I promised myself I wouldn’t become an alcoholic like Dad. Then one night as my husband slept, I reached a terrifying milestone every drinker fears

Seana Smith swore he would never be like his father.

He and his family, who grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland, would usually sail, camp and admire the strawberry fields near their homes in spring.

However, all these adventures were stained with his father’s drinking problem.

“Our childhood was a mixture of pleasure and fear,” says Seana, 61, to me.

“ We never knew how my father would pass through the door.

“ My father could be very fun and adventurous – he was going to close the door at other times and was very angry. He chose us or blamed us for drinking and he was very violent. Then he regretted his actions and said he was upset. ‘

As a child, Seana never always understood why her mother stayed with her father because she wanted to escape from the ‘dysfunctional’ home.

He went to a boarding school at the age of 16. Then, when he reached the beginning of his 20s – and he always promised – he began to drink regularly.

Growing up in Scotland, his father who died since then – he was an alcoholic

Seana (depicted in your youth) promised to never be like him

It was the beginning of a decimal drinking problem that Seana described as ‘to be followed’ with alcohol.

At the age of 23, he moved to Australia and worked as a television producer in nine channels. There, drinking worsened.

When I think of my 20s, I look at horrifying. At that time it was fun and looked good from the surface, but I would have an absolute complex ‘he remembers.

“ I went out with the wrong guys who drank all. I could not stay in a job. Some nights I don’t know how I managed to go home and I will wake up with the worst anxiety. ‘

Booke, working in the media, was often free -flowing at professional events. Seana would spoil it every night, but he never missed one day, regardless of how much he drank.

When we look back, ‘self -esteem was very low’ because he realizes that he was drinking too much.

“I think in many ways, I got the baton of my father and I was abusing myself,” he adds.

‘I would tell myself, “I’m not as bad as daddy” because I wasn’t. My father once broke his leg from falling out of the window, but I was never so extreme. But I still didn’t realize that I had a drinking problem. ‘

However, after returning to Scotland to work for the BBC, he experienced a scary event similar to Seana.

A cold night in Edinburgh broke his ankle on the George IV Bridge (Seana was depicted in his 20s)

A cold night in Edinburgh broke his ankle on the George IV Bridge, but somehow continued his next night club.

The next morning he took himself to the hospital – to find himself in an emergency service full of patients who are still shaking and full of patients.

It was a call to wake up.

At the age of 30, Seana went to the first therapy session about drinking. The therapist clearly stated that he had to come out before it was too late.

At that time, he now met his husband Paul. The couple welcomed the two children together before moving to Australia as a family.

I did not drink when the children were younger and I never touched that “mummy wine culture”. Seana, very seriously to be a mother, and I took responsibility for all of them.

But he didn’t completely break the cycle.

When his children grew a little further, he started to go back to the drink.

It started with a glass of wine for dinner. Soon it was two or three. In a restaurant, he would start with two glasses on an empty stomach to ‘feel the buzz’.

Her husband Paul was a flight, flight worker, which meant that he was far away for weeks every time. This meant that the kids could not drink often until they were in bed.

“There were nights I was very angry because I couldn’t drink until 9 o’clock, after taking my kids to gymnastics or sports,” he confesses.

When Paul was at home, he raised his drink because he wandered him around to help child care.

Every morning, after a lot of glass of wine the night ago, he woke up with worry and regret.

“ I feel in the morning as if a witch was drawing inside my skull. It was terrible and I was in a terrible confusion. ‘

After going to the day without falling, at 16:00 ‘The feeling of winning in my chest’ would feel – ‘My body knows that there was another drink’.

‘This addiction – “Feed me, I need to feed, I need to drink”.

He would give it every time.

Seana grabbed the worst of her husband from her husband. One night, he planned to hide a bottle of wine, so he could drink after he went to bed – he noticed that he went too far at that moment

“I played all these tricks to think about me,” he says. A ‘cheat’ was just to get alcohol on weekends and refuse to buy more during the week.

Still, the drink was getting worse. Even after he promises to drink slowly, he remembers that he has brought back wine boxes from trips to ‘long -lasting’ vineyards.

When he was the worst to drink, Seana would consume a bottle of wine one night.

‘As we worsened and drank more, I wondered if Paul had noticed that I couldn’t stop – but he never did it. I’ve never expressed the struggles in my head. Quietly, to myself, “How do I quit?” I thought.

Seana remembers a certain night when she realizes that she’s going too far.

Her husband wanted to drink more without noticing, so she made a plan to hide a bottle of wine in the garage, so she could finish it when she slept.

Then he stopped himself when he reached the bottle. This – hiding drink – carried a mile that all heavy smokers were afraid. A sign you can be alcoholic.

He knew whether he had crossed this line and would never go back.

Seana’s memories share more of the story of ‘Going under’

The next day, Seana sat alone in a cafe and struggled to swallow her coffee while rinsing horror in the intestines.

“I felt depressed, depressed, overwhelmed and trying not to cry, or he says.

‘I was getting more and more drinking and I was angry with myself who I was.’

Seana has always failed because she tried to stop drinking in the past, she always failed because she tried to be moderate – something she realized now.

Finally, in November 2019, he decided to bite the bullet and stand well.

Seana attended an AA meeting, but said that he felt that he did not belong to the harsh drinkers whose lives were completely out of control.

Instead, he returned to podcasts full of advice and success stories from other women who stopped drinking. In addition, inspiring books about being sober swallowed ‘let’.

When we look back, the Seana sees himself as a ‘gray area drink’-a non-alcoholic, but drinking a line passed a line.

‘After stopping drinking, it’s like getting out of the matrix,’ he says to me.

‘Looking at the outside, “Why do people do it to them?” You start thinking?

Seana is now not planning to buy a drink again for five and a half years.

‘My biggest regret is not left before because life is much better and easier now’ he says.

Seana’s memory ‘Going under ‘ Shares more of his story