Flint mum encourages alcoholics to seek help
Nov 15 2012 by Kathryn Quayle, Flintshire Chronicle
Monday marks the start of Alcohol Awareness Week. Here one mum shares her story of life as an alcoholic with KATHRYN QUAYLE and urges those with a drink problem to seek help
A MUM from Flint who couldn’t imagine life without alcohol and tried to take her own life is encouraging others who have drink problems to seek help.
Jane, 46, is a recovering alcoholic and says that the support she received from Alcoholics Anonymous saved her life and has given her a future.
Alcohol Awareness Week kicks off on Monday and runs until November 26 and Jane wants people to know that ‘there is a way out if you want it badly enough’.
Jane, from Flint, told the Chronicle that for 26 years alcohol was the biggest thing in her life.
She said: “It brought me to the depths of despair, attempted suicide, self-loathing and finally to my knees.
“I was never a social drinker, even when my drinking started, I always drank to excess, always had to have that one more until I either passed out or had to be taken home. ”
Jane said she had some bad experiences when she was in her early teens and alcohol made her forget about her problems.
“By the time I was 18, I had been arrested for being drunk and disorderly, locked up for the night and had lost my job. The really scary thing was I couldn’t remember being arrested, what I had done or anything, only leaving a nightclub then waking up in the cells and being taken to court the next morning,” she explained.
“This was a blackout which I now know is where you cannot remember your actions when drinking. I felt scared and ill and was black and blue. I was now constantly living with blackouts and panic attacks. I had attempted suicide several times.”
As the years passed, most of Jane’s relationships failed and she admits she was out of control and no-one was more important than her need for booze.
“I did, however, meet my now ex-husband when I was 27 and we had a little girl quite soon after we got together. I was over the moon as I would now be normal and have a family.”
But Jane’s need for alcohol returned after she gave birth and she gradually got worse over the next 15 years.
“The mental and physical pain was terrible, I hated myself. I came to look older, my eyes were constantly bloodshot, panic attacks were frequent along with sweating and shaking. I hated going out with my daughter shopping at the weekend as I was paranoid that people knew what I was. I would avoid people in the street and if I did have to speak to people I was conscious that I smelled of drink.
“Around the last five years of drinking I was hiding bottles around the house as I was sick of the comments and my husband and daughter were constantly on my back. Hiding wine at home had got quite difficult so I was now drinking vodka, out of empty water bottles, in tea and coffee and anything else I thought I could disguise it in.
“The suicide attempts carried on and they were getting more serious, my daughter had now witnessed things no child should and I still couldn’t admit I had a problem. Life was booze and the need was so great. I couldn’t imagine life without it and I hated life with it, I was in hell.
“It was like I was being buried alive in a dark hole and everything was caving in on me. I had lost the love and respect of my daughter and my family were beside themselves with worry, my marriage was over. I was all but dead.”
At 43-years-old Jane decided to go to her GP for help. Two days later she was in a treatment centre and was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous.
“I knew nothing about AA only that they didn’t drink!” she said. “At that time I didn’t care what I had to do or where I went as long as I didn’t have to carry on living the hell that was my life.”
She described the experience as being like ‘learning to live’ all over again a day at a time.
“Slowly and surely things did get better, the horrible compulsion to drink daily left me and most evenings and days were filled with AA meetings listening and talking to people just like me who had done things I had done and worse! I wasn’t alone anymore.
“I now had a purpose in life and that was to stay sober and rebuild my life and that of my daughter.
“AA is an amazing fellowship that has saved my life and given me hope and a future.
“It’s been two years and seven months since my last drink and my life is wonderful. I have rebuilt my relationship with my daughter, I don’t drink, I have a job and I go to AA three times a week which I hope I always will.
“I realise without AA I cannot stay sober on my own. I have more friends today than I have ever had and they are good friends, not drinking buddies. I do things today I have never done like go to the cinema, go out for meals, go on holiday all without the need to drink.
“I help other alcoholics when I can as I will never forget where alcoholism took me, but there is a way out if you want it badly enough.”