Every year, as the nights start drawing in, the nation’s wine racks breathe a sigh of relief as thousands crack on with Sober October, the 31-day challenge to abstain from alcohol. Overnight, the grape juice runs dry and, for many, the moral panic flows: are you just a social drinker, or should you be worried?
We British have a knack for reassuring ourselves that abstinence, if timed right, is proof of control. And Sober October becomes the litmus test: manage a month off the sauce and you’re ok. Proceed as normally. Nothing to see here. Yet, beneath the surface, there’s a question swirling round the rim: if you’re counting down the days until you can drink again, did you ever really sober up? You might be physically sober, but you were almost certainly still spiritually sloshed.
I think the last time I completed Sober October was 2018 (and I’ve just realised, I should give an honourable mention for the 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and, by midnight tonight, the 2025 editions of Sober October as I have completed them as someone in recovery). The 2018 edition was not a totally futile exercise for me, as it provided respite for my ex-wife and I raised more than £1,000 for charity, but it didn’t teach me any lessons. I was a very heavy, although not physically dependent, problem drinker at this point and I treated the month as penance. Running the clock down until November. Tick follows tock as the old Guinness ad said.
For 31 days my ego occupied the moral penthouse while everyone else slummed it in the basement. I paraded my virtue on social media and that gave me a level of accountability that I could get on board with. I was flawless in my execution. I didn’t even glance at a glass of Gavi, but as November dawned, and the last little ghost retreated from my doorstep, I had my own Halloween treat waiting. The pumpkins quickly turned to piss. Forget Halloween, the real horror was how effortlessly I resumed the old routine.
Anyway, during all this chat of Sober October I saw a few folks talking about ‘functioning alcoholics’ and this is something that always grinds my gears. Let’s uncork this nonsense once and for all: the term ‘functioning alcoholic’ feels like a polite euphemism dressed in denial; an eccentricity akin to collecting antique corkscrews or voting Liberal Democrat. The phrase is less a diagnosis and more of a comfort blanket. Alcoholism doesn’t function. It survives. It limps. It improvises.
The problem is framing, which makes people like me hard to spot; something I mentioned in my first post (POST #1: Am I an Australian Tax Resident?). You can still have a job and a car and a wife and some wages and be a problem piss artist. Society’s booze blinkers mean you can live and lash in plain sight but maintaining the façade of ‘normalcy’ while dealing with addiction is exhausting and unsustainable. The cost to you will come eventually, you just need to work out what it is before the bill arrives. Papering over the cracks you might be but functioning you are not.
The British often imagine alcoholics as the homeless, incoherently muttering at pigeons at the bus station, and of course they can be, but many who desperately need help are those who still try and make it work, still tuck their children into bed and still laugh at the right moments. They’re not falling down. They’re desperately falling inward. I was in rehab with people that told stories of their utter despondency on waking every morning as they realised they were alive and had to perform for their addiction while lurching through daily life. All. Over. Again.
The point is, if you drink to feel normal, if you drink to feel anything, if you drink and then lie about it (the list of motivations is a long one) then you’re not functioning, you’re surviving – which is noble, but it is not the same as living.
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