Non-alcoholic Update: 25 Years Without A Drink
I wrote a blog post in 2020. It was all about my attempts to give up booze after being hospitalised in January 2000.
I was quite proud of being teetotal for two decades.
It's now five years later and I still haven't fallen off the wagon (yay! Go me!). 25 years in total.
It doesn't get any easier.
In fact, the last five years have pushed me right to the edge on a whole bunch of occasions.
About three years ago, local NHS Mental Health services decided they couldn't do anything for me. They said I'd tried "everything" and there were no more "clinical pathways" open to me.
They told me I'd have to seek help from 'third sector partners'. In other words - charities.
Instead of Psychiatric Nurses, Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Therapists or CBT Practitioners, they told me to call helplines staffed by volunteers.
And why?
I made the big, stupid mistake of complaining.
Just before the first Covid lockdown I'd been assigned a Community Psychiatric Nurse and we'd had a couple of appointments. They'd talked about a programme of 'Graded Exposure' to get me out of the house and hopefully back into something approaching normality.
But Covid put a halt to it.
As a family we had to 'shield' for over a year. My wife had complicated health issues and her Doctors kept telling us to be cautious. Even when the rest of the country was being told to 'eat out to help out' we had to stay at home. Our son was off school for a very long time.
I was terrified in case my wife started to show symptoms. Her health had already been in decline and things were getting more and more difficult to manage. She wasn't able to have any of her regular hospital appointments for nearly two years and had to teach herself how to insert (and remove) her own nasal feeding tubes. She'd sit in front of a mirror and slide the tube up into her nose and back down her throat. She also had to use a syringe to draw fluid up from her stomach and make sure she'd put the tube in correctly. This was real Warrior shit. She was determined to stay well for as long as she could.
We became quite a good team during the Covid months. Together we'd sort her medication and mix her twice daily liquid feeds. Every prescription had to be delivered to the house and I'd clean every box and blister pack with various sprays and wipes. We had a similar routine with our grocery deliveries. I'd wear a mask and gloves and clean every single item before bringing them into the house.
I was aware of all the controversy about Covid. Some people probably thought we were overreacting or being too careful - but I'd seen how poorly my wife could get during the regular flu season. Her immune system was shot thanks to some of her medication. If there was the slightest chance the risk was real then I was going to do everything I could to stop her from being exposed to it.
Did my anxiety make me even more careful? Did being careful make me more anxious?
Too fucking right.
As it turned out, my son and I did catch Covid - just a few weeks after he finally went back to school. My son had mild symptoms but I was quite poorly - not hospital poorly - but probably the worst bout of flu-like symptoms (and raging tonsilitis) I'd ever had. It took me about three weeks to shake it off and get a clear test.
Somehow we managed to keep the virus away from my wife - even though we all lived under the same roof. My wife didn't contract Covid until she was an in-patient at the local hospital nearly a year later, but that's a whole other story.
My tussle with Covid didn't help the anxiety or my low moods. I was wrung out and exhausted.
If anything, I needed a lot more support than I'd had before the pandemic. Most days I was terrified to leave the house. I was getting wobbly legged and dizzy if I went to the local shops - I'd feel as if I was going to fall over or pass out. And the last place I wanted to end up was in an ambulance or a busy A&E department.
Unfortunately, I was told the service could no longer offer the same level of support because Covid had put such a big strain on mental health services (as well as every other part of the NHS). A lot of clinical staff were still working from home, so phone appointments were increasingly common.
I didn't know how 'graded exposure' would work over the phone, but I accepted whatever help was offered.
I knew I was struggling.
The phone appointments didn't go well.
Firstly, the Nurse kept cancelling at short notice. I'd get a text message five minutes before I was supposed to be getting a call; 'Due to unforseen circumstances your appointment has been cancelled. If you still need support call the office number to rearrange or if you need urgent help, call the Crisis Team or The Samaritans'.
This happened with three of my first four appointments.
The two or three phone appointments that did happen were chaotic. The Nurse would say things like "sorry if I go quiet for a bit, I'm just trying to get parked outside of Sainsburys", "you'll have to excuse the dog, he's not normally this noisy when I'm working from home," or "I'm going to have to cut this short, I have an important meeting..."
The appointments were supposed to offer support for my mental health, but they were making me feel worse. I felt like the Nurse wasn't bothered, like my appointments were an inconvencience.
I'd never complained to the NHS before.
I'd never complained when a Psychiatrist kept falling asleep during an appointment... and when he woke up he asked me to take him to a betting shop...
I'd never complained when clinics were cancelled and nobody thought to tell the patients...
I'd never complained when a Therapist advised me to leave my wife and son because they'd get more financial support if I didn't live with them...
So was I overreacting when I complained about a Nurse failing to keep phone appointments? Or calling me from their car during a shopping trip?
Within a few hours of asking to make a complaint, I was told I was being discharged from the service. Once again I was told they'd had to change their priorities due to Covid. They could no longer offer me the support of a CPN. In reality, I think that's how they managed to avoid addressing my complaint.
If I was no longer a 'client' then they didn't have to do anything.
At the bottom of my 'discharge' letter they included the phone number for the 'Crisis Team' and 'The Samaritans'.
I made an appointment to see my G.P. They told me I had the option of seeking 'private provision'. I told them I couldn't afford that. They shrugged their shoulders. I asked if there really was nothing available apart from the 'Crisis Team' or 'The Samaritans'. Another shrug. They said I could always refer myself back to the local Mental Health/Talking Therapies NHS service.
I tried.
I was met by a brick wall.
They refused to offer me any kind of support and told me to contact charities. They said my 'condition hadn't responded to any kind of therapy' so I was on my own. It seemed as if I'd used up my lifetime's supply of help from the NHS.
I also felt as if they were blaming me for not getting better.
I'd had a handful of Psychiatric appointments (over a period of 24 years) and three appointments with a Psychologist (11 years earlier).
They seemed to think it was strange that I needed more help - as if those previous appointments should have sorted everything out.
I asked (what I thought was) a reasonable question; if I broke my leg in 2010 and I'd received NHS treatment to have it set and it had healed - would they then refuse to help me if I broke the same leg in 2022?
They didn't answer.
Apparently charities were 'better placed' to offer 'targeted support in the local community' such as 'one on one counselling', 'social prescribing' and 'graded exposure'.
Maybe they'd told the NHS they offered these services but nobody had bothered to check.
Some of the charities sent me leaflets ("What is depression?" "Anxiety Attacks - an introduction") or I was directed to websites ("Helpful Breathing Exercises to Combat Anxiety" and "The Power of Positive Affirmations").
I'd been battling depression and anxiety for over 25 years and this was the best I could hope for? Entry level leaflets and links to youtube videos?
For fuck's sake.
I'd get a text telling me that an appointment had to be cancelled due to staff absence, then I'd be told my 'case worker' had left the organisation so I'd have to be assigned a new one.
Every time I was passed from one charity to another or from one case worker to another I'd have to start from the beginning. I'd have to explain all about my symptoms and medication and family stuff and everything else...
Either nobody ever made any case notes or nobody ever bothered to read them. It wasn't helpful having to rake over the same things every few weeks.
No support, no progress, just constant repetition.
And then my whole world fell apart.
My wife's health had gradually declined over a period of 18 months and she died quite suddenly in May 2023.
I was lost. I felt alone. I didn't know what to do. I needed somebody to talk to.
I tried to refer myself back to local NHS Talking Therapies.
Once again, Talking Therapies refused to speak to me.
They pointed me back in the direction of the charities.
I couldn't quite believe it.
Were they punishing me for not getting better?
Or had they been offended when I'd dared to complain?
I contacted my G.P.
They didn't want to do anything. They didn't want to review my medication or refer me to a Psychiatrist or Counselling service. They said it was a bad idea to change anything after suffering such a traumatic loss. They gave me the number for Cruse Bereavement support but told me they wouldn't speak to me straight away. Apparently any form of grief or bereavement counselling is 'only advisable 9-12 months after your loss'.
I did call Cruse and I did call the Samaritans.
It wasn't structured, it wasn't a planned course of counselling - but they were there when I needed to speak to somebody. They were brilliant. They got me through some very, very dark moments.
After 12 months I asked for Bereavement Counselling from the NHS - but they refused to give me an appointment after I told them my Dad died in May 2024.
They said things would be too 'cluttered' to start talking about the loss of my wife so soon after losing my Dad. I told them that I hadn't had any kind of contact with my Dad for over a decade but they said it didn't matter. It was still grief, it was still a bereavement... so before I'd even started any kind of counselling, they discharged me from the service.
Again.
I thought about making a complaint, but what would be the point?
And that's when a horrible thought hit me. No therapists, no anti-depressants, no breathing exercises - none of them ever made me feel relaxed or made the anxiety disappear like a couple of beers did.
No sedatives, no CBT, no fucking phone appointments - none of those ever helped me get to sleep like two or three glasses of Southern Comfort.
And I know that's bad.
And I know it's wrong.
But after so many years of tablets, waiting lists, cancelled appointments and bloody rude receptionists I feel like giving up.
In fact - it doesn't feel like it's me that's giving up...
I feel as if the therapists, the nurses and the doctors have given up on me. I've been cut loose and abandoned by the 'experts'.
It's now June 2025 and I don't honestly know if I've got another 25 minutes of sobriety left in me, never mind another 25 years.
Anyway - I re-read my old blog post about my attempts to stop drinking in 2000.
I thought I was on the right track, I thought I was doing the right thing.
But now it all feels so pointless.
I'm sorry.
