Why I started drinking
I didnāt start drinking because I liked excess or because I was attracted to nightlife.
Alcohol didnāt come into my life as a transgression, but as a solution. An imperfect solution, but one that was immediately effective.
From a very early age, I grew up in a family environment where the boundaries were unstable. From the outside, everything seemed fine. Inside, the atmosphere was tense, unpredictable, often silent when a protective voice would have been needed. There was authority, sometimes cruelty, sometimes confusion. Above all, there was no space for me to express my feelings without feeling exposed or judged.
As a child, I learned to observe before speaking, to anticipate moods, to be constantly on my guard. For example, I sometimes had to measure my words, avoid certain topics, and sense when to be discreet. Care was not absent, but it was conditional. We could be seen for what we did, but rarely for what we felt. Emotional security was not guaranteed; it depended on the context, the moment, the fragile balance of the moment.
In this climate, I built myself up outside.
Outside of myself, outside of inner peace.
I developed valuable resources: lucidity, endurance, autonomy, the ability to hold on. But these qualities were formed under pressure. They allowed me to move forward, not to rest.
As a teenager and then as an adult, alcohol seemed like a shortcut. Not for fun, but to calm the noise. Not to forget myself, but to contain myself.
Drinking allowed me to finally let myself relax. To stop analyzing every interaction. To take off my armor, even briefly. After a drink, I could breathe without effort. I no longer needed to be tough. I could just be there.
Alcohol gave me something I had never really known: artificial access to inner calm. Gradually, it became a regulator. For exhaustion. For tension. For mental overload.
I could work, build, move forward, with its help. The outer world functioned. The inner world remained on life support. It wasnāt alcohol that created my weaknesses. It adapted to them.
Over time, the price to pay became heavier. My body resisted less well. My mind became dulled. What had helped me cope began to damage me. Above all, alcohol ceased to be a choice and became a necessity that had to be negotiated every day. Thatās when something changed.
I didnāt stop drinking out of shame, nor out of fear of a spectacular collapse. I began to question alcohol out of deep exhaustion. Exhaustion from having to constantly manage myself. Exhaustion from never fully inhabiting my own inner space.
Today, I understand that alcohol was an attempt at repair, but misdirected, costly, and understandable.
Sobriety, for me, is not a return to an idealized previous state. It is the belated realization that I did not receive a livable, stable, quiet inner world early enough in my life.
I am no longer trying to prove anything to myself. I am trying to stay present, without anesthesia. To live without having to dissolve myself in order to cope. I am not telling this story to justify myself or to explain to others how to do it. I am telling it to remain faithful to my own story, without simplifying it, without embellishing it, without denying it.
Thatās how I started drinking. And thatās how I am learning, today, to no longer need it.
