Month: February 2017

It might seem way too simplistic, but when you are Labelled, ALCOHOLIC, all hope seems to drain from you. There is not one piece of news, clinician or so called expert, that does not use this description of someone who drinks too much. They apply it to each and all, like a great big blanket of despair. You, once boxed as an ALCOHOLIC, are diseased, powerless, weak and have no choice. How does anyone in the modern world, assume that by making this such a depression title will help the vast majority of people who have got no where near late stage alcoholism in it’s true form, where there has to be a swig of it to start the day or function in any way at all.

This has made me so angry for so long, with the latest news of help for children of ALCOHOLICS needing help being the straw that has finally broken this camels back.

So many Mothers  see are so terrified of this label being stuck on the front of their head by GPs, that they dare not even go to seek help, never mind tell the truth about their particular habit with it. It doesn’t take a genius to work out how that pans out. From drinking perhaps habitually, and certainly too much, they just start to drink more, and once as the AA brigade would have us all believe they have hit rock bottom only then can they be helped.

That is NOT true. All my clients have wanted to intervene, to be treated with respect and understanding, not shoved in some box of being a fool and worse than that a dreadful parent.

Stopping smoking is a total walk in the part by comparison, you are hailed as a hero, given lots of praise, the use of cessation clinics, patches, sprays and not one person will make you feel ashamed for doing so. Not the case with booze, the total opposite. We have to sneak about, keeping secrets, telling lies, getting more and more vulnerable, and if we do pluck up the courage to tell the powers that be, what help do they give? Bugger all is the answer.

So come on, change the record, this is the 21st century. Be in praise of those who decide they want to stop before the wheels fall off, help them, admire them, encourage them. It is time for change, and please, Liam Byrne et al, will you get this message through to government and start supporting appropriate care that works!! Only 5% of those who attend Alcoholics Anonymous can say they are ‘recovered’ whereas 89% of my lot are well, and I am a very small fish in a vast pond, so roll out a few more of me and we might get somewhere.

We shall also be releasing an App, and although it cannot replicate the bespoke one to one service we provide here, I sincerely hope that it will change attitudes, give personal control to all sexes with a new approach.

 

 

My drinking was not daily, often I didn’t drink for months, but when I did decide to pull a cork, it was almost like being possessed. Binge doesn’t really describe it. Self-destruct would be more appropriate as a description. I was on a mission, I wasn’t consciously trying to kill myself but wanting to be free of worry, doubt, low self-esteem, and to be thought of as fun, and after the first couple, that is exactly the feeling I got.

At 40, working, with a husband and two children, I suppose I was just normal, but with this incredibly and completely dangerous fault. A brain fault. I didn’t ever crave it, but on the occasions, it happened there was just a sheer determination to go for it to the max.

Friends just took it as my thing, thought for the most part it was funny, but I didn’t, and nor did my husband, who, when it happened either lost his shit, or was hopelessly confused.

So going to see a professional about the issue seemed silly, after all I couldn’t really explain that I was dependent, the GP I mentioned it to said, ‘Well, we all have blow outs from time to time’, so what was I? I couldn’t label myself as alcoholic, dependent, habitual or out of control.

The fact remained though on these sessions potentially I think I could have either killed myself, or caused some serious damage. So for five years it just tapped away at me, almost daily, and that was the worst of it, even though the act happened irregularly, it just preyed on my mind.

I had googled my ‘type’ and found little to compare it to. Another acquaintance in London suggested I contacted Harrogate Sanctuary, as one of her friends who did drink daily had been, and seemed to have transformed her view of alcohol. So I did, with a sort of lackadaisical approach.

There was just something that Sarah said that made sense, and gave me the drive to see her. She was just so non-judgemental and somehow unscripted.

Meeting her was not nerve racking in fact quite the opposite, and she has so much experience most especially with women, that without hesitation I decided that the cost, compared to the invaluable support and advice was a mere bagatelle in the grand scheme.

I didn’t want a drink throughout the programme, but that wasn’t unusual, the clever bit was that I didn’t want a drink again! Since last October, the thought of it has been an utter turn off. She gave me my respect back, put me at the top of the pecking order, and not in a selfish way, but made my brain realise that I was pivotal and unique.

Thank you, dearest Sarah, and I am more than happy to recommend this modern and open method whatever your particular issue, she seems to see right through it!!