I did not initially realise I was addicted to alcohol.

When I did, it took me quite a while to do something about it.

I started drinking pretty much as soon as I hit 18 -- first was the celebratory pack of Marlboro Greens I bought on my birthday at the local Tesco Express. Younger kids were smoking weed behind the back, but I was buying Marlboro Greens and watching an old woman who can't do math call her supervisor over.

The cigarette thing escalated pretty quick. They're morish to me, and even though I use Zyns now, nothing fucking compares. They say cigarettes have rocket fuel in? I bet they do. They make me euphoric, and energised. Zyns can sometimes mimic this, and the first time I ever had one I had an out-of-body experience, but nothing hit me like the acid taste of jet fuel to fire me off.

A few months later they'd ban menthols, and I'd try to do my best. I found capsule cigarillos - they were immune to the rules, so had a little capsule you could pop, and the menthol would come flowing for a few of the hits. Beautiful. One time I had 5 in one sitting, sipping a cider at the local park at 9pm as some kids (again, smoking weed) were cycling around on the opposite side of the park.

I remember when Covid hit, I was carrying a bottle of Kraken spiced rum home with me. Eventually, to stop my mum finding out I was buying one a week, I'd leave them by the bin outside, or the door, come in first, and then bring it in after she had greeted me. She screamed at me that I was going to murder my grandfather (who didn't live with us) because I ordered a pizza early on, about April -- that first month after covid hit. I'd get drunk in the evenings, so I didn't really care at that time. I thought it was nothing, and that I was invincible.

The drinking came and went. Ketamine helped me get off it here and there, and granted me relief for a while. I never really got hungovers for the first year or so -- I was only working 15 hours a week or so, and couldn't buy very much anyway. I'd drink a quarter to a third of the bottle and it'd be enough for me to pass out.

The drinking got worse over time and, as I worked more and more, bought more and more to drink. It ended up being half a bottle of some kind of spirits -- whatever was cheapest, sometimes I'd splash out and run out of money at the end of the month.

Having started out with a little rum-and-coke, it became half a bottle of spirits -- often Bacardi white rum, or cheap nasty Glen's vodka for £7.59 (they'd later put the price up a few times till it got around £10). I'd have a monster with the bottle, and obscene amounts of drink.

Probably 4 or 5 shots worth per drink, fill the rest up with monster -- and chug. I'd be in bed within a couple hours or I'd black out at my desk. My mother wasn't happy when she used to see me like that.

Occasionally I'd sleep-walk, or just be blacked out and do something. Apparently one time I came into my mother's room and stared at them both as they lay sleeping.

I lived with my brother for a while when I ran away, hiding in a hotel in Birmingham -- and he was nice to be with. He'd buy me bottles of alcohol. Sometimes big ones, like a litre. Sometimes I'd drink half and wake up in the morning still drunk, my legs wobbling so hard I could barely walk at all.

They knew I'd drunk too much and one time when she was looking in my room she found a bunch of bottles in a bedside drawer -- probably 30 or more. She put them all out on the floor and laid them alongside me and I cried so much and promised her I'd stop.

I stopped for a while -- maybe a week or two -- and then went back to it. I instead bought water bottles, and I'd pour the spirits into the water bottle before I got home and then -- they'd be none the wiser at my operation. They never did catch on.

Eventually, watching Blade get drunk on YouTube started hitting too hard - and I started realising what I was doing. I was making myself miserable, achieving nothing in life, and being completely dead-end. I started realising that I will die.

Then I got sick -- violently sick, I threw up about seven times in one night. It was a winter vomiting bug, but vomiting is incredibly traumatic for me -- I'd rather cut myself a hundred times than throw up. That was what set me off -- to fix my immunity, to save my life, I'd quit drinking.

It was fine. I'm a lot better now. I realised that my life was scheduled around drinking -- I was spending probably £500 per month on it, with the water bottles, and the monster on top.

I've become not much better at spending my money -- but I have money left over a lot these days. I guess it helps. And I'm not dying. I get to enjoy the little things in life and love it, even if sometimes I don't want to live anymore. I can try my best to thrive, and to find something better.

A bit anticlimactic, I know. I will never drink a drop of alcohol again -- it's not good for me, and it consumed my life. I've considered it, but everytime I just, worry for the risk. My liver survived, well-intact. It was only 3 years or so, of on-and-off, and it got worse towards the end.