by Jill Stark
I leave the party glad that I won’t be hung-over tomorrow. There will be no remorseful realisations. But the insecure part of me, even after a year of living without alcohol, worries about being the odd one out. That’s something I’ve been unable to shake — that sense that you’re not fully part of the group if you bail early. The next day, over lunch or a pub recovery session, people laugh and swap stories from the tailend of the party and you’ve got nothing to say. The things you do recall, people would rather not remember.
This is the first party of the season. From here, my Facebook feed starts to fill up with friends posting pictures of themselves wearing Santa hats and drinking champagne. There are endless discussions about aching livers, the horrendousness of hangovers, and the best way to cure them. Australians tend to favour a greasy fry-up and Bloody Marys, whereas my Scottish friends recommend packets of crisps and bottles of Irn-Bru. The Christmas spirit is so abundant, some people have two or three parties in one day. I meet one friend for lunch at the end of a big week, and she’s so exhausted she looks like she’s hanging on by her fingertips. The festive season is a marathon, not a sprint.
At work, management put out the annual Christmas-party warning, reminding us that the standards of the workplace are to be maintained at all social functions associated with Fairfax Media. I’m not sure when they last visited our newsroom, but they might want to rephrase that — unless they want us all to swear like wharfies and crack jokes that would make a sailor blush. The email also warns that harassment, offensive or inconsiderate behaviour, and excessive alcohol consumption — the hallmarks of any good Christmas party — are all off-limits. It’s perhaps understandable that our bosses want to save us from ourselves: December is a month of mayhem. The weather’s warming up, work finishes, and holidays begin, making it one of the busiest times of the year for emergency services. The last working day before Christmas marks the start of a huge spike in alcohol-related problems, with a 50 per cent increase in ambulance callouts for alcohol intoxication on that day alone. New Year’s Eve is the same. Too much festive spirit can ruin even the best party.
On the day of the Sunday Age party, some colleagues ask if I’ll drink. They suggest that a big night on the piss would be good for the dramatic arc of my book’s narrative, and offer to assist me in my relapse. I can’t think of anything more absurd or disappointing than getting this far only to get drunk two weeks before the end. Several colleagues joke that it just won’t be the same without the seasonal Starkers outburst. One workmate remarks, ‘You’re like a fat comedian who loses lots of weight. You’re just not as interesting.’
I vow to challenge this perception at the party and, after a couple of cranberry and sodas, I front my editor, who’s been sitting in a corner talking to the same two staff members for an hour, and demand that she mingle. It’s a rare chance for her to spend time with our many talented freelancers, and she should get out there and press the flesh. She’s surprisingly acquiescent, and starts to work the room.
As the evening progresses, I make more verbal gaffes, blurting out opinions perhaps best kept to myself, and I realise anew that it’s not alcohol that makes me tactless; it’s just my personality.
But in a sign that she forgives my forthrightness, my editor tells me that she thinks it’s an extraordinary achievement to have gone so long without a drink, one that she confesses she doubts she could match. Even Cam, the man who told me my book about not drinking could be titled ‘My Year With No Mates’, is full of praise. ‘Well done, Starkers. That’s a fucking monster effort,’ he says, as he clinks my lemon, lime, and bitters with his beer. I examine the comment for his trademark sarcasm, but find none. It makes me pause to reflect. A whole year without alcohol — it’s really something. In recognition of this, in the annual staff awards I receive the Sober as a … Journalist Award for ‘being off the booze for over a year, despite occupational hazard’. It’s quite a turnaround from last year’s inaugural Jill Stark Drinking Award.
I leave the party at 11.00 p.m., feeling satisfied that I’ve had a good night but with the niggling sense I might be missing out on some fun. In the morning I wake up feeling ever so slightly hung-over, which is odd, given that I drank soft drinks and water all night. But I have all the signs: a dry mouth and a slight headache, and I’m very tired. Perhaps it was the cigarette smoke at the rooftop bar, or maybe I overdosed on sugary soft drinks. It could be a phantom hangover — the memory of Christmas parties past. Last year, I managed four hours’ sleep between leaving the after-party pub session and rocking up to work, and previous years were no different. Maybe my body is so used to waking up in a state of wretched disrepair after this event, it has reacted accordingly. Whatever the reason, it’s as if my body’s reminding me of what I haven’t missed over the last 12 months. Those hangovers, with the exhaustion, the scratchy throat, the craving for carbs, and the heightened feelings of melancholy and lethargy, were so debilitating. I’m not sure the reward I got from a few beers was worth enduring those mornings-after.
I ARRIVE EARLY and sit at a picnic table in a courtyard near the emergency department. A man wearing shorts and a singlet is smoking a cigarette and shuffling slowly towards the cafe behind me, wheeling a drip beside him. He looks at me and I offer a smile; he casts his eyes to the ground. I wonder what he’s in for. It’s been six months since I was last here. When I came to meet Jon Currie at St Vincent’s for an interview that evolved into a clinical diagnosis, I was wrapped up in a scarf and a thick coat.
A warm breeze gains momentum, picking up napkins and random detritus, and scattering them across the courtyard. My heart flutters in unison. It’s taken so long to arrange these brain scans that I thought it would never happen. Part of me was glad. But when I got the email, it became real. I had to read it twice before it sank in. It came from a neuroimaging scientist at St Vincent’s Centre for Clinical Neurosciences and Neurological Research. He said the scan would involve ‘high-resolution structural images, along with diffusion-weighted imaging, allowing us to generate 3D images of the white-matter tracts of the brain’. I wasn’t entirely sure what it meant, but it sounded serious. Now I’m at the hospital, I’m terrified by what these images will show.
I make my way from the courtyard to the neuroimaging department next door. When I arrive, the front door is locked. It’s Saturday. I press a buzzer and tell the voice that answers I’m here for an MRI. Suddenly, I am a sick person.
The MRI centre is in the basement. I can hear machines whirring, and the distant sound of an alarm. Other than that, it’s eerily quiet. The reception area is decked out in tinsel and two fake Christmas trees, but nothing about this place feels festive. The receptionist takes an inordinate amount of time to find me on the system. I wonder if I’ve been filed under a different category from all the genuinely sick people — perhaps there’s a separate sub-section for time-wasting binge drinkers.
I sit down on a squeaky blue chair. There are two other women in the waiting room, both in their sixties. When it’s my turn, a nurse, Milly, ushers me down a long corridor into the MRI area, and we sit down at a desk. She pulls out a form, recording my weight and allergies. She asks if I could be pregnant, and if I have a pacemaker or any body piercings. No. Then she reels off a list of conditions I must disclose. Diabetes? No. Epilepsy? No. Heart disease? No. Any liver damage? I pause. She looks up, raising one eyebrow. ‘Not that I know of,’ I reply in a whisper.
‘So we’re scanning your brain today?’ she says, the way a hairdresser might discuss options ahead of a cut and colour.
‘Yes, please,’ I reply, my tone unintentionally eager.
I’m led into a changing room, where I take off all my clothes except my undies, and put on royal-blue hospital scrubs. As I fold my singlet and skirt and place them neatly in a metal locker, I wonder what Milly thinks of me. Does she know why my brain is about to be scrutinised from every conceivable angle? How many alcoholics does she see h
ere? Or is it mostly people with brain tumours? Oh my God. What if they find a brain tumour? How many patients leave this department with life-changing, or life-ending, news? I close the locker door and lean my head against it. Slow, deep breaths.
When I come out, I’m met by the MRI technician. She tells me her name, and I instantly forget it because at the same moment I spot over her shoulder the machine I’m going to spend the next 45 minutes trapped inside. It’s just as imposing as it looks in the hospital shows on television. It screams sickness. I lie down on what I suppose is a bed of sorts, my feet slightly raised. She tells me that she’s going to put a cap on my head — it’s a bit like a bike helmet. I must lie completely still. If I have an itch, I can’t scratch it. She lays a blanket over me and inserts foam earplugs in my ears. ‘The machine is very loud and for one of the scans, it will vibrate quite a bit. Don’t worry, that’s normal,’ she tells me, her voice sounding as if we’re underwater.
Lying motionless under my blanket, I feel like a corpse wrapped in a shroud. She moves two padded plates to the side of each temple, securing my head in a gentle vice. The bed moves backwards into the machine as I see her, in the mirror above me, leave the room and take up a position behind a monitor in the viewing area next door. She watches me through the glass.
When it starts, the noise is frightening. A loud and angry buzzer sounds again and again. So much for my plan to meditate my way through this. The next one is lower, like a foghorn, and slower, but just as loud. After a while, I start to get pins and needles in my hands, wrists, and forearms. They’re never still for this long. The last noise is the worst. It’s a siren, fast-paced, and similar to the sound accompanying the green man on a pedestrian crossing, only two octaves higher and twice the speed.
After a few minutes, the vibrations start. First they’re around my head, and then my temples, and then underneath me. They are violent. The machine shudders as if the green man were wielding a pneumatic drill. I really want this to stop, but I lie here. Still.
When it’s over, the bed moves out of the machine and I jump up. The blood rushes to my head and I sway. I can only imagine how much more terrifying that experience would be if you knew that the results of the scan could alter the course of your life. I hope that’s not the case for me.
The whole experience is finished in just over an hour. As I leave, I go past the waiting room and see a man in a baseball cap and shorts, his limbs limp and wasted. He’s slumped forward in one of the blue chairs, snoring loudly. Fellow patients flick through gossip mags and fumble with their phones as though he were no more than an apparition, but I can’t stop staring. This emaciated man, whose body has defied him, seems portentous. Is he my Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?
I’M INVITED TO a friend’s Christmas cocktail party. It’s a house party, but quite a special event: all-you-can-drink beer, wine, and champers, plus a different cocktail served on the hour every hour, with accompanying canapés cooked by an apprentice chef from one of Melbourne’s most famous fine-dining restaurants. I’m a bit bummed that I can’t enjoy the cocktails, but our hostess mari-claire kindly offers to have her resident mixologist whip me up matching mocktails. At least I’ll look like I’m drinking the same exotic concoctions as the other guests.
When we arrive late on Sunday afternoon, everyone is dressed up and looks fabulous. It’s a great atmosphere. The other guests start off with beers and champagne, while I go with water.
The first cocktail is served. It’s a peach Bellini. Mari-Claire tells me my non-alcoholic equivalent is on its way and heads back into the kitchen. A few minutes later, she proudly hand-delivers my drink. I’m so used to being the odd one out that there’s something quite thrilling about being given a champagne coupe, frothy-pink and sparkling, like all the others. I admire it for a couple of seconds, and take a swig. As it hits the back of my throat, there’s a sharpness that I recognise instantly. In that split-second, something snaps. I feel a surge in my brain like electricity rushing through a powerline. It’s alcohol.
Thoughts and emotions tumble over one another in my head. Suddenly, I’m consumed with the possibility of getting drunk. Who would know? I’m certain it’s alcohol, but I tell myself that maybe it’s just a bitter-tasting mixer, such as tonic. Better take another sip. I get another surge of electricity. I can see myself knocking back beers and partying into the next morning. The buzz is exhilarating.
Then, I realise what’s just happened. Less than two weeks to go, and I’ve failed. Can I really say I went a year without alcohol after this? Tears well as I turn to Loretta and hand her my glass. ‘Taste that. Is it alcohol?’ I watch her as she tastes and nods. I’m devastated. She puts a hand on my shoulder and tells me that it’s okay, it was two sips and it doesn’t count. I didn’t know it was alcohol. Mari-Claire is hugely apologetic. This was no sabotage — it was a genuine stuff-up. She makes me a new one, and this time the champagne is replaced with soda water, as per the original plan.
For the next hour, I battle a voice in my head that says, ‘Fuck it. You might as well get drunk.’ I prevail and enjoy the rest of my night sober, trying not to dwell on the mishap. As a consolation prize, I smoke a few of the joints being passed around, knowing that this is a bad idea but doing it anyway. Then I smoke a few more.
I get chatting to a girl I vaguely recognise, but have never formally met. People are limbo-dancing on concrete in the driveway. The ground is getting wet and slippery as rain cascades over the side of the tin roof, covering the makeshift dance floor. I tell the girl that someone’s going to end up on their back. She replies, ‘It’ll be nothing compared to the fall you took last year.’ I have no idea what she’s talking about. She tells me that at one of these Christmas parties last year, I was dancing on a kitchen floor slippery with beer when my legs went from under me and I flew into the air, landing on my back with such an impact that there were real concerns I might have broken something. That’s how she recognised me. I’m that girl. ‘The noise when you hit the floor was unbelievable. We were amazed you just got back up and kept dancing,’ she says, smiling. I laugh, nodding to my water bottle and remarking on how different things are this year. Quietly, I’m troubled that my brain has erased all memory of this event. Landing flat on my back on a cold, hard dance floor is exactly what I did on my 25th birthday, ten years ago. Now seems a good time to leave.
Only when I get in my car to drive home do I realise how stoned I am. It’s lashing down rain. I’m doing about 40 kilometres in an 80-kilometre zone, gripping the steering wheel like a 90-year-old grandmother. When I reach an intersection I don’t recognise, I take a wrong turn and end up doing laps in a McDonald’s car park, unable to find the exit. I feel like I’m trapped in an Escher painting. My brain starts to eat itself. How the fuck do I get out of this car park?
After several more laps and a string of expletives, I finally find the road home. My heart is pounding. I’m an idiot for driving in this state. How horribly ironic it would be to go nearly a whole year without drinking, only to be arrested for driving while stoned ten days before the finish line. When I pull into my car park, relief floods my muscles and leaves me limp. I kiss the steering wheel and, despite more than three decades of devout atheism, cross myself.
Lying in bed, I’m exhausted, but I can’t sleep. That sip of alcohol stays with me. I’m worried about the way I reacted when the champagne passed my lips — that surge of electricity. It felt so wrong, and yet so right.
TWO DAYS LATER, I turn up to a scheduled appointment with Jon Currie to discuss the results of my brain scans and to take more tests. I arrive at his Fitzroy addiction clinic, fittingly housed in an old building that used to be a pub and still has the name, Devonshire Arms Hotel, inscribed in stone above the door.
He shows me into his office. On his computer screen is a bluish image of my brain, taken from above, on a black background. It’s very weird to see my scalp exposed like that, my brain sitting
behind what looks like two white golf balls, but are actually my eyes. In another image, my profile is visible — my nose, lips, and chin — just as in a photograph, except that I’ve been sliced in half, I have no hair, and you can see my spinal cord running up to my brain. He points to the grey matter of my brain and says that we’re looking for shrinkage in these areas. He’s also looking for damage in the white tracts that run between the grey matter like fat, wiggly worms. These are the cables that transfer information. I’m staring at the screen, but I have no idea what’s bad and what’s good. Is it damaged or not?
After an insufferably long silence, he says quietly, ‘This looks like a normal, happy brain.’ For the first time, Jon’s telling me something that doesn’t make me feel nauseated. ‘The good thing is you’ve emerged from your 12 months with a normal, healthy brain. What we don’t know is whether it was a normal, healthy brain 12 months ago.’
I’m so relieved. He tells me there’s evidence to show that some structural damage in white matter caused by drinking can improve over time, if you catch it early. It would have been fascinating to know if my brain was in a state of disrepair at the start of the year and my break from booze has healed it. We can only speculate on whether half a lifetime of binge drinking had taken its toll. But I remember how heavy my head felt on those Saturday mornings at work, when my Friday-night partying made everything so slow and laborious. It felt as if my brain wasn’t functioning properly. I don’t need definitive evidence that it was damaged to know that I don’t want to feel that way again.