How not to be a heavy drinker

This is a paper I didn’t sign up for at university, but found myself studying anyway: Heavy Drinking 101.

I grew up in Wellington. I was raised in a good family, educated at Catholic schools and we all went to church on Sundays. On the surface, you’d probably imagine this was enough to set me on a good path and that I’d just follow the white picket fence script. But like many other Kiwi guys and girls, that’s not how the story went.

Leaving school and moving into your late teens to early twenties is a pivotal period in anyone’s life. For me (and I’m still going through this at the ripe old age of 28!), I see this as the period when we form our own identity as we enter adulthood. This is our time when, as we become more independent and have lots of different options available to us, we start writing our own story.

Off to uni

I left Wellington for Otago University. I went for the fun, to move out of home and because there was the attraction of a great PE school down there. Yet I experienced a huge conflict every day with my decision. Was I supposed to live the Scarfie dream of our YOLO, do-whatever-makes-you-happy, consume-everything generation, or was this the time to work hard, get good grades and some work experience, and create the foundation for a good career?

At 19, even though I was studying something I was really interested in, I chose to be there for the lifestyle. I had a friend who went to Otago a year earlier and he raved about it. So I went chasing similar adventures.

Leaving home to live in my own room in a Hall of Residence was a huge adjustment. From having a regular schedule with my parents having expectations of good behaviour, to having complete freedom with no one calling me out on anything. From starting every weekday with 8:45 am roll calls, to optional guest appearances at 11 am lectures.

Heavy drinking

I went along with my new environment and drank. I drank heavily, which seemed like ‘the Kiwi thing to do’. It’s not cool how glorified alcohol abuse is in this country. Throwing up, talking loudly about how we forgot what happened last night, casual hook-ups—we treat all this as if it’s just routine and what everyone is, or should, be doing.

But when we see those words ‘heavy drinker’, we see the negatives.

In the environment I was in, away from the family and friends who had shaped me and my values, I got lost in it all. It was a lot of fun, and I must admit that I wanted more fun. Soon, Saturday nights were okay, but Wednesdays and Thursday nights out were even better.

Fun vs ambition

And that’s where the battle of fun vs ambition started. It didn’t take long before I was missing my 11 am lectures, let alone the 8 am ones.

And so, my O-week turned into an O-semester. I failed papers, all but one—and passing that was a miracle! I put on weight and was an inconsiderate flatmate. There was nothing malicious in what I was doing; I just wanted to have fun.

I was a bright kid in school, so to fail for the first time hurt. A lot. I was always active and in good shape, so to lose this was a low point too. And to realise I was wasting my white picket fence upbringing was a hard realisation.

So, I cut back. Enough to pass, at least. But I would still have hard Mondays when the body—and the mind in particular—was fuzzy and slow.

A clean break

It wasn’t until after I graduated and moved back to Wellington that I finally made a clean break from drinking. Three months. I gave in when I visited a friend in Sydney. We watched a big game of football in a bar in King’s Cross. Looking back, wandering around at 4 am past a whole lot of strip bars was pretty seedy. Three months waiting … and that was it.

Later on, I tried four and a half months, but again, I gave in to pressure to drink. Rugby World Cup final in Wellington. It was fun, no doubt. But, as with many big occasions since, I came away thinking, ‘If I needed alcohol to enjoy it, then it wasn’t that great an occasion or event, was it?’

Later, I set a goal of six months. This was partly a necessity, money wise. I realised that in the past I had spent thousands of dollars on alcohol. Many thousands. When a big night blows three figures standard, and these nights become weekly, it’s shocking to think about the amount of money I was drinking.

But I had made a big commitment to get to Brazil with my friends for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and with the money I was earning, there was only one way to save money: say goodbye to the drink.

I don’t drink

Six months rolled round, and by then I was simply telling people, ‘I don’t drink.’ No explanation, no timeframe. And so I continued. All the way to the World Cup.

As the time for our trip to Brazil got closer, I realised I didn’t want to drink there either (even though, originally, the prospect of ‘partying in Brazil’ had been the attraction of not drinking for the 18 months prior).

So I didn’t. And my friends were okay with it. And I had the time of my life. Sober!

Unlearning the myths

When I think about it, I learnt more by not drinking than I did by drinking. Or maybe I had to go sober to unlearn the myths our culture tells us about drinking. That we need alcohol to have a good time, to talk to girls, to dance. This comes from a wider consumer culture where we’re also told that we need these clothes or that accessory, or we are nothing—not cool, not part of what everyone else is doing.

I’m not going to tell you what to do. This time in your life is for you to figure out who you are and what you are about. This is the time to confront the challenge of living for the moment vs setting up your future—of fun vs ambition.

But what I will tell you is that if you can attach some meaning and purpose to this journey, all these battles can be won. Or, to put it another way, if you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything.

So, keep being you, and all the best in finding who that is. Chances are you already know.

By Matt Fejos

After university, Matt worked for a few years infecting New Zealand’s capital city and local high schools with a passion for the wonderful game of futsal. After heading off on his OE to the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, Matt is now  teaching English in his ancestral homeland of Hungary.