All or Nothing

Regular readers will know that I hate the word 'alcoholic,' and refuse to describe myself as one.

This is not, you understand, because I am in denial. I happily admit to being an alcohol addict. And I (fairly) happily accept that I can never drink again.

BUT I will never happily say "My name's SM and I'm an alcoholic."

(I yelled at Mr SM when he used the word 'alcoholic' in relation to me the other day. Poor thing just looked confused and went back to the Financial Times).

So why the animosity to the A word? Surely it's just an innocent little adjective?

Well, actually, I think the A word does a huge amount of damage.

Because it's become loaded with such terrible baggage. It has an awful image, particularly when it comes to mothers...

If a mother is described as 'an alcoholic' you immediately picture a woman passed out in her own vomit while her grubby, neglected children forage for stale biscuits in the cupboards. Or, at least, that's what I imagine.

The implications of being an 'alcoholic' are so frightening that no-one wants to join the club.

We spend hours, days, Googling 'am I an alcoholic?' and, luckily, the definitions are so vague that we can easily convince ourselves that we are not.

So, instead of addressing the issue of our alcohol addiction (which we secretly know is there) we wrap ourselves happily in the cashmere soft cloak of denial and pour another drink.

The term 'alcoholic' is too black and white: you are one, or you're not. Whereas, actually, alcohol addiction is all about darkening shades of grey. A slippery slope. And one that it's best to get off at the top, before it gets harder.

By the time things are so awful that you'll happily accept the alcoholic badge, you've lost everything, including all self respect, making giving up terribly, terribly difficult.

But that leaves the question what terminology do we use instead?

I like to talk about 'alcohol addiction', because it makes it clear that alcohol is a drug like any other - like nicotine, heroin, cocaine. And, as a result, anyone can get addicted. Not just the unlucky few, born with some genetic disease called Alcoholism.

Then, this weekend I was reading an interview with Fearne Cotton, married to Jesse Wood, son of Ronnie the Rolling Stone.

Fearne talks about how Jesse and Ronnie got sober together: 'an incredible bonding experience.' BUT she doesn't describe her husband as an alcoholic. She says:

Like his dad, Jesse's an all-or-nothing guy, and with a growing family he felt that he'd prefer to not drink alcohol, so it's tea and fruit cake all the way, round at Ronnie's.

HURRAH for the all-or-nothing tribe!

Now that's a label I'm happy to admit to, a club I'll accept membership of.

(And I'm sure thousands more women, currently still home alone, drowning their sorrows and convincing themselves that it's 'normal' to drink a bottle of wine a day, would do the same).

My name's SM, and I'm an all-or-nothing girl. I did decades of all, and I've done 14 months of nothing. And it's great.

The 'all-or-nothing' label makes it clear that our relationship with alcohol is intrinsically tied up with who we are, and, therefore, that drinking again isn't an option, BUT it also portrays the positive side of the coin.

With that descriptor, you don't picture the slovenly mother having her children taken into care, you picture the wild, funny, party girl who's reached the age where she's had to throw in the sequinned towel.

And that, my friends, is me. Not an alcoholic, but an alcoholic addict and all-or-nothing girl.

Love SM x