Just a taster

I shall start when I was 13 years old and started drinking.  I would save my dinner money for school meals and meet up with mates on a night and buy alcohol.  It started with 1 or 2 cans of normal strength larger but soon progressed to a litre of cider, then 2 litres and then 3 litres.  This would happen at least 3 to 4 times a week usually in the Local Park or graveyard!  Looking back even then I drank more than my mates.

This pattern carried on until a left school and then I started to work, in pubs!  So my drinking became what is termed ‘normal’ drinking, a few after work and more on a weekend.  When I worked on a weekend and had days off during the week instead I would treat these as a weekend and drink more, it seemed acceptable.  Basically I was drinking every night.

Then at 21 years old my then girlfriend had our first son so going out calmed down a lot. I continued to hold down a job but I was still drinking most nights, mainly whiskey and lemon.  It started at a quarter bottle which quickly increased to half a bottle and this was just week nights.  On a weekend it was a cocktail of larger & cider, washed down with more whiskey.  As I say, I managed to hold down a job (a functioning alcoholic).  I would spend my days at work thinking

constantly about my first drink, knowing it would make me feel better.

By the age of 27 my second son had come along to the same partner and my tolerance to alcohol was sky high!  I started getting into trouble with the police; I was banned from driving, fighting, lots of domestics, all down to the demon drink.  My relationship which had been at breaking point for some time finally crumbled, and I moved out, sleeping on my mates sofas and drinking even more.  I started missing work and eventually lost my job.

By this time there was blood appearing in my urine and I was spewing blood too.  I really was at rock bottom and took myself to my doctor’s.  He put me on Antibuse straightaway.  This was without a detox, which I now know to be very dangerous!  That said I did stop drinking for 5 months and things started to improve and I got back with my ex and was seeing my boys again.  I even got my old job back.  However the relationship didn’t last long once again and I moved into a flat.   I started to have a can of larger after work which increased to two, then 4, then 6 and 8…… and so on.  I lost my job again and was right back where I was before, if not worse.  This time I got involved with the wrong group of lads and it was drink and drugs this time.  This led to a lot of trouble with the police and I started shoplifting, selling drugs to fund my alcohol.  Drugs at this time were not the real problem I simple took them because I was drinking.  They seemed to come hand in hand.

Things went from bad to worse, I was totally out of control and if I was conscious I was drinking. It got so bad that I tried ending my life with pills.  It was at this point that I went back to my GP who referred me to Leeds Addiction Unit and I completed a home detox and didn’t drink for 5/6 weeks but it wasn’t long before I was back to square one. And so it was back to the LAU and I ask them to refer me to a rehabilitation centre.  I was lucky to get accepted and did a 10 days detox followed by a three month rehabilitation.  I seemed to do well and I felt like a new man.  I had a voluntary job and a new girlfriend that I had meet in rehab.  I know what you’re think “oh no, bad move”.  You are wrong.   Okay we did lapse after a month and things were absolute mayhem.  We both realised that we needed to do something about it quickly and even in our drunkenness we knew this so strongly that we started surfing the net and found a name and number of someone we hoped could help. That someone was a guy like me now, called Chris and he got us referred to a private rehab the very next day.  and his partner, both alcoholics and drug addict..  They taught us so much in the month we were there.  In fact we learnt more in the first 3 days there then either of us had in the 3 months that we had been in rehab.

I am now well over 2 years sober I got my old job back and started doing voluntary helping out at the government run rehab and pass on all I have learned sadly government run rehabs do not have a good success rate as you do get what you pay for and the government don't really understand addiction so the funding is not there which I believe is wrong.

Now I have the experience and contacts for the top 20 rehabilitation clinics I want to help anyone I can to get the treatment I got through contacting some like myself and help addicts get the healthy future they deserve.

So don't hesitate to contact me I am always here to help.