I’m a travel journalist and I used to be a problem flyer – now I’m a problem drinker.

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It by no means occurred to me that my worry of flying and my alcohol consumption would possibly be associated till I was requested to write this text.

Indeed, if I forged my thoughts again to my earliest days of reckless alcohol consumption (chugging Smirnoff Ice within the park after GCSE exams doesn’t rely as a result of everybody was doing that), it was wine from a plastic cup on planes that began all of it, my teenaged try to alleviate my terror of turbulence.

I’m not saying it’s good recommendation, however it did work. I don’t have ‘aviophobia’ anymore. Better nonetheless – and that is helpful, given I’m a travel journalist and subsequently spend a lot of time within the air – I would go so far as to say I get a thrill as of late when the cabin shakes. Probably as a result of I’m at all times drunk (it’s nonetheless my rule, on the age of 36, to by no means, ever fly sober, not even on a 7am intercontinental hop) and booze, for me at the least, makes issues which can be normally severe or scary, really feel humorous and attention-grabbing.

Over the years, I assumed that I’d naturally outgrow my as soon as intense worry of dying in a airplane crash. It was solely pretty just lately when I was compelled to fly dry for the primary time as an grownup (and solely as a result of I was pregnant) that I seen my palms had damaged into a sweat on the first ‘bing bong’ of the fasten seatbelts signal. The physique remembers. I was en-route to Australia with my husband when the panic set in, and a lot to his concern for the wellbeing of our unborn little one, my first intuition was to order a glass of fizz (the bubbles make it hit quicker). Calm down everybody, I solely had one.

Now that I’m a mom, I now not have the luxurious of being a problem drinker. I’ve had remedy to higher deal with my varied demons, take remedy to management my ADHD, and beta blockers if I have to do any public talking. I by no means drink at dwelling alone; solely in social settings – that are uncommon, given I have a toddler. But at 35,000 ft? I doubt I will ever kick that behavior.

Ridiculous issues name for equally foolish options. Sensible fears (of dedication, boredom or giving speeches, for instance) are rooted in logic or previous trauma and are finest tackled with skilled assist. Lizard mind terrors (reminiscent of of heights, spiders or in-flight calamities) are sometimes immune to cause. It doesn’t matter that, in accordance to Harvard University analysis, my odds of dying in a airplane crash are only one in 11 million, in contrast to the more likely one-in-5,000 likelihood of a deadly automotive accident. And no, fashionable apps like Turbulence Forecast, which goal to educate and put together nervous flyers, are far too cerebral to dismantle such an irrational fear.

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I suspect I’m not alone in my recourse to booze. Whether as a result of flying is cramped, disagreeable or downright terrifying, a airplane’s fuselage (and the airport pubs that precede it) stay the one socially acceptable state of affairs through which to get quietly hammered by yourself at any time of day. Booze would possibly be banned on the London Underground however there would be mutiny if it was prohibited on a nationwide airline.

I say ‘quietly hammered’ as a result of this side is essential. My aim when I guzzle on board – and I want all passengers shared this – is just not to have enjoyable or worse, to get chatty. It is to be calm and sleepy in one of the best case state of affairs, or sufficiently lubricated for my impending loss of life, ought to we find yourself in a nosedive in the direction of the ocean. The latter could not be statistically possible, however neither is the prospect of my giving up this extremely efficient adolescent coping mechanism. If you’re an aviophobic who hasn’t tried it but (and you promise to behave your self underneath the affect), it’d simply be value a shot.