Each week, we post short interviews with interesting people about their thoughts and feelings on women and drinking. There is such a wide array of perspectives about this topic, and we are excited to gain insight into as many as possible and to share them with you.
Ruth Fowler is a writer, screenwriter and journalist from Wales, who now lives in Los Angeles with her dog, “Mr Chips.” Her first book, Girl Undressed was published by Viking in 2009.
Drinking Diaries: How old were you when you had your first drink and what was it?
Ruth Fowler: My first illicit drinks at aged 6 or 7 were the sticky dredges of red wine and port left in the bottom of dirty glasses from my parents’ entertaining guests at home the night before. My parents used to throw huge elaborate dinner parties in Wales and everyone would eat rich food and get bladdered on excellent wine – my Dad was a real wine snob. My first “allowed” drink was probably a can of Bucks Fizz bought from a British store called Marks & Spencer by my parents. I was around fourteen. My parents always bought us booze, figuring if we drank at home, we wouldn’t feel the need to run off and do stupid things with other teenagers. They were right. I only did stupid things when I left home and they couldn’t see me drinking!
How did/does your family treat drinking?
Drinking is a completely normal part of life in my family. The first thing my Dad did when he got home from work was make himself a glass of Scotch, and we soon became adept at mixing it for him. Over dinner, a bottle of wine would be cracked open – probably 3 or 4 nights a week. Drinking utterly lacked mystique, and it took me a really long time to get to grips with the Prohibition-era hangover America seems to have in its characterization of alcohol as the devil. The fact that kids can’t drink until they’re 21, but can be parents and drive cars and get married at 16 is absurd. I think my parents’ European attitude toward alcohol is more French or Spanish than British. Brits tend to binge drink in public. Americans tend to do it in private, like a dirty secret. My parents drank happily and genially, and seemed to enjoy it as a complement to life, an added ingredient of the evening, rather than the purpose of the night.
How do you approach alcohol in your every day life?
I don’t approach alcohol at all anymore – I avoid it. It makes me depressed, it makes me act like a fool, it leads me to drugs and idiotic behavior. Even though I miss those nights of letting it loose, causing chaos and singing with strangers in a bar, the trade off I have with no drinking is calm, peace of mind and self-respect, and while that didn’t mean shit in my twenties, in my thirties these are qualities I value very much. However, I do miss drinking. I miss alcoholic bar conversations. But I’ve had so many I really don’t sit here at home beating myself up over it, thinking “if only I was in a bar!” I have far too many other things to get on with these days. I don’t have time to accommodate drinking or hangovers.
Have you ever had a phase in your life when you drank more or less?
I used to drink a hell of a lot in college, as everyone did. When I worked with a bunch of lairy sailors on boats, I drank every day. And when I worked in a strip club in New York my alcohol intake was massive, simply to get through the job. I certainly wouldn’t say I was a full-blown alcoholic – I was fortunate enough to never be physically addicted to alcohol. But I did depend on alcohol mentally to get me through an evening, whether that was dancing naked, or simply sitting in a restaurant having a meal. Not having that crutch to rely on was the hardest thing about stopping drinking. It took me about 2 years to be able to let go of the self-consciousness and shyness of being sober in a drinking world.
What was your drink of choice? Why?
I used to love New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and Montepulciano D’Abruzzo. When I stripped it was always Grey Goose and Soda with ice and a twist of lime, as it gave me a nice buzz without too many calories, and fewer blackouts. Now my drink of choice is a nice cup of tea, or a Kombucha. Crazy times.
Can you tell us about the best time you ever had drinking?
There wasn’t one “best time” drinking, but I loved those nights when I’d start off in a bar with a friend for one drink, intending to have a quiet, early night, and end up having some mad, crazy adventure with a bunch of strangers across London or New York or the Caribbean, and at some point – smudged, stained, addled, bruised and saturated with booze – I’d look up to see the sun rise and think something suitably pretentious and emotional like, “This is it! This is living! Right here!” And then I’d have a stinking hangover and feel like shit for the next five days, until it happened all over again.
What about the worst time?
The worst times I ever had drinking were those nights in the strip club when I’d black out and hear a few days later of the stupid, dangerous things I’d said or done, and then I’d check my phone and realize I’d drunk dialed a bunch of people, and then I’d get emails asking why I’d sent someone a nonsensical rant at 5am. When drinking stopped being fun and just became one long fuzzy stroll through the land of degradation, it became bad. It took a good few years of bad for me to stop entirely though. Life wasn’t much fun, and I still preferred a chemically induced buzz to take the sting out of life. I preferred the fantasies of booze to the sharp pinch of reality.
Has drinking ever affected—either negatively or positively—a relationship of yours?
Two of my serious relationships have been with sober men in recovery. I was drinking at the time. They were my inspiration to stop, actually. I had so much fun with both of them, and I had never had fun with people who didn’t drink before. Most of my life I spent wishing more people drank to excess, so we could all get wasted and have a laugh together. I equated fun and friendship with alcohol. Sober didn’t enter the picture. These two men changed my way of thinking. I will always love them for that.
If you could be any drink, what would it be? Why?
A proper old Whisky Sour – not too sweet, not too tart – with frothy egg-white peaks on top. I love Whisky Sours. The last time I drank them was in a bar in Prenslauerberg in Berlin, with two German guys I called Klaus 1 and Klaus 2, despite the fact neither were actually called Klaus at all. I think they were called something like Hans and Adolf. I drank with Klaus 1 and Klaus 2 and my twin sister until the early hours of the morning in this tinpot bar with Stasi lino on the floor and broken wooden furniture. I always seem to be in Europe with my twin sister when I’m drinking Whisky Sours. The time before that was in Prague, and the time before that in Spain. My parents lived in Spain for ten years – my Dad makes an exceptional Whisky Sour. Whisky Sours are good times. Maybe I’ll drink one at Christmas and I’ll drink perfectly, to the point of an exceptional buzz – not too wasted, not too lairy. I’ll turn in on time having had a wonderful night free of humiliation and pain and suffering. Spoken like a true alcoholic in denial.
