Alice

My name's Alice and I'm an alcoholic and addict

I found my way to Promis in September 1993, stayed there for three months then had three months in the London half way house.  You'd think that after six months of primary and secondary care I would be on the road to recovery wouldn't you?  Well, it didn't work that way and I ended up back in Nonington for another 12 week stint  in October 1994.  That second stay worked, or rather, I managed to get honest and do some work myself and since then my life has changed for the better.  In fact I can hardly believe I'm the same person I was five years ago.

I'll spare you the whole life story, but very briefly I was using alcohol and drugs from the age of about 15.  After leaving school my use and abuse got worse, leaving me more ashamed and more horrified at my own behaviour after each episode.  I found my way into an AA meeting one day, but I was only 21 and decided I was far too young to be an alcoholic.  I didn't use heroin either so that gave me an excuse for feeling alienated from NA meetings.  I was never arrested, never got stopped for drink driving, never lost a job and  I thought you needed to have done those things to "qualify" as a real alcoholic or addict.

In about December 1992 I started going to the gym.  I also went on a crash diet.  The combination of the two meant that I lost heaps of weight very quickly.  I began to find that I was cancelling dinners and lunches with friends and that if I didn't go to the gym every day I felt ratty .  People started to notice that I was losing weight and I was gaining a lot of satisfaction from this.  During the week I was living in London and at weekends I would drive for three hours to the pub my boyfriend owned in the country and work there.  The weekends were spent in a binge of alcohol and food and during the week I would starve, exercise and not drink alcohol. The relationship was a volatile, stormy on-off affair which had been going on for four years.

In April of 1993 I split with the boyfriend.   In a way I was pleased because it meant I could control my food and alcohol seven days a week.  I had already worked out that after the first drink I was no longer responsible for my actions, and after the first bite of chocolate, I was into a binge.  I had also discovered that throwing up was quite easy and that laxatives would take care of the rest.

Between April and September I made a rapid descent to a rock-bottom.  At the same time I went back to college and trained as an ESL teacher.  Determined to do well, I studied hard, surviving on 4 hours sleep a night and came out top of my class with a job assured at the end of it.  I was  physically and mentally exhausted, lonely, frightened and totally out of control.

I stopped drinking and went head first into anorexia.  At first it had been a conscious thing - I wanted people to see how much pain I was in and figured that getting really thin was a good way to do it - negative attention was better than no attention.  At some point I realised that I had no control over my anorexia anymore.  I was getting more and more sick and at times I would lie on the sofa and swear that tomorrow I would start eating properly and put all of it behind me.  Tomorrow would come and I just could not do it. This sort of self pity would lead me into drug binges and I knew that I had to get some help.  Miraculously I had managed to hold on to my job but the rest of my life was a mess.  I had alienated all of my friends and my family and flatmates had no idea what to do for me.

I walked into the Promis centre at South Kensington one day and started seeing a counsellor.  I went to an OA meeting at his suggestion, and decided it was just a bunch of girls whingeing about the third piece of toast they shouldn't have had that morning.  I still wasn't ready to admit what I was doing with my addictions, and couldn't understand what my parents' divorce when I was 4 years old had to do with anything.  I would sit there and tell him everything was fine and then leave and wonder why I had bothered. Basically, I wanted him to tell me that I was very sick and needed to go into Promis.

Finally I admitted that everything was beyond my control and that I couldn't do it on my own.  12 weeks later I left Promis and went to the London half way house.  I left there after three months and went immediately to Australia for my cousin's wedding and a holiday.

For 6 weeks in Australia I walked, ran, swam and starved myself back to below the weight I had entered promis 6 months previously.  I had well and truly admitted the first step with alcohol and drugs and was going to meetings regularly and working some sort of programme with AA and NA, but as far as the food went, I really didn't see that I had a problem.  I had somehow convinced myself that I was working a good programme and that I was well into recovery.

Upon returning to England I went back to work teaching ESL and my life started the downward spiral again.  I began to lose control of my anorexia and started into bulimia. I still wasn't drinking or taking drugs, and still attending three or four meetings a week, and the denial of my eating disorder made me think that I was doing very well, thank you.  Friends and family were horrified that I was walking around looking and acting the way I did and yet spouting 12-Step recovery stuff like a born again christian! Looking back, I can only cringe at my behaviour.

It didn't take me long to find my way back into Promis.  Seven months after leaving half way I was back in Nonington for another 12 weeks.  During this time I managed to escape one day and checked into a motel in Dover where I had a suicide attempt.  More of a cry for help really as I drank a large amount of alcohol, took some pills and then threw up half an hour later.  I then rang Robert, ranted on at him and begged to be let back into Promis for one more go.

This was my true rock bottom.  I had just thrown away 14 months of sobriety (well, 14 months of a dry drunk I guess) and from that point I finally accepted that I was an addict and that my addiction was not limited to alcohol and drugs.  I knew then that if I didn't do something about my eating disorder I wouldn't stay sober and I probably would end up dead.  I left Promis for the last time in January 1995 and haven't looked back.

So - that's how it was and what happened.   What's it like now?

Well - all I can say is that for the first year it was bloody hard.  I had to do everything differently to the way I had done it first time around.  I had to get honest.  I had to start listening to other people and I had to stop trying to know all the answers.  I had to slow down - stop working so hard and start making time for myself and my recovery.  First time around I ran myself into the ground - it was easier to run around like a headless chicken than it was to sit still and think about anything.

Things started to get calmer and easier and better and better.  I moved to a village outside Cambridge and rented a house down the road from my sister. Life ceased to be one drama after another and just became quite "normal".  I had been used to sitting in meetings and wondering how all these people got to have such "normal" lives.  In fact, I used to scorn "normal" people when really I longed to have some of what they had.  It dawned on me that if I stayed around the people who had what I wanted then some of it might rub off on me.  And it did!  I found some great meetings in Cambridge and made some good, honest friends.  I realised that I didn't need a relationship to make me happy.  And I remember really clearly waking up one Sunday morning and feeling that it had all been worth it.   Finally I had found some sort of peace and I knew things would be OK.

In the last three years I have got married, moved to Australia, bought a house, got a fulfilling job and acquired a dog and a cat!  Getting married was amazing - I had thought I would never meet anyone who would put up with me for the rest of their life, but I realised that my self esteem had climbed up a good few notches on the ladder and a realationship was a whole new ballgame.   And being sober and driving us away from our own wedding was a memorable event!  Weddings for me had always been a great excuse to get hammered on somebody else's free grog!

In typical addict style, I met and married my husband in six months.  We moved to Australia six months after that (he's Australian).  I spent many a sleepless night wondering if I was doing the right thing, or just being an impulsive addict, but everything told me that I was doing what was right and so I followed my feelings.

I have been in Australia nearly two years now and every now and again I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm for real.  In the minute's silence at the beginning of meetings I take myself back to the motel room in Dover and give thanks for how far I have come.  Today I am free of the compulsion to drink, starve, binge, exercise, work or act out in my relationship.  I still smoke cigarettes but we're working on that!!  I'm secretary of one of the meetings in the town where I live and really feel a part of AA here.  That took a while - new format, new faces and all that insecurity of wondering if I would ever be accepted etc.

My job's great - I don't need to work like a superhero to do the job well and for the first time ever, my life feels really balanced.  Of course I have the odd crazy spell and there are still ups and downs, but generally I just cruise along without incident.  Sometimes I miss the drama and the excitement of all the madness, but then I have to remember how miserable and lonely I was.  I never want to go back there.

I really feel I owe it all to Promis.  It took me a while to get the hang of what they were trying to say there, but at least I got there in the end.  It gave me an understanding of what the Steps meant and it gave me the notion of turning outwards instead of looking inwards.  I used to get mad at Robert for telling us that helping other addicts would help us help ourselves - now I understand fully what he was talking about.  I never thought I'd hear myself say this but Robert - you made sense!!