My drinking started in my teens, a couple of glasses of cider on an English summer afternoon that made me feel a little woozy but removed some of the chatter in my head and smoothed off my feelings of anxiety. My father was an alcoholic and being brought up in an alcoholic home had its effects on me. My childhood was, in spite of this, basically happy and I felt loved and secure. As I got older I had more opportunity and money to drink and consequently I drank more but had a lot of fun as a result. I loved English Pubs with the small and smoky public bars, the barmaids, the bar billiards and darts. I loved the taste of booze, parties and long lunches and dinners with lots of wine and beer. I was funny when drunk and people liked having me around.
As the years went by, university came and went with a good degree and I got married. The drinking was a constant companion to everything I did and it seemed to fit me and my personality. It was a friend and great obsession. Gradually the boozing got heavier and the times at which I drank got more frequent and inappropriate. My work performance suffered and arguments with my wife became more common. Lunchtime drinking at work was now almost every day. At some point I had passed from having control over my drinking to having no control. Sometimes I stopped for a couple of days but I always started again. I wanted to stop drinking but I could not. Hangovers became much worse and ‘hair of the dog’ stopped working. I was now frequently a nasty drunk instead of a happy witty drunk and people weren’t keen to have me around anymore. I drank on my own more often and began to prefer drinking this way. I was now living in Australia and had become a connoisseur of the cask, ‘Chateau Collapso’.
Drinking was now virtually around the clock, I didn’t go to sleep, I passed out and I didn’t wake up but came to. I was becoming very sick physically and wonderful symptoms had appeared such as alcoholic diarrhea and enlarged liver with pains in the Kidneys as well as the occasional numbness in my legs. When I was eventually to go and see a doctor my blood pressure was so high that I could literally have dropped dead at any moment. I was referred to a doctor who specialised in alcoholism and that man guided me towards Alcoholics Anonymous. It took me a while to get sober and to realise how sick I had become physically and mentally but it is now 24 years since I have had a drink. This length of sobriety and the happy and productive life that I now lead is a consequence of my membership of and my continued involvement with AA. The booze nearly killed me and I know my recovery depends on me keeping my thinking straight. I cannot ever drink in safety again but I do this one day at a time.
