So, today I went to church in the morning, and because it is Easter Sunday, the lesson was about resurection. And then I went to a meeting just after lunch and the daily reflection was about King Alcohol and how he stands waiting to draw us back. (No worries to those who are expecting a sermon, this is just to show my frame of mind today)âŚ
If someone had asked me how long I have been an alcoholic, how long is it since I lost control of my drinking, I would say maybe a couple of years⌠That would have been a lie.
I would have been lying to the person who asked the question.
I have been lying to myself.
In all honesty, I have been lying to myself for around 38 years. I could try and defend myself by saying âI didnât know I was lying to anyoneâ, I always had either an excuse or a justification.
In the beginning (no, not a bible reading!!), I probably started drinking about 14 years of age, but that was sporadic⌠When I was staying at a friendâs house, and somehow we managed to get some beerâŚ
The problem started when I was 16 and had joined the navy. Then it became a problem. There were more times that I went to bed seeing double than not. But that excuse was because everyone else in my deck was doing it. I didnât have a problem.
Then when I started my civilian life, myself and friends went to folk clubs, or other friends and myself went to discos, or I would drink in my local pub. Of course I did not have a problem, because I was no different to everyone else. The reality was that the folk club friends would have that one night⌠The disco friends would have that night, and the guys in the pub were not there every night⌠But I blinkered myself to them because I was normal, just doing what everyone else did. I did not realise I was the only one in the group who was doing it every night. Looking back I guess no one told me I was out of control because they did not see me in a state every night.
I then ended up living in South Africa for a while, and there is a big culture of drinking there, and so I drank not as much as my Africaans friends, but I had to drink more to prove⌠Now I am not sure what I was trying to prove, but I guess I proved whatever it was⌠But it was normal, everyone was doing it.
(I should point out that through all this time, I was smoking cigarettes and, of course, weed). So by the time I was in my mid twenties, my brain had been fried for at least a decade. The weed did (I know it doesnât sound like it), help keep the drinking downâŚ
During my time in South Africa, I got married. It may (or may not) come as a surprise that the marriage did not last. And so, I had the first excuse to allow myself to drink. Again I did not realise it was an excuse, but a rose by any other name is still an excuse⌠Forgive the paraphrasing.
Then I changed my job and began working in disaster recovery⌠This gave me THREE excuses at the same time. Obviously the first was my ex-wife. Cow that she was⌠Then obviously there was the need to be part of the disaster recovery team, and so we would drink together to build team spirit⌠Or some spirit anyway. But as we got exposed to more difficult situations, then we drank to relieve the stress of the day. (While still smoking copious amounts of whatever weed the locals could get for us).
Then there was the big one, I was a project manager, supervisor and team leader at 9/11. The morning it happened I was on holiday with my family (2nd wife, her children and my newborn son), we cut the holiday short, and a few days later I was checking into a hotel on gold street, New York. That gave me nearly 20 years of excuse to carry on my self destructive behaviour. I was on site for a period of months. Yes I do still have issues surrounding what happened there, but those issues have not been helped by adding alcohol. And if I had understood the reasons for my drinking, then maybe my mental health would not have fallen as low as it today. I am waiting for another round of therapy, but this time I will be going through it without the added baggage of a few tins and a couple of bottles, so maybe this time I can move on.
I did join a church about 5 years ago, and hid my drinking from them. And as I sit here, I feel really regretful about that. In fact, I would say that regret it the overwhelming emotion of my life.
I then considered the amount of money I was spending on the weed (you will note that the alcohol did not come into my thoughts at that point), and realised I needed to cut down on the weed. At the time, there was a legal high⌠Stronger and far cheaper than the real thing. So the logical option was to switch to that, because if it were stronger, I would not need so much, and it is cheaper anywayâŚ
No, that was not the right thing to do. It was far more addictive than weed. Before that, I would spend money on weed, but if I really could not get any, it was not a big deal, if I had my booze. After trying the legal stuff, I had to have it every day, and it was never as strong as the day before. But then I heard it was going to be made illegal, and so I decided I had to stop that before it was taken away from me. I managed that, and that was possibly the very first tentative step I made to even considering I had a problem overall âŚ
3 years ago, my father passed. And at that point I turned my back on the church, and this excuse was the biggest of all, so the quantity I was drinking went up by an order of magnitude. When I left the hospital, I bought a couple of bottles and was near comatose by breakfast time.
18 months ago, I had a cancer scare. Fortunately I was clear, but that was a strong enough warning for me to quit smoking. I stopped smoking tobacco and I stopped smoking weed. But my drinking increased again.
In November just gone, I managed to get myself onto a programme called smart recovery. It helped, and for a few months, I was down to drinking just a couple of times a week. But at this point I had come to terms with the fact I had a drinking problem. But there were some words missing, that I was still managing to hide from myself.
Unfortunately the provider of the smart recovery programme has been changed, and I am still waiting to find out when, or if those meetings are going to resume.
4 weeks ago, I made it to Church, and I was given a view of my life. I didnât like that, so I had a few drinks to deaden the pain. Last week, there was no Sunday meeting at Church because of an online church event, so Saturday night I had a few drinks as I did not need to get up so early. But as I was staggering to bed, I decided to go to a meeting on Sunday.
I did follow through with the drunken idea, and I went to that meeting. Two things happened there. One, I downloaded this app, and found a world of people struggling just as I am. The second, and most importantly, I said the words last Sunday that I should have said 38 years ago.
Hi, I am Phil. And I am an alcoholic.
I am now 7 days sober. And with your help and the help of AA, I want that to become my permanent state of being. I have also learned that it is possible to stop. Stop the lying to myself and others; and stop drinking.
The world does not end when you put the bottle down. I am hoping that this is my resurrection to a new life, and today that is more important to me than I can say. (See, I did remember where I started 
)
Be strong, and one day at a time very quickly becomes a week âŚ
