I was either drunk, half drunk, or going through withdrawals when I was doing wedding photography. The general progression started the other way of course, spend umpteen hours preparing and drinking the night before ensuring all my gear is ready, sleep for 2 or 3 hours, wake up, eye opener, make sure stuff is ready, get myself ready, head off, grab a few hideable drinks along the way to stave off withdrawals. Always got free drinks as the photog, so would refill as I needed once the night wore on, still seemed more sober than the rest...
The worst wedding I had was when I kept my sh!t together through about 18 hours of work running my arse off and driving all over gods creation and by the end of the night, I was invited to sit down and have a glass of wine with the staff who worked the wedding site and the owner. At this point my drinking was so bad no matter how fat and puffy I looked I could not eat, and sometimes I could not keep my drinks down. They fed me a teensy bit of food and then I ended up with the wine and the owner and him being about, oh 40 odd years older than me and trying to make out with me and tell me how beautiful I was... made a hasty polite exit, and had to call and have my then partner meet me to pick me up as I drove about half an hour and started retching up all the wine and dry heaved until he came and picked me up almost an hour later and drove me home around 4:30 in the morning.
That's like, one incident that sticks out. I went to another wedding, camped out in my van, I got totally hammered on the drive out to the campsite and got lost I lost my mind. Still rocked the wedding the next between going through withdrawals and being half in the bag.
Not something to be proud of. What I did was really good, how I did it was really bad. Which should tell you a monkey can operate a good camera.
Anyways, when I got back into the "real" workforce, I still struggled with not drinking every day or not drinking during or before work hours. It didn't matter if it was one or two or three or six. Looking back I never realized how long this had gone on for.
All the stupid rules and exceptions we put in place for ourselves just makes me shake my head. Like thinking no one knows or we won't get caught or that we just simply can't handle one single day sober.
Jeepers.