how alcohol became the third wheel in our marriage

We’d built this sparkly rhythm around leaning into each other at just the right tilt of tipsy. That shortcut to intimacy was gone.

When one partner — or friend — is suddenly sober, you’re rewiring how you connect.

I gave up too for a few months, but Chris hated that anyone felt they had to change because he had. So I went back to dabbling, only now I was the one drinking in secret, swigging wine straight from the fridge door so he wouldn’t see a glass in my hand.

He knew anyway: “Darling, it’s like being in bed with Richard Burton.”

Remember how happy you were as a kid, doing horsies into the Clark Rubber pool, fanging off to the milk bar, dicking around with mates? All without booze. We used that memory like a tool: there was this whole joyful chapter of life where the only thing we were high on was life.

Surely we could tap back into it.

Harder to do when you live surrounded by wineries and gin tastings, but we hammered the driving range, walked the dog 13 times a day, spent actual hours at Bunnings. I’m not selling it well, but trust me — you get into a rhythm.

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Confession: when friends come over with a tequila bottle, I fall on it like a dog on a rat. And I still miss that feeling of being with Chris after two glasses, when we were loose and silly together. That shimmer of possibility. That version of us was real too. I think.

We’re not alone in figuring this out. Around 23 per cent of Australians now don’t drink at all — and Gen Z? Proper teetotallers. They see drinking like we saw durries: a quaint thing your parents relied on. Go you smart people!

What I know now is sobriety isn’t a moral upgrade. It’s just different. Sometimes flatter. It forces you to look directly at your partner without the soft focus of booze blurring the edges.

Now, we binge docos instead of Grey Goose. We sleep better. And yeah, we still have fun. A new kind. More considered. Less cosplay.

Our Thai holiday this year was our first big sober getaway. No mojitos — sad but good. I did try the local legal cannabis one rainy day and it was so strong I envisaged ending up as a Betoota Advocate headline: “Old idiot who thinks she’s cool embarrasses children by dying on half a joint.”

Yeah, still working it out but can recommend. It’s made me love Chris more, and respect the hell out of him.

Kate Halfpenny is the founder of Bad Mother Media.

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