted to too much of everything – I think it’s a creative’s curse.
After a few more visits to the same bar, a very lovely Arab guy with a broken heart sitting a few stools away decided to talk to me. Considering we were both sad and sat in a bar, I thought we were of the same sort of stock, but he just needed to get over a love lost like the average person. He did and we ended up being together for 4 years, he addicted to me, me addicted to more, until I crushed us.
I still occasionally see him, I’m still his curse, I’m still my curse. And because he knows this thing that I am isn’t really the real Kara, just a filmy layer on top of her, he still looks out for me, loves me, and I wouldn’t be very much of anywhere right now if he hadn’t been that constant honest voice in my life.
My friends are great but they’re all suffering slowly too, and don’t even know it. And that makes me perpetually even more sad. All I want is for it to stop.
So, as I said, normally I fast for Ramadan – something I picked up through my last lengthy relationship with aforementioned Arab guy – but this year I’m too sad to, and he’s not around as often anymore to share the experience with me. So I decided to cut back on drinking instead. I should say abstain from it completely, but I know that I am at an advanced stage in my bingeing where that is highly unachievable, especially in an environment with such lack of support.
Another issue is… I love football. The World Cup is all about socializing through sport, so my drinking has been even more rampant in recent weeks. In fact, 5-6 nights a week, not always in huge volumes, but definitely always at least three beverages.
So…reporting from 24 hours into Ramadan, last night my sister invited me out to watch the football, I had to say no. My sister said: “You could just drink Coca Cola, you love Coca Cola.” I remember smiling sadly, because she knows and she wants me to win this, but she really has no idea of the extent of it. The truth is, no, I can’t ‘just drink Coca Cola’. If alcohol is there, it will find me.
Instead, I found a really, really engaging book, ordered some really, really expensive food, and locked myself in my room. Ironically I must report that my sister occasionally uses my ID to get into places as she is 19, but very often that’s all she will use it for. She’s one of the batch of smart, young Caribbean drinkers that knows and understands her limits, very often doesn’t feel the need to drink, and has been taking care of me for some time. Sad, I know, it must be said though.
But I trust her completely and wholeheartedly. The only thing I am glad about is that I have fucked up so many times in front of her that she will never want to make my mistakes.
Anyway, after my surprisingly painless first dry night in, I tried to sleep early and it all went downhill from there. I was incredibly tired, but I started to itch all over, everywhere. I couldn’t catch a wink for more than 30 minutes at a time. It could have easily been beg bugs but it was still very worrying, considering it had been a while since I had gone 36 hours without a sip of anything (what can I say, the World Cup matches have been increasingly cracking, and Friday was the last pre-Ramadan brunch!).
I remember waking up at one point and Googling ‘Hypnotherapy Abu Dhabi’. It had worked before in getting me to eat healthier but my therapist recently left the country so I decided it was time to find another and book something in, this time for drinking. I emailed her and am waiting with bate breath for a response – hopefully she hasn’t left town for the summer like everyone else!
Today, I feel better, but my team, Netherlands, is on in a gripping encounter tonight between Mexico, and I was going to go out and watch it (with a few personal rules in place: a limit of one beer per match half, while sipping on a bottle of water. Then head straight home at the final whistle). Luckily, my father is interested in watching also and mentioned in passing that we’ve had the TV subscription for the matches all the while! So we are tuning in together on the sofa.
Right, I am over 2100 words into this and must stop here. More another time, wish me luck!
-KARA