Middle Aged White Man...Part Two

I honestly believe, although I wouldn’t have considered it at the time, that the decade or so I spent working in kitchens as a cook or a chef, was actually one long drawn out mental breakdown brought on by a rapid accumulation of stresses and strains in and industry for which I was totally unprepared. I know it sounds dramatic and there is really no way to quantify it in any way other than my own recollection of those years, but the more I learn, the more I understand it to be as true as anything else I believe about my life.

I was naturally well suited to the hospitality industry at that time because I fitted in well with what became obvious to me was a social subculture, operating at the times when most people are enjoying their downtime from their careers. I entered a world where evenings, weekends and holidays became the normal working times and when combined with long working hours as standard, stress, pressure and an almost complete cessation of daylight contact, led to the most common denominator across the industry - alcohol. Booze fuelled everything. I would have some drinks after work to wind down and help relieve the stress then wake up the next day to put myself through it again and it became a vicious cycle of stress, booze, sleep, repeat. and I needed no encouragement.

The jobs I had in kitchens, which were numerous, varied, often quite interesting. but the one thing which remained the same was me and my drinking, which was getting progressively worse. Towards the end, I was unable to get through a full day without having a drink, which would either be a beer in the afternoon on my break, if I got one, or sometimes I would sneak into the changing room and down a can of lager on the down-low. It wasn’t that I wanted to, but I had gotten to the point where my way of dealing with stressful situations was to use alcohol and let it do what it did best, which was to have a softening effect on the environment I was in.

I don’t cook professionally anymore. But I have loads of stories about it which I’ll share at some point.