On the Rocks: Memoir of a high-functioning alcoholic

By Thando Yandisa Pato

Thirty-nine-year-old Thando is living in total denial about her drinking. On the surface her life looks aspirational – great job, apartment, snazzy car. But behind the façade she harbours a shameful secret – she can’t control her drinking. To the outside world she's just having fun, but alone at home, she’s knocking back a bottle or two a night to ‘unwind’. It’s not until she takes a sabbatical from booze, that she's forced to confront her crippling anxiety  Intimate, brave and inspiring. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melinda Ferguson Books
• Release date: May 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781990973376

Thando Yandisa Pato

Thando Pato is an experienced wordsmith, She cut her teeth in journalism as a features writer, writing for O, (Oprah Winfrey's magazine), Marie Claire, True Love, ELLE, and Sunday Times Lifestyle before changing direction and immersing herself in corporate communications. Thando is based in Johannesburg, where she lives and works full-time. 

Book preview

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch. – James Baldwin

CHAPTER ONE

Rinse and repeat

My mouth is dry. My tongue feels like it’s glued to the roof of my mouth. My head is heavy. On the left side, a headache is pounding. I open my eyes, and for a second I try to register where I am. Light streams through the thin, cream linen curtains. Through the haze, I notice a large suitcase in the corner. I’m sprawled out on a brown couch. There’s no blanket. I’m wearing yesterday’s clothes, no shoes. Then I remember. I’m at my friend Verene’s house. I need to sleep. I lay my head back on the drool-stained cushion and close my eyes again.

Memories of the night before flash through my throbbing head. Wine. Gin. Dicky, Verene’s cousin. Airport. Shit! Verene is supposed to be at the airport.

Verene! I croak.

Silence. Is she here? I open one eye and turn to the suitcase. Yes, of course, she is, that’s her suitcase.

Verene! I croak a little louder. I can’t shout because of my headache.

There’s a thud from the adjacent room. A few minutes later the door swings open and out comes Verene in her pyjamas.

What time is it, friend? She sounds confused. I slowly reach for my phone on the arm of the couch, bring it closer to my face and press the screen. 5.30am. 15 December 2016 flashes back at me.

It’s 5.30, I groan.

Dickkkkkkky! Wake up! We’re late! wails Verene. Dicky is asleep in the spare bedroom. Verene barges in, screaming, Dicky, we’re late! Wake up!

Rewind to last night.

The plan was to enjoy a couple of glasses of wine while Verene finished packing. Then I was meant to go home, and the next morning Dicky would take Verene to the airport to catch her flight to East London. Clearly, things didn’t go according to plan, and now it’s chaos.

Commotion ensues, a scramble that involves Verene and Dicky trying to get out of the house to catch a 7am flight from OR Tambo International Airport about 50 kilometres away, in peak morning traffic on a weekday. Amid the slamming of suitcases, the frantic brushing of teeth and the yelling, I gingerly try to hoist myself up off the couch and make my way to my car in the carport. I live just 15 minutes away, so the drive will be mercifully short. I am not sure I can do it in my current state. I get the hiccups and with it the sensation that I want to vomit. Not today, Satan, I tell my body as I gulp down the bile that threatens to flood my mouth. Thankfully, the walk to the car is not far and there is no one – besides Dicky and Verene who are now loading Dicky’s car with her luggage – to see what a mess I am. Am I still drunk? Am I even alive? I feel weird, like I am hovering between inebriation and sleep.

Friend, we’ll chat when I get to East London, screams Verene as she leaps into the front seat. Dicky doesn’t even wait for her to close the door before he speeds off.

I’m left standing next to my car, the driver’s door open. I get in and drop my head on the steering wheel. There is no way I can drive home now. My head is pounding, I can barely see straight, and my stomach is swirling. I desperately need to sleep. So I push the seat back, lock the car doors and close my eyes. I just need an hour to sober up, rest and feel normal.

An hour and a half later, I wake up. Thankfully, my head has stopped pounding, but I still feel like shit – a combination of too little sleep and too much alcohol. I gingerly navigate the 15-kilometre drive home. En route, I stop at McDonald’s. I’m so thirsty, plus I need to eat something greasy to manage this hangover. I drive with the deliberateness of a learner driver, terrified of attracting attention.

Finally, I’m home. I need to shower and get ready for work. It’s 7.30am. The greasy food and Coke have helped, but I’m not feeling up to facing a day interacting with people, making calls, planning events for the new year and looking over strategy documents. I sit on my bed and contemplate whether I should go into the office and drag myself through the day or just call in sick. Work should be quiet – tomorrow is 16 December, a public holiday, so no one will miss me if I take the day off I convince myself.

I get into bed, text my boss: Went out for dinner last night and have been on the toilet ever since. Won’t be in today. I proceed to sleep for the rest of the day.

I wake at 3.30pm. Groggy. I have missed calls and a message from Malcolm, my motorcycle-riding instructor. Damn. I’d always wanted to learn how to ride, so at the beginning of year I signed up to learn, but now I’ve missed today’s lesson. I’ll deal with that tomorrow.

At around 5pm, I get a call from a girlfriend.

Can I come over? she asks.

Sure, bring some wine, I tell her.

And so I start the cycle again. I convince myself I won’t drink as much as I did yesterday. While I wait for my visitor, Verene calls.

How you feeling, friendy? she laughs.

I didn’t go to work, I tell her.

I’m not surprised. You drank everything I had: wine, gin and vodka.

Vodka? I don’t drink vodka, I respond. Defensively.

You did yesterday, she answers, half amused.

If I’m honest with myself, most of 2016 has been a rinse and repeat of last night. At this stage, though, I’m still not able to see the pattern.

My chest tightens as I think about how I am disappointing myself yet again. But my rising anxiety is a perfect excuse to reach for yet another drink.

CHAPTER TWO

Attempts at abstinence

On New Year’s Eve, 31 December 2016, my brother Simphiwe, his partner Tanya and I sit on the balcony of their Canal Walk apartment in Cape Town. It’s sunny and warm, but a strong wind – the Cape Doctor, as it is called – is ruining what would otherwise be a perfect summer’s day. In a bid for attention, Toby, their Yorkie, barks at us. We are on the third floor, surrounded by other high-rise apartment blocks. As the year is ending, the mood on the street is festive.

Simphiwe and I have been on a mission today. We’ve stocked up on alcohol to see us through till midnight. I’ve made a vow that, after midnight, the drinking stops for me.

A few days ago, while hiking through Newlands Forest, I made a pact with my brother to quit drinking for the next year, from 1 January 2017 to 1 January 2018. I have chosen to quit for 12 months because I figure I don’t want to stop forever. I just need a break, a respite, because of late it feels like the drinking has consumed me. I’ve come to the realisation that my life seems to revolve around alcohol. That I’m no longer in control. I convince myself that this break will allow me to reset my boundaries with booze, give my liver a much-needed rest; it will be a way to get a grip on my life, which has started to feel chaotic. Simphiwe and I have talked it through and agreed on the terms: 365 days of no alcohol. He will be my support system and sounding board. When the cravings hit or I feel unstable, I can call him. Share my inner turmoil with him.

I need this pact. I need to be accountable to someone other than myself. I have let myself down so often recently. I am desperate to stop drinking, but I know I can’t do it by myself. Believe me, I have tried. I need some accountability.

I am not religious, but I was raised in a Christian household (my dad is an Anglican bishop) and every Lent, for five years running, I have tried unsuccessfully to give up alcohol for just 40 days. The longest I have gone without it is seven days. Seven agony-filled days when the idea of drinking consumes my every waking hour. It’s like I am continually negotiating with myself not to drink. I don’t even enjoy my triumph of not drinking. On day seven, I am emotionally exhausted and anxious for the stupid experiment to end. After that, I go back to the bottle, like an old fiend. But once I have that first drink, the floodgates open and I need to have another and then another. Any promise I make to myself not to drink every day is quickly broken, as I reach for yet another drink. Rinse and repeat.

It wasn’t always like this. Drinking used to be so much fun. Initially, I drank to be sociable and because I simply enjoyed it. Over the December holiday season I especially loved visiting Cape Town, where my mother and brother are based, so that I could explore the wine farms for lunch, accompanied by wine tasting. And, trust me, I have traversed the landscape of wine farms in the Cape, never leaving empty-handed, usually with a case or two to take home – to take the spirit of the farm along with me.

I first learned of the heady pleasures of wine at my first job as a waitress in Cape Town. That’s also where I learned to drink copious amounts of it without making too much of a fool of myself. Before that, I was a student and drank anything and everything I could afford. I was never really discerning. Drinking gave me my persona. Made me sociable, witty and friendly. I was the one who could always be trusted to choose a good wine when I was out to dinner or lunch with friends. If there was a wine, champagne or whiskey festival, I was the first one to round up the troops so that we could enjoy a day or weekend away.

I drank for the buzz, that tingling sensation in my knees, the slight giddiness in my head that would make me giggle and would cause the tension to miraculously evaporate from my shoulders. How easy it felt to inhabit my body when I had alcohol in my system.

Until 2016, my drinking never really bothered me. I revelled in it. I was always the first person to suggest after-work drinks with friends, or a couple of glasses of wine over lunch. Hell, when I went to a friend’s place for drinks, I was the one who could be trusted to bring bottles of fine wine, which I would heartily help them drink. I was the friend you take out on a night of fun, giggles and lots of drinking, without having to worry about being embarrassed the next morning. I believed wholeheartedly that alcohol helped us create memories (of what we could remember) that we could laugh about and bond over for years to come. It was the glue that held us together.

In the early days, two to three glasses of wine would get me to that place of ease. Now I needed more. And even when I got there, it felt like I was chasing something else. I’d drink voraciously even though I was already drunk. I just keep going until I blacked out. Then, more and more often, I’d find myself drinking alone. I’d wake up the morning after passing out with a full glass of wine on the bedside table or, if I’d passed out on the couch, on the coffee table.

So, by the end of 2016 something in me had shifted. I began to develop a sense of shame and self-loathing after a heavy night of drinking, especially when I had blackouts and couldn’t remember what I had said or how I had got home. I began, almost unwillingly, to notice the excessiveness of my drinking and how I kept being caught in cycles of binge drinking. This realisation was not easy to come to but there were too many incidents of overindulgence that stood out that year that had me questioning whether I might in fact have a problem.

The first was my birthday. I spent the day with friends at a picnic at Nirox Sculpture Park, where there are food trucks and a bar overflowing with good wine. I had been given complimentary vouchers for the event, and even before we arrived I knew I would drink a lot. So I prepared myself for an alcohol marathon by arranging a chauffeur service. I didn’t disappoint myself. Between my friend Vuyo and me, we downed three bottles of wine.

After the picnic, we got home and prepared ourselves to go to rapper J Cole’s concert at the Dome. At this stage, we were happy drunk, not falling-down drunk, but still drunk enough to know that we should not be drinking any more. But that didn’t stop us from heading to the bottle store to buy more alcohol to keep us entertained before we headed to the concert. I bought a bottle of tequila, some wine and a six-pack of Savanna. I popped the tequila in the freezer to chill and then completely forget about it.

There was no hard liquor at the concert – only beers – so I drank a couple of litres. I didn’t feel fragile or off kilter: in fact, I remember having a great time. The following morning, I had to drive to the Midlands in KwaZulu-Natal, four hours away. I had planned this trip for weeks: I’d have a big blowout and then spend the following week detoxing and recuperating not only from excessive drinking but from work, which had been super demanding over the last couple of months. What I hadn’t factored in, though, was the raging hangover I woke up with after the all-night party. The idea of a four-hour drive to the Midlands felt impossible – but I couldn’t cancel the trip. I had taken a week’s leave and booked myself at a spa and hydro that I went to every year as part of my annual self-care ritual. Everything was already paid for. So, after Vuyo left at around 9am, I shakily swallowed some painkillers, crawled back into bed, and slept.

I ended up leaving for KZN at around 1pm, which was way too late. I usually leave Johannesburg in the morning, at about 10am, so that I can enjoy the drive and make it to Nottingham Road just after lunch. I always stop at my favourite spot, the Blueberry Café, where I enjoy lunch, a few glasses of wine and some chocolate cake before making my way to the spa, where alcohol, sugar and caffeine are banned. But that day, because I was so hung over, I drove just to get there. Fuelled by two Red Bulls, I drove aggressively, with little care for traffic fines or police. I usually jam to music and take in the scenery, but this time I sat in complete silence and hardly noticed my surroundings. I just needed to get there.

I finally arrived just after 6pm. I had no energy to eat or go to the dining room where I would have to socialise with other guests, so instead I checked into my room, changed into my pyjamas, and slept like the dead. The next morning, I woke up groggy, tired and filled with a certain amount of shame that I had driven in that state.

It wasn’t long into my week-long stay, though, that I became restless. The peace and tranquillity and complete lack of cellphone signal grated me, so I found myself breaking out to the Blueberry Café to enjoy a few glasses of wine and chocolate cake.

You would think that, after drinking gallons of water, doing hour-long hikes through the forest at 5am every day, attending water aerobics and yoga classes and eating clean, drinking would be the last thing on my mind. But it was my first thought when I woke up that morning and trekked through the forest for my last morning walk. All I thought about was what wines to get for the dinner I was planning.

By the time I left the spa on the Saturday morning, I felt more refreshed and relaxed, but I needed to rush back to Joburg so that I could stock up on wine because my best friend Pusetso, who lived in Pretoria, was coming over to spend the night. I was also preparing to drink on Sunday; plus, I needed supplies for the week ahead.

I left the Midlands early to enjoy the drive and still make it home in time for the bottle store, which closes at 8pm. I arrived well before closing time and did some grocery shopping. I decided to add a few bottles of wine to my grocery trolley rather than make a separate run to the bottle store, where the selection is more varied. Fun fact, I have four bottle stores and three major grocery shops within a one-kilometre radius of my complex. This was one of the reasons I bought my townhouse in the west of Johannesburg two years previously. I could interchange between them when one cottoned on to my drinking habits – as they did when I lived in Illovo and Killarney. I am not sure why I care about this, but I do.

That night while cooking dinner, sipping on wine and chatting to Pusetso, I discovered the tequila from the week before, so I decided to switch gears and drink that instead of the wine. Before you raise your eyebrows and wonder how I could be enjoying shots while my best friend slowly sips on red wine, I don’t drink my tequila as shots – I sip on it as a double, with a shot of lime and a slice of lemon on ice. I don’t know how many of these I went through during the course of that evening, but I woke the next morning with only a quarter of the bottle left. I was mortified that I, on my own, had drunk nearly three-quarters of a bottle of tequila in one sitting. The result was that I spent the rest of the day beating myself up. Feelings of disappointment raged through me. I punished myself by not drinking alcohol that day, but I carried on drinking the rest of the week, although I vowed to lay off the tequila for a while.

Many times that year, I would wake up from a night of drinking and promise to stop. I contemplated therapy, but I wasn’t sure what to do or who to reach out to. My therapist, Liz, had retired. I discovered this because I called her. I was disappointed that she didn’t remember me or even offer any referrals. AA and NA seemed a little too drastic. I didn’t consider myself an alcoholic. The word just seemed so