Style Trend good chameleon and managed to convince most people ‘THE WEIRD THING IS THAT that I was “fine”. A baby and a fledging business? Nailing I STILL DO MOST OF THE SAME it! Well, externally maybe, but really I wasn’t. I’d go home from the office and sob, ending up with crashing baby THINGS, BUT THEY ARE LESS blues and a deep sense of failure. Alcohol was a BORING NOW THAN THEY WERE wonderfully numbing way to escape those feelings and fast became a foul-weather best friend. I was still fighting SEEN THROUGH BEER GOGGLES’ against accepting who I was — a young mother — and desperately trying to keep up the facades of both you can do yoga and have a sense of humour? And that if “entrepreneur Rose” and “fun Rose”. I’d put the baby to you leave a dinner party at midnight, no one remembers bed feeling way out of my depth and exhausted, then put (all the good chats have been had by then anyway)? I no on the vodka-and-tonic cloak and leap away from reality longer think “poor me” about being sober. Instead I think: for as long as my legs would carry me. “Wow, I had a damn good innings and smashed that We moved to the country a year later and hit probably period of my life out of the park, and now I’m in a new the most social period of our lives, which was not the phase, thank God, which is still pretty wacky and plan, dammit! I was a good few years younger than most wonderful.” The only difference is that now I’m off my of our new friends and adopted the persona of a wayward face on life, not alcohol. child, which (the party) people seemed to like. I rarely left OK, so how do you have actual fun as a sober human? a party with my husband, who is a normal drinker and That’s a paradox, right? My fun fuel was booze, so what actually has an off switch, cadging lifts home at dawn the hell do I turn to now? The weird thing is that I still do with other reprobates. It wasn’t a great look for a mother most of the same things, but they are less boring now (now of two). I’d started to work for Soho House, setting than they were seen through beer goggles. Don’t get me up the Farmhouse in Oxfordshire, and we’d laugh about wrong: I’m still me, I love being bad, I love being naughty, the “BLs” (bad looks), not realising that I was a solid I love a thrill. And I’m certainly not perfect — I’m member of that gang. impulsive and my addictions will come out given a SOBERING THOUGHTS The final blow was the opening night of Soho chance (did I really need three pairs of Veja trainers?). Farmhouse. We were lucky enough to have been offered Dancing is my real saviour because letting off steam is a free night in one of the cabins (7ft bed — yes, please), key (being sober doesn’t cure PMT), and an elderflower It’s the season of excess, but could you go without booze? and I didn’t even go inside, so busy was I bustling about, spritzer isn’t going to help with that. I’m actually a pretty Fleur Britten talks to the women who have given it up. If you are being an idiot. The embarrassment, shame and regret crap dancer, but I love it. Ditto singing. So if there are I felt the next week far outweighed the “fun” I’d had with some good tunes to be heard, I’ll be on that dancefloor curious about an alcohol-free life, prepare to be surprised the good-time folk. gooning around for as long as you want me to. I even tried I stopped drinking (with a few bumps along the way) sober raving, which was so ace that it has inspired me to via every means known, finally succeeding thanks to the bring a version of it to the Cotswolds. At a festival last o on, admit it. You’ve drunk more than the ‘I THOUGHT THAT ALCOHOL IGNITED Sober Mummy blog, which introduced me to alcohol-free summer I did “ecstatic yoga dance” with a friend — and recommended intake of alcohol this week. MY SENSE OF HUMOUR AND WITHOUT IT beer — my new BFF. A particularly frank Australian have never laughed so much. Mostly at myself, but that’s After all, what better excuse for a tipple than I’D BE BORING’ BY ROSE ASTOR, 39 friend told me that the ice-cold glass of champagne I was OK because at least I’m choosing to be an idiot, rather Christmas and new year? Not that we Brits I’d love to say that I woke up one morning, hankering for was “for w******” and no one would notice if than being last night’s unwitting joke. need an excuse. Alcohol is so deeply embedded called time and quit the booze there and I didn’t drink. She was right. I thought alcohol ignited my I still go out for dinner with friends, but I’ve retuned Gin British culture that it’s the only drug you have to justify then, but my story is messier than that. sense of humour and without it I’d be boring, and bored, my attention to the food and I can actually hold a not taking. According to a YouGov survey this year, one in The truth is that I revel in maelstrom. My naughty self and that no one would want to be my friend (indulgent conversation without wanging on too much, and I even five UK adults drink more than the low-risk guidelines, can raise its voice at any given moment. Good habits wallow), but it turns out that most people didn’t notice if — shock, horror! — listen to what my neighbour has to and two thirds of them say they would find it more difficult have a hard old battle getting into my psyche. I have had I didn’t drink, and those who did were mostly supportive say, something I used to be a bit ADHD about, with one to reduce their drinking than to improve their diet or many cringy “I need to stop doing this” moments. Most (and possibly relieved). I also discovered that I still have eye on my next awesome move. In a cocktail party or exercise more. Hardly surprising, then, that Brits have a Mondays, feeling like an old cassette tape with the spool a filthy sense of humour when sober, and I’m pretty sure wedding-reception scenario, I’ll station myself near the reputation as the binge drinkers of Europe. unravelled in a pile, I would think, “I need to chuck that.” my husband actually prefers me that way. The not being catering entrance and snaffle the canapés while they’re Things are slowly changing, though, with about 20% of But by Thursday I’d have carefully wound it back into woken up at dawn by an alcohol-fumed loon certainly hot — I’ve found that if you’re hungry, you are more likely adults now abstaining from alcohol, according to the place, ready to blast the speakers out and chew up the helps, and we spend a lot more time hanging out, just the to want that first drink. Office for National Statistics. The blame — or thanks, tape again, repeating the same nonsense and getting the three of us now (Me, Hub, Netflix). Being in the present And the best times were right in front of my idiotic face perhaps — is largely directed at the wellness movement, same results: party all night, loathe myself thereafter. can be scary, as there’s no running from life when it gets all along: being with my husband and three kids. They as more and more people are making a “positive” choice to I wasn’t just somebody’s Friday and Saturday girl, I was tough, but it’s not boring. Being a mum and showing up are cool. We took a term off school last year and went to ditch drink and put their health first. With dry January a Sunday through Thursday wingwoman, too. In my is way cooler than my previous default of glorifying live in Sri Lanka, something I never would have had the around the corner, might you, too? Read on for four twenties I had the stamina for it. Late nights were part “busy” and fuelling my inner “rush” button with alcohol. energy to plan in the bad old days. We ate every meal inspiring stories, from the writer and reformed party girl of my job as an actor’s agent, and we prided ourselves On a hangover, I used to find most things fairly together and pretty much slept in one bed — in the past Rose Astor on how she learnt to have fun without alcohol, on being the last ones standing. My Fomo was at an torturous and my tolerance level was zero: shopping for I’d have been rushing bedtime to get to my wine time, and and three mothers who give their honest accounts of the all-time high, and I didn’t want to miss a thing. groceries, playing with children, having to be a grown-up, heaven help anyone who woke me up with a hangover. complicated relationship between parenting and alcohol.