
In my family, we have a joke that UltraRunning Magazine can save someone from burning to death. It started last summer in the depths of an ongoing drought. There was a burn ban across most of the Western US. For years, my children have camped without campfires. My son was conceived in 2011, the driest year on record in Texas. Four years later in 2015, heavy rains finally appeared, and my daughter was born on a cloudy day in May. In the lives of my two young children, they’ve never known a time without water restrictions. When we camp, they make s’mores over a small propane burner and go to bed at sunset using an LED lantern instead of firelight.
Last summer, we visited an aunt in Michigan and spent a week romping around the woods. On the shores of Lake Michigan—where there was not a burn ban—my children looked to their dad for a fire starter. Of course, we had nothing except a new issue of UltraRunning Magazine that I quickly read before reluctantly handing it over. They tore it up, crumpled the pages, and nipped around with a lighter. But the pages refused to blaze.
“Is this fireproof?” my husband asked. “Do you have another magazine?”
I can assure you that I did not have another magazine, and I went to bed. After much effort and grumbling, they also gave up on lighting a campfire and joined me in the tent.
“If someone is on fire,” my husband complained while wiggling into his sleeping bag, “you could wrap them in UltraRunning Magazine and save their life.”
Ten minutes later, the flickering shadows of flames danced on our tent walls. The fire had sparked to life. Our children were already asleep. My husband ran out of the tent and poured water into the firepit.
Running is like that sometimes. We run from heartache, hangovers and hard times. It keeps the fire damp and helps for a while, but eventually the flames consume whatever we feed it. Here’s where an interesting new book comes in.
Allie Bailey is among a rather elite group. She’s completed over 200 marathons and ultras, winning many of them. She crossed Panama on foot and was the first woman to run 100 miles across frozen Lake Khövsgöl in Mongolia. She traversed the forbidding Namid Desert three times. In an epic journey, she ran 1,000 miles off-road across England from Land’s End to John o’ Groats over 30 days. She has a lightning bolt tattooed on one wrist. The Guardian named her to a list of most-inspiring female adventurers.
Even more astonishing, she accomplished all of this while battling depression and alcoholism. She ran her first 100-mile race white-knuckling through a hangover. As she points out, running a 100-mile race has never fixed, cured or been recommended by medical professionals as a solution for her addiction and depression issues, but she’d hoped it would, anyway. Between 2013 and 2018, she ran 71 long races ranging from marathons to multi-day epic adventures—while drinking the entire time. In 2021, she finally went into recovery.
Her new book There Is No Wall is an urgent memoir, clearly written and straightforward. Navigating her own story, she provides a game-changing perspective that might spark important conversations about alcohol, depression and addiction. Bailey provides supportive context for this problem. She previously worked in the music industry and late, boozy nights were seen as part of the job, for example. Her depression eased with drinking, so she kept at it. When she tried to quit, people found it offensive: “Why aren’t you drinking with me?” The next day, running eased her hangover. It was all fine, until it wasn’t.
According to a surprising study in “Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise,” ultrarunners are, statistically, more likely to be heavy drinkers. For those struggling with alcohol dependence, the suggestion to participate in sports can also lead to increased participation in drinking, too. In the US, an estimated 15 million people struggle with alcohol use disorder and—at a time when this is largely treated as a character flaw or a willpower problem—only 10% seek help. It’s easy to see why. Alcohol companies hold up wholesome marketing for low-calorie, low-carb, heart-healthy drinks. My local grocery store sells reusable bags that say, “Wine is basically fruit salad.” More worrisome, women are the fastest growing segment of alcohol consumers, according to the National Council on Alcohol and Drug Dependence.
With so many wonderful people in the ultrarunning community, can we still have the same culture in the sport without drinking?
I liked Bailey’s frank honesty about how hard it can be to abstain. Every New Year, we have the excuse of “Dry January,” but what is there after that? I recently spent 30 days on an elimination diet to identify food sensitivities, and my friends constantly asked if I was “sober curious.” Every social occasion seems to involve alcohol—champagne birthday toasts, work drinks and wine paired with tasting menus. The stigma of sobriety is among one of the most challenging situations that Allie Bailey faces.
If you or someone you love are facing these issues, this is a great book. Otherwise, it can be difficult and there is a trigger warning.
An unpredictable story, it also comes with a great song list to accompany the book (bit.ly/ab_runs) and suggestions for further reading. Being able to ask for help is a strength, although the things we rationalize run far and wide. We tell ourselves that runners don’t have drinking problems. That we’re alone. We’re just “one of the lads.” This is a great book to break the ice.
HELP IS AVAILABLE:
- Dial 988 – Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (United States)
IF YOU LIKE THIS, YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY:
- Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp
- Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir by Matthew Perry
- “Fit and Tipsy? The Interrelationship between Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Alcohol Consumption and Dependence,” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise (https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/fulltext/2022/01000/fit_and_tipsy__the_interrelationship_between.15.aspx)