I became a binge drinker, drinking maybe three or four times a year and I don’t mean winter, spring, summer and autumn, no, but every time I took a drink there was trouble, whether mental, physical, financial or spiritual. Now I’m on the spiritual spectrum I must emphasize that I’m not in the God Squad but I do have a power greater than myself, a higher power, who guides and loves me on a daily basis. I don’t have religion- God is more than enough, whoever he, she or it may be. I wouldn’t be arrogant enough to explain it to anyone today as it tells us all in the big books of scripture – Koran, Torah, Bible etc that it’s beyond understanding.

Alcoholism is a progressive illness- it just gets worse and worse, never better. Whilst drinking the last time, I was coming off the booze and said to my mother “My head’s up my ass” and she said “The next time your head is up your ass, have a look at your liver” LOL

For me finding out that it’s not what we drink or how often we drink, it’s what it does to us was very revealing. Like most folk I thought the alcoholic was the less fortunate person living on the planet with a long beard and wearing two long coats tied with a piece of long rope. No, no, no, alcoholics come in an enormous variety of people – middle, upper and lower class. It’s the first drink that gets us drunk. It may sound strange but when we take the first drink this creates the phenomenon of craving….one goes to two, two goes to four, four leads to eight etc. One is too many and one hundred is not enough.

Alcoholism is a family illness; it affects everyone round about us: family, friends, police officers, nurses, doctors, court officials, the list goes on. It’s likened to a hurricane as we blow in and out of people’s lives causing destruction wherever we go but until we seek the relevant help we are powerless over the curse. Alcoholism is cunning, baffling and powerful. It’s an insidious illness and it’s the only illness which tells us it’s not an illness. Can you imagine throwing bipolar into the mix and you’ve got a recipe for disaster? No wonder I had a season ticket for the psychiatric hospitals, the loony bins, the nutcracker suites, the laughing academies, the jigsaw rooms. Yes, this is what I also called them when I was a narrow minded person as well and to my demise. Yes. What goes around comes around. I was the biggest stigmatiser alive. Always looking at other peoples’ character defects because it was less painful than looking at my own. I was as sick as a parrot but oh boy did I come down with a bang. More like an explosion LOL! Yes, I ended in a war with myself; the blame game had to stop. I blamed people, places and things all my Life.

I have a choice today – to be happy or sad, simple. We are all responsible for our own thoughts. No one can hurt me. I can only allow people to hurt me. If they are trying to hurt me then they are so messed up in themselves so they need pity, they’re not well. How do I know? Because I was one of those people, a horrible, horrible existence.