I've just realised that I've spent a lot of time talking about my time off the drink and absolutely none about the run up to this problem, which is a bit silly really. A bit silly doing all that drinking in the first place too.
Like everybody else I started drinking alcoholic things like cider and beer in my early teens. I probably did it because I wasn't allowed to, you know the story - You don't want anything that you're allowed to have. So we went to a local club and sat in the back room and the barman would serve us, as long as no-one could see us of course. I drank like a fish from day one.
Quite naturally, this led to going to the pub with my friends as we became old enough. I must admit that the vast majority of my friends drank sensible amounts from day one but I arrived at the pub a bit of a hardened drinker. Perhaps not a hardened drinker but one that drank to get drunk rather than enjoy a drink and that carried on for over thirty years so there is no great surprise that I became an alcoholic.
It took until 2009 for me to realise that I am an alcoholic because my life revolved around drink to a huge extent that now it's a bit annoying that, in hindsight, I just wasn't aware of what was going on, what my reality was. Or perhaps I didn't want to take on board what was happening, what the "real" reality was all about. I suppose that at the time it didn't exist if I ignored it.
Once I had taken in what the situation was, and I was not in a position to ignore it at that point as I had started to shake and sweat when I got up in the morning (dealing with it with a quick dramn), I spent a fortnight thinking about what I should do, luckily thinking about giving up, then another fornight working out how I would do it.
I decided that the easiest way to deal with it would be to go and see my doctor and as it turned out, that was the best thing I could possibly have done. She gave me some pills to get me through the hard time that the next few days would be as without alcohol I would be screaming for it and the shaking and sweating would be there in force. The tablets did the trick, no problems felt with the lack of alcohol. She also provided me with vitamin B tablets, thiamin tablets and one more that I cannot remember.
The medicine provided, along with joining Bright Eye did the trick. Bright eye did the largest amount regarding the desperation for another drink as it kept me in contact with people that were either at the same stage as myself or had been through it and could therefore offer advice on how I could get through that part of "no more alcohol thanks" which, psychologically, could be difficult to say the least.
As previously mentioned, I was off the drink for thirteen months before falling by the wayside. Now, I'm looking forward to lifelong abstinence because I cannot do anything other than that, the reason being that I cannot drink sensibly - at all.
Time for a cup of coffee now. I can drink as much of that as I like and stay on the horse, if you know what I mean.
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