MEMBER STORY - Benn

When I had my first drink of alcohol (at age 13), I remember thinking ‘this feels amazing’. For once in my life, I had the confidence I had yearned for as a young lad and I was finally able to not overthink everything that I did and said. While I wasn’t addicted from my first drink, over time I used alcohol to cope in life, to fit in, to manage my emotional state, to feel comfortable in the world and in the end, to provide me with an escape from the guilt and shame I was experiencing from constantly crossing my values each time I drank and used drugs.

At 33 I couldn’t live that way anymore; daily drinking and drug use had worn me out and I had nothing left, I was a shell of a man. Suicidal thoughts were a daily feature, and I was in a state of complete hopelessness. It was in this state, that I reached out to my parents and for the first time in my life, got honest about my inability to stop drinking and using drugs.  Change had to happen, and I was terrified of what that may look like.  I didn’t want to change the way I drank and used drugs, but I knew, deep down, that I could not go on the way I was.

Soon enough I was in a rehab where my recovery journey began. I learnt so much about my addiction, why I used alcohol and drugs to cope and what I needed to do to maintain my recovery – enter me finding my new escape through running, getting active and finding a community of people who understood where I had come from and supported where I was going. My life, 10+ years later, is unrecognisable to where I was. I now have freedom from the shackles of my addiction and have a level of comfort and self-belief that I thought was never possible without drinking or using. I am no longer ashamed of who I am, and I’m really proud of what I have been able to achieve in life.  Sure, life can throw its own challenges at me, but instead of reaching for a drink or a drug to cope, I am now able to navigate with support of my family and friends and my community of friends in recovery. So come and join us and Run into Recovery every Sunday, we get it 🙂