Quote Originally Posted by Whisperer View Post
Well my story is that I didn't clean up and get sober because I had a few bad weekends or i didn't like the way I was acting, drink & drugs was a fecking nightmare that lasted for 25 years. I had never heard of getting sober for the first 20 years.

I started drinking and getting high in the bus shelters and train stations at age 11 drinking flagons of cider and i was a useless drinker couldn't handle it, obnoxious, argumentative and loved picking fights and causing trouble, you know the type. Then one day I discovered Black Bombers wow I could drink with the big boys and off I went into another bender that lasted a decade.

I won't bore you with a drug-a-log but there's not many i can think of that I ain't tasted apart from glue and sniffing petrol which just didn't interest me.

I done my first detox in East Harlem when I was messing around in NYC in 1997 and the NA and AA fellowship came into talk to us and when I left the hospital I attended a few meetings and I suppose from that day on I knew there was another way to live life. It took me another 3 years to get into a detox in London by this time i was smashed to bits...regularly attending soup kitchens, picking buts up of the floor, begging and all the rest of it.

I remember one time I was going to score some smack & crack across town on the tube, I used to wear a little Cardiff City pin and I bumped into a fella with his son who had a city shirt on and they were on the way back from an away game it was the happiest day of that year because it took me back to times when I was okay with myself and i give the little kid my pin. I also remember the Geordie s down for the FA cup and some of them give me some change.

NYE 2000 was the night that something changed inside, deep down in my sub-conscience after 25 years of using boozing and abusing my desire was to go back into detox and go back to the meetings. I got my first day sober in September 2000 and have not had a mood altering chemical since...I ended up working for 15 years in a detox center and seen even more horrors than I had been through, but I also came across program people who after many years picked up a glass of shandy or an over the counter Nurofen plus who could never get back to a day sober.

So I take my recovery really ****ing seriously and will make no apologies for it, for me alcohol free beer is what i call tickling the devils bollox and I avoid it at all costs, to be honest I really can't see the point of it, I'm a lime and soda man these days.

I do agree with Underhill that there's different ways of staying stopped but 12 step is the most successful treatment program worldwide. we are all different but real alcoholism and addiction is the same and needs treating.

Today I live a fantastic simple life I still go to meetings because someone has to be there when someone new walks through the door and needs a cup of coffee and a chat which is second nature these days.

I look back and tell folk that I only ever had two blackouts the 80s & the 90s

I wish everyone well in their recovery.
Well done mate. You’ve shared snippets of your story before it before but never in that depth. You were probably the first person on these forums to offer me some words of advice with addiction and I don’t forget it. 👍🏻