In an exclusive extract from his new memoir, comedian John Robins recounts his first experiences with alcohol, tracing the roots of his addiction back to early childhood. He describes how, at around five or six years old, he had his first taste of champagne at his godmother's house, an event that sparked a lifelong preoccupation with drinking.
The First Sip
Robins recalls the moment vividly, despite the hazy memory. 'The first time I tasted alcohol that wasn’t licked off a cork would have been at about the age of five or six,' he writes. He remembers being allowed a sip of champagne, an occasion he speculates might have been tied to the Seoul Olympics or his parents' divorce. 'For some reason they let me have a sip. Maybe I nagged them until it became intolerable; maybe I just put on my most irresistible face.'
He notes that alcohol was not a big part of his family life. 'If we went to a restaurant, Mum might have a gin and tonic. It’s a cliche, but there may have been a glass of sherry at Christmas. It wasn’t a big part of our lives.' Yet, even then, alcohol loomed large in his mind. 'I remember noticing them drinking. I remember seeing that it changed them. Not because they were drunk, but because they were at ease, happy, giggling maybe, smiling. Something had been added to the regular domestic scene.'
The Bottle of Wine
The pivotal moment came at age seven, around the time his parents divorced and his father moved to Canada. While watching the film My Stepmother Is An Alien at his aunt and uncle's house, Robins became fixated on a bottle of Jacob's Creek in the kitchen. 'I couldn’t stop thinking about the bottle on the worktop just 20 paces away,' he writes.
He then performed what he calls his 'first ever alcoholic thing': he lied. Instead of asking for a drink, he said he was going to the toilet. He walked past the bathroom, into the kitchen, and drank straight from the bottle. 'I then poured a glass and drank that. I didn’t splutter or gag or spit it out. I remember feeling that I was doing something wrong and that I was doing something good.'
He then attempted to conceal his drinking by pouring orange juice into the wine. His mother caught him, leading to a telling-off and a 'long, slow walk of shame' back to the living room. His cousin Simon remarked, 'Been at the wine, have you?!'
Recognising the Illness
Robins reflects on this incident without judgment, recognising it as an early sign of his alcoholism. 'The reason is because I do not confuse alcoholism with evil, weakness, bad behaviour, stupidity or any kind of moral failure it might be unreasonable to blame on a child. I was preoccupied with alcohol because I have an illness and I believe I had it then.'
He identifies three key behaviours: lying to get alcohol, drinking alone, and trying to hide his drinking. 'An overeater may have similar memories of food, an anorexic of hunger, a sex addict of pornography. In later life, I would blame the adult me very severely, engaging in the kind of self-laceration that alcohol would fuel and relieve, fuel and relieve.'
The extract concludes with a question: 'Did it all start with a bottle of Jacob’s Creek? Who knows. Maybe it started with the idea that in that bottle was something special, something different, somewhere else.'
Thirst: Twelve Drinks That Changed My Life by John Robins is published by Viking on 7 May at £20.
