What I Learnt When I Ditched Booze

It was a small piece of glass wedged into my shoulder that did it. Where did it come from? I couldn’t remember. I’d spent the night downing shots and requesting old school J.Lo in a gay bar… but so much of it was still hazy. There were gaping holes in my memory that my hungover brain began to fill with a host of worst-case scenarios, a rush of anxiety that was starting to become all too familiar.

The pattern back then went like this: hit the booze hard and then wake up hating myself (to the extent I’d physically pick at my skin), terrified of what I might have said or done the night before. I’d text my friends and most of the time the answer was, ‘Nothing! You’re paranoid!’ But, as I sat shivering in the shower