I’m pretty sure I would have died in my 20s if it wasn’t for the NHS. I’d always had a complicated relationship with alcohol – I didn’t learn to drive, so never really got a handle on limits from the start. Then, just after quitting university and shortly before my 21st birthday, my best friend died very suddenly and I didn’t take it well.
I moved home and spent about a year just getting really drunk. I then moved to Brighton, got involved with the music scene there, and carried on doing the same. A few things went wrong . It was at that point my drinking began to get out of control: the only way I could get any rest was by drinking myself to sleep. For me, alcohol was a crutch.
At around 26, I arrived in London with a brand new, grownup job in PR. Except, it turns out, PR is a great industry to work in if you’re trying to hide a drinking problem. There were so many opportunities to drink with different people, in different places; it was easy to pretend I was drinking a lot less than I was. I’d always have something on hand to try to cover my breath, though I’m not sure if I successfully covered it up.
In many ways, I was a high-functioning alcoholic – I kept my job, after all, and had a wide circle of friends. But that doesn’t mean I got away without any health problems.
I began having seizures in my late 20s as a result of alcohol-induced epilepsy, and looking back they didn’t scare me as much as they should have. The first happened at work. Another time I was in Tesco. I remember trying to choose a pizza from the fresh food counter and felt the tell-tale aura. All I remember is saying: “Oh for God’s sake,” and waking up in the back of an ambulance. That time, I nearly fractured my skull.
I went to the doctors fairly regularly because of all these problems, but never to directly ask for help with my drinking. At the time, I weighed about 8st – I’m 5ft 8. I remember going to my GP one day and the nurse taking my blood pressure. She just said: “Jesus Christ”, and had to take it twice because it was so high. I tried to brush it off by saying I was nervous. She told me she wasn’t sure how I was still walking around.
Another time, a doctor was giving me a checkup and tapped my back to check my liver. I heard him take a deep breath when he felt how hard it was. Again, I tried brushing it off, telling him I was tensing it, which he politely told me is impossible.
Every problem I had, every injury I suffered, the NHS was there. They never made me feel stupid. They never shouted at me. They always picked me up and patched me up. They saved my life over and over again, for free, even though I felt selfish for wasting their time.
The thing people say frequently to alcoholics is: “Why don’t you just stop?” As though I’d never thought of that. But that’s not how alcoholism works. It’s more cunning, overwhelming and all-consuming than that.
The truth is, the NHS saved me on multiple occasions. I tried outpatient counselling with a very kind psychiatrist called Ivor, who put up with a lot of nonsense. In the end, the final push for me to get better came the day my father rang me and said he and my family wanted to send me to rehab. I can still vividly recall the feeling of pure, utter relief.
The thing with alcoholics is this: they just have one thing on their mind. It’s not that I didn’t think I could get better as an outpatient, it’s just at a certain point everything has to come together in a certain way before you can get better. You have to be at rock bottom and you have to want to get better.
I’d hit that rock bottom. Despite Ivor’s best efforts, deep down I hadn’t wanted to get better before that day. And when I got that call, I thought: I’ve got two ways out. I can carry on and probably die. Or I can go to rehab.
I’ve been sober for six years now, and I don’t miss alcohol and the multitude of anxieties, and mental and physical health problems that come with it. Unfortunately, I am that annoying person in the restaurant who has to specify there’s absolutely no red wine reduction in a sauce, but I’d rather that than downing huge glasses of pinot noir at every opportunity. It’s a small price to pay.
The NHS is not perfect, show me an institution that is. I’ll say this though: I’m 100% certain I would not have even got to a place where I could begin to get better without it, and I certainly wouldn’t be walking around today.
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How the NHS saved my life: I spent my 20s playing Russian roulette with alcohol
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