An 18 Year Old Alcoholic: Adam’s story

I just wanted to share my story of how I have got to where I am now….

I took my first drink at the age of 13 whilst on my first holiday abroad in Greece. Amstel beer. I remember it well, the feeling, the confidence and exuberance I radiated. People liked me! I was funny! The adults would give me more beer to make them laugh! For a child that had been withdrawn for most of my life, this was amazing.

That was the start of the effects I craved for with alcohol.

I was caught up in the Friday and Saturday night drinking with my teenage friends at bus stops and in parks at the weekends. I remember being so excited for the weekends and planning it whilst at school in lessons.
Nothing was unnatural about this, as that’s what life was about. Drinking and having a good time. I had binge drinkers and alcoholics as role models in my family, I knew nothing different.

It wasn’t strange to me that when I went into the off licence or chose a drink anything less than 7% cider was a waste of time. It didn’t occur to me when I was younger, that whilst my mates would share a litre bottle of strong cider, I wouldn’t share and wanted my own bottle.

I was a greedy drinker from the word go. When I drank I drank to excess. I wanted to be in the pubs and wanted to be like my brother and sister who were much older than me. I now know that they where binge drinkers. Our family name was known for big drinking in the small village we lived in, and I was proud of that!

When I got to 16 years old I was going to college and drinking in the afternoons. Any opportunity I could get. This again was fun and something that I had enthusiasm about and gave me confidence.

So if I stop there for a moment. At this point I did not see anything wrong with my drinking. It didn’t affect my life as I knew it at the time. Although I lost interest in college and started to drop out of my classes through lack of interest.

I am just giving you an outline of my drinking without going into depth of my emotional issues through my upbringing. Probably the same as many I was burdened with many adult issues as a child, which made my childhood a very withdrawn one.

I was a regular in the local pub at 16 years old and, when I was 17, I celebrated my 18th birthday in one of the local pubs as this was a much stricter pub for serving the under-aged. All the others I could get served in no problem. Being 6“2 and looking in my 20’s.

My drinking started to get worse. My friends would even comment on the states I was getting into. I would was a right PLOM (Poor Little Old Me). Thinking that was the only way I knew how to be.

My sister, who I am very close to, started to lock herself away and drink! I was the only one who she would trust and I would go to the shop for her without question. I had this inner knowledge of what was going on. Where as other people would not have understood.

I vowed to myself that I would never get like that. With the power of the knowledge I knew, and what my sister went through. But I didn’t realise that I was already on that path.

My real dad was schizophrenic and I was the only one he trusted. So throughout my childhood I was visiting mental institutions and sat there rolling his roll ups for him. And I did understand him too.

But when my sister was ill through alcohol, and my dad had another episode with his schizophrenia, something inside me shut down and had had enough. I started to resent my dad and his illness and the lack of support I had. As I was feeling all this, drink was my outlet, my release. But by this time I was actually blacking out and making a fool out of myself.

My Dad escaped the mental hospital and tried to get home, but never made it. He tried to cross a river but never made it across.

This absolutely destroyed me and I say this was the train crash of my life. I could not handle the emotion and didn’t show any. People thought I was amazing with the way I handled things. But I was left some money by him and my drinking turned nasty. I never knew the extent of the physical addiction and where it would take me. But for the next year I was chronically drinking. I had the shakes, sweats, didn’t eat, the fear, the retching of trying to get that first drink down my neck in the morning.

I would go missing for days and be found clenching a vodka bottle on the street. I was found and had to be cleaned up by friends from soiling myself. I can only describe the physicality of what drink did to me. My friends have filled me in over the years of what state I was in and how scared they were for me. People pitied me for what I had been through and thought it was to be expected.

It wasn’t long until I stayed at my sister’s. She had started drinking again through the worry of me going missing. Well two alcoholics together = disaster. Apparently we hid drink from each other a friend of the family had to come down and babysit us. I was sent to the doctors with very bad withdrawals they give me librium to help with the symptoms.

My grandparents (who brought me up) tried to lock me in the bedroom to keep me in. But I vaguely remember escaping through the bedroom window. When I was found again I was admitted into psychiatric hospital exactly a year after the passing of my dad. On the same ward, with the same psychiatrist.

The fear was unbelievable. I was hallucinating and reaching out for a drink that wasn’t there. The carpet was full of cigarette burns and looked like it was crawling with bugs. The patients where making fun of me because of my appearance and withdrawals. I was suffering with severe nosebleeds, my skin had turned yellow and all my face had swelled up.

I don’t really want to go on about this part, but I was in and out of the hospital for 3 months after that. I would not accept that I couldn’t drink. The psychiatrist said I could drink and that it was normal for an 18 year old to crave alcohol! I was being pumped full of drugs including lithium for manic depression.

I did start to get better and I attended an AA meeting in the hospital. I was the youngest person in AA at the time. I travelled around and a lot of people took me under their wing in AA. I am going to be missing big gaps now because all of these experiences have their own unique story to be told.

This kept me sober for 18 months and, as well as attending rehab centre groups, I started to do courses like counselling (I think early in recovery we all think we are counsellors!). We listen to others to deflect from what is really going on inside ourselves.

Every time I drank it ended up the same. I couldn’t have a social drink. I tried drink diaries, campral, I even thought that if I drank a certain drink I wouldn’t get drunk.

I felt so sorry for myself that I was in my teenage years and I was missing out. When I was 21 I was admitted into Smithfield Centre in Manchester for a 10 day detox. I had turned into an old man when admitted there. I lost the use of my legs and had to be carried in. I do remember the shock on the faces of the other patients as I entered.

It’s hard to remember a lot of things. But I do know throughout each detox I knew what was going to happen. And in a lot of ways became wiser. But also beat myself up more, for I should have known better.

My gosh I have gone on a bit and hope I’ve not bored anyone ha ha.

I was just going to add that my last detox was a home one. The doctor wanted to send me to clinic but I had enough support at the time to do it at home. It was very hard work, especially being with a partner that didn’t understand. I managed to get the librium off my partner and started to take more than I should and ran out! In panic I bought some benylin and sneaked it into the boot of my car. I would drink the benylin to take the edge off the withdrawalls as the librium was.

Something happened inside me, and I heard my own inner voice calmly saying to me “Adam, what are you doing to yourself? You are going to have to stop, why prolong this pain?”

With those words something spiritual happened to me that day. And from that day 22 August 2004, I have never touched a drop of alcohol again. And for some reason I have never missed it. I had accepted! I was 23 years old, I dumped my partner who I realised had been controlling me for three years, and my life began!

My life has been an amazing experience so far. Part of me feels blessed for the alcohol problem. I have learned so much about myself and others. I confronted all the people that had hurt me in the past and maintained my ‘victim status’.

I have gained so much life experience. I have not been the most academic person, but I would not trade my experience in for someone else’s knowledge. I need to experience to learn things.

I have now come to a point in my life where I would like to give something back. Brian Morrison has introduced me to this site and I have connected with him through recently doing a Life Coaching course. I am interested in volunteering and helping out, and possibly a career in this field.

An Alcoholic at 18 Years old… I was a novelty at the time!
An Alcoholic at 18 Years old…. today unfortunately is very common.

I would like to help young people get to where they want to be in life without substances. Alcohol Peer Support Services, which Brian Morrison manages, sounds like the perfect opportunity. I would want to make sure that people are not misunderstood, given the correct guidance and not just shoved into mental instutions as I was.

I have worked hard and been out of the alcohol circles and just maintained a ‘normal’ life. Now its time to give something back!

My saviour after AA was spiritualist church for anyone wondering how I maintained myself. Now to have a drink would be to lose control. I am happy with my life now. Still have ups and downs and just sheer bad luck, but a drink doesn’t enter into my head. That was the old me and a new me has been created!

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Many Blessings
Adam