No one ever knows when they’ve crossed the invisible line into alcohol addiction. Ironically, I always intuitively knew I might develop a problem, given that substance use—especially with alcohol—was rife on both sides of the family, throughout the generations.
What surprises people is that I didn’t start drinking until I was 24. I attempted to drink twice when I was 18, but I quickly realized that I disliked it, so I chose to abstain from alcohol completely. However, my perspective changed when my best friend at the time thought it would be amusing to mix vodka into my diet coke without my knowledge.
Following that incident, I started drinking on a regular basis, and within a year, I found myself consuming two or three glasses of wine every evening while working from home. By the time I turned 27, this habit had gradually escalated to two or three bottles.
Once I hit 30, I realized my drinking habits were pretty excessive, but I was ignoring how it might be affecting me. My only concern was that I had fallen out of the habit of going to the gym, although up until then I was managing daily gym sessions.
As the managing director of a charity I had founded, Men Get Eating Disorders Too!” I appeared to be “functioning”—albeit dysfunctionally—which in retrospect was probably one of the early signs of my alcoholism. In the absence of any visible outward signs that my drinking was “overspilling,” why would I be any the wiser?
The first time any indication that my drinking had caught up with me came 36 hours after I had decided to stop, with the intention of getting back to the gym. By this point, I hadn’t gone for more than twelve hours without touching a drop. While in London on an extremely hot day in July 2016, I couldn’t ignore how awful I was feeling. I was sweltering, with sweat dripping off me as I traveled to my destination on the underground.
As I stood up to get off the train, I noticed that my body wasn’t doing what I was telling it to and my reactions were slowed down. This was the first sign that I knew something was wrong. It was as if there was a disconnect between my brain, body, and ability to move—almost like an out-of-body experience. Clambering off the train, I somehow made it to street level and the exit.
My anxiety was through the roof and, in total panic, I found sanctuary in a coffee shop opposite the station. At this point, I tried to hold the glass of water to my mouth to drink it but I kept spilling the water on myself.
A lady sitting at the table opposite was looking at me curiously. “Do you need help? You look like you’re in trouble?” she said, after a short while. She introduced herself and it turned out she was an off-duty nurse from St Mary’s Hospital. “Do you know what’s wrong with you?” she asked.
“No,” was my short but breathless reply. All I could think of was that I may be having a reaction to something, but I wasn’t allergic to anything. The next minute, I passed out, and then I was in an ambulance arriving at the hospital.
Unfortunately, it would take until the third subsequent hospital visit in November 2016 to confirm that my previous episodes of illness’ were the cause of alcohol withdrawal. “You’re over the threshold,” were the words of the specialist medic from the local drug and alcohol service. “You need to be referred for a detox, possibly as an inpatient given the severity of your withdrawals,” he continued.
Until now, it hadn’t even occurred to me that drinking was causing me to be ill—more specifically, cutting back on my drinking too quickly or stopping drinking abruptly—e.g. going “cold turkey”. “It’s really important that you continue to keep drinking to prevent any further episodes,” he stressed, which, at first seemed like confusing medical advice.
Admittedly, it took me a while to get my head around this, not realizing that my nervous system would go into shock—from alcohol withdrawal—if I went more than a day without drinking.
The worst of my symptoms were severe hallucinations—sometimes known as “delirium tremens”. They got worse the more I relapsed after repeated detoxes, and my symptoms were exacerbated by malnutrition. Typically, the hallucinations would be of spiders and crab-like creatures that I could physically feel crawling all over me. These episodes were terrifying, but I couldn’t recall how long they would last.
In November 2019, I experienced my last hallucination involving bats after I tried to detox again. The next eight days of my admission passed in a daze due to the drugs they gave me to wean me off the alcohol. All I remember was the first few days being extremely rough, but I got through it. Eventually, my symptoms subsided, and I finally began to see a future for myself. However, detoxing was the “easy” bit, and the real work would begin when I returned home.
There will be many people like myself who are “over the threshold” and may be suffering in silence. They may have unexplained symptoms after a few days of abstaining. Or they may have caved in and gone back to drinking, not knowing why. Upon reflection, if I had known about the brutal reality of alcoholism sooner, I would have managed to embrace recovery sooner too.
Looking back, I now consider myself lucky to be alive. What I know now is that if my alcohol dependency had continued any longer, I would have been knocking at the devil’s door. The last detox was particularly challenging: it served as a strong reminder of how close I was. Now nearly five years sober, I want to share my story so that others realize they are not alone.
I’ve now been sober for two years. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that addiction thrives on isolation and secrecy, which is all the more reason we need to talk about it without shame. To guarantee many more sober years ahead of me, I have to make sure that my recovery is bigger than the addiction ever was.
Sam Thomas is a writer, campaigner and public speaker. He is based in Brighton, U.K.
All views expressed are the author’s own.
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