Welcome to ‘Wavy Thoughts’, my weekly-ish newsletter about how I’m reframing my entire life following my discovering that I am AuDHD.

At the time of writing this newsletter I am 70 days sober from alcohol.

Since realising that something about my relationship with alcohol wasn’t quite right in my late twenties, I have tried many times to go alcohol-free. Yet somehow, once I feel comfy and confident (and a little smug) in my own sobriety, I trick myself into thinking that just one drink won’t hurt. And the cycle repeats, bringing alcohol and its chaos back into my life.

I think being AuDHD can predispose you to problems with alcohol. To be clear, I don’t think neurodivergence means you can’t and shouldn’t drink, just that the ‘relief’ alcohol brings can be extremely attractive to us (the novelty, the excitement, the buzz, social confidence, a way to ingratiate yourself with other human beings, a way to make an intolerable sensory environment tolerable). Of course, maybe it is more complex than that. Maybe the trauma that we all go through as AuDHD individuals in a world not made for us leads many of us to seek out alcohol.

I’m quite a quiet person. Alexythymia and delayed processing mean that I can’t form the words in my head quickly enough to get them out of my mouth in a timely manner. Sometimes I just genuinely don’t want to speak because I have nothing to add to the conversation, or, sorry to be brutal here, but I am simply not interested in what you have to say.

Yet when I have had a drink I become the life and soul of the party. The change is stark. I become a chatterbox, loud and brash. Someone I knew at university once said to me:

“I much prefer drunk you. Drunk you is fun.”

This comment has always stuck with me, because it hurt me a great deal and I never really understood why.

I’ve realised, looking back, that I also used alcohol to switch off my senses. After a full-on day at work where I’d come home feeling like I’d gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson, purely because I’d had to cope with the incessant noise and demands an office can bring, I drank to make my mind stop whirring.

Alcohol became the scaffolding that held up both my social life and my work life. I couldn’t hold it up by myself, I couldn’t even really create my social life by myself. But the more I drank, the more trouble I knew I was in. I only ever drank in the evening, but too frequently. It was time to pack it in.

When I decided it was seriously time to get sober it was because I knew I had to. Getting sober in England is a bit of a challenge. Our country absolutely loves a drink, it is ingrained in our culture. There should be a big picture of a pint on the Union Flag. Whatever social class you are, wherever you are from, unless you’re one of those teetotal snowflakes, you probably absolutely love getting pissed (or trollied, pickled, pie-eyed etc, we literally have so many slang terms for drunkenness it should be a bit of a red flag in itself).

It is no exaggeration to say that there are alcohol adverts all over the place. Large billboards make it very clear that the cool professionals drink spiced rum, the classy ladies drink white wine and the manly men enjoy a pint of ale. Look at how much fun these people are having. You are missing out if you don’t join in.

What the adverts don’t show is the cool professional starting a fight, the classy lady glugging liver salts like her life depends on it the morning after, and the manly man trying his best to ignore that pain in his abdomen that he gets whenever he has a few too many. I would absolutely love to see a ban on alcohol advertising in this country. I doubt I’ll see it in my lifetime though.

So here I am. Once again going for sober. This time I’m trying to be more mindful than before. Sobriety is a continual choice made every single day. I’ve had to learn to cope with the challenges my autism and ADHD bring without drinking. I’ll write more about that another time.

I’m not here to pass judgement. Do what you like, just look after yourself, we’re all adults here. All I’m saying to my neurodivergent siblings is: enjoy yourself, and know when alcohol is and isn’t serving you.

And for my sober siblings, I will not drink with you today.

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