About

This blog is a therapeutic exercise that aims to satisfy my vanity and bring you some home truths where alcoholism is concerned. Saying that, I can’t really talk about all alcoholism. I can’t speak for every sodden sot. What I can do is bring you my experience, which I shall characterise as a 20+ year decline into dependency and then several years of doing something about it. An unvarnished view, I will try and share the black humour, and the sometimes bleak journey, of a forty-something alcoholic in recovery in the UK today.

If you’re interested, the title ‘The Average Alcoholic‘ comes from a difficult lesson to learn when you think of yourself as ‘special and different’. In my early forties, a white British ‘professional’ male with some questionable personality traits, I was a bang average inmate, a ten-a-penny piss artist that the folks dishing out my treatment in rehab saw day-in, day-out. So, with my ego levelled, I was able to apply myself to getting better. Fast forward five years and things are working out ok.

There’s nothing particularly special about my alcoholism or my recovery, but there are likely some common threads and telling behaviours that you can look out for and that you might already recognise. Addressing this stuff is the key, the problem with alcoholism in the UK is that it’s not a problem until it’s a massive fucking problem.

And, finally, I’m writing anonymously as I intend to tell you some things that they would rather I didn’t. It’s better this way, you’ll just have to trust me on that.