When alcohol becomes more than a quiet drink

When alcohol becomes more than a quiet drink

19 September 2012 - by BY JOANNE FLEMING

EVEN now Peter finds tall buildings can bring on a panic attack. They carry memories of the day he was in such despair over his drinking that he considered jumping off a six storey apartment block.

So despite being sober for many years now he doesn’t miss a day at AA.

Peter went from being a successful salesman one day to losing his family and sleeping rough the next, and he credits Alcoholics Anonymous for quite simply saving his life. And with every day now so precious, the Newcastle man says it makes perfect sense for him to keep up a daily attendance at the group that rescued him.

Peter is not his real name; it has been changed to protect the anonymity that all AA members find crucial to their recovery. But he will be at Newcastle’s Burrendale Hotel on Sunday, along with other local AA members, for a special ‘Day of Gratitude’. Members of the public concerned either about their own drinking, or that of a loved one’s, can also attend part of the day.

“Alcohol took over my life,” Peter explained. “I started drinking early when I was 14 or 15 and it was causing problems even then. I thought alcohol affected everyone the way it affected me.

“I was drinking in the town with a group of guys that drank like myself and it just grew on me. Every time I got into trouble, drink was behind it.

“It was a typical teenage peer thing and we graduated into bars. We emulated the guys in the bars.”

Involved in fights and public nuisance offences, Peter was no stranger to the courts, and he explained that the support systems for young offenders then were not the same as today. Even so he believes the current justice system should intervene more.

“They need to get involved at an early stage of drink related disorder, even if offenders are not officially classified as alcoholics,” he argues.

From his twenties onwards, Peter says he managed to revolve most of his working life around the bar, and was bolstered in this sense of normality by his drinking partners.

“It was the bar atmosphere, the bar mentality,” he said. “I would do my business in the bar and run up an expense account, and have arguments at home.

“With hindsight you see the insanity of it — that was my place of safety. I could think of all sorts of different reasons forward for being there.

“I think I had some imaginary world, that I had my office in the bar. There was all the bar talk that I thought was humour, too. I look at it today and it seems so foreign. I truly believe in a sense we were all like that. ‘Have another one’, they would say. ‘You’re getting divorced? You’re not the bad guy’.

In his early years Peter was able to combine his heavy drinking and his work relatively successfully, but the ability to juggle both gradually unravelled.

“I had a very good job, I would hold that for a while and after that job I would get another one,” he said. “But I always left through drink — I left to drink, or because of drink.”

And despite the pleas of his wife and children to address his alcoholism, Peter said he simply didn’t believe what they were saying. His marriage eventually ended in divorce.

“I genuinely thought these people were trying to take away my fun, that they were jealous,” he said. “The truth was they loved me and were trying to get me back together. Between the lines, I just did not want to stop drinking.”

Peter subsequently found himself homeless, sleeping in parks at times, and part of ‘wine gangs’. “I abandoned my family,” he admitted. “I abandoned all my responsibilities through drink. I was homeless of my own accord.

It all led to the day he describes as “horrendous” — the day he stepped back from ending his life by jumping off an apartment block.

“I ran back down the stairs, it was the middle of the day, and I started holding on to a tree outside,” he recalled. “From that experience, every time I am in a tall building it is like a phobia. I remember almost feeling like I had to do it, those evil crazy thoughts.

“It was a very black time of my life and I thought I was better off dead. I was in despair, I was lonely, I can’t name all the many feelings.”

Whatever prevented Peter from jumping that day also sent him into a nearby church, which sent him on a rehabilitation course to help tackle his addiction.

He went from there to AA, which he describes as a “beautiful gift”, and where he has remained a member for the past 20 years.

“Until I went there I had no idea what it was like,” he said. “No-one said ‘you’re too young’, ‘you’re not an alcoholic,’ all that stuff in my head. They said, ‘you have got a problem with drink, you are in the right place’.

“I make AA the most important thing in my life. When I do that, my family life, my home, everything is second to none. Drinking is only the symptom of the disease, which is why so many people continue to attend.

“There is a warm welcome always at these meetings. Never feel lonely. There are 15 meetings a week in Newcastle alone.”

Now retired, Peter has patched up relations with his family and found happiness with a new partner.

“I have 10 grandchildren,” he said. “Just think, all this was potentially lost to me. So I wanted to share my experience to help people identify with this disease. Identification is key to the cure.”

The open meeting at the Burrendale Hotel starts at 8pm on Sunday. For more information about attending local AA groups contact 02890 434848.