Skinful

SKINFUL is a brave, thoughtful and provocative memoir about turning one's life around and making a new path to a different future.

Robyn Flemming chose to live an alcohol-free life after failing for four decades to drink 'normally'. But Robyn isn't – and has never been – a 'normal' person.

SKINFUL is structured around four major turning points:

In Part One, the author turns a short business trip from Australia into a new life in Hong Kong. But seven years later, a long habit of social drinking has become a dependency that is affecting her physical, mental and emotional health. Fearing that she is on the verge of a breakdown, she returns to Australia to try to make a new start.

In Part Two, Robyn recounts her struggle to manage her reliance on alcohol. She sets extreme physical challenges for herself in an attempt to gain control of her addiction. But the gap between the person she presents to the world and the one she keeps hidden from view is growing. One night, a casual comment from a stranger brings her to another turning point.

'I could stay where I was, huddled in my upstairs bedroom every night, numbing my feelings with white wine and trying to straddle the growing gap between my inner and outer selves. Or I could embark on an open- ended adventure, a hero's journey, and perhaps become the woman I had the potential to be.'

In 2010, now in her late fifties, Robyn leaves behind her life in Australia and becomes a global nomad. In late August of the following year, during a hurricane in New York City, she finally finds the courage to change herself and not just her situation.

'Every drink came at a cost. It was time to accept that I wouldn't be able to live an authentic life, comfortable in my own skin, if alcohol were a part of it.'

The story concludes four years after Robyn's last drink. A casual comment from another stranger traces the journey she has taken – from darkness to light, from anxiety and shame to happiness and peace, from self- censure to self-acceptance, from isolation to connection.

Now ten years sober, Robyn believes that we must take responsibility for our own lives, make our own path to the kind of life we want to live, and offer community and support to others wanting to do the same.

About the author 
Robyn Flemming is an Australian freelance editor with clients around the world. She lived in Hong Kong from 1986 until 1993, when she returned to Australia. In 2010, single, self-employed and nearing 60, she set off to live in the world as a global nomad. She had her last drink during a hurricane in New York City in 2011. In March 2020, when COVID-19 closed many countries' borders, she relocated back to Australia from her European base in Budapest, Hungary.

She currently lives in Albury, Australia.

SKINFUL is her first memoir.

Skinful
Robyn Flemming
ISBN: 9781922598479