Did you enjoy your time in drink tosh?
I must say that you seem to be happy away from the booze which has got to be a good thing.
I don't think it was a case of 'enjoying' my last drink; I sort of drank because I felt I had to. It was more for relief from the internal pressure that built up when I wasn't drinking, more than anything else. I didn't drink for fun, I drank because it gave me a sense of ease and comfort, but in the end even that stopped working. Alcohol is a drug, and that's what happens I guess. And once I started drinking, I didn't drink in moderation. I drank till either my supply had ran out (I tried to control my drinking by not having too much in the house), or till I passed out, if I did have access to more than my 'ration'. My 'rock bottom' was more mental and physical (I was just truly sick and tired of feeling sick and tired) than material; though I had problems with relationships, earning a living, dealing with life in general, and I had regular thoughts and plans about suicide; and I had to drink every-sodding-day; like a treadmill I couldn't get off.
It does sometimes annoy me when people (like my Mother) still think I'm on some sort of knife-edge where they think at some stage I could possibly drink again (she knows alkies; my father was one) - and it's been nearly two years sober for me (it would've been longer, but I had to do some experimenting to see if I really was really an alkie, after a period of not drinking
).
But now, after being shown how, I don't miss drinking at all, no more than I miss say,... eating kippers. It's not a case of 'fighting' or 'will power' (though it took a bit of grit in the early days - but I had plenty of support from a brilliant bunch of people who'd been in the same situation as myself), and now I really just don't need to drink. And to be honest, I don't think life has ever been as easy as it is now.
Anyway, I hope I haven't been over melodramatic. I'm just tying to help anyone that may identify with me, that they may also have a problem with alcohol. If anyone does suspect they have a problem, there's plenty of help available, and many of us find that it can actually be a blessing in disguise. You can turn all the poo that comes with being a 'problem drinker' into some pretty good fertiliser for a happy life. That might sound weird, but it's true.
