“I Was Terrified to Wake Up Every Morning”

[00:00:00][snorts] >> We don't drink in the end because we love alcohol. We do at the start.

[00:00:07]In the end we drink because we like the feeling of temporary relief it gives us.

[00:00:13]You get a bit older and you get anxious with it. Everyone gets anxious because of alcohol, you know.

[00:00:17]Not just me.

[00:00:19]It's a terrible terrible thing, the anxiety.

[00:00:22]It hit me first [snorts] in my mid-20s. I was never an anxious person, to be fair.

[00:00:28]I mean, as a teenager you get a bit worried about the opposite sex and life and all that, don't you? And um but as a person I was never really anxious about anything.

[00:00:37]And when I started to drink, I felt even more comfortable in life.

[00:00:40]This is my thing, the boozing, the social life, living in central London, working in central London most of the time, and I thought I had a good setup, really, to be fair.

[00:00:52]And then I started to feel sometimes after I'd had a lot to drink, few days off, a little bit of anxiety, and then it got worse. I don't know why. It just crept in slowly.

[00:01:04]Not every day, just now and again.

[00:01:07]And I thought, this is a bit odd, this.

[00:01:08]>> [snorts] >> And but I was never anxious at work.

[00:01:11]Once I got settled out of work, I was doing pretty well at work. I got promoted.

[00:01:16]I was working in central London, no problem.

[00:01:19]Dealing with um the job, as it were, dealing with other people, fine.

[00:01:23]But I was always fancy a drink after work.

[00:01:26]Just cuz it was the thing to do, really.

[00:01:29]Like in the '80s, '90s, it was sort of accepted that most people would drink after work.

[00:01:33]In in the center, in the boozers.

[00:01:36]Good excuse. It's in the ground, it was packed, we went to the pub and whatever it was.

[00:01:40]>> [snorts] >> And um as time went on, I noticed a bit more of this anxiety coming in in other areas of my life.

[00:01:47]>> [panting] >> Uh well, I would feel a bit rough the next day if I'd had a few beers or been on a holiday.

[00:01:54]I remember going to Italy, and we did a bit of a camping thing. And I had a lot of drink on the way down there.

[00:02:01]We had a lot of stops. I felt anxious on the motorways, you know.

[00:02:05]Anyway, I thought I'll do that that will pass. Didn't put it down to the drink at all.

[00:02:10]Got to come That's how it ended up going there years and years ago.

[00:02:13]And um usual thing.

[00:02:16]Go to big supermarket.

[00:02:19]Get loads of food and loads of beer for me. Lots and lots of bottles of lager.

[00:02:25]It's a lot I love the foreign lager in those days.

[00:02:27]In the '80s.

[00:02:29]And settled down.

[00:02:30]Had a barbecue with me.

[00:02:32]Didn't drink for 2 or 3 weeks, really.

[00:02:35]And on the way back, I remember first time we were driving down there.

[00:02:38]I said to my I said to my I don't feel too well driving.

[00:02:43]And I started to think I started to sweat and then I felt a bit nauseous, you know.

[00:02:47]So under protest, she drove a lot of the way.

[00:02:51]Uh I felt very anxious in the passenger seat, you know.

[00:02:55]Very bizarre, this.

[00:02:56]I thought, "God, I want to get out of this passenger seat." We were going on this very fast road through through Milan. Like a ring road around Milan. I mean, really really fast road.

[00:03:05]There was suddenly a lot of motorbikes roaring past and things.

[00:03:09]And I thought I had this feeling. I don't know what it was. I want to get out of this car.

[00:03:14]So in the end, I said, "Can you just stop the car?" You know, your usual domestic argument. Why? Anyway, it was a three-door Land Rover Discovery. I I thought I'd sit in the back with my daughter.

[00:03:25]There's no door there, is there?

[00:03:27]I felt immediately safer. This is a really bizarre story, isn't it?

[00:03:31]So I chucked another couple of bottles of Stella and I was feeling it back in the car. But obviously causes problems in relationships, you drinking, isn't it?

[00:03:38]Very very anxious all the way back.

[00:03:41]Next day, she said, "You have to drive today." I said, "I can't drive on these motorways."

[00:03:45]I was just too nervous. I didn't have been a nervous person.

[00:03:49]So I thought, "Well what I'll do is I'll drive only go quiet roads and the windy I'll go on the windy roads and um I thought I'd go that way. It took hours and hours and hours hours to do the journey.

[00:04:01]A few days to get back in fact.

[00:04:03]I don't know what anxiety came over me on the back to London.

[00:04:06]>> [sighs] >> Slept it all off a couple of days and then went back to work.

[00:04:10]I felt sort of semi all right again and just went back into work.

[00:04:14]Back to the routine of doing my job.

[00:04:16]It did me well.

[00:04:18]All right. Not as well as I started, mate. But just put that down to a bit of lack of motivation or whatever.

[00:04:25]And um still going to the pub.

[00:04:29]Maybe drinking a little bit more too.

[00:04:31]After I got back from a shift and starting to have the hair of the dog which I had done in Italy.

[00:04:39]I thought this this is a bit of a lie.

[00:04:40]This is This is putting me right.

[00:04:43]When I used to get the hang of it which is now what it was withdrawal really.

[00:04:49]And that's where it's been put what called hangxiety, isn't it? There's a hangover plus anxiety which a lot of people get.

[00:04:54]And it gets acute.

[00:04:57]So they have to have the hair of the dog. Not before work when I was on my days off. I used to drink a lot more on my days off.

[00:05:02]I knew I had to be disciplined. I knew I had to get to work. You had bills to pay. You've got to be tough when you get to work. It's to be a functional alcoholic if there is such a thing. You really got to push it.

[00:05:12]The anxiety got so bad that I couldn't actually travel on the underground.

[00:05:17]So for example, I did a late turn half two in the afternoon and stuff. I had to leave earlier before and get two buses.

[00:05:23]I couldn't travel on the underground system on the overground bit. Does that make sense? People who live in the old London know what I mean.

[00:05:30]As soon as I went underground, I started to shake and felt really really stressed.

[00:05:35]I'd sweat.

[00:05:36]Especially when it was a crowded train.

[00:05:38]I had to get off and on off and on. So I started to get this bus route in my head. I'd get this get this East End line and then I'd get a bus into the city line and I had another push in the West End. It was madness. The amount of time it was taking me. It was such hard work being an alcoholic and functioning at work.

[00:05:55]And it sort of took over my life with this anxiety.

[00:05:58]And it became very acute.

[00:06:00]So, I couldn't go into the big supermarkets.

[00:06:02]I couldn't drive. I was taking a lot of sick leave and all this sort of thing.

[00:06:06]And I wasn't physically ill.

[00:06:08]I went to the doctor's, the usual thing, cut down, cut down, which I couldn't do.

[00:06:12]I did try.

[00:06:13]And eventually got to the point where I retired from the bar up north, and my my marriage broke down then, as I knew it would.

[00:06:22]And I hit the booze full-time then.

[00:06:25]And then I had this cycle of acute anxiety every day.

[00:06:31]Couldn't even open a letter without a drink.

[00:06:34]Couldn't answer the phone.

[00:06:36]All this sort of thing. Eventually went to the doctor's. Well, I got taken to the doctor's by my parents, actually.

[00:06:40]After I had a seizure.

[00:06:42]I thought I should stop suddenly.

[00:06:44]It was no good.

[00:06:45]I got these magic pills, diazepam.

[00:06:48]If you watch the channel before, you know the story. The diazepam fixed me a couple of times.

[00:06:52]And the anxiety starts again as soon as you start drinking.

[00:06:57]You have a little bit of time off the booze.

[00:06:59]Hit it again, the anxiety is tenfold.

[00:07:01]And you're a lot worse than you were than you were the last time. Everybody who relapses knows this.

[00:07:06]You don't actually get a hangover.

[00:07:08]You go straight into withdrawal.

[00:07:10]The start of the cycle, you see.

[00:07:12]Hangover, withdrawal, drink.

[00:07:15]Get very temporary relief.

[00:07:18]You didn't enjoy the alcohol at that point. Not at all.

[00:07:21]Temporary relief for a while then.

[00:07:24]>> [snorts] >> Comatose, a little bit of sleep.

[00:07:27]Don't eat properly, you disturb sleep.

[00:07:29]Wake up feeling even worse.

[00:07:31]Anxiety kicks in again. Drink. Get the temporary relief. And so the cycle continues.

[00:07:36]And when you get to that point, you're in really dangerous territory.

[00:07:39]Eventually I couldn't get any diazepam.

[00:07:41]I had to Well, I did. I had to had to, but I tried to self-medicate with alcohol.

[00:07:46]Which is a total disaster.

[00:07:48]Trying to use it as a medicine, basically. Which a lot of people do.

[00:07:52]And I got seriously ill with it.

[00:07:54]So, if you're feeling these um Well, no matter what your level of anxiety, you can't cope. That's what I mean. That's the time to get some help.

[00:08:02]If you can get any from the GP, try your best. You've got to push it these days if you get any help. The NHS is very good at fixing things when they've gone wrong with alcohol, but not too good in the prevention stages.

[00:08:17]That's my opinion.

[00:08:19]Uh and I think the NHS is wonderful, in general. But there are too many people presenting with alcohol issues now for the system to cope.

[00:08:27]I think that's the big issue.

[00:08:29]It needs, in my opinion, again, medication. Because you can't just You can't just uh moderate it.

[00:08:37]I've got a couple of clients who work with at the moment who have actually to taper off and get down to zero, which I find astounding, cuz I couldn't do that. I used to get down to one or two, and then feel anxious again, and then start to build up the quantity.

[00:08:52]It's a really bad bad um symptom of alcoholism, the anxiety.

[00:08:57]The mental health side isn't looked into enough.

[00:09:00]I think it should be looked into more, because that drives you into this cycle of drinking, sleeping, anxiety, more drinking, and so on.

[00:09:11]And it'll kill you in the end.

[00:09:12]It nearly killed me.

[00:09:14]Get off it if you can. You need any help, please get in touch. Drop me a comment.

[00:09:18]My email and numbers are all over the internet. I don't mind you text me. Give me a call if you want some assistance.

[00:09:24]You can't do this alone.

[00:09:26]You really can't. It's a big killer.

[00:09:28]It is preventable to some degree, but you have to have a want.

[00:09:33]You must want to do it for yourself.

[00:09:35]It's not a question of just stop you overnight.

[00:09:38]Takes a bit of time to turn the well to reverse the the body clock as well to get well again. But once you're off the booze, your body will fight for you. 100%. I'll speak to you soon.