I remember sitting in my dad’s living room a few hours after the phone call, feeling like I was waiting for something. What I was waiting for, I didn’t know, but that’s the only way I could describe it. It was June of 2016 and the house was saturated with his presence, so maybe I was expecting him to walk through the door. Or maybe I was waiting for someone to tell me it hadn’t really happened, or for the disbelief to pass, for the grief to be over with. Either way, when I think back to those hours and days after the phone call that crushed my world, I remember that feeling of waiting.

It just so happened my dad died a few weeks before I’d planned to move to Berlin, but I’m an impatient person by nature, so there I was, five days after his funeral, unpacking my bags in a new flat in Friedrichshain, ready to start afresh. My friends and family kept calling me brave, but it didn’t feel like bravery. In Berlin, I had to make new friends, learn a new language and settle into a new job. Bravery would be staying in London in a flat I didn’t like, doing a job I hated, staring at my loss square in the face. Moving to Berlin wasn’t brave, it was an escape.

Back in London, I’d wish away the working week and stay out all weekend. Pre-drinks in Shadwell, on to The Hydra, back to Shadwell, crash out at 9 AM, then spend the following afternoon bathed in the warm glow of a Wetherspoons, pretending to be human. But clubs, above all, were my space to party, release, forget and lose control. In Berlin, that’s where I was headed. I remember going to an open air club one hot July afternoon with a friend of a friend, still dazed with loss. I asked one woman with high cheekbones if she’d look after my drink while I peed. “Umm… No,” she said. I felt stupid for asking. I went home that night feeling lonely, despite the pill I’d taken. Maybe she would’ve looked after my drink if she knew I’d been at my dad’s funeral just the week before.

I was still determined to shake this loneliness. So I spent the weekends going to parties, MD’ed up to my eyeballs with people my age, with the same taste in music, all the while wondering why l still felt completely disconnected, like I was see-through. But at the same time, I was absorbing the creativity of the city like a sponge. I started writing for small-time magazines and discovering new DJs, even going to clubs and festivals as I built my journalism career. In one year, I went to Porto, Amsterdam, Brussels, Lisbon, Barcelona, Marseille and Belfast and jumped on tour with Charlotte de Witte. This career development was convenient—the loneliness had not dissipated, though now I could sprint from it in every direction. But no matter where I went, the emptiness followed.

Then, one night in September 2019, I started to wonder what my life would look like without drugs and alcohol. It was day two of Lisb:on Festival. The sun had barely set, turning the sky a dusty pink. The palm trees all around were lit by fairy lights. I took half of a pill that someone handed me. Then a band took to the stage and I locked eyes with the drummer.

A couple hours later I spotted him again, this time watching Róisín Murphy. Fuelled by synthetic confidence, I walked over and introduced myself. The attraction was more powerful up close but we played it cool most of the evening. I had more drinks, took the other half of the pill, and then, suddenly, we were stumbling into his hotel room. We were both trashed. It was chaotic, sloppy and disastrous and when he woke up to catch his flight the next morning, he accidentally took my dress with him. The shame of having to walk back to my room in a bathrobe felt like an iron fist in my chest.

About a year later, I saw on a Facebook post that a DJ friend of mine went sober. The concept blew my mind. I had drank regularly since the age of 13 as a way to socialise and bond with others. How did he play 5 AM sets without free drinks and drugs? How did he bypass all those connections, disappoint all those promoters? But he said he was happier, more creative, more focussed and felt at peace.

I made it to my brother’s home in Sydney just in time for the world to shut down, and for me to realise that changing my environment was not going to change how I felt about myself. Lockdown felt like a good opportunity to take a break, but I didn’t know how I’d fit into the electronic music world without it, or how my career would pan out in an industry fueled by chemical energy, so I spoke to three DJs—Troy Gunner, Hrdvsion and James Haze—to find out how they navigate the industry. I must have been ready to transform my mindset, because those conversations felt like a tectonic shift. The artists talked about shame, lack of control and emptiness, but when Troy said sobriety made him face up to all the stuff he’d been suppressing, it felt like a punch in the stomach.

There’s no better rehab than a locked-down Sydney. I spent three months cycling along the coastline with my camera, processing what life would be like without drugs and alcohol. I assumed I’d have to stop writing about dance music—that no publication, festival or promoter would want to work with a sober reporter. But somewhere on my long cycle rides between Bondi and Maroubra, as I listened to my mate’s mixes, I realised that electronic music had become so much more to me than an excuse to party. It was my community, my set of values, my safe space and my identity.

During the first few months of sobriety, I had a constant internal battle between a life free of hangover and the fear of missing out. The latter felt so huge because I didn’t yet know what I had to gain. But one beautiful day, about three months in, I was en route to the tailors to get some trousers adjusted. The sky was as clear as my head, and my body felt clean and energised. My sleep was undisturbed, my moods were regulated. I was even writing every day. Errands like this used to be so much effort, but this one felt easy. The euphoria I felt accomplishing such a mundane task felt better than any synthetic high I’d ever experienced, because it was real.

The true test came that summer with the return of socialising. It wasn’t easy. Sobriety was lonely at first, and it took time to build confidence with it. I felt overwhelmed and ran out of social steam quickly, but I soon noticed I could have deeper and more stimulating conversations. I made new, genuine connections based on my interests and who I really was as a person. I started to grow the social muscles I’d stunted as a teen, like dealing with awkward situations without a pint in my hand or how to flirt without wine as backup. I figured out who I was without the crutch I’d been relying on my entire adult life. Now, all the reasons why I used to drink have disappeared.

The first time I stayed out dancing until 4 AM sober was last summer. Initially, when nightlife reopened, I had no idea how I’d feel in a club, after all that time away and now newly sober. Surely, I assumed, it wouldn’t be the same. Surely I wouldn’t be able to stay up as late, or dance as much. But over time, I noticed my relationship with the club space felt more pure. The haze, the darkness, the lasers, the smell of smoke and sweat: it still felt like home. That particular night, Sadan Records invited GIL and Hanah to play at Teder in Tel Aviv. The night was super-charged, full of breaks, bass, UKG and techno, with even a deconstructed version of “Wannabe” by Spice Girls thrown in. I couldn’t leave the dance floor because the music just pulled me in. By the end, my legs were so tired that I could barely walk home.

Acceptance. That’s what I’d been waiting for. All those years I had thought I’d evaded the sadness, yet it was there all along. It’s still with me now, and it always will be. But drugs and alcohol suppressed my grief; sobriety has helped me live alongside it.