Crossing the Line

Sometimes as you work with our clients you are privileged to hear about events in their lives that have led to their dependency on alcohol. You don’t suddenly have an addiction or find yourself rough sleeping. These things often take a good time to develop into an addiction and then all the fall-out that accompanies such a need becomes slowly evident; until eventually you are unable to hide your addiction. People often ask staff how you know when you have crossed that line when you are no longer in control of your drink or drug taking and the drink or other substance begins to control you.Not one of our clients had ever intended to be in the place they are today. They started their lives with the same aspirations and dreams as any of us have. (We are, hopefully going to tell some of the stories of our clients from time to time, and probably by reading them we may gain a greater understanding of this question.) We have to be very mindful of confidentiality and their vulnerability and the need to protect them. They don’t enjoy their addiction; it’s gone way past that. It’s like living with something inside you that is never satisfied with what you give it. The more you feed this need in you the bigger it grows. You lose sight very quickly of the event or serious of events that caused you to turn to drink in the first place. Drinking is only ever a symptom.   We believe that there is hope for every one of our clients. Whenever that line was crossed we believe it is never too late for clients too start addressing the needs in their lives and to look at ways to start getting their lives back. This week we have had the loveliest amazing breakthrough in one of our client’s lives. If ever a life looked bleak and hopeless we could have said this one was. But slowly, so very very slowly, at times, we started chipping away with small steps into his life, and a good three years down the road we are at this amazing place. Hopefully this will be one life we will be able to share with you later and you too will be able to see the miracle this has been. It also gives us hope to keep going and however small the breakthrough we can see it as the major step it is in their lovely complicated lives.