Paolo, you’ve mentioned that you were an alcohol drinker to function, not to forget. Could you elaborate on what you meant by that?

Ah, yes, there's a big difference there. When I say I drank to function, not to forget, I’m talking about how alcohol became a kind of coping mechanism for the daily grind, the pressure, and the constant need to perform. It wasn’t about running from the past or drowning out painful memories—it was about surviving the present.

For me, alcohol wasn’t about escaping something traumatic, as it is for many people. I wasn’t trying to wipe out painful experiences or erase emotions I didn’t want to deal with. It was about keeping up with the demands of life—the businesses I was running, the expectations of others, the relentless pace. In a way, alcohol became my fuel, my way of powering through the exhaustion, stress, and mental strain. It felt like it gave me an edge to get through long days, late nights, and the never-ending hustle. But of course, that was an illusion.

Drinking to function is like pouring gasoline on a fire to control the flames—it seems to work at first, but it’s really just making everything burn faster. The bottle of gin a day wasn’t helping me function; it was masking the cracks that were starting to form beneath the surface. It gave me this false sense of being "on top of things," but in reality, it was slowly eroding my focus, my energy, and my ability to be fully present in my life.

It’s different from drinking to forget, where people might be trying to numb out pain or trauma. My relationship with alcohol wasn’t about the past; it was about trying to manage the intensity of the present. I was trying to keep the engine running at full speed, to stay in control of everything around me, and alcohol felt like a tool for that. But it wasn’t. It was dulling my edge, not sharpening it.

In hindsight, I see that drinking to function is even more dangerous in some ways because it’s sneaky. You convince yourself you’re using alcohol to stay sharp, to keep going, to perform at a high level, but it’s actually working against you the entire time. It blurs the line between being “okay” and being dependent, and that’s where it gets toxic.

So, when I realized that the drinking wasn’t helping me function but was masking my true potential, that’s when the shift happened. I needed to step away from the crutch to see what I was really capable of without it—and honestly, that was the breakthrough. Realizing I didn’t need alcohol to function, that I was actually better without it, gave me my freedom back.