Good Evening,
I have decided to post my story here in the hope that someone may benefit. I wrote it in application for a volunteer job I am applying for at a treatment facility I access. Here goes:
My own story is rather long and drawn out so I will give you the pr?cised version! I started drinking regularly in my mid-teens and became addicted very quickly. By the time I left school I had gone from a caring, intelligent and hugely ambitious young man, interested in the world around me looking forward to all the future had to offer, to someone whose sole purpose in life was to spend as much time as possible in the pub. Although my upbringing was fairly privileged in a material sense it was also very traumatic. From the age of five I witnessed the death of my farther followed two years later by my mother suffering a stroke whilst out walking with me. Fast forward two years and I watched my maternal grandmother, who, since my father?s untimely death, had become a second parent to me; die suddenly in front of me. During this time my mother?s health had been steadily deteriorating until, aged twelve, she told me that she needed a heart transplant or she too would be dead within the year. All of this I ?dealt? with by staying strong and supporting my family; never showing emotion, asking for or accepting help. When I started drinking around the age of 14 all this emotional baggage, coupled with my burgeoning homosexuality (something which I found abhorrent at the time) was only likely to end one way.
Fast forward a few years spent partying, travelling and drinking until I reach 21, at which point I decide I need a focus. I was fortunate enough to have been endowed with a substantial trust fund courtesy of my late grandmother, so, given that I needed a focus in life and never left my local pub, I decided to buy it! I completed the purchase on Friday 4Th December 2004 and my drinking really took off. I?m sure I don?t need to paint you a picture of the following two years but it suffices to say that I emerged bankrupt, friendless and with a family who didn't want to know me. I had also developed two secondary addictions; cocaine and gambling. I was at the lowest point of my life so far but despite overwhelming evidence, it didn't even occur to me that alcohol was the issue.
I spent the next year or so in a permanently alcohol and drug induced hell until my mother finally relented and gave me a load of money to go travelling for a year. I booked my ticket for a couple of weeks time and went on the most almighty piss-up of my life culminating in me crashing the car a friend had lent me attempting to exit the pub and being arrested for drunk driving. I blew 159ug in breath (five times the UK drink drive limit)! Threatened with the real possibility of a custodial sentence, the penny finally dropped. I admitted that I was an alcoholic, but I had absolutely no comprehension of what that word actually meant. I had decided that I wasn't going to drink again and that was that. I attended a couple of AA meeting, on my solicitor?s instruction, but frankly felt that they were making rather a meal of it. Whenever I want to do something I do it; I had decided that I was finished with alcohol so the problem was now sorted. Having a vicar and a bishop in my extended family, who I despised for their rank hypocrisy, the preeminence of the word God in the literature was also rather off-putting to say the least!
Somewhat unsurprisingly that was not the end of my association with alcohol! After a year or so of seemingly terminal decline, my mother agreed to pay for me to go into The Priory on their addictions treatment programme. I spent a challenging month there, dealing with the aforementioned emotional baggage and emerged happier, healthier and ready to start my life again. They had even managed to sell me on the virtues of AA, after all, at over four grand a week they must know what they?re talking about!
I went to lots of meetings, got a sponsor, did service and worked the steps. I never really believed any of it but I was willing to believe that others knew better than me and that it would help me in the long run. I started to rebuild my career and began to make a success of my life. In April 2011 I celebrated two years of sobriety, I had my family back in my life, a couple of good friends, a growing business and plenty of money.
It was at that point that I was the closest I've ever been to taking my own life.
I had built a life based solely on fear and greed; fear of returning to the degraded existence I suffered before I entered the Priory. I pursued wealth constantly and obsessively because I dreamed of the day that I could return to drinking without fear of destitution. Everybody was telling me how well I was doing but I was dying inside. My craving for alcohol, far from abating over time, grew ever stronger until it pervaded every moment of every day. Even sleep offered no respite.
When I started drinking again I loved it. I had my social life back. I had loads of friends and loads of sex, two things which had been very much lacking during my period of abstinence. Within nine months I had let my business go down the pan, spent all my money, lost my driving licence again and returned to a very base existence. I didn't know what to do. I knew that I was destroying my life but I also now knew from personal experience that enforced abstinence was just as bad. I had resigned myself to a life of continual binge and abstinence cycles. I longed for death. I had given up.
It was then in a nostalgic moment that I found myself going through my ?recovery file?. I have kept pretty much everything pertaining to my recovery and I guess I was looking for a glimmer of hope. I found a single sheet of A4 that my mother had printed off for me shortly before I entered The Priory back in 2009. It was an article from the national press about a French cardiologist by the name of Olivier Amesien. Amesien was a successful and respected doctor until alcoholism brought him to the brink of death. He had spent many years in rehab, therapy and AA but they had little effect. He realised, as I had, that alcoholic cravings never get better and always brought him back to alcohol. Through medical research and self-experimentation he discovered that the drug Baclofen, a safe non-addictive GABA B receptor agonist, gave him total relief from alcoholic cravings and even allowed him to drink socially without getting drunk or returning him to an alcoholic binge.
Fast forward through six months of research, procrastination and endless difficulty in getting hold of the medication and I am free from the bondage of addiction. I no longer think about alcohol obsessively. I am able to go out for an evening with my friends, wake up the next day and have no compulsion to drink what so ever. In short, I have achieved the holy grail ? the ability to drink socially. Just three months ago I thought I was condemned to spend the rest of my life in a never ending cycle of binge and abstinence; never able to build or maintain relationships or develop a career. Frankly I longed for death.
Make no mistake, Amesien?s discovery will revolutionise the treatment of addictions. For the first time, addicts are able to be truly free from addiction and go on to build happy and productive lives. Those of us who follow this treatment measure our success by whether or not we are drinking against our will. The concept of drunk or sober holds no relevance for us. I have no desire to begin drinking against my will again but abstinence against my will does not offer a palatable alternative. By removing the requirement for total abstinence and life-long AA attendance many more people will access treatment and at a much earlier stage in their lives. If I had been offered this treatment ten years ago when I first visited my GP I would have been spared ten years of abject misery.
So, my reasons for this application are as follows. There is a growing movement of people having phenomenal success with this treatment but they are, for the most part, doing it without medical supervision or support. I believe that I have been successful so quickly because I had already received a great deal of therapy and have dealt with my past. All I was left with was a simple chemical dependency. This treatment offers the chance of a real, happy and sustainable recovery for the majority of addicts but it should never be seen as a ?magic bullet? but as an adjunct to therapeutic treatment.
I have decided that I want to help bring this treatment into the mainstream and, to that end; I will commence training as a therapist in September. I would very much like to spend some time working with the bridge to kick-start my learning and to offer my support to an organisation that, during my brief association, has offered me a great deal of support and encouragement.
Justin
I have decided to post my story here in the hope that someone may benefit. I wrote it in application for a volunteer job I am applying for at a treatment facility I access. Here goes:
My own story is rather long and drawn out so I will give you the pr?cised version! I started drinking regularly in my mid-teens and became addicted very quickly. By the time I left school I had gone from a caring, intelligent and hugely ambitious young man, interested in the world around me looking forward to all the future had to offer, to someone whose sole purpose in life was to spend as much time as possible in the pub. Although my upbringing was fairly privileged in a material sense it was also very traumatic. From the age of five I witnessed the death of my farther followed two years later by my mother suffering a stroke whilst out walking with me. Fast forward two years and I watched my maternal grandmother, who, since my father?s untimely death, had become a second parent to me; die suddenly in front of me. During this time my mother?s health had been steadily deteriorating until, aged twelve, she told me that she needed a heart transplant or she too would be dead within the year. All of this I ?dealt? with by staying strong and supporting my family; never showing emotion, asking for or accepting help. When I started drinking around the age of 14 all this emotional baggage, coupled with my burgeoning homosexuality (something which I found abhorrent at the time) was only likely to end one way.
Fast forward a few years spent partying, travelling and drinking until I reach 21, at which point I decide I need a focus. I was fortunate enough to have been endowed with a substantial trust fund courtesy of my late grandmother, so, given that I needed a focus in life and never left my local pub, I decided to buy it! I completed the purchase on Friday 4Th December 2004 and my drinking really took off. I?m sure I don?t need to paint you a picture of the following two years but it suffices to say that I emerged bankrupt, friendless and with a family who didn't want to know me. I had also developed two secondary addictions; cocaine and gambling. I was at the lowest point of my life so far but despite overwhelming evidence, it didn't even occur to me that alcohol was the issue.
I spent the next year or so in a permanently alcohol and drug induced hell until my mother finally relented and gave me a load of money to go travelling for a year. I booked my ticket for a couple of weeks time and went on the most almighty piss-up of my life culminating in me crashing the car a friend had lent me attempting to exit the pub and being arrested for drunk driving. I blew 159ug in breath (five times the UK drink drive limit)! Threatened with the real possibility of a custodial sentence, the penny finally dropped. I admitted that I was an alcoholic, but I had absolutely no comprehension of what that word actually meant. I had decided that I wasn't going to drink again and that was that. I attended a couple of AA meeting, on my solicitor?s instruction, but frankly felt that they were making rather a meal of it. Whenever I want to do something I do it; I had decided that I was finished with alcohol so the problem was now sorted. Having a vicar and a bishop in my extended family, who I despised for their rank hypocrisy, the preeminence of the word God in the literature was also rather off-putting to say the least!
Somewhat unsurprisingly that was not the end of my association with alcohol! After a year or so of seemingly terminal decline, my mother agreed to pay for me to go into The Priory on their addictions treatment programme. I spent a challenging month there, dealing with the aforementioned emotional baggage and emerged happier, healthier and ready to start my life again. They had even managed to sell me on the virtues of AA, after all, at over four grand a week they must know what they?re talking about!
I went to lots of meetings, got a sponsor, did service and worked the steps. I never really believed any of it but I was willing to believe that others knew better than me and that it would help me in the long run. I started to rebuild my career and began to make a success of my life. In April 2011 I celebrated two years of sobriety, I had my family back in my life, a couple of good friends, a growing business and plenty of money.
It was at that point that I was the closest I've ever been to taking my own life.
I had built a life based solely on fear and greed; fear of returning to the degraded existence I suffered before I entered the Priory. I pursued wealth constantly and obsessively because I dreamed of the day that I could return to drinking without fear of destitution. Everybody was telling me how well I was doing but I was dying inside. My craving for alcohol, far from abating over time, grew ever stronger until it pervaded every moment of every day. Even sleep offered no respite.
When I started drinking again I loved it. I had my social life back. I had loads of friends and loads of sex, two things which had been very much lacking during my period of abstinence. Within nine months I had let my business go down the pan, spent all my money, lost my driving licence again and returned to a very base existence. I didn't know what to do. I knew that I was destroying my life but I also now knew from personal experience that enforced abstinence was just as bad. I had resigned myself to a life of continual binge and abstinence cycles. I longed for death. I had given up.
It was then in a nostalgic moment that I found myself going through my ?recovery file?. I have kept pretty much everything pertaining to my recovery and I guess I was looking for a glimmer of hope. I found a single sheet of A4 that my mother had printed off for me shortly before I entered The Priory back in 2009. It was an article from the national press about a French cardiologist by the name of Olivier Amesien. Amesien was a successful and respected doctor until alcoholism brought him to the brink of death. He had spent many years in rehab, therapy and AA but they had little effect. He realised, as I had, that alcoholic cravings never get better and always brought him back to alcohol. Through medical research and self-experimentation he discovered that the drug Baclofen, a safe non-addictive GABA B receptor agonist, gave him total relief from alcoholic cravings and even allowed him to drink socially without getting drunk or returning him to an alcoholic binge.
Fast forward through six months of research, procrastination and endless difficulty in getting hold of the medication and I am free from the bondage of addiction. I no longer think about alcohol obsessively. I am able to go out for an evening with my friends, wake up the next day and have no compulsion to drink what so ever. In short, I have achieved the holy grail ? the ability to drink socially. Just three months ago I thought I was condemned to spend the rest of my life in a never ending cycle of binge and abstinence; never able to build or maintain relationships or develop a career. Frankly I longed for death.
Make no mistake, Amesien?s discovery will revolutionise the treatment of addictions. For the first time, addicts are able to be truly free from addiction and go on to build happy and productive lives. Those of us who follow this treatment measure our success by whether or not we are drinking against our will. The concept of drunk or sober holds no relevance for us. I have no desire to begin drinking against my will again but abstinence against my will does not offer a palatable alternative. By removing the requirement for total abstinence and life-long AA attendance many more people will access treatment and at a much earlier stage in their lives. If I had been offered this treatment ten years ago when I first visited my GP I would have been spared ten years of abject misery.
So, my reasons for this application are as follows. There is a growing movement of people having phenomenal success with this treatment but they are, for the most part, doing it without medical supervision or support. I believe that I have been successful so quickly because I had already received a great deal of therapy and have dealt with my past. All I was left with was a simple chemical dependency. This treatment offers the chance of a real, happy and sustainable recovery for the majority of addicts but it should never be seen as a ?magic bullet? but as an adjunct to therapeutic treatment.
I have decided that I want to help bring this treatment into the mainstream and, to that end; I will commence training as a therapist in September. I would very much like to spend some time working with the bridge to kick-start my learning and to offer my support to an organisation that, during my brief association, has offered me a great deal of support and encouragement.
Justin
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