Seana Smith was in her 20s when alcohol took hold

It was her mother’s death in 2019 that helped Seana Smith start to make sense of her life.
The former TV producer and author had moved to Australia from Scotland in her 20s. Looking back, she says it was the beginning of a pattern that would repeat itself throughout the next decade.
“I knew I’d always run away from things all my life, and I’d left things all my life and I thought me drinking was part of that leaving mentally,” Smith tells 9honey.
“I would drink to leave a situation mentally.”
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Her father had struggled with alcohol and Smith’s memories of her childhood and teenage years are painful to this day.
Smith has now written a book called Going Under, which chronicles her early life, leaving Scotland for Australia and struggle to stop her daily dependence on alcohol.
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Watching her mother remain in an unhappy marriage left Smith unwilling to tie the knot, ever.
“So all through my 20s, I just had a string of boyfriends who were highly unacceptable because they all drank a lot,” she recalls.
After spending much of her 20s working and drinking and dating and partying, Smith found herself in her 30s and in therapy.
It was her counsellor who first suggested she stop drinking.
Smith was a picture of success at the time, having forged a successful career as a TV producer and writer on The Midday Show with Ray Martin and various other high-profile shows.
”Television suited me fine, but then I went to London, Glasgow, back to Australia, back to Glasgow,” she recalls.
“And it was only when I was 30 that I said, ‘This has got to stop. I’ve got to stop having these stupid, terrible relationships with men’.”
Smith concluded the only way to do that was to stop drinking, and she did stop, for a time.
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Smith did meet a good man, her husband Paul, and they had a family, but alcohol still played a prominent role in her life.
”I was still running the household. Paul wasn’t bothered about it, but it was just a lot of my hate going round and round and round … with me berating myself in the morning.”
In her memoir, Smith writes about considering hiding a bottle of alcohol in a boot in her family garage.
It was moments like this that made her realise how pervasive her drinking had become.
A friend of hers stopped drinking, and Smith asked her how she’d done it. She was ready. She was just done. Seana just knew she’d never drink again.
“I just told people that I wasn’t drinking,” Smith says.
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“I think the fact that I was in my 50s really helped. I found … I really did not care what anybody thought.
“When I stopped for the year in my 40s, I was probably more people-pleasing and didn’t want to make people feel uncomfortable and didn’t want to be different.
“Whereas by the time I was 55, I’d moved and I’d made new friends, it was kind of easier.”
Smith didn’t join Alcoholics Anonymous, although she appreciate it works for many, but she joined what she describes as the “sober out loud” movement and found a lot of support.
”People are talking about it, and I realised that those were my people and that’s where my community was,” she says.
Smith also found it helpful to understand what alcohol was doing to her health.
“One of the things that I had happened to me, I wouldn’t call it a detox, but I didn’t sleep very well at first,” she says.
“We were on holiday in Vietnam and I kept waking up at four o’clock in the morning, but I was reading that other people had had the very same thing happen for a week or so or more and why that was happening.
“It was because I have got into a day alcohol habit, which is quite a strong chemical in your body. Then you’re not giving it to your body anymore and your body’s been used to sort of getting the antidote neurotransmitters.
“So the body’s there with all the antidote transmitters going, where’s the alcohol?”
Smith also found comfort in reading the journey of others who had quit drinking.
“I got such a lot of relatability and comfort from reading other people’s books that I’m very proud to put something out there and hopefully give other people a hand,” she says.
Smith advises those who want to stop drinking to “talk to your doctor, and just see where you’re sitting and on how much you’re drinking and how serious it is.”
“There are wonderful communities, and I’d love to give a big shout out to a couple of them too – Over the Influence and also to the Sober Club. They’re both based in the UK.”
If you or someone you know is in need of support contact the National Alcohol and Other Drug hotline on 1800 250 015.
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