Cape Town AA Meeting List (Western Cape)

A.A. MEETINGS Western Cape: Tel: 021-4180908   Fax: 0880214180908 Updated: October 2013

Website: www.cape.org.za  : Email: aawestcape@telkomsa.net

My Alcohol Addiction, The NHS & Rehab Clinics

So through losing a good few years, friends and jobs through addiction to mainly alcohol but basically anything I can abuse I have searched relentlessly for a "cure". This search has led me down many paths. Substituting weed for alcohol, cocaine for speed..... the list goes on. None of these methods were too successful. I also read a few books on becoming a successful drinker or lowering your drinking with various strategies. None of these seemed to work!

Me

I bounced around the NHS (National Health Service) in the UK for a few years. I first went to see a doctor after throwing up blood from drinking up to 2 bottles of vodka a day while holding down a full time job. The Doctor advised me to stop eating spicy food, avoid tomatoes and stop drinking. Sound advice if unicorns were real. I returned to the same doctor a few weeks later with a serious gastric infection, surprisingly he did not link this to my drinking. Eventually after a few more drink related illnesses I was advised to keep a drink diary and meet with a member of the Alcohol action team once every 2 weeks. This again was a fruitless attempt to stop a deadly and progressive obsession with alcohol.

Over the space of the next few years I ended up with a list of drink related criminal offences including a banning order from every football ground in Europe, assault on a police officer and various other minor public order offences. Although when I was younger I suspected I may have had a drinking problem I always thought it was the result of circumstance and if I got a new car, house or girlfriend things would improve. Eventually after missing work a few to many Mondays in a row I decided to check into a rehab clinic in the UK. This was Affinity Lodge, a non CQC registered holistic programme that told me the science behind drinking, let me sit on a magic vibrating chair and ultimately gave me no idea how to remain abstinent from drinking. I relapsed within maybe a month of leaving this two week treatment and as far as I am aware everyone I met there also relapsed within a short period of time. I specifically remember being told that AA (alcoholics anonymous) was a cult at this “clinic”. Remarkably someone died while in care at this centre and it subsequently closed down shortly after.