I had my cousin’s twenty-first birthday today. I had been dreading the idea of being stuck in a room full of drunks. There’s that, and my social anxiety always spirals out of control around groups of people, whether I know them as I do today or they’re complete strangers. I turned down a lift so I could take my car and leave early if it all became too much. I left early. My grandma was there and was over the moon to see me; she told me she had been so worried when I was in hospital. In fact, pretty much everyone who saw me asked how I was and said they had been deeply concerned. Mum had clearly sent a message in the family WhatsApp. Some people spoke to me about it, and others didn’t. It was kind of everyone to make the effort to check in and talk to me.
This event was at the Frankston RSL and held in a fairly cramped area packed with people, so it’s always difficult to hold a conversation for any length of time, especially with more guests arriving who want to say hello and shake hands. I didn’t even get the chance to properly greet the birthday boy. Wow — I’m twenty-two years older than him, and my other cousin has just turned eighteen. As the oldest of the many cousins in my family, I’ve watched most of them grow up, which really makes me feel old.
There was one thing that genuinely blew me away. My alcoholic uncles have all given up drinking. This is huge, because they were once heavy drinkers and even brewed their own home brews that were better than anything you can buy off the shelf. They took their drinking seriously. One has a badly damaged liver, another has damage to his aorta, and the third has now been sober for five years. This is something I never thought I’d see — I assumed they’d drink until they were on their deathbeds. One of them told me how uncomfortable and anxiety-ridden he felt in that atmosphere and said he wouldn’t be going to an upcoming concert with me because he had never been sober in that setting before. So my uncles, all but one, have gone sober, and my cousin who didn’t show up today has also quit drinking. And then there’s me. That makes five large drinkers who have quit over the last month. It just goes to show the terrible effect alcohol can have on the body: the older you get and the longer you drink, the more damage you do to yourself. It creeps up on you. I’m speaking from experience after my recent hospital stint. I have gone through plenty of tests and scans; the short of it is I have kidney disease. All five of us can do now is not drink and hope things improve.