"I am merely clinging on..."

Rhys reflects on a hard year

MARK WRITES: It’s been almost 12 months since we published the last Notes from an Anxious Place, a blog devoted to helping people who suffer from anxiety and their loved ones understand one another better.

At that stage, Rhys had just recovered from a serious bout of pancreatitis. In hospital, he had time to think about the effect his drinking was having on his physical and mental health and on his relations with friends and family. There was better news, too: he’d landed a good job at a recruitment consultancy.

In March this year, he lost that job. That was followed by another drinking binge that landed him back in A&E. Then last week, he went on another. He has just been discharged.

Now back at home, Rhys has written the following words. I’ll add my own after his; but first, we decided it would be useful for followers of the blog to hear his unfiltered thoughts on health, addiction and the way people around him respond to it.

RHYS WRITES:

There have been many times that I've called the NHS for advice. Mainly to do with my medication, only a handful of times to do with my mental health.

They go through a series of questions. ‘Do you want to cause harm to others? ‘Have you considered harming yourself?’ Both answers to those questions are truly ‘No’.

But I do want this to end. I cannot see a light at the end of the tunnel. I am merely clinging on for my family, my house, my cats. My friends are always concerned about me, which I am so grateful for. I am only 34 years old. It has taken me this long to realise how much potential I still have. I cannot afford another day wasted.

Some days, someone criticises my way of living. I don’t give a shit anymore. I've had deeply, humiliating, shameful psychosis episodes that have ruined my entire week/month. If anyone thinks they can top that, then you may as well stay where you are right now as you simply cannot. Unless you've been through it you can't understand. I'm going to do me from now on, instead of pleasing others. I have lived all of my life following the examples of others, or taking life advice. And look where it has gotten me.

If people want to distance themselves from me, that's understandable, whether it be friends or family. But if they ever need someone to talk to or lean on, I promise I'll be there day or night.

Otherwise I'm good, great even. Now I have to separate the cats as they're having a fight.

PEACE!! ✌️✌️

I of course have regrets. I made as much of the time I had with both my parents [Glyn died in July 2007, Kim on the tenth anniversary of his death in 2017]. And it's just my personality that I feel guilty, especially for my Mum's death.

I try to control my body allergy known as alcoholism, and protect my family and friends from it, which I manage to. I never drink in front of them and never will again. Even in front of my friends who enjoy a drink. I'm perfectly content with my pint of lemonade and lime.

I started going to pubs with my Dad and two elder sisters when I was 12. At that point I was only interested in a Coke or J20 Orange and Passion Fruit. (An absolute banger. The only reason I don’t buy it is because it's so freaking expensive!)

The first alcoholic drink my dad offered me was a glass of cider, which I refused at first. We were watching TV and he had finished his drink. He insisted he would get me one anyway. I knew something was up as I could hear him in the kitchen with his then fiancé Carol saying how he ‘could not do it’, whatever that meant.

Carol brought in my drink and retreated to the kitchen. Dad, with tears in his eyes, sat down next to me and told me that the cancer in him was terminal. I couldn't cry as I felt I had to look after him from then on. Even later on that night I held him while he cried when I retreated to my bedroom and he followed me.

I have never told anyone this story as it was, and still is, a private moment that I cherish.

At their wedding reception [Glyn and Carol married in December 2006, shortly after that diagnosis], I drank nothing but vodka and Red Bull, no idea how many, but I had a blasting headache once I was home. At that point I decided vodka was bloody evil.

This was still years before alcohol became a crutch in my life. It was a very confusing period for everyone. As for me, I was only 16 years old. I definitely felt older and was possibly made to feel so. Cutting back on alcohol will always be a challenge for me. Luckily, the growing up fast part has provided me with the absolute best support systems I could ever ask for. It has and always will be an absolute joy to have these people around me.

No matter how many times that I stumble and fail to a) maintain my sobriety and b) try and make the best of the shit-show that is my life, I can at least count on this: my parents, wherever they may be beyond this plain, they have to be beaming down on me. If I don’t believe that, what is the point?

Mark (centre) with brothers Glyn (L) and Chris (R)

MARK WRITES: The questions run on a loop and have done for many years now: should we intervene? If so, when do we intervene –– and how?

The advice from the experts and the people who have many more years of working with and living alongside an addict is clear: only they can fix this. All you can do is support them and, just as important, each other.

A friend of mine says ‘one day the penny will drop and he will decide to get clean. It could be weeks. Or it could be months or decades’.

Looking at what Rhys says above, he’s not at that stage and is probably nowhere near it. He says, ‘cutting back on alcohol will always be a challenge for me’. Cutting back? The people treating him have said one more alcoholic drink could kill him. He knows the risks of pancreatic, or esophageal cancer – the one that killed his Dad – increases with every can of Strongbow. Then there’s the mental effects. We didn’t want his alcoholism to hijack a blog that’s meant to be about anxiety. But that’s what alcohol does: hijacks. It negates the drugs, provokes some really scary psychotic episodes, feeds, and feeds on his anxiety and depression. It’s heartbreaking.

Total abstinence is his only sane course. Not one he seems ready to consider and, seemingly, we have to accept that.

Back to that intervention question. We (I mainly mean Rhys’s older sister and I) leave him alone. We worry about the state of his house and his finances as well as the state of his mental and physical health. But we get on with our own lives, until there’s no choice but to intervene – the frantic call from a neighbour, the drive to A&E.

Rhys speaks movingly about that night of his first drink with his father. That’s poignant on so many levels. I need to process that a little more.

And when the next crisis happens, someone – I think he means us – will criticise his way of living. His sister has to clean the house, restock the fridge, and wash the clothes. I try to sort out the bills and suggest ways of living a healthier life – better sleep, no ultra-processed food, exercise, hobbies, whatever.

We don't have to – and maybe that’s the message Rhys is sending us here. I have lived all of my life following the examples of others, or taking life advice. And look where it has gotten me.

My other brother, Rhys’s uncle, also died from cancer either caused, or at least exacerbated by self-neglect and heavy drinking. Seeing his flat after he’d been admitted to hospital for his last illness – the mess, the piles of unanswered bills, the plates of food lying around – is an image that’ll stay with me all my life.

We had left him alone. We hadn’t intervened. His bland manner – yes, I’m fine, talk about something else – let him, and us, off the hook. And that’s where it got him.

Anxiety Role Model: Pedro Pascal

RHYS WRITES: Now, this fellow seems to be everywhere at the moment.

The Game of Thrones and Narcos actor is extremely famous, cool and collected. And more importantly he knows his boundaries when it comes to social media activity, despite being constantly in the spotlight.

He suffers from social anxiety and relies on Bella Ramsay from The Last of Us and Vanessa Kirby from Fantastic Four: First Steps just to alleviate his symptoms and calm him down.

I am very conscious now, suffering with anxiety for several years, that there are those who suspect people play on it to get sympathy. I'm a firm believer that it is NOT the case. It's an extremely embarrassing condition and it takes years to feel like you own it. Believe me if Pedro Pascal can own it, and be as charismatic as he is, we all can.