Helen’s Story
I probably had alcohol problems from my early teens, not in an ‘alcoholic’ way maybe, but I was always a greedy drinker, always first in and last out of the party. I’d not really go to any social events unless they involved drinking. I was always quite a confident and outgoing person, and I found that alcohol calmed me down.
I was quite a sensitive young woman but didn’t quite know how to deal with difficult emotions. I found alcohol helped me to manage those difficult emotions. But in my teens, I didn’t think I was drinking very differently from my friends. In fact, I probably thought some of them were worse than me!
Alcohol was always around my family as well as mental health problems. We weren’t the kind of family that had a couple of drinks and everything was nice, it usually ended up in some big argument.
My drinking increased as I got older and I got fired from the first job I ever had because of it. People thought I was a nice person when I was sober but when I’d drink people thought I was an absolute nuisance.
I was drinking heavily sometimes then if not every day yet, but if anything stressful happened in my life I tended to find my drinking spiked.
In my forties, I experienced some difficult times, including some major family bereavements and it was around that time my drinking got much worse and there was about 10 years of daily drinking.
I was in and out of AA, hospitals, had suicide attempts, social work involvement and more. I’d become totally dependent on alcohol by now and everything went, jobs, friendships and relationships. It had a massive impact on my family too.
Eventually, with all of that help and getting involved seriously with recovery services I managed to get sober. I’ve now been sober for eight and a half years and I work with a recovery charity trying to help others in my own community and I’m quite proud of that.
When I first got sober, I got freaked out and felt a little ambushed sometimes when I’d be walking around shops or other places and suddenly get presented with alcohol displays or marketing. I remember having to try hard to put in place strategies to try to avoid seeing alcohol marketing or displays.
Some of the adverts you see look really enticing, and even years later when I see them I can get caught off guard, maybe with a drink being poured over ice in summer I think ‘Oh that looks lovely’. It can be hard at Christmas too where they make it out to be a reward after a long year or great gift. But it’s the same all year, no matter what the occasion they sell alcohol like that.
It’s sneaking into places where you aren’t normally expecting to see alcohol or alcohol marketing, like other kinds of shops and social media. I have tools I can use now to resist any urges, but it does make me have to work and it does feel like they are trying to tempt you into drinking. I feel like sometimes alcohol marketing is invading my personal space and that annoys me.
I often think it’s very convenient they never show the flip side of what it looks like, or what I looked like, when people have had a few too many drinks or developed a serious health problem.
