On the Rocks with Thando Pato

Episode 115

There are so many inspiring quit lit memoirs out there but very few from South Africa. Apart from Melinda Ferguson's "Smacked" and Sam Cowen's "From Whisky to Water" there has been a distinct lack of inspiration coming from the Southern Hemisphere.

However that’s all changed thanks to my podcast guest Thando Pato who has just published her Quit Lit memoir - "On the Rocks". When Thando wanted to get sober she struggled to find a book by someone she could relate to. So she has put this situation right by becoming the first black South African woman to write a QuitLit memoir.

As it says on her book cover:-

"Thirty-nine year old Thando is living in complete denial about her drinking. On the surface, her life appears aspirational – she has an enviable job, a cool apartment and a snazzy car. But behind the facade she harbours a dark and shameful secret – she can’t control her drinking."

In this Episode

Like many of us Thando’s drinking career got started at University – that combination of being away from home with access to cheap booze and drinking buddies gets to many of us.
However she was not at all worried about her drinking as it just felt normal.
In fact she displayed a very sensible attitude towards alcohol as she ditched it for a year while she was doing her post grad at Rhodes - she was paying for her own studies and well aware of the heavy drinking reputation at Rhodes.
However by 2012 she had got into the habit of drinking a bottle of wine at home most evenings of the week
Still not particularly concerned but when her therapist told her she was an alcoholic she stormed out of the room and promptly sacked her – Thando was still in denial about having a problem but the therapist had definitely planted a seed!
Thando’s drinking accelerated in 2016 when she had two personal setbacks.
Using alcohol to deal with disappointments can easily become our default and it's actually a big sign of progress when we can deal with our lows (and even our highs) without reaching for the booze.
Thando described 2016 as a bit of a blur – often having to leave her car and collect it the next morning, not remembering the journey home, awful hangovers, feeling a lot of shame etc..
I think many of us can identify with that blurry stage – that’s when you really need to make a change and step off the slippery slope of dependence
Of course Thando was making (and breaking) rules by this time but finally accepting that she had a toxic relationship with alcohol but like many of us she had no idea HOW to make a change.
Like me she trotted down to AA but like me she listened to the shares and decided that she wasn’t “that bad” and that she didn’t fit in at all!
Now that I look back on the AA experience and that feeling of being "ok" because we are not drinking in the morning etc it occurs to me that we should be comparing ourselves with the best version of ourselves that we could be – rather than comparing ourselves with the hard core “alcoholic”
Thando made a pact with her brother to not drink for a year and he would be a support
Thando’s decision to take a year off was a brave one but it had a fatal flaw – she was under the impression that this sabbatical from the booze would mean that she would be able to reset her habits and drink “normally”
This was futile because once our drinking has crossed that line into dependence we can never go back – we have to go forward and create an alcohol free life – a life we don’t want to escape from
Tribe sober can help you do that – so why not join our tribe.
Thando’s therapist pointed out that the fact that she was taking a year off indicated that she did have a problem with alcohol as it would never occur to a “normal” drinker to do that!
She was dia

Published on 3 years, 6 months ago

Podcast Episode Details

On the Rocks with Thando Pato