Growing up with undiagnosed autism and ADHD – how alcohol became my way of coping

Today I am 354 days sober. Alcohol was a way for me to cope in a world that often feels strange and hard to understand. I recently, in one of the many recovery rooms I have been in, heard someone use the phrase “self-soothe”. I have read a lot of quit lit, sober stories, testimonies, recovery stories and tales from those who are now sober and although I could find similarities I was still searching for a story like mine. I identified with the feelings of not being enough, of struggling to connect with others around you, of convincing yourself this time would be different, that I was in control. But no one spoke to my story until I heard that phrase, “self-soothe”.

The definition is a behaviour that is comforting and used when unhappy or feeling distressed. Behaviours could include watching TV, eating chocolate or my behaviour of choice, drinking alcohol. We often learn these behaviours growing up watching adults do things to help them feel less stressed or to cope. It is typical to turn the TV on and to see programmes showing adults coming home after a stressful day and opening a bottle of wine or going to the pub. It’s even in the adverts between the programmes. Friday and Saturday nights are known as the times to go drinking and people count down the work days until they can go out on the town and drink their stress away. I don’t think the people around me when I was growing up were any worse than our typical drinking culture but I definitely learnt “feeling stressed = having a drink = feeling better”. 

Alcohol was a way for me to cope in a world that often feels strange and hard to understand.

I find it hard to describe to neurotypical or non-autistic people how disorientating it is to grow up autistic and with ADHD. Especially when you have no idea. My memories of childhood and teenage hood are still somewhat muddled and distorted in my brain. That is how I felt a lot of the time, muddled and distorted. Almost like being in a tumble dryer being tossed and turned whilst everyone else seemed to be calm and still. I was a very awkward child. I would constantly say or do the wrong thing. I found it hard to fit in or make friends and despite how hard I tried I seemed to always stick out. I was always moving and fidgeting. I would scream when I was taken to nursery and scream when I was picked up again. I hated people touching my hair which was usually very knotty and hard to tame which made the experience of it being brushed even more unpleasant. Although I don’t have many memories before the age of 12 I know I had those same feelings of being odd, of being different. So by the time I got to teenage hood and the age of experimenting I was desperate for anything that would help me forget who I was for a bit.

If my younger years had been unsettling, secondary school was a lot more disconcerting. I had the same feelings except there was a lot more change, loud noises and social situations to contend with. I went from a small primary to a large secondary school. I had to navigate noisy classrooms, corridors, new teachers, different lessons and fitting in to a whole new environment. The whole experience was exhausting. It was really no surprise then that I wanted an escape. A way to deal with the distress and the discomfort. At first I think it was mostly innocent. A lukewarm beer at an awful awkward teenage party or a swig of cheap cider in a park. It was pretty strong and mostly made me giggle and sleepy. It was a way to press pause on all the anxious thoughts that would race through my brain at 90mph. At this point I had no idea I was neurodivergent so I just thought everyone else felt the same as me and they were just better at hiding it or coping with it. One of the ways I tried to cope with it was through drinking. That is when it started.

I had no idea I was neurodivergent so I just thought everyone else felt the same as me and they were just better at hiding it or coping with it.

I often think to myself I was set up to fail. To make someone endure circumstances where they feel constantly anxious and on edge and then to give them something that helps them forget that and then to be surprised when they become dependent or attached to it. I had very little coping strategies and no one around me had realised how much I was struggling. I felt like an alien, an imposter, like I was just trying to pretend to be like everyone else and I was terrified people would find out. By the time I reached the age of being a teenager I was painfully aware that I was somehow different and every time it was pointed out it felt like another blow. I wasn’t confident, funny, or sociable I was shy, awkward and introverted. Alcohol seemed like the perfect solution. Sober I found it very hard to speak to people or go to parties but after a few drinks it was like the sweaty, sad version of me melted away and out emerged a funny, confident, out spoken version. Always out to impress I would try and out do others trying to drink more or down various disgusting concoctions. I became life of the party, daring, interesting. A far cry from the person I felt deep down. Suddenly all the things I had felt and continued to feel seemed to have an antidote and as the world around me continued to swirl in turmoil the offers of parties and alcohol were my much needed escape.

I think it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it became a “problem”. I suspect though it was really from the moment I took the first sip. From the moment that the cognitive distortion “there is something wrong with me but this will help fix me” entered my head. The relationship I was to have with alcohol from that point onwards was always going to be problematic. Inevitably as the world became more frightening, more strange, more traumatic the more I turned to alcohol. Then the more I turned to alcohol the more I cemented this party person persona. Friends would call me up and we’d concoct wild weekend plans consisting of drinking and partying. As the pressure of the world around me grew so did the plans, so did the drinking and so did the consequences. I was a high achiever in school getting good grades. I did extra curricular activity. I felt a lot of pressure to try and to live up to what was expected. Self soothing was an accurate description of my drinking. It allowed me to let go, to escape, to find comfort.

Except eventually this escape became an obsession. By my twenties all these experiences and feelings had compounded. What had been a swig of cider in a park started become something more insidious. University life was filled with student parties and endless opportunities to drink. On top was added all the trauma I had manage to attain on the way. It became a cycle of uncomfortable and distressing experiences and drinking to self soothe until drinking itself started to lead to distress and discomfort. 

I’ve read studies that suggest self-medication is common among those with ADHD especially those undiagnosed (adhd-and-addiction). On the other hand researchers thought those who are autistic are at less risk of addiction due to wanting to follow strict rules or being less susceptible to peer pressure (theatlantic.com). However a study showed a “doubled risk of substance use-related problems” with ASD and that “the risk of substance use-related problems was the highest among individuals with ASD and ADHD” (Butwicka, Långström, Larsson, et al., 2017).

I know though for me alcohol, autism and having ADHD are very much connected I drank to drown out the feelings. To cope. To be okay. Except I wasn’t. Alcohol just helped me to pretend like I was and then I didn’t feel okay without it.

Before discovering I am autistic and have ADHD I had no idea about why I felt like I did or the distress I was feeling. Becoming sober at the same time as starting my journey of diagnosis was discovering the exact reason I had been drinking. I finally had the answer and the start of a solution. Getting sober hasn’t been easy and I still get the urge to drink. But I feel now as if there is at least some hope. I know I’d give anything to go back and get back all those years I spent drowning in alcohol. I’m sharing this in the hope it may be a life raft for others. A chance to be heard and understood. Something I was longing for, for so long.