What began as long client lunches spiralled into full-blown addiction, until Jamie Klingler finally realised how out of control she had become.
I worked in magazines and photography for 20 years, and for 15 of those years I was drunk or hungover.
It started innocently enough. The photo agency I worked for transferred me from New York to London when I was 22. It was 2002. I’d never been to London before, I was young and I didn’t know a single soul in the city.
My assignment was to woo clients. I was given a large expense account, and while I didn’t know much, I did know how to entertain. Long lunches with photographers and photo directors at seafood restaurant J Sheekey would be followed by long nights at the Century Club, a private members’ club in Soho.
In 2007, I switched sides and moved from selling celebrity portraiture to becoming a photo director myself. It was an exciting new job on a newly launched magazine, and the invites never stopped coming. If you wanted to go out every night of the week, it was easy to arrange – and almost encouraged. The problem was that I forgot to grow up. I didn’t treat drinking and partying as a phase to grow out of. It simply became my norm.
I was never the “drink mini bottles of spirits to get through the morning at work” or “hide a bottle of vodka in my desk” type of drunk at work. I was a very high-functioning hamster caught on a wheel: coping with the ill effects of the night before, then going for a lunchtime glass of wine to see me through the afternoon, then drinking more wine in the evening, which would leave me with yet another hangover. This happened on repeat, daily, for years.
Despite that, I was still a reliable workhorse. When focused, I could do the work of three people. Partly, it was because I developed strategies to make sure the wheels never came off. For instance, I was responsible for paying all our suppliers every Friday, so I wouldn’t allow myself to go on any end-of-week pub lunches until the invoices were done. No one ever went unpaid, so as far as our clients and suppliers were concerned, I was doing my job. Even though I was known among colleagues to have a drinking problem, as long as my work was still getting done, it remained my problem.
In hindsight, I was only ever operating at about 25% capacity. As a naturally early riser, I was always the first into the office – albeit with a couple of bottles of rosé still coursing through my veins from the night before. I would get the mainstay of my work done before lunch, then drink a glass (or two) during the lunch break and coast through the afternoons. By 6pm, I was back at another press launch, restaurant opening, pub quiz, or just another Tuesday at the pub.
In hindsight, I was only ever operating at about 25% capacity.
It was considered normal in the office to compare who was the most hungover, but I lost count of the number of mornings I was sick in the disabled toilet. I had constant heartburn and was about 7st overweight. I was miserable and it radiated from me, physically and emotionally.
More than once, a manager would have a word with me. They’d say I needed to “realign” and “focus my energies”. Over the years, subtle nods to my behaviour became actual talking-tos. Despite that, I was known as a powerhouse when focused, so I would be parachuted in to help launch special projects or get big deals over the line. On these occasions, I’d rise to the challenge. I would still drink after work, but less so, and I would lay off the lunchtime wine. In this way, I could write off my slatternly behaviour as a symptom of boredom. I simply wasn’t being challenged enough because, when I was, I’d always pull it together. There were always excuses to be made.
On one occasion, I fainted on the way to work. My boss at the time admonished me for reeking of booze and not having my act together. Behaviour like that could be written off when I was 24, but it was no longer acceptable at 38. On another occasion, an afternoon of drinks with a photographer rolled into meeting the restaurant’s PR. Afterwards, I was too drunk to make my way home unassisted. It was only about 6pm.
The shame when I woke up at two in the morning was overwhelming. There was a flurry of messages waiting for me on my phone. I had no idea what had happened or how I had got back, only that it was bad and that any pretence my drunkenness could remain under the radar was blown.
The real issue wasn’t necessarily the drinking itself ... but the day-to-day, low-level drama brought on by constant inebriation.
I was terrified to set foot in the office the next day. It transpired that a male co-worker had reported my behaviour to management out of concern. I manufactured a disagreement between us in my head. Instead of seeing it as a major wake-up call, I decided he felt threatened by me and hated me for being bolshy. And instead of admitting that I needed help, I played the situation down to my boss, blaming a case of stomach flu combined with drinking.
The real issue wasn’t necessarily the drinking itself – though it wasn’t good for my health – but the day-to-day, low-level drama brought on by constant inebriation. For years, I tackled this decline in my mental health with antidepressants and other medical solutions, without ever dealing with my drinking. Until, suddenly, I did.
This past week, I met the same photographer I’d been out with the night before I was reported to management. We had lunch together in Soho and, this time, we both ordered Coke Zeros. It’s been six years since my last drink, and the photographer, Sean, recently took my picture for some headshots I needed for my new life as a campaigner and activist for women’s safety and police reform.
I quit drinking on April 14, 2020, during the first lockdown, going cold turkey. I had not gone three days without a drink in at least 20 years. By that point, I had stopped working in magazines and launched my own events agency. I can’t say I had anticipated having an events company in the middle of a global pandemic, but Covid gave me the time and space to reassess my life and make some major changes.
Once I stopped drinking, I realised just how lost and out of control I had been. Every subsequent decision I made reinforced that first decision to quit alcohol and, in March 2021, when Sarah Everard was tragically murdered by a serving police officer, I put my decades of events and PR expertise to use by organising a vigil for Sarah.
Later, the police would force us to cancel the event, citing Covid restrictions. But this decision, which was eventually ruled unlawful by the High Court, only made me more convinced that women’s safety was not being taken seriously.
Today, I run an action group, Reclaim These Streets. I often do radio and television interviews with very early call times. I am sharp, focused, angry and put that passion to good use. It’s hard work, emotionally draining and intense. But instead of counting down the minutes until my first drink of the day, I fill my time supporting survivors, media-training students and sparring on Sky News about misogyny. I never need to worry about being hungover or rusty or unclear.
I really can’t imagine what that hungover woman, paying invoices and bored out of her mind, would have said if I had told her what quitting drinking would mean for her future. But I am proud that I made the right call and have an entirely different future ahead of me because of it.