Home And Away actress Emily Weir has revealed what prompted her decision to give up drinking for good.
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Speaking with The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday, the 30-year-old explained how she’d been recovering from “massive hangover” when she had an “epiphany” that completely changed her attitude towards alcohol.
“The moment that I stopped was a Tuesday morning, April 18,” she said.
“I realised I wasn’t living my best life. The epiphany was basically a dream of me as an older woman, full grey hair in plaits with true (red wine) blood mouth, covered in cat hair, alone. The thought was that if I kept going the way I was, that could be my life. Alcohol for me was my poison.”
This moment, which marked the start of her two-and-a-half-year stint being sober, came months before she landed her dream job playing Mackenzie Booth on the hit Aussie soap.
She’s since been seeking help at weekly Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and regularly checking in with a counsellor to unpack trauma from her past.
“I was festering a lot of pain that I didn’t realise and so I would become quite negative when I drank,” she continued, adding that alcohol had become a way to “numb” this anxiety.
“I would mouth off here and there and when I really started to notice was when I felt people pulling away. I would also drink alone, and for me red wine was the real love.”
At the time, she was working as an independent actor and working in bars to make ends meet.
She was also living apart from her family and struggled to cope with the constant rejection that comes with a career in the arts.
“I don’t ever want to be back in the place that I was in but forever is a lot of pressure,” Weir said.
“I don’t miss it, I am better off without it, but it is a day at a time, a week at a time, a month at a time, a year at a time.”
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