Once lost…
Once lost…
I am the product of a single parent family. There was myself, my two sisters and my mother, I was the only boy. My father dropped dead one day without any warning or sign of imminent tragedy; I was a month off my second birthday. My mother was an alcoholic (the product of a massively dysfunctional life); one of my sisters was also an alcoholic (we both got sober on the same day of the year, through AA). As I grew up it became apparent the world was a threatening place. Unpredictable. Unsafe. Frightening. I was lost. Out of my depth. And alone.
I had no confidence, I was full of self-doubt, I had no sense of self. I was bullied at school and bullied others. Fear of law-breaking instilled in me more negative attitudes of the world I inhabited. Fear of authority, especially male authority, alienated me from those who might possibly have been positive role-models for me. I hated females but wanted to be loved. I yearned for validation but couldn’t accept compliments. I wanted to be ‘a part-of’ but only had single friends at any one time.
At the age of 18 I discovered alcohol and what it could do for me – I’d arrived. It made me into a six foot, handsome comedian who could take on the world and I never looked back. It was my medicine, my personality, my confidence, my arrogance, my attraction to the opposite sex, it was simply everything. The world no longer threatened me, and I wore booze like a loose garment, life took on new meaning. My drinking career lasted 17 years. In that time, I don’t remember ever taking a drink and willingly stopping on my own. There simply was no point in just drinking two drinks. I didn’t drink to socialise; I drank to create ‘me’. To be me. To be something that wasn’t really me.
The consequences of my drinking are mixed. It wasn’t as bad as some whose stories I’ve heard, but it was worse than others. I only lost one job. I was never convicted for drink-driving although I would drink and drive every day. I didn’t lose my house. I did lose a relationship which devastated me at the time. I’d like to say I lost my dignity but am unsure if I was aware of possessing it before I drank. Anyway, my drinking was very undignified. I would wake in the gutter, literally, at 3am, not knowing where I was. I had a brain haemorrhage caused by my alcohol abuse at 28. I had cirrhosis of the liver. I was unemployable. I had the DTs. I wanted to stop but knew stopping meant not drinking. Which in its own odd way is rather bizarre. I couldn’t live with the consequences, and I couldn’t live without the medicine.
I woke one New Year’s Day with my face smashed in, blood everywhere, and my bed sheets red with blood. My face was scarred (I still have the facial scars 27 years later). I have no idea what happened, but I’d gone out the previous night desperately not meaning to drink – excessively anyway. I should’ve had hospital treatment but to drink seemed like a better alternative in that particular predicament. Drinking took away the shame and horror of what had happened to me. Going to hospital meant acknowledging something needed to change…
MATT, Basingstoke
…Now Found
…AND two months later I was in AA. I’d tried cutting back on the booze by myself, but I’d go into the DTs. So, I drank to take them away. Eventually after a year of being around AA but continuing to drink regularly (thinking no one knew), I was able to admit that I of all people really, really, was an alcoholic. Where have I heard that before?
I got sober in 1997. My life has changed beyond all recognition. I became self-employed in sobriety and continue to run and own a flourishing business. I own my own house, I do not drink-drive these days, nor do I soil my bed. I have many worldly goods I could only dream of possessing when I was drinking. I have problems in departments of my life today where I never used to have departments. On good days I’m grateful for those problems. They’re part of my path to being a more rounded and better spiritual being. I got married last year to a woman I met when I was 24, when my drinking really was excessive, but I was young and could handle the consequences. We were travelling, not together, but had met abroad whilst volunteering. Needless to say, in time we both went our separate ways, she is from another country and had plans, life plans. She had a career to pursue – I had a drinking career to pursue. 20 years later social media came along, and we rekindled our relationship. We got married on 21st April 2023. I’m now in the final stages of my application for permanent residency in her home country. I have sold my house. The sale of my business has been agreed. There are times when I find it very challenging. Frustrating. At times I find it difficult. We share a phrase at times when we’re struggling with how prolonged the application is – believe in the process. There are many similarities in that phrase to what recovery can be. Believe. Have faith. One day at a time.
But it’s today, it’s when I’m in a meeting and I identify with someone, quite probably someone I’ve never met before. I then warm to that person; I feel in harmony with them. Or more in harmony anyway. ‘I’ immediately becomes ‘we’. The flame of being ‘a part of’ illuminates the shadows of being separate or distant or alone. I no longer feel alien. So, is recovery all about not feeling alone? No, not for me, but in a threatening world, being a part of something makes me feel safer and ultimately makes me safer. Aren’t some animals in the wild safer in a herd?
When I hear someone in a meeting share stuff that I find hard to show others, hard to expose and bring out of the dark, hard to admit, hard to acknowledge and own, I feel so incredibly grateful for this Fellowship. For it shows people the way and how to be. I can still struggle at times to be that vulnerable person in a meeting, to show you who I really am and what is going on. Of course, I kid myself, by now I should’ve dealt with all that stuff, now I should be able to wear life like a loose garment. But for me, not so. For me recovery is still a daily challenge. I thought at first that after a particular amount of time, maybe five years, that life would be a skip through the daisies. It isn’t so.
Recovery requires my full attention, and if that weren’t so I might forget just how much I need to be present in it. Thank you particularly to those attendees in meetings who share their vulnerabilities, weaknesses, those things they’re ashamed about and those who mean I can identify with you. Without you we are not a Fellowship. This took me an hour to write, why did I leave it so long?
MATT, Basingstoke
