Sobriety and happiness go hand in hand for Marianne

Marianne Olk doesn't remember ever having a healthy relationship with alcohol. Finally coming to terms with her addiction at the age of 38, she says the years since have been the best of her life and she is now on a mission to help others on their journey to sobriety. 

“I always felt that I needed to drink more than everybody else,” says Marianne. “It's like kind of all or nothing, always, from a really young age.”

A chef by trade, Marianne says that even as a 16-year-old apprentice, drinking and getting drunk was just a normal part of the hospitality industry culture, but for her, alcohol soon became all-consuming.

“I was a functioning alcoholic for a really long time. I held down a full-time job. I had three kids. We had a five-acre hobby farm — all that sort of stuff… then there just came a point where I felt like I needed to drink all the time,” she says.

“I felt like I needed to drink alone. I felt like I needed to hide alcohol because I was embarrassed about drinking more than everybody else and it's just… it's an illness.”

Even being hospitalised following a vehicle accident didn’t slow down her drinking for very long.

“My blood alcohol level was .23, which is very high range, but because my body had built up such a resistance to alcohol, I could act normal under the influence of alcohol,” recalls Marianne.

“Basically, I didn't drink for five months, but I was a nutcase… and the day I went to court I decided I was going to drink again because I just couldn't stand feeling like that in my head and I probably went on about another 12-month bender.”

But then one day, she says, it was like a switch clicked into place and she came to the realisation that the drinking had to end.

“It was either give up drinking or I was gonna die, pretty much,” she says. “And I was very, very fortunate to have the support of my friends and family and I did a detox and rehab program and I haven't had a drink since.”

Thirteen years later, Marianne is happier and healthier than she has ever been. Working in mental health and about to complete her training as a registered nurse, she is determined to help others in their own battle with the bottle.

“I basically just want to help people… I just want to make people aware that it's no shame in admitting that you have a problem with alcohol — and there is help out there,” she says.

“I have nothing against drinking. I just want to help people who develop alcohol use disorder — and there's quite a lot of people in Australia that probably have that issue. 

“There's just people who just shouldn't drink and I wish I had realised earlier, but it took me that long, and that's okay.” 

Marianne has spent the last two years writing a book — Me, My Drunk and I: Coming to terms with the reasons why you shouldn’t drink and finding your true happiness — in which she shares some of her own stories along with self-help strategies to help others on the journey to sobriety.

“You can't just give up drinking and think everything's gonna be okay because it doesn't work like that,” says Marianne.

“It's taken a really long time of working on myself, working on my self-esteem, the shame and stigma attached to people who have a drinking problem…

“I've had to change my whole life. I lost 20 kilos. Before I didn't exercise; now I exercise, I eat healthy… People just don't realise that it can have a really detrimental effect on your mental health if you just stop drinking, but you don't do anything else to change life in a holistic way.” 

Marianne will be launching Me, My Drunk and I at the Orange City Library next Thursday, October 20 at 5.30pm.

You can register for the event by visiting www.eventbrite.com.au, but if you would like to remain anonymous, that’s okay too, Marianne says.

“It’s for people who feel like they need help,” she says. “I'm not trying to flog books, if they want to buy them, that's good…if you want to just come along and have a chat, I’m completely open to it.”