The first time I drank alcohol was at about the age of 12 at a party. I had always felt awkward, not really “one of the in crowd” and a party always made me feel worse. So skulking under the stairs I found two litre bottles of woodpecker cider and decided to try some. I drank both bottles, passed out, missed the whole party.
At my sister’s hen party (I was 13), too much Pernod resulted in alcohol poisoning and a terrified junior doctor sitting up with me all night. I learned that night, never to drink Pernod again, unfortunately, I did not learn not to drink alcohol again!
At 15, I was drinking brandy and Babycham, regularly passing out by the end of the evening. At 17, I found religion and became a very charismatic Christian. I didn’t drink alcohol from then and throughout my university years, until a rather unfortunate incident with a wayward minister and a disbelieving church. I lost my faith and within a couple of weeks I had found Gordons to fill the gaping hole.
For the next 30 years, the pattern was of periods of heavy drinking, and periods when I had more control. But certainly drinking alcohol most days, which I considered as quite normal. I surrounded myself with a heavy drinking crowd of people. Thus, I did not consider that my drinking was at all abnormal. The pattern became, that I would have a couple of stiff gins as I was getting ready to go out ( I was deeply self-conscious with a very low self-esteem, gin gave me confidence and courage). I would drink so heavily, that I would often have to curl up and have a “little sleepy” before reviving to carry on. If not going out, I would drink wine or gin every night, after all as a hard-working GP, I deserved it at the end of the day. I could drive to work with the worst of hangovers, but even towards the latter stages of my drinking, I never drank at work.
I divorced and remarried, my new husband only drank occasionally. So, I had to start hiding my gin, in all kinds of ingenious hiding places, I vaguely knew that hiding alcohol was a bad sign but I justified it by considering that it was my husband who was abnormal, if he drank normally, I would not have to hide my drinking. It amazes me now to realise, that despite being a doctor, I really had no insight into my alcoholism at all.
As the disease progressed, I would wake in the early hours with palpitations and “the shakes” and I put this neatly down to the menopause. I got frequent bouts of vomiting and gastritis, and I became anxious, restless and more and more depressed. I stole fluoxetine from the dispensary shelf and started self-medicating.
I did not lose my job, my house, my licence, my children, my new husband, though I was on the brink of losing all those things. What I lost was my mind. I would sit with my head in my hands in between patients, willing myself to go on, imagining the cool glass of wine I could have when I got home. Having no insight, that by this point, that cool glass of wine was in reality half or more of a litre of gin.
Looking back, what surprises me the most about my alcoholism, is my total lack of insight into my condition. I earnestly believed my own stories of denial. I had little awareness of the negative effect I was having on my family and all those around me. I remain amazed at how I managed to carry off this acting role of popular caring GP while leading this double despairing life in the evenings.
One evening, driving home from work, it just suddenly hit me: a moment of clarity out of the blue and I said out loud “My God, you are sick, you’re really sick, you’ve got to stop drinking”. The next few days and weeks, I realised that I actually couldn’t stop. I would wake in the morning, determined not to drink that day and by the evening, I would be pouring the gin, knowing I didn’t want it but pouring and drinking it anyway. Without it, I would be pacing the floor, agitated and restless. Alcohol was once the answer to all my problems, until the day when it became the author of my problems.I felt so isolated, realising that as an alcoholic doctor, there were few places I could turn to for help, without risking the GMC becoming aware and my losing my job and credibility. Fortunately, there is so much help available nowadays for doctors.
I needed help but was petrified of the consequences of speaking out. Trembling, I phoned the Sick Doctors Trust and that was my first tentative step towards alcohol detoxification and recovery.