Posted on 01/23/2020 7:26:51 PM PST by nickcarraway
Stephen Walder spent £1,000 a week on cocktails of drink and cocaine
“In two 36-hour binges on my own I drank 112 cans of Red Stripe,” Stephen Walder confesses.
Spending £1,000 a week on his alcohol addiction - washed down with cocaine - was something he didn’t think twice about.
But he admits he “doesn’t know” how he is still alive after drinking can after can after can in his last ever binge.
From an innocent sip of cider at 13 he started regularly drinking pints of lager at 16 one or two nights a week.
But his habit soon spiralled to six or seven nights in a row and he would be the last one in the pub as time was called and the door was about to shut.
He admits himself he didn’t fully understand why he started to drink - both his parents were practically teetotal, only having a rare sherry of a lunchtime.
But a lack of confidence and fear of failure compounded his problems and led him to drink to numb the pain.
His arms still bear the scars of years of self-harm with the slash marks hidden away by long sleeved jumpers.
Now 18 months sober and living in Mumbles, he looks back at his mammoth drink sessions and is grateful to have survived it.
Stephen Walder spent £1,000 a week on booze and drank 112 cans of Red Stripe in his last two drinking sessions (Image: Media Wales) “Some weeks I would spend £1,000 on drinking and cocaine - I was being secretive about it,” he said.
“It comes before everything, I wouldn’t buy food.
“There was a week that all I ingested outside of drink was half a tube of toothpaste and a tub of margarine.
“I wasn’t going to stop until I killed myself, I did not think I worried about my health.
“As a kid it was a lager I would drink and after a day’s work I would go and have a couple of pints.
“When I got a reputation as a drinker I would play up to it. The main reason I would get out of bed was to have a drink.
He added: “I did not know about the dangers of alcohol withdrawal - I have never been so ill.
“It’s been a psychological addiction.
“That was what it felt like to deal with, you can have withdrawal following dependency and that is really tough.
“It’s self-inflicted but it’s not a choice someone makes - it’s been a rough ride.
“I badly self-harmed and it brought me to the brink.
“Two years ago I was in a downward spiral and had lost a beloved dog, I took all my anti-depressants in an attempt to take my life.”
Stephen, who is originally from Bromley in Kent, said he would “beg, borrow and steal” what he needed just to get a drink.
He revealed he hoped moving to Swansea in 2006 would help him turn his life around after his Christian parents decided to come to live in the city.
“I moved to Swansea to get away from the drinking and the drugs and I had mental health problems which exacerbated everything,” he said.
“I had a great upbringing and supportive parents but I always lacked confidence - the fear of failure became a thing that stopped me from achieving anything.
“On the weekends I would have a few cans a night.
“All of a sudden I would stay in the pub every night until it closed, I started prolonging that at 17 and 18.
“It would be six or seven nights a week, the weekends I would sit in the pub - it was a culture.
“There was always someone to have a drink with.
“It was a rite of passage, as I grew older I would continue to go to the pub.
“I had an emotional breakdown and a number of suicide attempts.
“It’s been a rough ride, when you are there and it’s the people around you suffering.
“You are blinkered and are in a self-spiral.”
He added: “The association of alcohol and anxiety - a sip of lager is an instant cure.
“The drinking helped me with a lack of confidence from my mid to late teens.”
But he knew in his heart and for the sake of his health he had to stop.
He said a supportive GP and help from city-based organisation Barod, which offers free and confidential support to anyone affected by drug or alcohol use, along with UK Smart Recovery, helped get his life back on track.
On a Wednesday morning he takes a group to help others suffering with alcohol addiction.
“I really didn’t like myself for a quarter of a century plus - but I am really positive now,” he said.
“I knew I needed to step off the drink and it has been 18 months since I have had a drink.
“It was something I needed to sort out - my life is just better without drink.
“The drink and the drugs were not helping my mental health, it was always to forget about things and the problems were still there.”
RELATED ARTICLES
Rough sleepers 'evicted' from Newport car park and their belongings removed
'Drunken idiot' who wrecked Wetherspoon pub's Christmas tree by diving onto it ends up in court He added: “Now, I am looking forward and I am living day-to-day - life can be enjoyable.”
Stephen said going to the pub has always been seen as normal but now he is able to walk through the door with his dog and can sit back and enjoy a pint of orange juice and lemonade and not even consider hitting the harder stuff.
His ordeal has led him to write his autobiography entitled The Day I Chose To Live, which is due to be made available later this year.
“I would go to Mind and a Smart Recovery meeting when someone said ‘Do you want to do something about this?’ and I started to go,” he said.
“For a quarter of my life I have been despondent but the story has a happy ending.”
oh and he only ate toothpaste and a tub of margarine? must of had everything delivered to his bathroom. 112 beers would have equalled 6 pizza and a few Big Macs
That margarine is poison....stick to booze.
How many quid for a Red Stripe?
No ... 56 in 36 hours ... 112 in two 36 hour binges ... i.e. 72 hours to do the whole 112. At least that's how I read it.
He finally found the attention he was craving. That sounds awful, but in our society of ‘likes’ and staring at our phones, personal attention is getting to be pretty rare for a lot of people.
There are two types of suiciders - those who are making a cry for help and those who succeed. I’m not advocating either, but if he’s got scars all over his arms that long sleeves are required and he’s consuming 60+ cans of beer in a session, it’s not because of alcoholism, but because they’re trying to find someone to keep them from killing themself.
You are no Wade Boggs.
Cunning, baffling, and powerful. I wish this lad well.
Oh yeah? Well, hold my beer ...
May have been some coke involved. Without going into specifics, 6 beers an hour is not too difficult.
I didn’t get it - what the heck was his problem???
I’m doing that now watching the House managers.
ugh. ::sips drink::
My brother once asked a mutual friend if he could drink 5 gallons of beer. (I think he had in mind to make a wager with someone.) Our friend looked at him blankly and said “ I could drink 5 gallons of wine.” I believed him.
Beer ain’t drankin’
“Creepy Foot Doctor”!!!
My friend would say, “I can feel the alcohol leaving my body. Quick get me another beer “.
Years later when he got sober at about age 40, with a divorce on his hands and basically abandoned teenage daughters out of control, he made it his life's mission to repair the wreckage in his family.
Now, 35 years later, he goes to family reunions with tons of family who love him to death, grandkids and great grandkids who never saw him drunk, a daughter and sister he helped get sober ... and a ton of drunks he sponsored along the way ... basically a very strong healthy family, community, an excellent life.
Nothing really differentiating him from any other garden variety drunk at the time. It's quite possible not to just get off the booze, but to have a great, great, happy life.
But the first couple years, sometimes more, sometimes less ... are a pretty strong test of faith. Your body is a biochemical mess trying to heal, you don't know the stress and anxiety and frayed nerves are 90% due to that, so you experience life as if it's always going to suck. Hence the need for faith. Then one day you notice you felt good for a couple hours. Then that becomes more frequent, sometimes stretches to half a day, then a day ... then maybe days. It's like the reverse of how the drinking times grew longer and then started connecting.
Booze! What a bastihd!
For the entire day? Impossible.
Hahahahahahah. Yeah I agree. Vodka and Gatorade is the only refined and efficient way to become a drunk.
That’s nearly 6 gallons each day. Did he stand over a urinal for 18 hours each day?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.