An alcoholic who quits booze, sounds impossible doesn’t it? If, like me, you have a compulsion to drink and a mind that is convinced that a cheeky vodka is the answer to, well, everything, trying to give up can feel like the Everest of all Everests.

When I first tried to consciously uncouple from the sauce, there was no way I thought of myself as an alcoholic (someone with alcohol use disorder). My intense denial around my drinking was stubborn and almost indestructible. Even with my life starting to crumble around me, I was not willing to contemplate that drinking was the problem. My poor mental health, relationships and job, they were the problem. My penchant for a drink to unwind and forget about my woes, that was the solution. To call myself an alcoholic was a step too far and with this defiant denial persuading me that I didn’t need help, that I could do it on my own and that my way was the best way… I thought I would give it a go.

I heard about “controlled drinking”, a way to cut down. You see I wanted to gain back control; I didn’t want to stop drinking. Are you mad? I wanted to drink “normally”, to be the type of person who could just have a social drink – you know, a glass of wine with a meal and a coffee afterwards – the classy kind. My reasoning for wanting to keep drink in my life was because I thought a life without drink would be a miserable existence. Truthfully, I was already miserable with alcohol but I was so adamant that a life without any drink would be so much worse (I couldn’t have been more wrong).

Switching from a mindset that had a total disregard for units to counting and pacing my units was too much like hard work. It seemed counterintuitive. I drank to be carefree, to escape the noise in my head and to worry less about the past and the future, not to sit with a pen and paper, monitoring, tracking and panicking.

In tandem with the counting, I read about setting some goals and rules to get a handle my problematic consumption. These rules, I felt, were a great way to change not only how I drank but why I drank. They were as followed:

-Only drinking on weekends
-No more vodka
-Switching to beer
-No drinking at home in secret
-No drinking when I’m sad
-No more doubles and no more shots if I am out
-Drink slower
-Drink water in between drinks
-No drinking before 6pm

This was horrendous. I thought more about drinking when I was trying to control and moderate it than I ever had before. I wished days of my life away to get to that next drink; for that weekend when I would permit myself a blowout. I found myself chained to the stuff even when I wasn’t even drinking the stuff. Is it any wonder that my anxiety and mood was worsening by the minute?

My attempts of controlling alcohol were ill-fated. Each and every rule was broken at some point. I would either come up with an exception to the rule or, I would move the goal posts slightly. Rather than seeing these oopsies as evidence that I needed to seek professional help, I saw my “Sod it, why not” guzzles as examples of how much of a useless idiot I was. The feelings of failure were crippling and weighed heavily on my head and heart. But it’s important to acknowledge that I did still try. When it comes to drinking or changing any harmful habit, we really should celebrate that person for at least trying. To even attempt a change in drinking behaviour is a huge step but it is hard. You deserve compassion and support and that has to come from you first. I was never kind to myself in my early days, and I certainly never gave myself any credit for at least trying to gain back some kind of control.

When it comes to sobriety, you have to figure out what works for you and do what’s best for you. For some people, moderating has worked wonders but for me, abstinence was the only choice. My alcoholism was progressive, the more I tried (and failed to stop) the more my drinking spiralled. This led to chemical detoxes and to a place so dark that I couldn’t see a way out, I know now I had to be sick and tired of being sick and tired, but it doesn’t need to be that way for everyone, early intervention can be miraculous.

If I had my time again, I would have reached out for help sooner or shared how much pain I was in. I was so ashamed that I couldn’t stop drinking alcohol; so frightened about what would happen if I told people. I felt so alone; so isolated and the self-hatred I had only fuelled the desire to drink more to forget and to block out the pain. I prolonged this internal torment for longer than I needed to, I thought I was undeserving of help and a lost cause. I was wrong. Since coming into recovery, I’ve been taught (in rehab) that the treatment for addiction is human connection. There is nothing more powerful than connecting with someone who has been there and done it themselves, so please, if you are struggling don’t suffer in silence. There is support available and a community of people who will not judge you, you will be surprised by how many of us there are out there.

Sobering: Lessons Learnt the Hard Way on Drinking, Thinking and Quitting by Melissa Rice is  out now, €19, Paperback original.

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