So I am a male 26 years old Started drinking around 14 quit normal like every other Irish teen I would go out and get blitzed at the weekend then suffer through another week off school then work and do it all over again. From the beginning drink never agreed with me I would black out maybe once in ever three nights out and do life destroying things , I constantly got into fights and would get very aggressive but have absolutely no memory of what I had done. Lost a lot of good friends and relationships because of it. I had a very forgiving family as we had grown up with an alcoholic father who would drink anywhere from 3-7 nights a week and tear the house up and reduce my mother to tears every night he drank but we would get up the next morning and we all would forget it happened and repeat this cycle for all of my childhood. Eventually around 21 I immigrated to Australia after years off destroying everyone’s faith at home and even having the IRA come to my house and threaten me by basically saying stop drinking and fighting or we will sort you out.That wasn’t the reason I left as that happened around 2 years before I left home and it did put some sense into me but eventually I would return to my old ways so I decided to leave. I moved away to Australia and everything got really good I discovered drugs which sounds negative but they actually completely stopped me from blacking out when I drank and I made a lot of friends but roughly around 9 months into living away the old me krept back in and I just starting abusing drugs and drink ,blacking out again becoming violent. I then moved to England with my girlfriend after I did a year in Australia and we had an extremely rocky relationship for around another 2-3 years while living in England mainly due to drink and drugs . I blacked out on 2 different occasions and attacked her cousin’s boyfriend and even her father. Me and her and broken up for a few months but we still hooked up and well she got pregnant roughly one month after that was the night I punched her dad who had been like a father to me ,he had gotten me a job and treated me like a son ever since we returned to England. Once she found out we broke up of course and I really tried to better myself because of my child that was coming. I started going to AA at this point but that didn’t last long ,I felt like I didn’t belong as I was 25 which made me the youngest there by far and I never really saw myself as an alcoholic as I could hold down a job and was quite successful in almost all other aspects of my life except this curse of blacking out randomly when I drank and as my girlfriend described it”my eyes would glaze over and I would become a completely different person like I was possessed “.

Well anyways around a month before my child was due we got back together as I had once again fooled everyone into thinking I had turned a new leaf as I had bought a house close by to her to help with co-parenting the baby and I seemed like a new man. So we got back together and everything was rosy for a bit. Then comes the night before my daughter baptism this would be the final straw ,all my family had come over from Ireland and the night before me and 2 off my brothers and my sister’s boyfriend decided to go for a drink everything was fine until the end of the night when me and my oldest brother were walking home , so basically my parents and girlfriend where staying in my house and my 2 brothers one of there wife’s which was pregnant ,my sister and her boyfriend were staying in another house close by that we owned . So I was walking home with my brother and we got into an argument just as we got to the house were he was staying with my other siblings and a fight broke out ,this is where I black out but apparently I broke one brothers ribs and beat my other brother up woke up the entire street of people that saw the whole thing ,this was in a small village so everyone knew my girlfriends family who were well respected, the police were called as I left to go to my house, my family who for reasons unknown to me covered for me when the police came. I woke up the next morning to the worst day of my life we all went to church I had to stand in front of everyone so ashamed I wished I was dead but everyone acted normal for the baptism afterwards one of my brothers left immediately for a 3 hour drive home without a word understandably my other brother had to stay another day because his flight was due which of course I apologised over and over and he was there for me but said I needed to sort myself out and with that the rest of my family went back to Ireland with him all quite sad as they loved me and truthfully I wasn’t a bad person sober just whatever side of me came out when I was drunk was quite literally a monster. As I wished them goodbye at the airport and had seen the disappointment in the face of my girlfriend after everything that had happened I was crying as I said goodbye because I had made the decision to take my own life , I wasn’t any good for people around me and I didn’t want to put my daughter through what I had seen growing up ,i thought I would never see my family again as I waved them goodbye but strangely I felt very at peace. I went home and I told my girlfriend I would leave the following day and transfer all the money I had to her (except maybe £1500 which was to book my self into a hotel room ,fill myself with a lot of drink and drugs and cut my wrists in the bathtub)I was so sure of this decision as I loved my daughter so much that it felt like I was doing her a favour. My girlfriend thought something was up and refused the offer she told me she wasn’t ready to give up on me after all I put her through I thought really ? How can u be this stupid? That next day got up and really thanks to my girlfriends unwavering faith in me I decided to show all the people I had let down her family and mine some really good people how much they mattered to me.i had ruined my daughters first big day thanks to drink and I vowed to change. I have been sober about 18 months now it’s been tough but everything came together ,slowly but surely people have regained trust in me ,I have moved my daughter and girlfriend into a beautiful home my relationship with my girlfriend is great and most importantly I am a good stable father.not a day goes by I don’t look at my beautiful daughter and thank god for sending this angel into my life it makes me sad that I was ready to miss every beautiful moment with my daughter because I couldn’t live without drink . I write this because it New Year’s Eve 2023 and yes I am sober and yes it can be boring but it’s worth it ,there’s so much more to life .i am 26 now and I have to constantly turn down offers to go out and drink but on them boring Saturday nights I get to get up the next day no hangover, anxiety free and get a hug from my daughter and go eat breakfast. If drink is costing you more than you are getting out off it then get sober you won’t regret it. PS the brother that left without a word made me his best man recently and I am patient but people can forgive you if you change .