Nottingham continues to have some of the highest levels of problem drinking in the UK – with the death rate for chronic liver disease nearly double the national average, and tens of thousands of people in the city struggling to control their intake.
As part of Alcoholics Awareness month, Notts TV News has exclusive interviews with Nottingham people battling addiction. All identities have had to be concealed and names changed. Here Pablo, a Nottingham man who had his son taken away, tells his story to Sharon Walia.
“B
etween 16 and 18 I was drinking and then it was sociably on a Friday night, meeting girls, having a laugh with my mates, you know, eating kebabs.
“I guess the way I drank, because I used to drink really hard and fast and I never drank for the taste, I was drinking more for the effect, just to escape feeling normal.
“[For] A brief window it was to be the life and the soul of the party, to enjoy music more, to socialise, to be a bit more adventurous to say things you wouldn’t normally say.
“But then, I’m very clear on this, it then became an escape.
“When I first left school I went into a joinery, making settees and it was just a boring job, it was just a boring mind-numbing job.
“And then I went to college for a bit and then because of the alcohol, because of the drugs, I just kind of bummed around for a bit and then I set up my own business in photography and I made an absolute killing, I earned loads of money and I was self-taught.
“Drinking was really getting in the way of my business, it was my biggest overhead.
“My work was the very least thing of importance that it affected.
“The nitty gritty of it is alcohol cost me a lot more than money for me, it was more than waking up with a hangover and a dry mouth and a blurry memory of what you’d done.
“So I lost my own business, I lost a lot of self-respect.
“It was when the front door shut and the social workers had took away my son. We’d already lost his mum through cancer.
“I was an active alcoholic , I was drinking and I couldn’t stop.
“The most precious thing in my life was my son and I neglected my son, it’s very important for me that I say that.
“And I’d be at the shop buying alcohol at eight o’clock, and my son would be going to school, worrying about what state his dad’s going to be in.
“I’m totally blessed and so grateful, one of the greatest gifts of me being sober is being available, he’s got a sober dad.
“My first AA meeting I actually went there under the influence.
“I just felt understood.
“AA was my last chance to get well, I was actually going there and I was feeling that I could be myself and I wasn’t feeling judged as I would from a court or a social worker or somebody telling me what to do.”
To contact Alcoholics Anonymous in Nottinghamshire call 0115 941 7100 or visit the organisation’s website.
Specialist support for those struggling with alcohol is also available from a range of other local organisations including Recovery in Nottingham and APAS.
