It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon in May, and my head is spinning. My husband Pascal’s community nurse has just discovered that his blood pressure is so dangerously low she has forbidden him from standing. An ambulance has been called to take him straight to hospital.
Once he has been whisked away, blue lights flashing, I grab my handbag and get in the car to follow. I need to be able to drive rather than go in the ambulance with him because Pascal and I live in rural France and there’s no other way of getting home.
And yet I bet many of my British expat friends couldn’t (legally) jump behind a wheel as I have just done. Sunday afternoons here traditionally mean long lunches at somebody’s house, with the ‘vino’ flowing freely. For years, I enjoyed – and orchestrated – those afternoons, both as hostess and guest.Â
But not now. That particular emergency dash of Pascal’s took place in May 2023, and six weeks before, at the age of 52, I had my last ever drink – a pale Provencal rosé, served in one of those dinky little round-bellied glasses beloved of the French.
If you’re now in the early throes of Sober October, I applaud you. Not a drop of alcohol has passed my lips in three and a half years.
There had been no dramatic health crisis of my own. I’ve had an extraordinarily easy – if faithful – relationship with alcohol since I was 18: no lost jobs, broken relationships or mornings when I could not remember how I had got home.
In my early 50s, eating a plant-based diet and taking regular yoga classes, I felt fitter and healthier than I had in many years.
So what made me finish that glass of rosé, and then calmly pour the remainder of the three-litre wine box it had come from down the sink? What has made me refrain from a single glass ever since?
Samantha Brick, left, with her husband Pascal and sister Jo
Samantha gave up alcohol to be more present for Pascal since becoming his carer
Quite simply, I have done it for my 65-year-old husband. After being diagnosed with heart disease, diabetes, peripheral neuropathy, arthritis and digestive issues, his health is fragile and, though we both hate the word, I have effectively become his carer.
And what no one tells you about caring for a partner is how much it changes you – as a woman and a human being – and how impossible the job is with anything except the clearest of heads.
I simply could not forgive myself if a glass or two of wine prevented me from getting him somewhere fast or looking after him properly.
The realisation came quite suddenly. Although Pascal was in and out of hospital for much of 2023 – first in our local facility in Bergerac and then a university hospital in Bordeaux – one night, as I sat at the kitchen table, I realised with a new clarity that I’d be caring for him for a very long time.
And that was it: although I didn’t know anyone in my social circle or family who didn’t drink, for me, alcohol had to go.
At first it felt like a strange absence. Growing up in Birmingham in the 1970s, I was immersed in an Irish-Catholic drinking culture. Alcohol was part of every celebration: a treat that signalled conviviality and occasion.
But it didn’t tempt me especially. My first experimental sip at 14 – a sneaky go at my mum’s gin and orange – confirmed my fears. Revolting.
The first bottle of wine I encountered was Blue Nun. Opening it promised sophistication, but I still didn’t like it much.
What if I muddled up the 22 medications he takes each day? I couldn’t risk it, and did not want to, writes Samantha
What shifted my perspective was the cinema. A film-loving teenager, I lapped up the liberating fantasy of Shirley Valentine, who loved a glass of white wine or two beneath the Greek skies. Was this the key to escape? Pretty Woman, Cocktail and 9½ Weeks made alcohol look like a passport to glamour.
By sixth-form college, drinking with friends while dancing meant cider and blackcurrant. At university, it was bottles of beer and Jack Daniel’s and Coke.
It was not until my 20s, when I began working in television, that I hit the wine bars. There were different phases. Bridget Jones – dating, despairing and pouring enormous glasses of chardonnay – made drinking relatable. Sex And The City made it aspirational. Suddenly, we were ordering neon-pink cosmopolitans and wearing Manolos.
By my 30s, I was earning considerably more and had classier drinking habits, though not dietary ones. My now-adult nephew recently told me that his mum – my sister – used to return from staying with me and report, in awe, that I kept only champagne and Marmite in my fridge.
But I was no ladette. I saw girlfriends black out, fall down stairs or become aggressive, yet I always pulled back. Perhaps it was the ingrained responsibility of being the eldest child.
There was, however, one revealing moment in my 30s, when a friend and I were offered the chance to make a TV programme with a nutritionist.
Long before gut health became fashionable, we were told that assessing ours would require us to stop drinking for two weeks. Aghast, I said no – I never drank to get blotto but I did enjoy it too much to give up for a fortnight.
I relocated to France in 2007, aged 36, where wine was woven into daily life: parties, trips to the market and balmy evenings in the garden all involved a generous tipple.
I had met Pascal in a village bistro, and our early courtship unfolded over glasses of rosé in the local bar or a kir before dinner at a restaurant.
Our French friends generally drank moderately and with food, while expat gatherings could be altogether more enthusiastic. My 40s tootled along as I ping-ponged happily between rosé and crémant.
By 2019, I had become curious about life without alcohol and attempted Dry January (which, incidentally, is fiercely resisted by the wine industry in France and struggles to gain official acceptance). January became three months and three months became almost seven.
The results surprised me. I had more energy, slept better and exercised more consistently. I was no longer quite the fun Sam recognised by my friends. I was quieter and perhaps more serious – but also more authentically me. Had I been using alcohol to disguise my natural shyness?
But when my family visited that summer, I began drinking again. Then came Covid the following year and, like millions of others, I carried on.
Two years later, alcohol had once again become part of how other people identified me. If I arrived at somebody’s house, they invariably poured me a glass without even asking.
That is a very long way from being a raging alcoholic but it showed that wine had become one of my defining characteristics.
Then came Pascal’s decline in health. Suddenly, I realised that the buck would stop with me: I would have to make medical decisions, manage his prescriptions and drug regime, be permanently on call and ready to drive at any hour.
This was not me being sober-curious or embarking on a wellness experiment. This was about potentially saving my husband’s life.
Besides, I suspect that continuing to drink and enjoy the social life that went with it, while Pascal could no longer join in because of his health issues, would have created a distance between us.
On April 1, 2023, I made a private pact with myself and stopped for good.
And yet it wasn’t easy. Perhaps because it felt more permanent, knowing that I was making a pledge for the rest of my life, this time I struggled.
It didn’t help that I was giving up just as rosé season kicked off. January is one thing, but the summer quite another. Lunch with the girls is always oiled with wine. Weekends begin with: ‘Shall we go out for a drink?’ Market day? Ditto.
At the start, I felt completely lost. Yes, my head was clear but life was boring. You cannot simply remove something that has structured your social life for decades without finding anything else to put in its place.
For so many women – and I include my former self in this – alcohol is the big exhale at the end of a demanding day or the preface to a fun weekend.
In fact, my girlfriends were stunned at my decision. At one soiree a friend tried to insist I have ‘just’ the one, and my firm ‘no’ was undeniably awkward. It is true that not all friendships survive sobriety.
Throughout that first year, family came to stay from the UK and merrily drank as they always had, while Pascal and I abstained.
When Pascal had recovered sufficiently for us to go away for two nights in October 2023, we sat in a restaurant with a glass of fizzy water each. At the next table, a waiter ceremoniously opened a bottle of wine for another couple and I felt a pang of envy – but no temptation.
What if Pascal deteriorated while we were away? What if I muddled up the 22 medications he takes each day? I couldn’t risk it, and did not want to.
Christmas brought more invitations for drinks and glasses of fizz pressed upon me before I had taken off my coat. But drinking was no longer an option.
Friends were agog at my determination, but finally accepting. One of my closest girlfriends introduced me to Fever-Tree ginger beer and tonics, which are difficult to find in rural France but were a lifesaver when I did.
And I created new routines. I’m much more physically active than I was before, and can see in the mirror and on the scales how fit I am.
These days, I have become a water snob, too. I know my Vichy Catalan from my San Pellegrino and prefer it to be poured from a glass bottle.
Am I less outgoing in company than I once was? Probably. Without wine disguising my shyness, I no longer feel compelled to perform the most sparkling version of myself.
The flip side is that I listen more and am more present. I am the person you can telephone for a lift, practical help or advice – at any hour – because alcohol never dictates my mood or availability.
Nor do I wake during the night with my heart pounding and thoughts racing because I’ve had half a bottle of wine and am afraid I will let Pascal down. I am here for him, alert and well, whatever his health throws at us.
My own has no doubt benefited. I sailed through the menopause without the symptoms many friends endured. Sobriety may not have been solely responsible but removing alcohol certainly didn’t make it harder.
Today, my evenings are quieter. I read instead of reaching for rosé, am asleep by half-past nine and up at five. Before dawn, I step outside and look at the stars.
Pascal is steady in his health – but I know that can change in an instant. We take it day by day and if he needs me first thing, I am ready; if he doesn’t, those silent hours belong to me.
It may not resemble the champagne-and-Marmite glamour of my 30s, but it doesn’t feel like deprivation. It feels like peace.
People sometimes ask what I treat myself with now that I don’t drink. I always hesitate, because I don’t feel there’s a gap that needs filling. My pleasures are very low-maintenance nowadays: a longer dog walk in a favourite wood, an hour-long guided meditation led by a favourite teacher.
Old photographs still surface on my iPhone and social feeds: me invariably holding a glass of wine. I used to feel embarrassed by them. Now I feel tenderness for that woman. She lived fully, unaware of the challenges ahead, and I am glad she did.
Yet the alcohol she drank would also have stopped me from living fully now, with – and for – my husband. Giving up alcohol is an act of selflessness, yes, but it’s also an act of love.Â
