"How it started and where I am now."

Well my story starts about 15 years ago. Looking back now this is probably when my alcohol addiction started. When I was going out and the aim was not to have a good time, but to consume as much as I could as quickly as I could till the point of blacking out and my girlfriend at the time carrying me home and a ongoing theme appeared.

 This carried on up until we had children together at that point we stopped going out and enjoyed family life for years to come without a thought of alcohol.

Then came the moment of no return and the beginning of a very fast progressing down hill spiral I took in my life. The day I went to the pub with my then friend on our dinner brake at work! 

The idea was fun quick pint on dinner then back to work nothing wrong with that. How wrong was I. This action started impacting my home life and constant arguments at home with my girlfriend occurred daily about how I always smell of beer, am tired all the time etc. This silly enough led me to drink more with the help of my friends sweet little whispers, you're not doing anything wrong &  she does not own you -  so I pick his poisoned words which justified my drinking over my own family especially my girlfriend. Looking back now all she was doing was being worried and caring. 

The drink escalated to a whole nother level by this point I was drinking before work also taking cheap white cider into work. I became dependent on alcohol and the need to drink over came everything else. My children, family, girlfriend all the people I loved deeply. My actions eventually lead to our split up as she could not take what I was doing anymore. So I moved back to my dad's while having children at weekends this did not last long as I was still drinking and lost in alcoholism.

Shortly after moving back to my dad's he unfortunately passed away leaving me very lost alone and I found comfort in alcohol as my new best mate as I had pushed everyone away that cared. This led to me not going to work, not caring for myself falling into a lot of debt with rent and other things to the point where eviction was inevitable.

I left my home town and moved to away for a new start and regain control of my life again. I moved in with my mum and stepdad and was sober for about 3 months until I moved into my own place and relapsed. Again looking back it's amazing how quickly I fell back into old habits and how my drinking escalated into a problem so fast. I moved back to my mums again! 

I stayed there for about 2 years thinking I was clever and secretly drinking, thinking I was getting away with it, I was not, but no-one said otherwise. This lead to my seizure when I ran out of money and had to go sober. It was my mum that found me that found me that day in a pile on the floor. I am really lucky I guess because she had gone out to work but came back because she had forgot her e-cig.

Some time after that I moved out of my mum's more to the fact that my stepdad did not want me there anymore. And went into a house share this is where depression set in and where I found myself at my lowest point of my life had nothing left, lost everything, felt like I had nobody. My life in my head was over and the thought of suicide was recurring over and over again. Never acted on it but really did not care if I went to bed and never woke up. The way I felt then that would have been perfect.

Then I had the intervention, that changed my life. The last attempt to get through to me. Spoiler alert. It worked!

My mum got me into Inspire a legendary organisation who then got me into a detox centre. From then on in I have gone from strength to strength once I left. Stayed around inspire after and continued getting the support I needed to overcome my addiction which as it stands. I am coming up to 1 year sober and no intention of ever going back to that hell!

At the moment in the final parts of becoming a volunteer at Inspire to be able to help people overcome addiction. Gone back into education and studying counselling skills with the aim to progress onto get my degree. With the ultimate goal of putting it all together and become a recovery support counsellor. My relationship with my family has never been stronger, you could say it the strongest it ever been.

And last but no means least and is the most important thing in my life right now is I have my 3 beautiful children (not so little anymore) back in my life again and have been for the last year and will be forever more. I have built up enough trust again with their mother so they can stop with me when they have school holidays, I travel every other weekend to see them at home and our relationship is blooming perfectly and for them to say one word or 3 letters to me Dad again which makes everything I am doing now worth everything and so much more.

This drives me to continue the amazing journey I am on right now. And doing it knowing that I love the person I am, the new direction of my life and positive attitude I have towards my future and my goals.