Alcohol Made Me Feel Confident
Jason Speaks to EDGES
I had my first drink when I was fifteen. I was a shy lad and it was like wow! I felt confidant with it. I started drinking every week because it made me feel good. That turned to drinking every day. I was into the Doors pop group – Jim Morrison – and I wanted his image. I wanted the parties and I was drinking every morning. I thought I was an alcoholic but it was the ‘hair of the dog’ that I was getting.
As the years went on the friends that I hung around with in gangs – well I ended up drinking on my own. I was like a park bench drinker. I used to dress dead nice too and liked to look good but I lost interest in that and I was interested in girls but I lost interest in girls, I had a girl friend - my bottle of Fosters.
When I was drinking I was living in a world of imagination – thinking about what I would like to do, but I was destroying my health and drinking poison basically. My mum died when I was nineteen, but that had nothing to do with my drinking. By the time she died I was a full-blown, chronic alcoholic. My mum was a religious woman, she used to go to St. Anne’s Church and she hated the fact of what I was doing.
But I wasn’t just drinking I was doing drugs – ecstasy, amphetamines and I used to steal anti-depressants to mix with alcohol, LSD. I was trying to re-live what I saw in films but it doesn’t work like that, they are only films. My mum was a very soft lady and I could take advantage, but after she died and my dad came on the scene, he was different. He was a man who was taking no rubbish; he said if I wanted to be like that I had to stay at my mum’s house on my own. I wrecked my mum’s house; it was like a drinker’s hovel. It was a family house not just for one alcoholic and I ended up being thrown out. My dad said I could live with him but I had to stop drinking. I did for a time but I kept going back to the drink. My health was failing, by the time I was twenty-five I was having seizures.
When I was twenty-one I was chucked out and I ended up on the streets. I went to the THOMAS Drop-in and met Father John Michael. I was shaking and he could see I was bad; he brought me into one of the offices. For years he kept trying to get me into rehab and I would say yes but I knew at the back of my mind I had no intention of going into rehab. It was just a repetition over again, I was arrested, put into jail, released and it went on. I would even ring Father John Michael from the police station and he would stand up in court for me saying I was going into rehab. He would wait for me outside court and I would do one and go off drinking.
When I got to the age of twenty-seven, on the streets, in a bad way I got into gangs who were drug addicts, crack and that. We would graft together, shop-lifting alcohol or they would get whatever they wanted. It was a horrible way to live, because as a young lad I took pride in what I looked like. But I had a long beard, bushy hair, I smelled because I had no way of washing, I wore the same clothes for months.
I was thirty years old and in April I went into THOMAS at Witton Bank. I stayed twelve days, and I was a bit shy and I couldn’t stand the strict regime. So I left. I looked clean and nice, I thought I would be ok this time, but I woke up and drank a bottle of vodka. I blanked out, and woke up outside the GPO where all the homeless people hang around and I was sick. I was back with all my old drinking pals. I felt terrible. Six weeks later I had a massive seizure and I woke up in hospital being de-toxed. I got on the phone to a THOMAS key-worker who told me my funding was still in place.
He visited me everyday and when he told me I was being discharged I was scared. Being on the streets is a horrible place. He come for me the next day with my clothes and good news but asked me if I was going to do the programme properly this time. He took me to Witton Bank. I started off well, looking better because of the good food and Witton Bank is a really nice place; but the cheeky arrogant side of me started battling with everything that anyone said and with everything that anyone did to try to help me.
Now I can see the mistakes that I made because I was putting on an act; doing it for them not myself. I did learn a lot at Witton Bank in seven and a half months; I did the 12 Steps. Then I went to the Second Stage and I was doing fine at first, but a girl who I was with met up with me, she is a chronic heroin addict and I thought I could change her but she ended up changing me. I started smoking cannabis, by this time I had been discharged from Second Stage for not attending meetings and groups.
I had not had a girl friend for years because of my situation, and so it was nice at first but then she showed her ruthless side saying I was boring and better when I drank. So I don’t want to go into it but I ended up being beaten up by her ex-boyfriend. I was told not to have a relationship for two years and I just thought ‘yeah whatever’. So I bought a bottle of vodka, ended up in a police cell in a paper suit. I was released and went straight to TESCO, still telling myself just one bottle then go to THOMAS because I was still on their books, but again I woke up in a police cell. I was bailed again, and I thought I would go home get dressed up and look good and go to borrow some money from my sister. I would get the money and finish up again in a police cell. I was a Jekyll and Hyde, soft, calm and placid, but when I have had a drink I turn into a nasty piece of work. I black out and never remember what I have done. I know its no excuse but when you stand in court and hear those things you have done you think ‘what a horrible person I am’. I looked in the mirror and thought just a month ago I looked good, smart designer clothes, clean shaven, hair done. It wasn’t just drink this time, I was doing drugs, smoking heroin, using crack cocaine and this was before I had my first drink. And I was thinking as long as I don’t drink, I haven’t relapsed. But I started drinking again, bottles of vodka and I ended up in hospital three times. My life was chaos again. I was chucked out of the house which my dad owns and I was homeless. I looked at myself, with two black eyes when I had been beaten up. It came to me that all the stuff I had learned in Witton Bank, I knew it all. I was able this time to bring myself back, it usually took months. I was thinking about the disease concept and all that I had learned even when I was drinking.
So this time I had more about me, and realized that one of the bad things I did was not to keep in contact with some of the good lads I had been in Second Stage with. I had nothing but the using addicts to fall back on so I was in trouble. I went to my brother’s but I didn’t want to be a burden to him and he has children; but when I was there a message came upon his laptop from one of the lads from THOMAS saying he knew I had relapsed and asking me to contact him. I did and he came to my brother’s and took me to his house for the week-end. He took me to Floating Support but he was going to Liverpool and another THOMAS friend asked me to stay with him till Martin got back. So although I had turned my back on them they hadn’t turned their backs on me. I was lucky.
Since I have been back I have been to a meeting every night and I am now seeing my mistakes – battling against all the advice I was being given. I have shared at every meeting, admitted I was wrong.
Now I feel really good. I go to AA/NA meetings and it gives me release. I never shared before, I never really listened when I was there, I just waited for the meeting to be over. Now I am actually getting involved in meetings, people shake hands and hug me and offer help when I am struggling. I feel I have something to offer them now. Newcomers who are still in addiction come and I can offer them help because I have relapsed. I have told them if they feel unhappy now and go back to drugs through relapsing they will be really unhappy, it takes you to hell, it never changes. You never really recover from this disease, it always takes you back. I could do without a drink for twenty years but if I started again, I would be back where I was.