MEMOIR: High Sobriety: Confessions of a Drinker, By Alice King, Orion Books, 300pp. £16.99ALICE KING, author of High Sobriety: Confessions of a Drinker, was rather famous in the 1980s. One of the first celebrity wine experts to grace our television screens, she has written several books on the subject, including The Hamlyn Atlas of Wine, writes Christine Dwyer Hickey.
She was also the official "face of wine" for Tesco supermarkets. This face, which started off fresh and intelligent, slowly deteriorated into the bloated, shifty face of the alcoholic. Alice hated that face. One day she stood in front of the mirror and told it so - "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you". It had taken 20 years and an ocean of drink for her to reach this pivotal moment. The wonder is that she managed to stay the distance.
Alice's father, a wine merchant and bon viveur, encouraged her precocious interest in wine. It was this interest that gave her a clear run to his heart - no mean feat when you're the middle child of nine equally charming children. When she was 10 years old he taught her how to open a bottle of champagne. By the time she was 15 he was taking her on business trips to France where, at a lunch hosted by Heidsieck Monopole, she correctly identified the vintage of a champagne. The adults applauded, her father beamed with pride, another bottle was ordered and Alice, by now on her fifth glass, basked in the approval. She had found the low door in the wall.
Alice married at 21 and, as luck would have it, her husband, Niall, was a wine dealer. The honeymoon took place in the Medoc, where, in less than one week, the young couple sampled more than 1,000 young clarets. They returned to Thatcher's Britain, setting up home in a large country house, where they embarked on a binge that was to last for the next 15 years. It was all posh drinking of course, chateau this and chateau that, fruity bouquets and lingering finishes. Not that it made any difference in the end.
I have sat among some hardened drinkers in my time, but our Alice in her heyday would see the lot of them under the table. This woman never seemed to have a glass out of her hand. Even in the bath, moments after the home-birth of her third son, she sat, glass of Krug in one hand, newborn in the other. On and on it predictably went; bottle after bottle, crate after crate, the couple drank their way out of their marriage. The drinking became so out of control that during a party Niall accepted the offer of a blow job from an equally drunken guest. This happened in view of other guests, in the hallway of his home, where his children might have appeared at any second. Later he boasted about it around the village. The marriage was officially over.
Alone now, Alice continued to guzzle. The work had dried up, the big house and the driver's licence were also gone. Blackouts and bouts of vomiting became the norm. A night in a prison cell, a pass-out on the floor of the pub. Strangers she couldn't recall the next day were frequently invited into her bed. Then, finally,Alice cracked. She joined AA and the slow road to recovery began.
The first half of this memoir relies too heavily on anecdote and the pointless references to King's designer gear are tedious to say the least. There is also a poem written by her, the awfulness of which no amount of drink can excuse. And I would have to question the wisdom of including the "Mummy-in-recovery" foreword written by her 12-year-old son. Two alcoholic parents with a broken marriage - surely this boy should be allowed to resume what remains of his childhood?
The second half is far more successful; as the story darkens, the writing improves. The struggle to stay dry in a culture where drink is the centre of all things is particularly well described. Everywhere she goes, every door she opens, whispering bottles await her.
By the end of High Sobriety, Alice has our approval. Her courage is admirable and she is never less than honest about the damage she has caused both to herself and to others. It is to her credit that she has managed to turn her life completely around. Nowadays, instead of writing about drinking, Alice King writes about not drinking - a quieter but altogether less predictable subject.
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Christine Dwyer Hickey is a novelist and short-story writer