I STARTED DRINKING AT 13

Rick is currently on our Rehabilitation Programme

I am 39 years old and my first experience of alcohol was a bottle of twelve year old malt which I stole from Marks and Spencer. I was about 13 years old and I was sick as a pig and loved the feeling that it gave me. I would steal alcohol from our bar in the hotel we own and take it to my room and get drunk in isolation.

When I started work at 18 and met my wife, we spent all of our time in pubs and clubs. I could get drunk easily from work as it was a pub. I would be drinking as soon as I got to work at 11 0’clock. The drink soon became a problem for both of us but I didn’t realize I had a problem. I thought my wife did. She wasn’t working when she had our little girl and spent all our money on drink; not paying the bills or the mortgage. This led to me kicking her out. From this time I started drinking more heavily starting when I first woke up until when I passed out.

I met my second wife and for a time things were good; but I would drink for any excuse. I was stressed, she was nagging, the kids were crying and work was getting on my nerves. I continued to drink heavily but gradually it was getting worse. I would be drunk at work but luckily I didn’t lose my job; probably coming close a few times. When I met Dawn, I thought this was the one, like me she was a worker earning a good wage and she liked a drink. We would be out every night until all hours. There was always alcohol in the house and I think the year we were together there wasn’t I night or afternoon that we wouldn’t be drunk.

My temper got the better of me and after an argument we ended up physically fighting when I would hit her with a belt. To be honest I was lucky I didn’t kill her. I went through the courts always blaming and resenting Dawn for what she had done. Not realizing that it was myself that was in the wrong not she.

After we split up I hit the bottle in a big way. I drank 12-15 litres of cider per day, plus whatever pints I could get from work; probably about 10 pints or more daily. I isolated myself completely and drank until I just got up one day and walked out of my flat. I was on the street; no roof over my head but I was okay because I had a drink in my bag. I ended up getting mugged and my ankle broken and spent two weeks in hospital so for the first time in over twenty years I hadn’t had a drink. As soon as I got out I started again. I got into a hostel and from there I got onto COAST, a day rehab. I had had enough of being ill all the time, diahorrea and sickness, headaches, the shakes. Even on the day rehab I struggled, going back to the hostel there was always drink or drugs around and I found it hard to keep clean.

THOMAS was suggested to me and I grabbed it with both hands. Working the Steps has given me an insight into this disease and myself. I have learned a lot about how I have been in the past; how I have abused others mentally; emotionally and with Dawn, physically. I know now that the behaviours I ran on were not right. The kinds of behaviours I would never have used whilst I was sober. I am learning to look at myself daily and work on myself.

For the future I want to go to college; at the moment I do not know what to do, but I want to stick at it and hopefully gain a better life for myself with the help of THOMAS and the programme and the Fellowship and do it clean and sober.

 

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