In many of my blogs I talk about my own personal experience of addiction, and yet I haven’t really spoken specifically about it, maybe snippets here and there. So thought it is well overdue for me to tell you about my experience. Looking back on it now, I say it was an unfortunate and fortunate time. Fortunate? Well, I wouldn’t be able to support people the way I do without it.
The Dark Days
I started working in hospitality from around 15 and worked my way up to management by 19 so was doing ok. I suppose I was a heavy drinker for many years from being a teenager. I would usually go home after work most nights and drink. I could not leave anything in the wine bottle or until all the cans were drunk. On nights out I was the party animal that never knew when to stop drinking there was no off switch, it was the same with the drugs. The concept of just going out for a few did not exist. I would be the one that would be staggering and falling all over the place on nights out, I can remember ending up under a table at a family wedding or it was a running joke that my friend would have to hold me by my belt. I never classed myself as an alcoholic though.
Around aged 30 I was introduced to drugs, the usual clubbing ones. Before that, I wasn’t so much anti-drugs, I just didn’t see the attraction. My confidence went through roof on drugs, and I could remember the night and they were much more fun. When I was 32 (2006) I was diagnosed with HIV. Up until that point, things were just about ok. 'Functioning'. After the diagnosis it all changed, I started to isolate, the drinking increased, the drugs increased more and more and the different types of drugs.
Falling deeper into a pit of self-pity, as well as self-destruction, using on my own. With just one look at me or within a few words on the phone people knew I was on something. I think it was around 2012 that I started to inject. It wasn’t heroin or crack, even I knew that if I went near those, I would be dead. I am 6’2 and weighed around 10 stone, I looked like the stereo typical addict.
The spiral downwards continue
d, in 2006 I bought my own house, by 2008 I was bankrupt, lost the house, lost my job. I thought I was at that ‘rock-bottom’. Little did I know that there was more to come. I moved back to my parents, the drinking and drugs continued. I managed to get some good jobs but messed them up. Work had one purpose to fund my drinking and drugs. I wrote my car off and got banned for driving under the influence. I knew within myself I had a problem, a big problem. Admitting it to myself was one thing, admitting it to others was another.
