Member Advice on Alcohol Addiction

At last the sun is shining. I first noticed that it was shining this morning when the district nurse paid her regular visit to take a blood sample from me (which she has been doing for the past 2 months). This time last year, I was probably sat at my desk in the ‘pressure cauldron’ that I know as work. I can now reflect over the last 18 months or so of my life and the reason that I am sat here telling my story today. Be warned this is quite a lengthy ...
...into the same state as I did, then it will be worth it.

Do not be misguided by my reflection over months rather than years, as the ‘build up’ has been many, many years of drinking well over the ’safe’ alcohol unit limit as laid down by the Government, British Medical Association, Life Assurance companies etc. In my late teens and very early 20’s I enjoyed a ‘drink’ and had the odd Saturday night binge with friends (as most if us do ... more

At last the sun is shining. I first noticed that it was shining this morning when the district nurse paid her regular visit to take a blood sample from me (which she has been doing for the past 2 months). This time last year, I was probably sat at my desk in the ‘pressure cauldron’ that I know as work. I can now reflect over the last 18 months or so of my life and the reason that I am sat here telling my story today. Be warned this is quite a lengthy review, but if it helps somebody else not to get into the same state as I did, then it will be worth it.

Do not be misguided by my reflection over months rather than years, as the ‘build up’ has been many, many years of drinking well over the ’safe’ alcohol unit limit as laid down by the Government, British Medical Association, Life Assurance companies etc. In my late teens and very early 20’s I enjoyed a ‘drink’ and had the odd Saturday night binge with friends (as most if us do at that age). I never relied on drink and never drank alcohol if I was driving. I started seeing someone who, after a few weeks, my parents decided they did not like, and forbid me to see him anymore. I carried on seeing him without them knowing for 2 years. This had quite an effect on me and I began to have panic attacks, which I managed to hide. Getting to work on a bus and actually being in work was a nightmare. I lost the ability to go into shops without getting hot, wanting to escape and panicking. I usually had to leave whatever it was I was going to buy. I found that if I went out to a pub, alcohol would calm me down, and I no longer experienced the panic and anxiety that I did without alcohol. I married Stewart in 1982, and I had told him about the panic/anxiety etc. He drove me to and from work when it fitted in with his shift pattern and over the past few years as things were getting worse, he would do all the things that I couldn’t in the end with or without a drink – shopping in the main. Stewart liked alcohol too, as much as I did. We never drank with the sole intention of getting drunk, as some do. Over the last 5 to 10 years our drinking has been mainly in our house on a Friday night, Saturday and some on a Sunday afternoon. We also drank on weeknights, and it was rare that we went a day without drinking alcohol at all. Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t and aren’t a pair of drunks sat on the settee drinking all the time. I passed 5 Open University courses (one of which had an exam) and I sat and passed 5 exams for work in just over two years. So alcohol was not affecting my job or Open University, because I didn’t let it – in any case, I’m sure I would have received instant dismissal had I ever turned up for work drunk or so hungover that my job suffered. Where I work, there is no place to hide and I would have been found out immediately.

I have a very strong character and mind, and have coped well with pressures in work, over the past 30+ years. However, around September/October 2007, not only the pressure, but the environment too was becoming unbearable to work in. In the December, Stewart said that he had never seen me in the state I was currently in and thought that I may be suffering with depression. Christmas and New Year came and went – work forgotten for a brief period. The environment and pressure in work got no better and I now drank as soon as I got home from work, to get some relief. By the time we went on holiday last June (a trip around the north of England, culminating at the Lake District in a luxury hotel; and one which we had carefully planned and had been looking really forward to), I felt more stressed than I ever had on a holiday. We had hoped that the holiday would help, and although it did a little, I was still anxious over almost everything – such as booking into the hotels, driving along in the car etc. My drinking now included vodka and diet coke plus red wine (I had previously drunk lager for years and rarely drunk shorts or wine). When we came back from holiday I was in a right ‘state’ with the anxiety. I knew that I was in trouble and something was going to ‘break’. However, I managed to ‘get it together’ and went back to work as normal, without anyone in work suspecting or knowing how close to a breakdown I was. Our lives were beginning to revolve more and more around alcohol. Once we had finished work for the weekend; that was it until Monday. I very rarely left the house, as I preferred to drink and forget, until Monday morning came around. At the end of July, I had left work on a Friday literally shaking when I got into the car with Stewart – this was not through a withdrawal symptom from alcohol, it was literally because of the pressurised morning that I had experienced. I did not go to work on the following Monday, and Tuesday morning I admitted that I couldn’t carry on as I was, and went to see the doctor (this took a lot as I very rarely visit the doctor’s surgery, as I have a phobia about blood and all things medical, and had always thought that having anxiety and admitting to it, brought with it a social stigma and everyone would start treating me differently). I was ‘signed off’ sick initially for 3 weeks and am still signed off at the moment – only now my certificate no longer states ‘anxiety and depression’, it now has the addition of ‘liver problems’.

Around September/October, I had got myself into a really big black hole which I was struggling to get out of with or without alcohol. My employers insisted on having formal meetings with me (thankfully, they agreed to come to the house). The meetings were making me worse. They appeared so insensitive to what I was going through and feeling. The focus of all the meetings was always about when I was going back to work (which the doctor thought was very unfair of them to ask; and not helping at all, as they were still putting pressure on me and I needed time to get through it). The last meeting I had with them (at the end of November) I felt intimidated in my own home – I try not to think of the details too much now. After they had gone, I poured a vodka and diet coke (this was around 9:45 a.m.). I knew it was wrong but I ‘needed’ it. It is impossible to describe what I was going through and how I felt that morning. Stewart didn’t stop me from having the vodka - he was appalled and almost speechless at how I had been treated (he had been at all the meetings with me and hadn’t ‘stepped in’ as he wanted to that morning, because I had told him before the meeting that I could handle it and asked him to just observe). My employers told me that they were working on me retuning to work on 5th January, with their expectations and timetables of when these had to be achieved (this included passing a test within two weeks and an exam within six months). They also tore apart the letter that my doctor had written to them (at their request). From that day onward, alcohol started to control me rather than the other way around, and drinking vodka rather than lager as I used to drink, I believe was one of the reasons that I deteriorated so quickly, especially given the fact that I drank lager in pints, so my measures of vodka were way in excess of normal pub measures.

There were some ‘tell tale’ signs that I should have paid attention to and done something about, but didn’t. I had stopped drinking lager in September because I had gone totally off it, and I thought that I should be losing weight. In addition I had also lost my appetite and was eating very little each day. Instead I was either staying the same or putting weight on each week. I thought that it was because I was not getting any exercise being in the house all day. By the middle of November I was getting out of breath very easily, and had to force myself to do the slightest things, like washing up. At the time, I also put this down to being unfit, and carried on trying to do some exercise, but without success – I just couldn’t manage it. My legs started to feel really heavy. Even when I hadn’t had a drink, Stewart said I had begun slurring.

My parents come here for Christmas dinner each year, and Stewart and my mum ended up cooking most of the dinner – I did do some of it. This wasn’t because I was drunk, but probably a mixture of anxiety, depression, the alcohol that was building up in my system and the anxiety medication that my doctor had prescribed – I knew full well that I shouldn’t be mixing alcohol with medication, but I couldn’t help myself; after all nothing had happened to me so far. We had a ‘quiet New Year’s Eve’ – just myself and Stewart. We had a few drinks, but took it steady. New Year’s Day we drank steadily as well. However, by 2nd January I had real problems with my legs – inasmuch as they didn’t want to hold me up anymore. A lot of the following part of my story is from what I actually remember, and what Stewart told me happened.

I could no longer get upstairs, even with Stewart trying to help me, and I remember thinking that if only I could get upstairs and go to sleep, everything would be ok tomorrow, but every time I tried my legs ‘buckled’ and I kept collapsing. I slept in the hall on the carpet for 2 hours, as Stewart couldn’t move me, and I didn’t want to be moved. Eventually he got me back into the room and spent from around 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. trying to get me onto the settee without success. He eventually made me as comfortable as he could on the floor and went to try and get some sleep for 3 hours. He asked my brother to come over and help me upstairs to bed, but that failed too and I ended up sliding back down the stairs. With my brother’s help he got me onto the settee again. By this stage my complexion had become yellow as had the once whites of my eyes (a friend later told me that when she first came to see me in hospital that I looked like a yellow jelly baby). You may be thinking why Stewart hadn’t called for a doctor at this stage, but I insisted that I didn’t want or need one – a good night’s rest and I would be fine. However, by Saturday evening I had deteriorated so much that Stewart didn’t take any notice of my pleas for no doctor and he called one out. She immediately phoned for an ambulance – even though I said I wasn’t going to hospital, I eventually gave in, especially when the doctor gave her diagnosis that I either had heart or liver failure. I don’t remember too much at all in hospital for the first couple of weeks – I slept my through most of it, in between tests of all sorts. I remember having an E.C.G. because that had been ordered when I first got there and was undertaken 2 weeks later – thankfully, my heart was fine. Stewart says that I had x-rays and a CAT scan, and obviously blood tests. I was in the assessment area of A & E for 3 days, and Stewart spent as much time as possible there. He was there all night until mid-day the next day on the first night I was there, and then only came home for a few hours to get an hour or two of sleep. I have no idea if I suffered any withdrawal symptoms from the alcohol, or whether they gave me anything to help with them. I do remember having nightmares/dreams, which I suppose may have been hallucinations. Even now I am still asking Stewart questions to try and separate the reality from what I may have dreamt. During my stay in hospital the consultant told me that I had been seriously ill; in addition to the obvious liver problem, this had caused problems with my kidneys. I also had anaemia and they had given me a blood transfusion, even though I don’t remember having it; I’d had pneumonia and a chest infection. The consultant told Stewart and my parents that there was a 50/50 chance of me pulling through, and that 25% of patients who were admitted in the same state, didn’t make it. Even though Stewart has told me the emotions that he went through, I can’t begin to imagine how he must have felt. I was oblivious to how really seriously ill I had become – it is only just starting to register.

I came home on 28th January. And that was with a fight, as I still couldn’t walk, apart from a few steps with a walking frame. I had to pretend that I was eating – which I wasn’t - and our only toilet in our house is upstairs. Luckily Stewart had bought a commode before I went into hospital, and he assured the staff that I would be well looked after at home – and I was. One of the biggest shocks that I had was that the clothes that had fitted me before I went into hospital were now tight to bursting point. I was quite big before I went in, but this was bordering on the ridiculous – I had put on 2 stone and my legs were like balloons!

My doctor came to visit me the day after I came home. He told me that I would lose weight rapidly with the water tablets that I am taking, as the weight was mostly water retention. He was right and I’ve now lost over 4 stone. It’s been a really hard battle to get where I am today – I still use a wheel chair to get around long distances, but can walk unaided, although not for long. I can also get upstairs, although I sometimes have to crawl up by the evening, and I still have the anxiety to tackle, although it’s nowhere near as bad as last year. It’s very difficult without the alcohol to calm me and help me cope. I haven’t drunk any alcohol at all, since the day I was admitted to hospital (Stewart has given up too, which helps tremendously), but the more I recover the more I am beginning to fancy a glass of wine or a small vodka and coke. It’s beginning to get a little harder now, but I am determined never to drink again. One drink probably won’t do me any harm physically, but I know I won’t stop at one, and this time I might not be as lucky to survive. I’ve been given a chance and I am determined to take it. I could not and will not put Stewart through what he went through again – what I suffered was my own doing, not his. Ok so he drank a lot too, but he didn’t become addicted or dependant on it, as I had towards the end. My liver is now clearing and there has been no further mention about my kidneys or the anaemia. We often eat out in the evenings – always at a pub, as my philosophy is that by going to a pub we will become used to not having alcohol, where alcohol is on sale (it’s just as expensive though for a soft drink as an alcoholic one!).

Rightly or wrongly, I still do not feel that I was/am an alcoholic – my perception of alcoholic is different to my own experience, but I will admit to abusing alcohol, which boils down to the same thing, I suppose. The final diagnosis when I left hospital was ‘alcoholic hepatitis’.

There is help out there, such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) - easy to find on Google, and one I found called Bright Eye (http://www.brighteyecounselling.co.uk/) that have counsellors, at a price of course; but also has various forums which are free to join. I have read about AA and it isn’t for me, but although I haven’t posted on there myself, I have found the Bright Eye forums quite interesting.

I am one of the lucky ones - drink never interfered with work, I became too ill before I got to the stage of drinking vodka neat, I never lied to Stewart about what I drank whilst he wasn’t here – I fabricated it a bit by saying that I’d had 2 drinks, which was true, but each drink was probably 4 times the normal pub measure, and most of all I have been given another chance and have survived to tell this story. Having been given time to reflect whilst I recovered, in a weird way I am glad it happened the way it did – me going into hospital – that’s one of my biggest phobia’s – is a very big deterrent to me taking up alcohol again. This obviously would not deter everyone, as we are all different; but one thing that I believe is certain is that the only way to step onto the ‘road to recovery’ is to admit there is a problem in the first place. I’m not sure how long it would have taken or if I ever would have admitted that I had a problem. I think that I plunged right to the bottom of the black hole that I was in, and the only way was up from there – well I hope so anyway.

This is the hardest thing I have ever written, and it will be even harder to click the button to publish review. It makes me feel a little bit transparent, but I wouldn’t want anyone else to go through what I did. If anyone reading this feels as if they may be on the road to where I ended up, please think about the consequences. It can happen to you – I thought I was invincible as far as alcohol was concerned too, but once it takes hold it’s a very long struggle back.

Thanks for reading.

(C) Keeway
 

...less