Alcohol was once as essential a part of my Christmas as the fragrance of the fir tree, the crackle of wrapping paper and the aromas wafting in from the kitchen.
From the Buck’s fizz my husband would bring at breakfast, to the wine sipped stirring the gravy, to the glass of port watching The Sound Of Music and the cognac in the evening, snuggled on the sofa, drink punctuated the big day.
I would never have contemplated the idea of a drink-free Christmas: it would have seemed far too dull. So, somewhat to my surprise, this will be my 20th stone-cold sober 25th of December – and it won’t be remotely joyless.
For me it’s the exact opposite. Being sober has been a way to reclaim Christmas as a joyful time.
Let me explain why.
Christmas is supposed to be a happy time but for many it’s also a treacherous one, when deeply buried memories bubble to the surface and emotions run high.
We are bombarded with images of perfect families – idealised versions that bear little resemblance to many people’s flawed realities. Throw alcohol into the mix and it can become truly destructive.
My choice to live alcohol-free back in 2004 was not prompted by worries about my own consumption – though, in hindsight, perhaps it should have been.
Like almost everyone I knew, I was drinking far more than the recommended units and had my fair share of evenings teetering home in stilettos or tumbling out of taxis. No, the reason I gave up drink was that I had seen first-hand the devastation alcohol can cause when it takes control.
It took my father, Alan, from me – at Christmas – and it broke my heart. I was damned if it was ever going to have the chance to take me too. More than that, I wanted to live well, for my dad’s sake.
Ruth Sunderland’s mother and father on their wedding day. Alan was highly intelligent with a ferocious work ethic, but fell into drinking after losing his job when the local steelworks shut
Ruth gave up drink after witnessing the damage it did to her father – he died in his early 60s on Christmas Eve in 1995 – and realising ‘a life without booze would be a life-enhancing choice’
Twenty years ago, when I decided to be sober, it felt as though I was fighting back on his behalf against all the despair and pain.
Dad died on Christmas Eve 1995, far, far too young. He was in his early 60s. I had just left university and was embarking on my first job on a national newspaper in London. My brother Neil, four years younger than me, had left home for a career in the armed forces.
Ostensibly, Dad was killed by cancer, but I always believed he died because his spirit was broken.
As a young man, he was dashing and handsome. He had dark, curly hair and, though not particularly tall at around 5ft 10in, he had a strong presence. Outside of work, he dressed smartly, with a nonchalant elegance. He fenced, played chess and whisked Mum off on his motorbike at every opportunity.
Although he left school at 14, he was highly intelligent, always well-informed and enjoyed nothing more than luring people into a debate, which he would invariably win. Having grown up in a working-class household in Middlesbrough in the 1950s, university was never on anyone’s radar, but in another life he would have been a superb barrister or politician.
Like many men at that time from the North-East, he had a ferocious work ethic. His role, as he saw it, was to provide money for the family, so he left the house for the steelworks before the rest of us had woken and did not return until well into the evening.
Along with his workmates, Dad would go to the pub for a couple of pints at the end of a shift, but drinking was never a problem until he lost his job – and with it a huge part of his identity.
Head Wrightson in Thornaby, North Yorkshire – where he worked from the day he left school until the day the plant shut down in the 1980s (he was literally the last man out) – was one of the casualties of the great economic shift away from heavy industry.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of that, it took a brutal toll on men like my father. Bereft of the anchor his job had provided, he was lost. And into that void came alcohol.
At first, the change was hard to discern. It was just the odd extra drink, a glass of beer or a tot of whisky at home, rather than just a pint at the pub. Soon, I realised he was drinking steadily at home. He stopped going to the pub and became less sociable.
Eventually, he began drinking in the mornings and steadily topped up as the day went on. There’s no history of alcoholism in the family that we know of, so we were probably slow to cotton on. Dad never talked about how he felt – that would have been at odds with his traditional view that men dealt with their troubles on their own, and didn’t bother other people with their difficulties.
He certainly never gave any indication that he knew he was drinking too much. His behaviour became erratic and he retreated into himself.
My mum was phenomenally brave and did her best to help him, while shielding us. She was open about his alcoholism but, like me, had little clue what to do, since he was so resistant to any form of help.
Because I was living away from home when it began to get really bad, I was frantic with worry about Mum and the effect it was having on her, despite her seemingly infinite resilience and love, and her constant insistence she was coping.
At one point, I begged her to leave him and let him hit rock bottom on his own, in the hope that it might save him.
To her very great credit, she did not listen to me. She would never have abandoned him and, in hindsight, I’m incredibly glad she didn’t. I don’t remember exactly how long this lasted, but it was years, not months.
Christmas was really like any other day with Dad – he would be drinking constantly and Mum would be working extra hard to create a perfect Christmas, regardless.
She started preparations weeks in advance with beautiful, handmade table decorations, a lovingly embroidered tablecloth with robins and her delicious Christmas cake. Sadly, the only element Dad cared about was the alcohol.
He was not volatile or violent – if he bubbled with rage, it was directed at himself. He could be extremely annoying, repeating himself endlessly and returning to his various grievances, chief among them the loss of his job.
I grew nervous around him – partly in case he behaved erratically in front of school or university friends, but mainly in case he had an accident. I also worried about the long-term physical damage I knew he was causing himself.
I didn’t get married until several years after his death, but I don’t think he would have been an embarrassment on the day – he would have got quietly drunk but he would have been very proud. He never met my husband, but I’m sure he would have loved him.
Looking back now, I can see Dad was suffering from depression and needed help, but none of us recognised that at the time – it wasn’t part of the vocabulary in Teesside back then. Even if we had, he would have rejected help – fiercely independent, he would not have admitted that he needed any.
The tighter the grip alcohol took on him, the more his world shrank, to the point he barely left the house. But his wit and intelligence never left, and some of my best memories of him are of nights in front of the fire, just sitting and talking about books or politics. For a short while, on evenings like that, my real dad would come back.
He never shouted or smashed things – he was a quiet drinker by and large. He didn’t hurt me by what he did, it was what he didn’t do. He turned in on himself and seemed to lose interest in me. I couldn’t turn to him to be a rock in my life as other daughters could.
Once I read a throwaway line in an article about a girl whose father had helped fix up her flat, and I felt like crying because mine couldn’t manage that for me. I realise now how deeply he did care – it was just that all his energy was being consumed in his own lonely struggle.
As his world shrank, he physically shrank too. The more he drank, the less he ate and the once-athletic man I knew shrivelled away to a husk. When he found out he had throat cancer, he seemed to just give up. He didn’t drink more – if anything, he consumed less alcohol – but he had thrown in the towel. When he went into hospital just before he died, he looked decades older than he actually was.
On that Christmas Eve when Dad finally left us, Mum, who had shown limitless reserves of love, was there at his bedside with my brother and me. All the despair and hurt seemed to ebb out of him as we said our goodbyes. The nurses all commented on what a lovely man he was – and it was true.
In the years immediately after his death, I struggled. From being the time of year I loved most, Christmas became drenched in sadness.
I felt taunted by the happy, perfect families in cheesy American movies. The sentimental ads on TV seemed to be mocking me. It was like looking at a magical scene in the Fortnum & Mason window, but never being able to reach the other side of the glass.
The nadir came one Christmas Day a couple of years after Dad’s death which I spent in floods of tears. I missed Dad and was furious with him for not having loved us enough to stop drinking. Most of all, I was eaten up by guilt that I hadn’t done more to help him.
This was my rock bottom.
When I had wept myself dry, the first glimmer of realisation came that, although I hadn’t been able to save Dad, I still loved him and I could live a life to make him proud. There was a dawning realisation that a life without booze would be a positive, life-enhancing choice.
My final drink was a glass of white wine at Rick Stein’s restaurant in Padstow in Cornwall on a summer holiday in 2004. There was no sense of ceremony, and I didn’t discuss it with anyone, not even my husband – it was a decision I’d reached by myself.
It is hard to describe the mixture of emotions when someone you’re close to falls into the grip of alcohol. It is so raw. It brings you up close with the best and worst of human nature.
The worst is the way an addiction can push people you love, even children, into second place. The best is the redemptive force of love, no matter how hurt you feel.
Some might think giving up alcohol completely is an extreme reaction on my part, but it is my way of regaining control. Children of alcoholics often feel powerless. This has helped to give me a sense of achievement and self-esteem.
I have frequently felt a pariah because of what happened to my dad, and I now know I am far from alone. The charity Nacoa (The National Association for Children of Alcoholics) helps children of any age who are affected by a parent’s drinking: one survey suggests there are three million children in the UK living with parental alcohol problems.
Many of these children will have it far harder than I ever did and will still be in the thick of it this Christmas. My heart goes out to them.
It didn’t occur to me to turn to a charity, and a couple of counselling sessions made matters worse, not better. For me, dredging up the past was just too upsetting. I wanted it to be about self-help, and that meant sobriety.
I did have some worries, the biggest of which was the impact on my friendships. Many of those in my circle are enthusiastic social drinkers and I fretted about being the odd woman out. But I explained to my closest friend what I was doing and she could not have been more supportive.
It may help that I don’t make a song and dance about it. When I go out, I don’t tell people I don’t drink – I just don’t drink. In 20 years, I can think of only one occasion when anyone has even noticed. I don’t evangelise and I never, ever hector anyone else to cut back or quit.
Nor do I judge anyone else. If I’m out socialising I want to have a good time: counting how many units other people are consuming is not my idea of fun.
On every conceivable level, choosing not to drink has changed my life for the better. I lost over a stone in the space of a month without dieting and have kept off the pounds.
I’m a keen runner – it is far easier to find the motivation to exercise if you don’t have a hangover. As well as losing pounds in weight, I’ve gained pounds in money. Even relatively modest drinking soon becomes expensive if you do it regularly. And, of course, it isn’t just the cost of the drink itself, it is the knock-ons such as taxi fares or those late-night online shopping sprees.
Being a financial journalist, I couldn’t resist estimating how much I have saved over those 20 years and it runs into tens of thousands of pounds.
I sleep better, my skin is clearer and I’m less stressed. But the real benefits are much deeper. Being sober means I am always here for the people I love.
As the child of an alcoholic I am at higher risk of drink problems myself. This way, I know I am not at risk of losing myself at the bottom of a bottle. My life and my relationships have improved immeasurably without drink. I don’t think of it as ‘giving up’ or depriving myself – it’s pure gain.
When alcohol takes over, it is a thief. It stole my dad from me and it stole everything he had from him. Cruellest of all, it stole Christmases he could have had with his grandchildren – a granddaughter he adored but barely had time to get to know and a grandson he never met.
I loved my father. I still love him. I miss him more as time goes on. Over time, the intense sadness has faded and memories of the magical family Christmases of my childhood have returned. My mum married again and I was lucky enough to have a wonderful stepfather.
So this year, as always, I’ll find some quiet moments to think of Dad and thank him for the gifts he gave me: of life and of love.
- For further help and advice for families of alcoholics, go to al-anonuk.org.uk or nacoa.org.uk