In brief: at some point in 2017 my drinking, which had flipped between just about acceptable to regularly problematic, evolved into daily psychological dependency on alcohol. It was secretive and commenced at 5pm each day, or whenever the opportunity arose after that, subject to the need to be driving, or carry out tasks which would have been difficult when intoxicated.
I had let the appropriate people at my company know, and was subject to random drug and alcohol tests by Occupational Health. I always tested zero for blood alcohol during working hours.
At some point in 2023 I decided that my current drinking level would cause irreparable damage to me, and to those I loved. I had already approached my GP once but not followed up on their recommendation to accept a referral to Inclusion. I went back and this time agreed to the referral. It’s difficult to begin at the moment I accepted that I needed to do something and follow a simple narrative to ‘where I am now’ but the following is an accurate account of key moments in my recovery.
My Experience with Inclusion…
I was utterly terrified at my first Inclusion meeting. The group leader was welcoming and practical, but I just sat untypically quiet, for the entire meeting. And the next. I think I began to settle into the meeting rhythm and the group culture when I moved to the meeting at a local church hall. Under the experienced guidance of our group leader, we embraced the ISFP process, and the meeting pattern emerged: exercises, reflection, check in, feedback. Every group develops its own culture and customs, but it takes a skilled and knowledgeable group leader to allow the group to find its character and pace in a safe and welcoming way.
Like many alcoholics the prospect of abstinence was impossible for me to consider. I was convinced I could get to manageable social drinking. Somehow. It didn’t occur to me that, as even my attendance at Inclusion was secretive, my view of my world and the role of alcohol in it was fundamentally wrong. I think others in my Inclusion ISFP group knew that I was heading for a change in thinking before I did. Actually, I know they did: they told me so sometime after I had committed to abstinence in our group.
After a year of Inclusion group meetings, on holiday, I forgot or neglected to decant my vodka into a water bottle as I had done for many years. It may have been an oversight, but given the power of my alcohol regime and rituals, it is unlikely that I just forgot. The branded glass bottle was discovered and I confessed everything next day. There followed a very unhappy time. I knew I had to relinquish a cherished way of life – my alcohol regime – but the future was unclear and there was no promise of better things.
When I returned from a ruined holiday, I explained my commitment to abstinence in my check-in at the next Inclusion group meeting. I don’t have a chronologically ordered memory of my first year of sobriety – I know it began of the 15th of June – but I can recall key events and moments.
In no particular order:
- Being awake at 7:45pm.
- Being lucid during a normal day. All day.
- Hours and days of difficult conversations.
- The revelations of real guilt and sadness, rather than alcohol remorse and shame. Without the group and some difficult, but important, conversations with a highly experienced group leader, I do not know if I could have made it through the re-emergence of emotions unaltered by alcohol, or a routine dominated by procuring and consuming alcohol. After years of alcoholism, unmediated emotions can be very profound, sometimes so intense that bearing them on my own – without any prospect of sharing with people who understand what I was going through, safely managed in a safe space – would have been overwhelming.
- The first few intimations – hints or prospects, if you like – of real happiness and pleasure.
- The growing re-engagement with my family.
- Exploring approaches to mending, repair, re-discovery and new discovery. This has been one of the most exciting and rewarding aspects of sobriety. A good example of what we can add to the toolkit or library that recovering addicts can create for themselves – is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. There are a lot of powerful and – used carefully, preferably with trained guidance – life-enhancing therapeutical tools available, but ACT is proving to be reliable, safe and easy to use. Being able to build our library or toolkit of through others’ experience of what works, which are the safe resources on the internet, is such an important outcome of group work.
- Finding that sobriety is not a ‘lack’ of anything: it is a complex, rich and deeply rewarding state of being.
- Bridging the gap between the ‘pink cloud’ – the early happy surge of a return to an unfiltered experience of the world which almost always passes after a few weeks or less, if it happens at all – and the slow rediscovery of a fully real, challenging world which is full of things which are always better not experienced through a chemical filter. A good support group is a huge help in this, but the key factor is the guidance of a good group leader.