Alcohol as a Rite of Passage

One of the biggest lies about alcohol, as told by advertising, the media, and pop culture, is that drinking makes you a “grown-up.”  We learn from an early age to associate drinking with maturity, sophistication, and glamour.  We watch our parents drinking when we’re young and think of it as a symbol of adulthood.  “No, no, you can’t have a sip – that’s just for adults!” or “That’s only for mommies and daddies.”  We learn from television shows, movies, memes, and t-shirts in Target that we should “Rose All Day,” “Wine Down Wednesday,” and have “Mimosa Sundays.” Once you’re a grown-up, the days of your week will be distinguished by the different drinks you’ll consume.

The 21st birthday is celebrated as a major rite of passage.  We look forward to that milestone so we, too, can be grown-ups.  

As a teenager, I was always desperate to be older than I actually was.  I wanted time to pass quickly.  In some ways, I was mature beyond my years, but in so many other ways, I was a total idiot.  When I drank in high school, it made me feel like I was cheating the timeline.  I felt SO sophisticated.

Once I got to college and everyone was drinking, I felt even older and wiser.  We were on our own, we had ARRIVED.  I still expected to feel different when I actually turned 21.  It was such a big occasion. It meant I was truly an adult, finally.  I could drink legally, I could buy booze, I could be that glamorous woman sipping a martini or glass of red wine in a restaurant….just like in the movies and Sex and the City. 

I expected it to be like some sort of magical switch had flipped. Turns out I didn’t feel any different.  I was still binge drinking at college parties with all of my friends and regularly making horrible decisions.  The trashcan full of jungle juice at frat parties is the exact same once you’re 21.  Spring break in Cancun doesn’t get any classier once you’re legal.

They even offered a class at Virginia Tech called "Wines and Vines."  You can bet your ass I had a spot in that class my senior year.  Of course, the most memorable part was the Thursday night “labs." 

We used a university ballroom for an actual wine tasting.  We sat at banquet rounds and passed around boxes full of different objects to smell (cinnamon, currants, black cherry, pepper, leather) so we could practice identifying odors and tastes in different wines. I’m sure our pallets were incredibly refined.  We were served a variety of wines with food pairings to taste and take lab notes on.  Of course, we were supposed to spit each sip out after properly tasting it, but that was a ridiculous thing to ask of a bunch of college students.  We drank that wine with gusto and considered it our “pre-gaming” before we left the ballroom and walked right across the street to our favorite bar for the Thursday night drunk fest. 

For the next 2 decades, I would continue to drink socially. Less than I did in college, but still too much.  That binge drinking mentality never went away because that’s how I had learned to drink. It’s how the people around me drank.  It was how we let loose after a busy week of adulting.  

I eventually switched almost exclusively to expensive red wine. So mature, right? Nothing implies sophistication and glamour like finishing a bottle of cabernet and sporting red wine stains on your lips and teeth for the night.  Hindsight is a bitch.

Almost every social event, special occasion, and holiday somehow revolved around drinking.  It was the norm with my various circles of friends, the area I lived in, my neighbors, and my friends on social media.  Nothing about my drinking habits seemed unusual, comparatively speaking.  I wasn’t drinking a lot during the week, maybe a few glasses of wine with dinner throughout, but on the weekends, when there was an occasion to drink (which was constant), I almost always went overboard.  I was never good at just having one or two in social settings.  I went ALL IN.  I’d still black out way too often because that seemed to be how my body coped with me poisoning it.  Clearly, my brain was trying to send me a message that I chose to ignore.    

Here's the big dirty secret, though...

After drinking too much, nursing a raging hangover, beating myself up over blacking out, and suffocating under the weight of shame…I did not at all feel, even a little bit….like a grown-up.  I felt like I was trapped in a loop of immaturity that I kept expecting would pass as I got a little older.  There is nothing about getting wasted with friends and comparing notes the next day about who was the most ridiculous that makes you feel old and wise.  I guess somewhere deep down inside, I expected that one day, all of this would just stop and become a thing of the past.  Eventually, we’d outgrow that kind of behavior, right?  I guess I was expecting the growing up to happen magically. 

One Friday, our usual cast of characters planned a neighborhood get-together for the evening because it had been a rough week for all.  It was going to be beautiful out, so we were going to hang out, and we were going to drink a LOT.  We all had that itch to let loose.  Of course, I should have known better.  Any time I’ve gone into an evening with that kind of vibe, the inevitable happens.  Blackout, embarrassment, hangover, shame.  The next day, I was lamenting to my friend, “I can’t believe I let that happen. I’m so embarrassed. I was so drunk, and I don’t remember anything.”  Her response was totally empathetic. “Hadley, you NEEDED that.  It’s totally fine.  You’ve been under so much stress, and you needed to let it all go for the night.”  I nodded my agreement and thanked her for making me feel better.  I did need it.  I DESERVED it.

Holy hell, is that what being an adult is all about?

Life is hard, so we drink to forget, we drink to decompress, we drink to deal with the stress of life, the disappointments, and the losses.  We drink to celebrate, we drink to take our minds off things, we drink to fit in, and we drink to reward ourselves for making it through the hard parts.  We drink because the world has closed down from a global pandemic, we drink because a snowstorm is coming, and we’ll be trapped inside with our kids for a few days, we drink because we're sad, angry or frustrated.  We drink because our husband was diagnosed with cancer and laid off the week he was supposed to start treatment.

Through all of this, booze made me feel a lot of things, but at no point did it make me feel like an adult.  At no point in my drinking career did I feel like a respectable, mature, wise, sophisticated GROWN-UP.  If anything, it left me feeling a little emotionally, physically, and cognitively stunted.  Alcohol failed on its big promise.

It occurred to me around my 6-month sobriety milestone that for the first time in my life, I actually felt like an adult.  It was as if that magical switch had finally been flipped, and it wasn’t a fancy, dirty martini that did it.  It was closing the door on alcohol and learning how to live without it. Learning to feel my emotions, solve problems, and cope with stress, angst, and disappointment.  Learning to love myself for who I am and never again waking up with a feeling of dread and shame.

Those are the things that finally got me across the finish line into adulthood, along with knowing that I was setting a better example for my kids and was always fine to drive or handle an emergency. It was knowing that I was now the type of person I had desperately wanted to be on those hungover mornings when I felt like crawling in a hole to die. 

I spent most of my life thinking alcohol was a symbol of adulthood.  It took giving it up completely at the age of 41 for me to actually grow up, feel like an adult, and step into the best version of myself. 

Go figure.