"I did not know that the grip of alcoholism was taking hold of me. I did not notice it was slowly taking over my life…"
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Overcoming an addiction to alcohol can be a long haul. At times it may seem to be impossible. But let me tell you it is not impossible. There are a lot of people out there who have been in the same boat as you, I am one of them.
I do not class myself as being cured of alcoholism, but in recovery which to me will be on going as long as I know I have an addiction to alcohol, and remember the harm it not only did to me but to those around me.
Deciding to stop drinking alcohol for an alcohol dependent is one of the biggest decisions they will make, it is life changing, but it does not happen overnight. Working towards being alcohol free is a gradual process. Alcohol dependents have to be in the right frame of mind. Denial is a big problem even after the admission of an alcohol problem.
The best type of help is self help. Self belief goes a very long way.
I did not know that the grip of alcoholism was taking hold of me. I did not notice it was slowly taking over my life. Day by day my dependency grew. I still did not know. I started to retch in the mornings when I was getting ready for work. I put this down to nerves or a cold but never my drinking habits. My wife would moan to me that I was drinking too much but isn't that what wives always do?
I began to neglect my family. I would rather go to my parents to drink with them or go to the nearest pub but, hey, I was only being sociable. Everyone spoke to me. I was a nice guy and had money in my pockets. I wasn't causing any harm, or was I?
I acted like this for a couple of more years. During this period I lost my wife, I lost my children, home, brother, sisters, aunts, uncles and a very well paid job.
I still had my parents. I moved in with them - they were heavy drinkers, strong white cider and super strength lager. I could drink when I wanted and there was always alcohol around. I lost interest in everything and everyone around me. I didn't give a shit what I looked like but I had my alcohol and that was all that mattered. It was the only thing I could trust to do its purpose.
As my drinking continued to increase my body was changing. I used to be very fit cycling. This stopped as my body could not cope with what the alcohol was doing to me. As my physical and mental health deteriorated so did my parents. My mother and father's personalities changed. They began looking more yellow each day. My mother's mobility ceased to exist, making taking her out impossible. My father started having fits when he tried to get to the local shops for his white cider.
My life started to change when my mother fell trying to go to the bathroom. She was lying there covered in her own excrement, I knew it was time to phone an ambulance to help. The ambulance crew were shocked to see the conditions we were living in, it was a very unhealthy place to be. My mother was taken to Salford Royal Hospital.
During that very night I woke up with a start. My heart was racing, then it felt like it stopped, I felt dizzy and couldn't walk. I managed to phone an ambulance and was taken to A and E. I cannot remember much about my time in hospital, I was out of it for three weeks. I heard a doctor say `I will give him four to five months if he comes around'…
The next thing I remember is being in the First World War. I was a German fighting the Russians, I could smell and feel my surroundings. In reality I was running up and down the ward with a mattress as my bayonet. Next I was in the future fighting on a star ship, there was a net of lasers coming towards me and I had to get away. In reality I was trying to escape the ward and was being held by nurses and my brother as they tried to sedate me but this was not working due to the alcohol tolerance I had built up.
As I lay in my hospital bed I began to gather my senses, realizing the pain I had caused to my family, in particular my daughters as they had thought they had lost me (so did I ). Not all the people on the ward were in for alcohol but you could tell who were.
This day was the first day I would meet my hospital social worker Andrew Brown. He didn't care about my drink problem, he just wanted to help and help he did. He also gave me the news that my father was also in hospital. So my mother, my father and myself were all in hospital for the same reason. Alcohol.
This was not the reason why I stopped drinking the reason was this. I got to talking to an elderly gentleman called Tom. We were discussing what was on TV that night, and he said he would like to watch the football, would I set his TV up for him? Which I did. After watching the football with him I went to sleep. When I awoke the next morning I noticed that Tom's bed curtains were drawn. I popped my head around the curtain to see him sleeping and made my way back to my bed. Five minutes later Andy Brown sat down besides me, at the same time the nurses were drawing all of the curtains.
I turned to Andy and asked him why they were doing this and he answered that Tom had died during the night. I sunk into my bed. As I sat there I heard a noise that I will never forget. This noise is what changed my life forever, it was the sound of Tom's body hitting the metal trolley so they could take him to the morgue. My mind started racing - that body making that noise could have been mine.
For me it was hard to admit that I was alcohol dependent and what I was doing was controlling me. To be really honest deep down I did know, but asking for help was just hard for me. I didn't want to admit that I was in trouble, it was easier to hide behind the alcohol. I had to get it through to myself that I was no longer in control of my life and actions. I did not know what to do about this, but I was hungry, I had to find a way to get the control back and cut out the alcohol for good. At first for me, and me only. Then I could start rebuilding the bridges that had been brought down.
Later that day I decided that I was not going to drink again. I began to reflect on how I had got myself here. It felt like I had been given another chance and I was not going to waste it. The first job I had to do when I came out of hospital was to care for my father and mother. My father continued to drink for another three months until his death from liver failure. Five months later my mother died of a heart attack caused by drinking alcohol for many years, with the strain of having had bowl cancer and the loss of a husband was just too much.
I thought of ways that would help me keep my mind off alcohol but everything I used to do just reminded me of drinking, so a career change it was. I started to study alcohol addiction, how you become dependent, the harm it does, its social implications and the ultimate harm it does to people and their families. I did two courses in counseling and found work in an alcohol project, hopefully being able to get the message across to people with alcohol dependency that this is not the end. That there is power and determination inside everybody to change their lives for a better healthier future.
At first there were people, even family members, who doubted that I would stay away from alcohol, they would smell my breath and accuse me of drinking alcohol. This made my journey more difficult as I thought that I wasn't being supported and people were waiting for me to fail. In reality they were looking out for me, they were doing what they thought was best.
Since I became abstinent in March 2008, and to continue with this little chunk of my life, I have been surprised the way my body had to adapt to life without alcohol. Little things like my balance - has it gone back to normal? Was my body compensating to keep me steady when I was drinking? Just something to think about.
In 2010, November 3rd, I was given the opportunity to work at Royal Court, which supports adult males with alcohol dependency. At first close friends and family thought it was too soon to work at a project where alcohol was freely available. I knew better. I knew that this is what I wanted to do. It saddened me to see people slowly deteriorating into a shadow of their former selves. I had seen it too many times with myself, my mother, and my father. Enough was enough.
I wanted to be in a position working to change the attitudes towards alcohol dependency. Now I am in that position, and this is only the start of the rest of my career working, supporting and improving the lives of people with dependency.
Tony Devenport: Alcohol Worker
Points of contact for people with dependency are local G.P service, S.D.A.S, Drinkwatchers, and Royal Court (Positive Lifestyles) 0161 789 5009.
Royal Court is set to lose its funding in March 2013. More details to follow…
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