When it comes to drinking in Ireland, the line between what constitutes a debilitating vice and mere “good craic” can be very fine.
Beholding the cover of comedian Tadhg Hickey’s addiction memoir, a similar tonal indeterminacy is at play: it’s jaunty, featuring a mugging Hickey and arbitrary celebrity endorsements — memoir cover cliches. You’d be forgiven for thinking a silly book awaits, but, though there are some chuckles and Hickey writes with an amiable levity throughout, what you actually get is an impressively clear-eyed account of alcoholism, which Hickey likens to “having a twin brother who hates you”.
Hickey’s tortured love affair with alcohol begins in childhood. Before he even starts drinking, he basks in the pub’s atmosphere, fascinated by this strange elixir’s transformative power: “These lads had shuffled in a couple of hours ago shaky and shy — two or three pints later they were composites of Luke Kelly and Dave Allen.”
Reading about his youth, you wouldn’t begrudge Hickey for seeking oblivion. His impossibly querulous mother overprotects him to such an extent that she takes him out of school for imaginary illnesses and suggests he wear “a permanent indoor helmet”. Hickey inherited her incapacitating fear along with her alcoholism. Yet he sidesteps victimhood status while nonetheless feeling pity for his younger self.
In talking about embarrassing, self-exposing escapades, the memoir doesn’t go as hard as, say, Limmy’s autobiography, which remains the high watermark for a witheringly self-revelatory memoir. Still, Hickey holds himself accountable and is unflinching about how he let down loved ones. Towards the end, Hickey makes peace with his past, his mother, as well as his own wrongdoing, most movingly of all when he apologises to his daughter for being neglectful.
Like the film Another Round, Hickey is honest about how fun intoxication can be, at one point capturing the wonder of the hallucinogenic experience in suddenly elevated prose: he perceived the sky as “a Blakean vision as the painterly hands of God touched up the landscape”.
Hickey’s memoir is self-deprecating and well-paced, but the liveliness is a smokescreen for his more serious intent. However familiar the addiction arc, Hickey’s candour could actually really help people, especially those noticing the “craic” mutating into something decidedly less fun. The larky cover may function as a useful bait and switch.
