My name is Jo and I am a recovering alcoholic. I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, a peer-to-peer network of people recovering from problematic alcohol use. AA is a fellowship with a spiritual dimension to it, where we practice the 12 Steps and engage in service and mutual support. It is a 'broad church' of people and you don't need to be religious or particularly spiritual to join, you only have to want to stop drinking. It is an amazing thing and it saved my life. I have been sober for 14 years and live a healthy, happy active and fun life!
I first started to see that my drinking was problematic and dangerous in my mid 20s. I had been a big drinker since my teens, but I was also a well educated young woman from an affluent middle-class family with a lot of potential. I was living in London trying to hold down my first graduate role in publishing. I had entered quite a boozy industry and I was out all the time with workmate down the pub at lunchtime and after work until late. I also partied hard at weekends, often ending up in situations after blackout drinking and behaving in ways that I felt bad about. Perhaps quite normal behaviour for a young person, except my drinking was scary - I often didn't remember getting home. I would do regrettable embarrassing things. I would put myself at risk and I was vulnerable and increasingly scared that my drinking was ruining my life.
I was a binge drinker, not a round the clock vodka drinker. So, I rationalised my drinking that I couldn't be that bad, and tried harder to be moderate. This was impossible - I could rarely just have a couple and once I started all bets were off. Over the subsequent years I felt more and more defeated about my alcohol problem and my mental health suffered. I missed work because of drinking and luckily I had an understanding boss who I confided in about my problem. But this was a time - the mid 2000s - when there was little really known about alcoholism and it was also a time where drinking was still very central to the culture and the idea of sobriety was a bit weird and strange. A life without drinking? It seemed really unattractive a proposition and impossible - drinking was a crutch and also how I socialised.
I wish all those years ago I had received better support and understanding from my employer - in fact one of the senior managers was a ring leader of drinking sessions, which didn't help. It was a different time. But now, years later and as someone who has found recovery in AA, I feel passionately about raising awareness about alcoholism and how lonely and terrifying it is to be trying to hold down a job and deal with the problem. There is help and you don't have to be alone.
If anyone wants to find out more about alcoholism and the workplace, and how AA works, then please come along to my workshop next week:
I'm also really happy to talk to anyone 1:1 if they want to talk about their own drinking or about their own organisation specifically - my email address is employers@aa-bristol.org.
Jo C
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