‘I was in the depths of alcoholism. Then my son said two sentences that changed my life’

I love my son Marcus with my entire being, but there was a time when alcohol drove a divide between us. As an alcoholic, all you really care about is that bottle, and drinking was far more important to me than being a good dad.

Booze was always in my life. I grew up in an era when rules around alcohol were more relaxed. As young as 13, my brothers would be buying me pints in the pub. Then in my early 20s, I worked in the corporate world where it was a beer at 5pm, wine with dinner, a load more spirits and then shots somewhere at 3am.

Things took a turn for the worse about seven years ago, when I started having serious eye problems. I went for every test you can imagine at every top clinic in the country, but no one to this day has been able to find the cause. At one point I couldn’t read my emails. Fortunately, the doctors managed to reverse the decline in my right eye, but I’ve now lost 90 per cent of the sight in my left. These days I still walk into things, I can’t always see people and I’m lost in the dark. It has been a huge adjustment, and when it first happened I couldn’t cope. 

But rather than talk about it and be honest about feeling terrified, I made jokes and pretended everything was fine. Behind closed doors, I buried myself in the bottle and my alcohol intake went through the roof.

About five years ago, when Marcus was 14, I was really struggling. I’d previously split up from Marcus’ mum but we’d always co-parented, and my relationship with Marcus had been extremely close. Before my drinking problem kicked in, I was the kind of dad who rang him every day; we went regularly to rugby together, and we loved being in each other’s company.

But when my booze intake accelerated, I went from drinking bottles of wine and beer at night to necking more than a few in the afternoon. By the end of 2020, the first thing I’d think about waking up was having a drink. By that point I was on vodka because it got me drunk more quickly.

Because I was running my own legal business, even though I was out of it much of the time, I could just about keep my professional life together. But, later, when I eventually hit my rock bottom, I had to be honest with my management team and ask for their help. That was tough: being upfront about how bad things had become.

I was always very clever at hiding my addiction. I’d sneak off to have a glug when no one was looking, and because I had a high tolerance, I could still be around Marcus and function. Even so, Marcus was no fool and he picked up that I wasn’t being the dad he’d known and loved. It’s hard to admit, but he did find me asleep in bed once, surrounded by empty bottles. Not my proudest moment.

Things progressively got worse and I started letting him down. I forgot to pick him up, didn’t show face at the rugby and was distracted most of the time by the thought of the next drink. Marcus had always been my main priority but now it was alcohol.

One day his mum intervened and told me I had to seek professional help. Although I agreed to go to rehab, crazy though it sounds, I didn’t really believe I had a problem. When I came out, I immediately started drinking again. This became the cycle – in total, I’ve been to rehab five times.