Top of the Pops

 

 

Tap in BOOZE CHECK on Google and The Swarmite REHAB is in No 1 first listing position. Top of the AlcoPops. It comes as some surprise I must say that after 3 months of blogging, the page on my site with the biggest hits is BOOZE CHECK. Shome mishtake shurely, as they say in PRIVATE EYE Mag. 

 

The Swarmite REHAB endeavours to educate and amuse but having a booze problem is no laughing matter especially for people around them and Monday is likely to be the worst day of all after a drowning weekend. It is fallacy to think that my clients are all alcoholics and drug addicts – I see very few and other agencies abound to cater for them better. 

I prefer to work with clients who are not addicts or alkies but keep doing " too much" of anything, coke, booze, net etc, going nowhere fast, never reaching a rock-bottom while walking through treacle. The user, abuser, heavy drinker, the lush, the retrobate. 

 

London Lifestyles are all about the bottle, the jug and hare, it’s evolutionary – ask Pepys – hence the rise of the fashionable Wine Bar in the 70′s from naff saloon bar ambience. Glamour drinking was the vogue then, a bottle after work and five glasses between friends in a snazzy location.  Now its a 2nd bottle in your bag from Sainsbury’s for later on your own after a marathon trawl through London booze dens. Though London without alcohol would be Milton Keynes, god forbid, so no one is suggesting temperance – only observation – so start by observing the people around you who pick up the pieces. Alcoholism doesn’t usually appear overnight, it’s a gradual climb up a mountain. My own drinking patterns were not startling at first, just the old dutch courage of a snifter or two when looking for social interaction in bars. Then I took on too much work as I was an overachiever. The Advertising industry saw this as professional practice so I caught the trend of client aftercare and expenses abuse well before The House Of Commons fooled themselves.

 

I drank every day for 15 years and as someone pointed out " every photo I have of you, you have a drink in your hand ". Spoilsports – how dare they judge my life of glamour! The only thing I ever checked was my booze supply at home not the credit card receipts piling up. I ended up living alone, working alone, drinking alone and using drugs alone. I was a loner. Whenever I ventured out to a restaurant with friends the Drinks Menu was read before A la Carte. Every time I went to the theatre the same colluding friends knew I needed an aisle seat – first to the interval Bar and the toilet for I spent all day pissing. So would you if you drank a bottle of scotch, 2 litres of coke and a litre of white wine at home plus endless bar consumption every day, and that’s without the other  mood altering drugs. At the endgame my first drink in the morning at 7am was the remains of the drink I had left the night before, having crashed out by 9pm, awake and refilled at 2am, alarmed at 7am. Then I worked for 16 hours each day hiding scotch in tea or coffee, glugging down Kaolin & Morphine Mixture in-between. I used valium everyday for 17 years ( using 3 doctors ) as well as spliffs, mandys, mogadon and the like. I was not thinking straight. I was an addict. When the money ran out I bought Tesco Whiskey and poured it into BELL’S Whiskey bottles for appearance sake and when I was totally broke I supped 5 bottles of Night Nurse a day for comfort. 

 

My last drink, mood altering drug and puff of a ciggie was on October 25 1982. I was beat. It beat me. I surrendered with no possible turning back to social using, I had crossed the line of no return.

In 1984 I went bankrupt for 38 grand ( about £160,000 in todays money ) but alcoholism & drug addiction cost me more than money. It robbed me of self respect, old friends and a decent liver.

 

You would think that living without alcohol for such a long time would make me a bar humbug social outcast when the opposite is true – I just know my limits – and my limit means that people drinking doesn’t bother me at all, it’s the drunks that wind me up into recall.  If you do drink " too much " find out why in counselling, don’t ask friends, especially the piss artists you gather around to prove your problems not " that bad ", they will collude in denial. Counting units never worked for me or the awful hangovers. People suffer in silence who pick up the pieces of boozers, tut tutting under pursed lips as they sweep the secrets under the carpet. Many children who parented their drinking parents grow up to control drink then find a partner who feels like home, a drunk who drinks heavily. More about Adult Children of Alcoholics is on the BOOZE CHECK page.

 

People who booze too much can reduce intake easily with support but it does involve attention and completing past hurts, relationships and resentment and you can’t do this struggling on your own like I did. In the end I sought help to get sorted. I have never looked back and thought I am missing something. I have created a lifestyle that many envy even though the journey has been tough and I am blessed with the character building exercise of addiction and the power to carry out the act of surrender. 

 

If I can do it, anyone can. If you want to control your drinking and create " purposeful using of alcohol and drugs " contact me about how you do that. For those who straddle between two forces : To drink or not to drink, observation is the only route to balance and to learn to say NO more often. 

 

In these days of crunch it’s on the money to say NO. Be in fashion for once.