My latest

Read this one, its all here this time!! lol

Hi welcome to my latest blog post.  Ok so this one again will probably be all over the place as my mind is jumping around in all directions at the moment.  Ok were to begin…….lets talk about the good old drinking days lol

Ok example 1, Cheltenham races day out 2014.  Ok so I went to the races for the day, my coach was leaving Birmingham at 9am, therefore I had to leave my house at about 8am, I woke up at 6:30am and had drank 2 cans of Carling lager before I left the house, washed down another can on the bus ride to the coach station and finished the 4^th can whilst waiting for the coach. 4 cans before 9am, winning, we then arrived at the racecourse ready to be let into the stands at 10am, first race was at 1:30pm some 3 and a half hours later and the first thing that caught my eye when through the turnstiles ‘Guinness Village’ Finally a village in which I care to preside, thankyou kindly lol.  Fast forward to 1:15pm and time to go trackside and place my bet and watch race number 1, me plus 8 pints of Guinness drank whilst adopting the whilst in Rome attitude whilst in the before mentioned Village. The cycle continued all afternoon of get a pint, place bet, watch race and repeat so by time the last race had finished I had drank a total of 15 pints of Guinness on top of the Carling breakfast. I could hardly stand up and was a complete mess, my mates were taking the piss out of me and the fact I was barley with it.  It was now time to find my prompt coach home, I couldn’t, I had lost it, nearly missed my ride home, god knows how but I found it somehow in the end and the journey home began, I slept the whole way.  When we got to Birmingham I woke up and got a second wind and went to my local to meet my Dad after he finished work and drank another 3 pints of Guinness before going home with a 4pack 2 of which I drank with a couple of Jack Daniels chasers.

Example 2, 1 fatal weekend whilst living in Rugby.  At this point I was DJ’ing Friday and Saturday nights in a venue in town until 1am, the gig was a bad one and led me to drink heavily which was about 12 pints of Carling and 4 Jagerbomb chasers, unfulfilled and upset after the gig I then went home and drank half a bottle of Jack Daniels before passing out at about 5am. I woke up at 10am still upset and intoxicated and decided to go into town to get some breakfast, I didn’t I went to a pub and drank another 7 pints of strong lager before 2pm with a couple of Jack Daniels chasers. I then went and met my mate at his work and was adamant on drinking further despite him trying to stop me. I eventually convinced him to come to another pub with me for dinner, I nursed a pint for an hour or so whilst falling asleep into my plate of food.

Before I gave up drinking earlier this year I was drinking daily and had been for at least 6/7 years. During the week or shall we say an average day, it would average about 6/8 cans of lager and some Jack Daniels chasers normally near bedtime.  Weekends or parties or socially etc it would be between 12/18 pints of lagers and lots of Jack Daniels or Jagerbomb chasers.

The above 2 are what might seem like grim examples but they were second nature to me whilst drinking and about as normal as someone going about their everyday business to me at the time.

I have now managed to go nearly 25 weeks without a drink, thanks hugely to the fact that I’ve been on Antabuse medication.  I am now strongly considering coming off Antabuse.  This does worry me as it is very much a comfort pillow but I am starting to feel strong and positive and I feel the time may be coming to take that next natural step.  I already know now that I am going to stay sober though as I know I cannot trust myself to just have a drink or 2 then leave it, I don’t work like that so sobriety is the best plan for me.

I have been chatting with my keyworker and others today and I have come to the conclusion that with this blog and all the studying im doing and the courses etc that I want to work within the field of Mental Health and Addiction.  At the moment I don’t know exactly where in terms of job role etc but I know I want to be in that sort of field of work which is the first time since school I have ever established a career I want to be within which is progress.  Soon I will be doing the Recovery Champion training course and then volunteering as a champion around the service for 6 months, after which the opportunity may arise for me to be signed off as a service user and be signed up as a working volunteer.  Once I do that for 6 months it opens the door/gateway to NVQ training, something which I will also be seeking to do at college etc or possible Open Uni, we have a plan, a route, a light at the end of the tunnel, MOTIVATION. Lets do it!