Hi, I’m Rob and I’m an alcoholic and I gave up drinking thirteen months ago after nearly 30 years of addiction. I had it bad, I needed to drink first thing in the morning and would continue throughout the day. I used to plan my day around my drinking and couldn’t imagine a life without alcohol, going without alcohol for even a week or so was too horrifying to consider.Alcohol was my constant companion, friend, crutch and anaesthetist all rolled into one. I was the guy you’d always see at a party falling over or being an embarrassment.

My early flirtations with alcohol were truly divine. I’d always been quite shy and found alcohol loosened me up and gave me the confidence I was lacking. I became quite popular, started a Rock and Roll band and had a wealth of female admirers. Life couldn’t have been any better. I did have a problem though, I may have had success with the opposite sex, but could never hold down a relationship. I was serially unfaithful and had suicidal thoughts most of the time. I also began to cut myself, just small cuts, but it was amazing how much I enjoyed doing it.

I slashed my wrists on a couple of occasions (both times whilst under the influence of alcohol) and on reflection I can see it was because I did not have control. I never saw alcohol as the problem though and I couldn’t see the effect it was having on my life. I never got violent, but I could be cruel, only thinking of myself and not considering the feelings of others.

My last suicide attempt was thirteen months ago and was my “wake up” call. I took an overdose, it seemed like my only option at the time, it’s amazing how a bottle of wine and three litres of strong cider can assist you in decision making! I knew when I woke the next day that I had to stop drinking or I would die . I’m glad I attempted to take my life, because the action finally made me realise that enough was enough.

If you have an addiction you’ll know that rationality goes right out of the window. Your addiction wants only one thing…to destroy you. It will quite happily lead you to an early grave. Although it masquerade as a friend, it truly is your enemy, it wants to kill you, make you lose everything, remove every possibility of happiness.

Giving up alcohol was not as bad as I’d expected, I think once you make a decision to do something and really mean it most of the hard work has been done.

Support for alcoholics who’ve quit is an area which leaves a lot to be desired. I had three counselling sessions and was advised to check out Alcoholics anonymous and that was it! I thought AA might work well for me and how good it would be to have companionship and help from fellow alcoholics. I was impressed with the first meeting, here were a group of people who were telling me how special and important I was and it felt good.

I wanted something where I could just stop by once in a while and talk if needed to but AA doesn’t work that way though,you have to follow their 12 step plan to the letter,there’s no space for flexibility. It’s their way or the “highway” When I mentioned self help methods I was using to deal with my addiction, I was called a “dry drunk” and was told that unless I strictly followed the “12 step program” I like countless others before me would die. I also noticed that these critical elders were harbouring a lot of internal anger. Some were angry that they couldn’t drink and couldn’t enjoy their life without it. There were many activities they once enjoyed that just were not the same without alcohol. Was AA helping them? I personally couldn’t see that it was. I was very aware that bullying techniques were being used to instil fear, create dependence on the AA and to undermine the confidence of the new member. The whole organisation is shrouded with secrecy and one must not tell anyone outside the group about the inner workings of AA. AA is an extremely powerful organisation with members in high places. I wasn’t prepared to be a part of an organisation whose sole purpose is to undermine the power of the individual.

So now I had a dilemma AA wasn’t for me and yet I needed support. I tried to get more counselling but nothing was freely available for me. My only alternative was to look seek help on the Internet. The best thing I found was Rational Recovery. Rational recovery looks at the nature of addiction and offers a “no nonsense” approach to giving up drinking (I recommend looking at their website)

Other resources which helped included Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)