The working mum who gave up booze and hangovers for weed and 'wellbeing'

Swapping booze for cannabis made me happier but also a criminal - a woman's story. Photo / Getty Images

Giving up alcohol and taking up cannabis made me happier, but it also made me a criminal, writes Ivy Raynor*

It was a low moment. Literally. I couldn't get off the ground. Well, actually I couldn't get off the air-mattress that had already had all the air taken out of it, which was lying on the ground. Stuck on the floor of the tent, I watched with half an eye painfully open as my children and partner packed everything down around me. The only time I could move was to get up and vomit behind the trees behind our tent. There was no way I could make it to the camp bathroom but who would want to throw up in a shared bathroom? I was classier than that. Holding my head with both hands to try and ease the pain roaring through it, I ignored the scorching looks from my partner that could have ignited the barbecue and lay there, unable to move, until the car was packed up. Then the children had to coax their deflated mother off the air mattress, so I moved to a horizontal position in the car insisting I was happy staying there while they went out for brunch. Mother had contracted a terribly nasty bug, no doubt from those cheap prawns she'd had on her pizza the night before. The sickness was fierce and brief, raging like a bad rash around my body but by 3pm it would subside. It always did.

Not one to be discouraged by a little heaving, I decided it was the tannins in the wine that were causing the ridiculous hangovers. I had been drinking red wine for a solid 20 years, so perhaps it was time to turn to white.

I was all right drinking white wine for a while until I had to ask our minivan driver to pull over in Sydney one Saturday morning while I found a shrub to throw up behind. It was barely a shrub, more like a stalk that was very difficult to hide behind on a busy road with eight of my girlfriends trying not to watch me from the minivan — but watching with fascination as their 42-year-old friend wasn't coping, like we were 17 again. I had enthusiastically embraced the prosecco the night before and brunch, yet again, was too big of a hurdle. It turned out white and bubbly were not all right either.

Don't worry this is not a redemption story about how awful my life had become with the booze, how ruined I was and rejected by my whānau and how now I'm angelically laying off the plonk with a halo so visible it can be seen from the moon. It's a story about finding alternatives to the culturally acceptable social imbibing of booze, because the most difficult thing about giving up alcohol is going out for "drinks" when you don't drink.

In my 20s, our group of friends were called Dial-A-Party. We snorted cocaine if it was around, we swallowed Ecstasy and danced our shirts off when bands came to town; and we drank our way through every social occasion, often starting at lunch. We were privileged, pretentious twats but we had the constitutions of oxen and if a hangover ever threatened to rear its ugly fangs, we simply stayed in bed until it scampered away.

Fast-forward 15 years and I was more like Dial-A-Cosy-Chat. I liked to have a couple of glasses of wine most nights and on the weekends with friends — when there's never enough time to say everything — I'd have a bottle. That's excessive when you're telling your doctor or filling out a health survey but I wasn't excessive in my social circle; I was considered toned-down and not the partier I used to be. Such is our culture around drinking. One glass? Pffft, might as well have sparkling water if you're not going to get sideways.

Sideways, sloshed or squiffed, the hangovers only happened every now and then and seemingly out of nowhere, they blindsided me, tackling me to the bed or bathroom floor for a good part of the day. Then shame followed me around like a shadow for a week. I loathed myself and hated my kids seeing me sick, thinking I had the same nasty prawn bug. Again, Mum! One Sunday my hangover was so bad I had to pull over three times picking up my sister from the airport. It's hard to feel glamorous when you're a mother of three, dry retching on the side of the road.

"But you didn't even drink that much!" my friends would wail when another hangover had stapled me to the bed - and I would agree, it wasn't fair. But as bad as it sounds, it wasn't enough to give up and become a non-drinker.

Then my osteopath asked if I ever gave my liver a month off. Of course, I said self-righteously, a full 27 months if you counted up the pregnancies. I had been telling him about the fearful hangovers, questioning whether they would get worse as I approached menopause (they do) and he had looked at me like I was a child who kept touching the hot element to see if burnt. "Just give your liver a break," he suggested.

The month was relatively easy. I spent time on the couch watching movies with my children but after a month I didn't feel great; I felt okay — good, even — but I wanted to feel great for all my abstinence, so I decided to do another month to really get the halo shining. By the end of the second month I was starting to love my weekends. I could make any arrangements and knew I would make it. The freedom was fantastic. Child's rugby game at 7.30am? Watch me skip to the field holding a steaming cup of coffee instead of a steaming pot of shame.

My social life suffered. It was awkward inviting me to drinks when I wasn't drinking as I didn't want to go and not drink but I wanted to be invited so I could say. "No, but thanks for thinking of me." They say you have to change your friends when you stop drinking - but I wasn't an alcoholic.

Then I watched an interview with US comedian Nikki Glaser. She had been sober for 11 years and was asked how she found her wild side — how did she push the boat out without booze? "I smoke weed to medicate in that way," she said. "It always takes the edge off. I also find that meditation is the number one thing I rely on to keep me balanced. I wish it made me want to dance and feel sexy like wine used to but it makes me feel less stressed and anxious."

Glaser used marijuana as medication and meditation for balance. So, I tested Glaser's method on another girls' weekend and for four days straight I managed to get both into each day and I even threw my own "M"' in for good measure: masturbation — if I was going to reduce the stress, I might as well give it everything I had! In the evenings while everyone had wine, I smoked a reefer with half the group. Marijuana lightened my mind and helped me relax rather than being the one without an alcoholic drink. And the dancing! I thought I was pretty good after three cocktails but after some weed the thrum of the music lifted my body right off the floor. Marijuana enhanced my senses and took the edge off, which, let's face it, is half the fun of alcohol but I could trust I would feel okay the next day to get up early for group meditation on the lawn.

In many circles it's okay to make jokes about being a socially acceptable drunk; it's okay to start drinking at lunchtime and not stop; it's okay to drink so much you forget what happened; it's okay to drink heavily every weekend; it's okay to drink so much you fall over and say inappropriate things: "It was the booze!" It's even okay to drink so much you feel dreadful the next day, a hangover being a badge of honour — it shouldn't be but it is. Yet it's not okay to smoke weed. Weed is a drug! Drugs are bad! Alcohol is a drug too, with much more known, harmful, effects to both individuals and others yet we celebrate it as a right of passage to adulthood. It's glamour, it's fun, it's pure sophistication, darling.

I've now gone a year without wine — including two lockdowns where I felt quietly grateful I didn't have to queue around the block at the bottle store — and, more importantly, a year without the retch of shame. For me, weed is better than wine. It makes me smile and have fun, yet I always feel safe and in control. I can enjoy going out when I want to and have the deep conversations I used to have over a bottle (but now I remember every detail) yet I have my mornings. Always. I feel more connected to my body and mind and I never feel depressed the day after — cannabis operates as a stimulant, depressant or hallucinogen depending on the person — and, if I'm ever on an air mattress, I can trust I'm capable of deflating it myself, rolling it up, then going to brunch.

*The writer's identity is hidden under a pseudonym as cannabis is currently illegal.