My sobriety story

I did 10 years sober - I started with a month in a treatment centre. Then when I came out, I went to AA for a while, but it really wasn't for me.

I stayed sober by just not drinking - it was a mind-set. I didn't want to break the spell. I also didnt go out much and broke ties with a bunch of friends. I met a girl who became my long-term partner and she wasn't really into going out much either, so we enjoyed our large garden and bumbled along together.

Then in 2018 I got a new job that meant travelling a lot to meet clients around the world and all of a sudden I was going out to dinner a lot...... and one day, I said yes to a beer. About the same time, my long-term partner had an affair and I found out about it because I was nosy and picked up the other land-line one day and heard her confirming an appointment to have a pregnancy termination! N.B. We weren't sleeping together for a looong time. My first words to her after the call were: "You dont have to do this". We had no children and she was 40, so this was her last chance really.

Roll forward about 6 months and I was on a litre of vodka a day and a complete mess.

I had to sober up before her daughter was born, and with will power and gritted teeth, I did, but I knew it wasn't strong, and I had repeated relapses. Her daughter was born and they lived with me for 2 years before she moved away. Like a fool, I had fallen in love with that beautiful little baby girl and hoped we could make it work as a family. 

During that time I was persuaded to get an implant to stop me drinking by a friend. Antabuse is a chemical in pill form to take daily, or an annual implant. If you drink alcohol with this chemical in your system, you will get very sick, very quickly and could die. Apparently it's a popular intervention in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. I knew I wouldn't be able to consistently take a pill daily but the implant would work. Initially I was absolutely against the idea, but finally I said yes. I think it was a desperate attempt to get my partner and her daughter to stay with me, although she had already said she was going, and indeed she did.

Antabuse / Esperel implants aren't licenced in the UK, so I travelled with my brother to Ireland in August 2021 to have the implant surgically placed at the top of my left buttock. It was a simple procedure and cost about £200. Apparently, they used to place the implants in people's upper-arms, but folks would dig them out with a knife!! So now it is routine to have the implant in the buttock.

My partner left in December last year (2021) and travelled to her home country in Eastern Europe.

I got myself a therapist - another life-saver - and without the implant I absolutely knew that I would be drinking myself to death! I absolutely knew it. I was broken. My therapist was amazing and has slowly pulled me out of the other side of the storm. She saved my life, and I still have the odd appointment with her. I am 100% honest with her about everything, and I mean EVERYTHING!!

In August this year, I chose Poland to have the next annual implant, and visited my ex and her daughter. I stayed in a hotel but spent 3 days with them. It was lovely. 

The surgery was a bit cheaper, but the travel was more costly. 

I'm not sure where I'll choose next year, but for me this is the solution because I physically CANNOT drink with this implant in my buttock. If I do I may die a horrible death.

It sounds a bit drastic, and as I say, I was completely against the idea at first. I said: "There's no way I'm having an implant, are you guys mad??" ....but it takes any risk out of the equation. 

I will continue to have annual implants.

However, addiction is very strange in that I seek out other ways to change the way I feel. I have dabbled with codeine, Valium, St John's Wort and other chemistry. I still have to be super-careful because it's like a patch of weeds that I've paved over, but it still tries to grow up through the cracks.

Very few people know about my implant. I now tell people I dont drink because I feel better without it. I read a fabulous article in GQ magazine about Brad Pitt giving up drinking - Google it: 2018 I think it was written. This really helped me because he gave up when he broke up with Angelina, and I use the same story - that I've given up to have a clear head after my break-up. Many of my business clients will ask around a table of colleagues: "beer? beer? beer?...and what about you Brad?" They've adopted this understanding of me, and if it's OK for Brad Pitt, it must be OK. I will have to evolve it into: "I felt so much better when I didnt drink, so I've carried on...."

That's my story.