9 Years Sober and I drank Some Cava and Here's Why I'm Not Making a Big Deal of It
Could returning to an unhelpful coping mechanism reveal progress?
Last week or the week before, I went to my third-year students’ graduation. This event is the highlight of the academic year. It’s wonderful, and I LOVE seeing my students, finally getting a sense of what the hell we have all been up to for the last days, weeks and months in the seminar rooms (or not).
I LOVE graduation.
I love meeting the proud and delighted parents, and seeing the siblings and partners of students, and getting to hang out with my colleagues.
I also find graduation overwhelming.
I hate wearing the ridiculous gown, and the sensation of having a stupid hat semi-falling off my head while I am supposed to be acting professional and at least semi-smart is horrible.
It’s very difficult for me not to talk about my physical discomfort with the ridiculous outfit the whole time.
I enjoy walking into the enchanted Harry Potteresque music. I like trying to spot my students from my priveleged place on stage. I love clapping them all and seeing who inspires the occasional woops that arise, whether from particularly bolshy families or friends.
It's fun watching my colleagues simultaneously struggle to maintain pleasant smiles and collegiate expressions for over an hour.
I love the speeches and the honorary degrees. I even like the dude with the silver mace thing, which contains education, I believe.
But I really, really hate wandering around the room after all the clapping is finished. I’m sorry, but it’s true.
I’m completely unable to see because the room is chock-full and I’m short and not breathing properly, and completely unable to think straight due to my irrational terror of bumping into people I know without warning, WHICH I WILL BECAUSE IT’S GRADUATION.
My enjoyment probably wasn't helped by the fact I almost missed the whole thing due to not checking my calendar.
I only made it because it was on my bff's bday and after lunch when I suddenly remembered I needed to message her happy birthday it also occured to me that I was supposed to be in town for this momentous occasion.
Honestly every day is a neurodivergent nightmare. I genuinely don't understand how I managed life before.
Or how ON EARTH I escaped diagnosis.
This week, my friend Alex introduced me to my new favourite podcast, The Adult ADHD podcast, and I listened to an episode about Social Phobia. It turns out a really high amount of ADHDers have it (I don’t remember the percentage) and I’m pretty sure I am amongst them.
Interestingly, the amount of people who have social phobia who also have ADHD is as high as 80%. The presenters talked about their experiences with this, and I related hard to the experience.
A fear of judgement is a part of it, though that is often unconscious. More apparent to the individual is a fear of being perceived. This is what I experience.
It’s likely connected to Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, though the research doesn’t necessarily show this yet.
Long before I got sober or sought diagnosis I self-diagnosed myself with social phobia. I was not yet 20 and relying heavily on alcohol as a way of being the social butterfly I loved to be. But I’d begun to see how unsustainable this was. How alcohol might not be able to help in the dimension of job prospects.
So I showed up at the GPs and asked for help.
And was heartily and confidently dismissed.
So I carried on using my coping mechanisms aka drinking pints.
And it seemed to get better. Though it’s possible that what really happened, was that I designed my life around it. I worked in restaurants, where heavy drinking is a part of the lifestyle. And I squirreled away at my writing, safe in the belief that drinking was a part of that world, too.
(I was wrong about that, but that’s another story.)
This is all context to explain why I drank one sip of cava or whatever horrible fizzy booze drink they serve at graduation.
One of the hosts on my new favourite podcasts described their experience with social phobia, and it matches with mine. It is like there is a voice inside their head shouting at them to leave. GET OUT OF HERE! And it doesn’t relent until they do.
Or for them, it used to relent, also, when they took copious amounts of cocaine.
So there I was, at graduation, smiling, with my stupid hat falling from my head, with the internal social phobia dude shouting at me to leave, LEAVE, for the love of god, GET OUT OF HERE.
And then I remembered about the alcohol, and headed over to it, and took a glass, and drank a sip.
And it tasted HORRIBLE.
I think I used to love cava. But it’s disgusting.
That might be the only reason I didn’t drink more.
Or maybe it’s the eight years of AA attendance.
Or all the learning about addiction.
Or the self-knowledge that has come with diagnosis.
But I took the sip. Grimaced at the rank taste. And then looked for a student to offer it to.
And grabbed an elderflower cordial.
Now, what do you think of this? Can I frame it as a victory?
I didn’t ‘recoil as though from a hot flame’ which is a quote from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I can’t exactly claim neutrality in the face of alcohol, which is the gold standard in AA circles.
But I had one sip and then just thought, Nope. And moved on with the intense discomfort and awkwardness of unstructured socialising while in a stupid outfit.
I haven’t told my sponsor or even my partner, either because I don’t want to freak anyone out or just because I’m ‘lazy’ and forgetful. Or maybe because I’m a coward.
I often avoid conversations which may cause upset or complexity. Sometimes I avoid them, simply because they might require me to have to wrangle with the ultimate abstraction that is Time, i.e. look at my calendar, which is a constant source of anxiety.
Maybe this is a cry for help. In which case, please send snacks. Or become a paid subscriber.
Or maybe I just reached for an old coping mechanism in a moment of stress.
Certainly, next year, I could consider not wearing the gown, since it brings such distress. I might also make a meeting point with my colleagues, so I don’t have to do the anxious walk through a massive crowd by myself.
Asking for help beats necking cava these days. And for that, I am grateful.
Are there any other people out there somehow doing very public speaking-based jobs while navigating social phobia?
If so, I salute you. And I send you a hug.
Who would have thought that getting good at writing would lead me to earn my keep through spending time in groups? FFS.
Thanks for reading,
Chelsey
Recommendations
Podcasts I love at the moment:
The ADHD Adults podcast. Here’s the sosh phob one.
My pal Molly Naylor’s
, which sometimes touches on neurodiversity, though is actually about creativity. Huh, it’s almost like there’s a relationship between the two…I especially loved this episode with Jessica Fostekew, who I’d never heard of before, and am now a big fan of. Check out her show in Edinburgh at the moment - if you’re lucky enough to be up there.
She’s also directed Amy Mason’s Edinburgh Fringe show, Behold, which seems to be getting great reviews.
Articles I’ve read this week
Research for the book, mostly in order to better understand the concept of ‘Autistic masking’ which tbh I am getting a looser and looser grip on, if anything:
Adaptive Morphing and Coping with Social Threat in Autism: An Autistic Perspective
Other cool stuff:
’s newsletter, generally. Also, read her novel Exciting Times, if you haven’t already, and still have adequate attention span. 
Best show on TV. So weird, and an excellent retort to the progress Feminism sadly doesn’t seem to have made with changing the reality of women’s lives and conditioning.
Possibly even weirder and more brilliant than Julia Davies’s weird, brilliant stuff.
Also, ICYMI my latest newsletter, in which I overthink about masking and realise I don’t understand it at all. Because is Shakespeare right and everyone masking all the time? For the love of god, why?
And if so, maybe we Autistics, can help them stop???
Guess this is why I’m writing a book on it. Because I’m confused about it. The more I learn, the less I know.
Wonder what my conclusion will be. No, really, tell me, what should it be?
If Masking Is the Default Why Does It Crush Some of Us So Much More Than Others?
Some of you will know my upcoming book is about masking and alcohol. How it helps us to mask and unmask. This week I spoke to Dr Felicity Sedgwick about it, and Dr Tony Atwood too.
📚 Chelsey Flood is the author of award-winning novels Infinite Sky and Nightwanderers, and a senior lecturer in creative writing at UWE.
She is currently working on a book for Jessica Kingsley Publishers about the connection between undiagnosed neurodiversity and addiction (+ her first children's picture book + a domestic noir.) 📚
It is so heartwarming to read from you, and there shouldn’t be any moral judgement about your day. Although I don't suppose heartwarming wishes to keep up the effort are that much support, I believe that it can create deeper meaning to imagine the shared struggle you accompany others along, one that can give rise to the biggest fears and despair. Maybe imagining (and even laughing a bit) about the oddity of such different realities from an outside perspective can be useful on those occasions. For sure, developing better breathing techniques has been useful for me many times. Hugs!
I relate to SO much of this.