I work in the throbbing heart of the metropolis that is Brixton. Excellent place to be if you want reminders of why not to drink ...
But I come to work by bus so that's okay.
Mouse
I don't think I have ever posted the exact details because i don't want anyone to think, "oh, THAT'S an alcoholic - I've never done XYZ so I can't be one." But, if you all promise to listen to the similarities and not the differences, I will tell you ...
I had been struggling with and suffering for my drinking for a few years, and after 25 it got more and more unpleasant - but the actual incident that first caused me to try stopping drinking was a car accident. I was unhurt and the only other victim was a hedge so it could have been a lot worse, but the accident, the evening in the cells, the look on my mum's face, the court appearance, the two year ban (I desperately needed my car to get to my teacher training placement in the middle of nowhere), my girlfriend finally making good on her threats to pack me in - and the fact that I continued drinking thorugh it all - made me call the number on the paper the court had given me. I attended my first AA meeting on a Saturday in November 2001 and I was 27.
I attended for a few weeks, stopped drinking for about two of them, and decided I was cured. When someone started banging on about God in a meeting I decided I would start drinking again. After all, everyone drinks at Xmas, so I would go unnoticed - and I could always come back ...
Fast forward to February. Before going to school - a much tougher school than the first one, which frankly scared me - I drank probably a half pint of warm white wine for breakfast and set off.
The school's informal security guard (yes, really) smelt it on my breath and reported me to the head. Half of me thought, "how dare you, what I do outside working hours is my affair" - and half of me thought, "thank Christ someone is intervening!" Almost the first words out of my mouth were "I've been to AA, and I think I need to go back." And I did. From then on, I attended AA regularly - I slipped many times over the next few months, but I always kept going back and trying again, even if it meant going to meetings drunk. (I went to one in blackout, went back the next week and thought, "oh, this place looks mighty familiar!") Basically, I didn't have any better ideas (and still don't.)
From June to December 2002, however, I was continuously sober. Things were going extremely well - so well, that I realised I might be cured. I went to a meeting; that didn't change anything. At the meeting I met a mate who had recently fallen off a ladder and opened his head while drunk - that didn't change anything. I read the Big Book - that didn't change anything. I was cured! I went to Herne Bay Wetherspoons and ordered a large glass of wine.
From the first sip, I knew that I had been right to have doubts. I nailed that one, drank another, drank another (I think - I wasn't counting.) I went home.
I drank thorugh the weekend and it was chaotic to put it mildly. And grim. I won a bonus ball competition in a pub I hated - the only reason I had entered was to engage in conversation at the bar while buying the tickets. I promptly spent that £50 and then some.
On Monday I went to work (I was now a TEFL teacher - I failed my schoolteacher training, which had prompted my previous last drink.) I was lucky enough to set my own breaks. I took my first at 3 minutes to 11. I was outside a horrible pub at bolts-down and ordered a single vodka and Coke (not my drink of choice) so no one would smell it - I did NOT want to lose this job. Same at lunch time; same in the afternoon. I went for a few pints after work - alone - and instantly hated everyone in the pub. I bought 4 cans of Stella for the 30 minute train journey home and then bought some more at the other end.
That evening, as I had a heated discussion with my despairing mother, I realised, I think, that, with the benefits of a year in AA and six months' continuous sobriety, with all I had learnt, THIS was my best shot at "controlled drinking". I poured the last can and a half of Stella down the sink, cried a bit, and went to bed. The next day (Dec 16 or 17 2002, I think) I did not drink, went to a meeting, and tried to be grateful.
One day at a time, it's been working ever since.