Alcohol through the ages!

This article is a strange one, as the purpose of the article has changed as I was writing it, it has turned out into some self-reflection of the impact of alcohol at different parts of my life and probably helped me to understand some of the reasons I feel the way I do today. I hope you too, find it useful.

Please be kind about the photos some of them were taken a long time ago, and want to keep them authentic, I have not edited them in any way other than cropping.

Troublesome teenager

I don’t remember suffering from anxiety in my teens, but I do remember a strong need to fit in. I was not good at sports and while I had friends, I never felt accepted. This continued until I was about 14 when I first discovered alcohol. I can remember the first time I ever drank alcohol, I drank 2 and a half litres of White Lightning and half a bottle of Thunderbirds, I made myself very ill! This experience would have put most people off alcohol, but still looking for acceptance, I saw this as a minor setback.

I quickly learned that due to my size, I had a growth spurt early on, I could get served alcohol in shops before my friends, and finally, I felt popular. I realise now this was not the case, or I may have been popular, but this had nothing to do with my drinking or being able to buy others alcohol.

My nan died at an early age, she was an alcoholic, I’ve memories of my nan when I was going up, I remember her death from liver failure, but did my all-or-nothing approach stop me from drinking, nope it just made me do it more!

As I progressed into my late teenage years, drinking alcohol became good, I did not realise it then, but in effect, I was drinking to self-medicate my anxiety.

Terrible twenties

I never realised it at the time, but this is where things started to go downhill for me. I started to use alcohol more often, I thought this was normal as all my friends were also at the pub and out all weekend. However, my friends did not see that I was also drinking when I was on my own.

I’ve done a lot of things when under the influence of alcohol that I’m ashamed of. Many of these things I will discuss in later posts. I spent money that I did not have, got into debt and at times, I was shit to my family and those closest to me.

However, I did not feel like this at the time, I felt great! Or at least I thought I did. I remember someone once said to me, no one would beat me in a drinking contest. I saw this as a badge to wear with pride, rather than a warning me I was building up a tolerance to alcohol due to my excessive drinking.

Thirsty Thirties

This is a bit of a contradiction, but it was in my thirties that I think I started to get in trouble with my drinking because I was getting good at it. Due to working out how to manage my habit while holding down a reasonably paid job, I was able to sustain my habit while getting into less debt. However, I was unhappy, I would go out, and be the life and soul of the party but I never knew when I’d had enough. Later into my thirties, I recognised this behaviour, so I would often take myself home early from social events, so I could get drunk to oblivion on my own.

I was now realising how big of a problem it had got. I started to look on the internet, about how to get sober, often doing this while drinking. One especially heavy drinking night, I found a book and ordered it on amazon. I went to my front porch and there it was the book I’d ordered earlier that evening. At the time, this was super confusing, I did not understand what had happened, had I blacked out or had my delivery arrived in just a couple of hours? It turns out I ordered the same book during a drinking session two days ago! Now the proud owner of two copies of the same book, I decided I really should do something about my drinking. I read the book, and this was the last time I drank. If you are interested the book was The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober by Catherine Grey and I would highly recommend it.

Finally, my forties.

So here I’m sat today, 41 years of age and sober for the last 3 years. It has been far from easy, and I’m still struggling to accept that even sober things are far from perfect. However, despite my daily struggles I know things would be a lot harder if I started drinking again. Yes, there are evenings when my brain tells me I want a drink but there is never I morning, I wished I’d drunk the night before.

I hope that you found it helpful to learn a little about me, this is a brief overview of why I drank, and I will happily discuss more in our member’s area but hopefully, some of my stories resonate with you. I look forward to learning about your story.

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Ben – It's That Sober Guy

Disclaimer – I’m not a trained addiction or mental health professional, information is based on my own life experiences and shared in good faith to help others.

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