Author: nickdenton-23 (Page 4 of 4)

The last couple of posts have definitely been a tough task to write so I am hoping this one might be a little easier. I said last week that I wanted to do an up-to-date account of how things were going. This will be a really positive thing for me to write down to measure my progress and see how far I have come over the last two to three months. On Wednesday I will have passed ten weeks without having an alcoholic drink. I think the longest I have been in my adult life without a drink was last year when I was dieting and exercising in conjunction with a structured plan provided by none other than my great friend Ross Mackenley, also know by his alter egos Aesthetically Trained / Millhouse / RMT Gymtime plus many more. I had gone three and a half months whilst on the programme and had taken a special day off the plan to watch the England v Croatia Euros match. A light day and I didn’t overindulge, leading to the incorrect conclusion that I could manage this moderation lark. I am going to surpass this milestone over the next coming months, and my resolute statement of this is a testament to how far I have come. That belief in myself now that I have made this positive change, and that alcohol is not to play a part in my life is highly satisfying. I want to share how I have got to this moment over the last couple of months. It has no way been easy, but boy do I feel a whole lot better. Largely, this has been down to not drinking, but also by not succumbing to the cravings and desires to open a bottle, pull a cork and devour the moonshine it has allowed me to make more positive decisions enabling better outcomes and productivity of my days. I have explained in previous posts and will continue to do so in many more regarding the intrinsic link of poor mental health and alcohol abuse. Sorry to bang on about it guys!

My mental outlook on nearly everything has become a lot clearer. I feel happier than I have done for quite a long time. This is inevitably down to the lack of alcohol I am shovelling down my throat, but it is also the product of many different aspects I have maintained over the last two to three months.

Firstly, through diet and exercise. Once I had stopped drinking, I decided that I needed and wanted to get fitter again. I had got myself into really good shape last year having applied myself to a strict diet and exercise plan. Looking back on the photos from last year when the plan ended, I looked pretty good and very lean. I made the mistake of not carrying this on. If you are following a training plan provided by an expert coach like Ross, then sticking with him after you complete it is an absolute must. He doesn’t just coach you physically, there are a lot of mental strengths he can give you as well. This sounds like a free plug for his business which he will hate… but I genuinely mean it. Having accountability is key for anyone looking to give up drinking or make positive changes to their lives. It is far too easy to go back to the old ways you had before. This is what I did.

I started going to the gym with Jack and instantly started to enjoy it. My previous experiences of gyms were that they are full of pretentious cranks who look down on little weak lads like me. Don’t get me wrong, they are still full of them. But having Jack with me has been great as he is not only very experienced in the gym (you don’t get the nickname bi’s and arms for nothing) but he is also great at putting you at ease in those surroundings. I look forward to going and even have the confidence now to go and train by myself alongside the big lads and lasses! I am starting to lose the weight I had put back on and the positivity you get from walking out of the gym after a good session is great. Summer rig pending, I hope. This leads to better food choices etc etc, you know the drill. But a decent well-maintained diet is another key attribute to the stronger mind. I still afford myself some treats here and there especially at first when I stopped boozing. You need to replace the copious amounts of sugar that reside in alcohol and naturally sweets, cakes and fizzy drinks can fill that void. Anything is better than gassy lager though, right?

Therapy has been going well. At first when I had started going, I was really not into it at all. It was a chore to be going and trying to discuss feelings and emotions I had kept inside me for years. Through the alcohol support counselling I have been attending along side this, both have been instrumental to feeling better. Claire, my support coordinator for alcohol has been really supportive and there with me every step of the way, from when I was still drinking to now where we are almost at a point for me to be discharged from her care. I still want to carry on for a while longer with this though as I feel I am still only at the start of what is a long road to navigate.

My therapist at Northern Guild has also been incredibly patient and understanding with me. I don’t think I was really opening up at first in those early sessions. Now I feel like I can go to these appointments and unburden fully on whatever it is we decide to talk about that day. She helps me to look at myself and issues from angles I would never have thought to do myself. If you are struggling with your own mental health and/or any alcohol related issues, then I can’t recommend these services enough. Feel free to send me a private and confidential message and I can help put you in touch with someone who I know will be able to help. Talking and addressing your issues is the only way you can make the positive changes to enable yourself to feel stronger and happier. In my opinion, doing it alone or with your own willpower will not be enough. And I speak from experience here. Accountability and support are king.

Keeping busy has been another key aspect of my recent success and sobriety. Sitting at home, along with nothing to do is the gateway back to previous bad judgements. Of course, downtime for yourself is needed but I have tried to keep as active and busy as possible without burning out. As I have mentioned going to the gym five or six times a week is helping but I also have the new cricket season just about to start on Saturday which takes up the full day and then training during the week. The social aspect of this is also something to look forward to before, during and after the games. I am also involved with a fantastic charity which I am going to do a full post on very soon. This is on Thursday evenings. I have been volunteering with Foodcycle since the pandemic and it is not just an essential service to the community, from a personal side it is a great charity to be involved with and it has definitely assisted with my rehabilitation process. I am very lucky to be a part of it and enjoy helping out once or twice a month. Getting out and about socially whether with friends, family or my partner has also been a lot of fun. I have felt the energy to do more and generally get out and enjoy myself. Prior to stopping drinking I didn’t really do anything other than maybe the odd night a week around at Jack’s house or an occasional meal out. I have been going to comedy shows and was fortunate to be at the Sam Fender gig last week in Newcastle. An unbelievable show. I even attended this by myself due to some unfortunate circumstances which meant a friend could not go. Previously this would have been a messy night and I would have made it more about how much I could drink in that evening rather than being present in that moment and enjoying the outstanding show that Mr Fender put on. I have started reading more, some fiction but also some really great sobriety books and immersing myself in as much content as I can on staying sober and its wide range of benefits. Podcasts as well, as many podcasts as I can on mental health and life without the booze. I can’t recommend them enough. Staying active and not sitting still has steered my mind away from wanting to drink and feeling low, anxious, and despondent.

With all this combined I am feeling in a much better place. Yes of course there are still moments and feelings of doubt of whether I can maintain this and keep ploughing forwards. When you are drinking heavily, feeling low and depressed there can be a very strange mindset of wanting to feel like this, it is very hard to explain. The cycle of getting pissed and feeling atrocious the morning after can be easily remedied by another drink to pull yourself around. Then you start to feel drunk again and so on. Its easier to make that bad decision and carry on wallowing in your own misery. Breaking that cycle as I have explained in other posts is not easy, but it can be done I promise. It would be easy for me to nip to the shop now or drop into pub and sink a few jars, but I don’t want to do that. I have come this far, and I have a responsibility and dedication to myself not to fuck this up.

Thanks as always for reading and I hope it has been a good insight to how I am feeling now. I want this positivity to remain and to keep driving forward. Next week I want to recount a memory from my early twenties and a very ugly episode from my past. It’s all healing, I think…

Thank you, goodnight, much love.

Nick Denton

Sobering Thoughts

Last week’s blog was a tough one to write. It was an intense subject matter and I think it gave you the reader a real insight into my mind. From my point of view, it was a great release. To cover that many emotions and feelings in a relatively short blog was a good step towards unburdening myself of the mental struggles I have had in the past. I hope it’s another foot forward to reaching a resting place where my mind allows me to be happy and stay healthy. I admit it was a lengthy read last week, so thanks for staying with me if you did. I felt I could have written for pages and pages on that topic but this utopia of the mind I am searching for will only come at the right pace. In this week’s blog I am going to talking about the night of Sunday 17^th October. I have mentioned this in a previous blog without going into the specifics of the night and how I was feeling.

It had been a heavy couple of months of drinking on nights out, weddings and stag dos and I had got back into a habit of drinking more regularly. Without recognising the early onset signs, I had been starting to slip. Sleeping in too late after a heavy night or not performing properly for work to mood swings from one hour to the next. This is and was a bizarre feeling. I could go from being euphoric to feeling like the world was ending in the space of five minutes. I would give myself little things to look forward to on a night time whether it was a few pints in the local boozer or a bottle of wine to engulf that night, sometimes both. Those little things I would see as wins for me, when in truth they were causing those mood swings I mention above. On this particular Sunday I met a few friends who had also come to the see the unveiling of the new Newcastle era at St. James Park following the highly publicised takeover, I don’t know if you heard about it…? This should have been a very happy day for me, and every toon fan no matter what the result was, and I am sure it was for the vast majority. Things started off fine, I had even slowed my drinking down and started with a couple of soft drinks. I saw everyone around me enjoying themselves and having a few pints and thought yeh, I am having a bit of that as well. This a special day so let’s make the most of it.

I didn’t get too drunk that day, because if I did it would have made what happened more understandable to me. The game was quite a strange one, I can remember the atmosphere being absolutely electric, the flags, Jimmy Nail’s Big River blasting out before kick-off. Everyone was genuinely happy and after the appalling couple of years we had with COVID and not being allowed to do anything let alone go to football matches, coupled with the torrid tenure of Mike Ashley at Newcastle it was great to be in the stadium and feel the collectiveness come back. Even with old cabbage head himself Steve Bruce in charge for his 1000^th game he couldn’t ruin it for everyone. We scored after a couple of minutes, and everyone goes mental (maybe a dodgy choice of word to use in a blog about mental health but let’s run with it) myself and the fella next to me embrace and its joyous it really is. You are probably thinking, how does it go bad from here? Spurs hit back within the first twenty-five minutes of the game and are ahead, but this doesn’t dampen the spirits of everyone. This is a new beginning, a new dawn and fresh hope so the game continues, and the carnival atmosphere remains. This is until something quite terrible happens. Just before half time a man tragically suffers a heart attack in the East Stand of the ground. This is the stand over to my right as I look at the pitch. There is a huge commotion, with fans desperately trying to get stewards attention. Eventually thanks to some of the players and fans help is given but watching this unfold I found it to be very distressing to a point where I had to go down into the concourse and have a drink. A wise move brain Denton thinks but in reality, not a great one. The alcohol mixed with emotions from the day turn my mood and I begin to feel very low.

What happened next was all a bit of a blur so I can’t recall it all specifically. I remember going back to my seat for the second half and watching the first fifteen minutes with nothing too memorable happening. My mind was full, fixed on the poor man that had suffered the cardiac arrest and it made me feel incredibly sad. I started to think what if he has died? How awful would that be. To come to a game on such a big occasion and potentially not go home the same night. Around the hour mark my vision became blurred, not literally but my surroundings seemed to disappear, and I was transfixed with what had occurred. I don’t remember any part of the game from there.

I was motionless and a wave of anxiety started to grip me like I had never experienced before. You’d think zoning out of a Newcastle game would have become the norm over the past two years but this was different. It was almost like I wasn’t present any longer. Something in my mind changed and I made the decision there and then that I would not be returning home that evening. I don’t know if the event in the crowd had triggered something, but my mind had flipped. Chloe, my girlfriend had arrived at my flat and was waiting for me there so we could spend the night together when I got in, but I decided that I wasn’t going home. The last few months had finally caught up with me. I went to the darkest place imaginable. I felt the despair creep in and that I no longer wanted to live. All the darkest parts of my past leapt to the forefront of my consciousness. This was it, I had finally reached the end. Time to go. Time to stop feeling like this. I was at the point of sadness and defeat, there was no way back from here. I thought about my family, friends, and everyone I care for and concluded that I had to stop putting them through it all. Stop disappointing everyone, stop feeling like I didn’t really belong anywhere. I made a plan to get back on the metro for one final time. I am one of those weirdos that actually like the metro for some reason. I went to the closest pub to the metro at central station quickly dispatched two or three pints for old times sake and got on the metro.

I got off at my usual stop and instead of turning left for home I went right and walked to a place where I knew no one would be around, I didn’t need an audience for the final act. My mind had been made up for a good hour or two now and nothing was going to stop me. I had written out a message of goodbye to Chloe and asked her to make my family and friends understand. I trusted her to deliver this for me. Analysing this now this was a terrible thing to ask of her, but I knew she would come through for me. I walked for around half a mile onto the metro railway bridge and removed things from my pockets. I had not planned things to total perfection as I now had to wait for a train. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your opinion of me normal service on the metro for a Sunday is pretty infrequent so the wait was long. Finally, I heard it, the sound of the train hammering along the tracks. This was it, the end. My heart began to race but I knew this was the right thing to do, put an end to years of failure. In the long run, once the initial hurt was felt I reasoned that everyone would be better off. I went to climb onto the ledge of the bridge, the timing needed to be right. The train was hurtling towards me now and I closed my eyes ready to jump. But I couldn’t do it, failure again. Not delivering on a promise I had made yet again. Fear gripped me and I couldn’t bring myself to jump. The train passed by and I broke down in the darkness and sat on the ground. I felt useless in that moment, a total fucking loser.

My phone had been switched off for a while now and of course I was not naive to think people wouldn’t be worried at that moment. I ignored every message and every call from those trying to reach me, selfish again putting those people through that. I am sorry for that. I don’t think I apologised enough at the time. My plan then changed, and I began walking through the nearby fields. I must have walked for two hours maybe more, determined to try something else. I knew a busy road could be the alternative, not thinking of the poor unsuspecting driver I planned to jump out upon. Whilst walking I could not stop the feelings of complete shame and failure again. Why couldn’t I do it? Fear mostly but that shouldn’t have been enough. Having walked for that time eventually I answered a call to my dad. I felt he would understand, he would know how I felt. I was still determined to end what I had started but couldn’t find the courage to do it. For days, weeks possibly after I regretted not making the jump and ending my life. I would have finally found some peace, away from my dark thoughts and moods. My dad found me and the enormity of what I had done to my parents and loved ones was evident, but I felt nothing. I felt cold, empty inside even more of a failure. To this day, other than the fear I don’t know what else stopped me in that specific moment. I came back to my flat with Chloe waiting for me. My parents and stepdad also came in and stayed with me to make sure nothing else happened that night. The worry I had put them and everyone through was awful, but I still felt alone. I felt I had unfinished business with death, and we would be back meeting on that bridge again very soon.

I had never properly experienced feelings like that before, I had never physically got to the point where ending my life was right there in front of me. I honestly hope I never go back to that place again. I know that so many people don’t make it back from the bridge, sadly too many are lost to suicide. The feeling that is the only way out for them, it is heart breaking for so many families. I despise reading or hearing people say that suicide is cowardly, that is absolute rubbish. It takes courage to make the decision and take that final action, but there has to be another way for anyone in that moment. We must do more as a society to help the most vulnerable people in these situations. I have been lucky I know that, others don’t have people that are there for them. If you are reading this and ever feel like you are at that point, please talk to someone. Anyone. There is light when the darkness ends, I promise.

Been a heavy one guys, so apologies if this hasn’t brightened up your Monday evening. I wanted to share this experience to help me try to make sense of that night. I still don’t quite get it myself at times. I hope that it can also be a reference point to others that not taking that final decision can be the best choice you make. Next week I want to talk about how I am feeling right now and what I have been doing in the last two months to try and make myself feel as Atomic Kitten once said, whole again.

Thanks again for all the amazing comments and support. I have an interview with BBC Radio Newcastle coming out on Wednesday at around 10am talking about the blog and how it is helping me and other people. Feel free to tune in and let me know what you think.

Much love,

Nick

Sobering Thoughts

I wanted to carry on from last week where I had been discussing impostor syndrome and how I felt about it. In this blog I will be focusing on the personal relationships I have and how I feel about it from that perspective. It’s a tough one to write so I hope I can do it justice and articulate my feelings clearly on it.

I want to make it clear that I am very fortunate to have a great number of people around me who have been supportive over the last few months. Without them I would not be here. I know that some people are not as lucky and don’t have the support network needed to work through issues they are having. I am grateful for this. For those people not so lucky I want to be a person that they can come to and for me to try and help if I can. If you are reading this and feel isolated, alone and with no one to talk to, please contact me by any method or platform you feel comfortable with. I have been amazed and humbled by the number of people I know reaching out and sharing some of their personal struggles. We need to have an effective method of tackling the mental health crisis in the country. Through talking, listening, and sharing we can all do our bit to help someone in need.

Some of the emotions I feel about this particular subject still remain with me today, so this is a challenging piece for me to write. From an early age, probably as young as I can remember I have felt insecure about belonging to all the groups of friends and social networks I am connected with. I think to someone who doesn’t know me on the surface I can appear to have a wide group and range of friends and almost appear popular. I have played cricket for the same team and been connected to same club for over twenty years. That’s a long time and I have relationships that go back as long as that time. I have had the same group of close friends since my early teens, and they are truly the best people I know. I feel very lucky to be associated with them. I am also fortunate to have other groups of friends who have also been a great support over the last few months. My immediate family: mum, dad, two brothers, girlfriend and stepdad have been there for me and were the first on scene to try and help me when I was feeling at my lowest

All that being said, I have often felt like an outsider to every group I am amongst even with the closest people to me. I have thought about this a lot, especially over the last few months when I have been evaluating myself as a person. The thoughts of self-doubt are ever present with me. I think about whether they care and if so, why? What do I actually offer to these people in my life? I have made a lot of mistakes and have a number of regrets on how I have acted and treated people. So maybe I don’t deserve to be happy, maybe I don’t deserve to be loved and cared about. OK I haven’t murdered anyone or done anything seriously bad….yet, but I have had a few run ins with Jonny Law. I am deeply ashamed of this and some of my family and friends probably aren’t aware of it. I was once arrested for being drunk and disorderly. Not my finest hour I can tell you and the eighty-pound fine that went with it stung like crazy too. I was arrested in Alnwick, Northumberland of all places. Where there is around one police officer per twenty thousand people. I told you there were going to be some juicy stories within these blogs. I had been walking home from a night out and the police had stopped to check I was OK. Apparently, I became abusive and was bundled into the back of the van. Waking up in a cell the next morning freezing cold, still half cut, and not knowing what I had done was pretty terrifying, but this was when I was twenty years old. You think it would have been the wake-up call that maybe drinking wasn’t for me. Only took me eleven years to figure it out.

If we take my closest friends, I look upon what I bring to the table versus what they do. Ross, Mikey, and Jack have an abundance of qualities unique to them. Ross helps us all massively in terms of pushing us with our own self-development and making sure we always do things together, so we all remain close. He is also incredibly loyal to his friends and won’t take anyone messing us around. Mikey makes me laugh in ways no one else does and is also incredibly loyal to all his pals. He is always there when you need him. Jack and I are very similar in personality and humour, but he is kinder, more reliable, and again never lets you down with emotional support. I envy them all equally for many different reasons and look upon their lives having achieved a lot more than me. When I evaluate myself, I think well what are they getting from me? I honestly don’t know. I consider myself to have been at times a burden to them all. I often question why they have remained my friends for as long as they have. Its probably a testament to their characters. I can recall many instances where we have been in each other’s company whether it be out on nights out or just hanging around with one another and not feeling totally secure. This has led to overcompensation in the way I have acted, for example saying something stupid or inconsiderate in the situation we are in. My over consumption of alcohol has caused them to have to look after me on nights out disrupting their own enjoyment. I can see that I have acted very selfishly on many occasions which is why I have these feelings of self-doubt about why they continue to be my friends. You might say that this is what friends do for one another, but my questions would be to that is what are they getting in return from me? I often think well am I tolerated in moderation? I don’t feel good enough to have their friendship.

Fixing these feelings is tough. Stopping drinking in comparison is easy, that’s a quick remedy. You stop doing something and immediately things change. The time it will take for me to be at complete ease with all of this may take longer. I know I have many things to work on and being a more reliable friend is high on my agenda.

Within my other friendship circles, again the feelings of being an outsider are prevalent. Just never quite fitting in, or certainly that is the way I perceive it. The lack of confidence and self-doubt I have about my character leads to these feelings. I always sense I am on the periphery, not quite fully accepted but I have hung around these people that long they have become accustomed to who I am, and they aren’t able to get rid of me. Carrying these emotions and thoughts around with me I can tell you is in no way fun.

Within my family, I can on occasion feel like a bit of an alien. I look at my two brothers with a lot of admiration for different reasons. They have achieved a great deal with their lives so far and they are both extremely intelligent people. I am not, or certainly don’t feel it. I think of myself as someone with average intelligence with a half decent vocab which probably acts as a veil to my intelligence level.  It isn’t healthy to compare yourself to others but its very hard not to do so when those people are your family. If my parents were to compare us, then I would think they would conclude that I am a let-down in comparison to my siblings. I don’t think they would do that, but this is how my brain operates at times, fucked up right. I have a good relationship with both my parents and stepdad and appreciate the help, guidance and support they have given to me. But again I question whether I have reciprocated this? The choices I have made, the errors I have made and heartache I have inflicted don’t lead me to surmise that I have done. They have had to clean up behind me when I have made errors. Again, you might think well this is part of being a parent, but I don’t see it that way, I am responsible for my actions, and I haven’t always taken the consequences of them.

And lastly, before you all switch off completely, I must acknowledge the partners I have had in my life as well as my current (ha) girlfriend. I have been let down, left broken hearted on a couple of occasions. I know what you are thinking right now, how is that possible Nick? When you are a solid eight of ten in all areas (except personality – ten) why has anyone made the foolish decision to leave you? Well for quite a number of reasons probably but let’s unpack that another time. When you love someone and they tell you they no longer want to be with you, that’s hard to take. But everyone goes through that, usually. That doesn’t make it any easier though. The feelings of rejection, not being good enough and being told so in no uncertain terms (thank you for that) is not good for the old soul. At the time it can feel like your world is ending, but life goes on and you have to accept it. That doesn’t mean that the scars left by that past partner isn’t felt longer term. I have certainly held onto the bitter feelings of rejection and inadequacy right up until this present day. My ex-girlfriend of three and a half years saw me at some of my worst moments and I think I eventually pushed her so far away that we ended up drifting apart. I carry the full blame for this and felt after for some time that she was a lot better off without me. I hope she finds happiness and someone who treats her in a way she deserves, I never did.

Chloe, my girlfriend has had a lot to put up with me since we have been together which is coming up to three years, but she is supportive and caring to me. I have questioned why this is the case? Why does she love me? Do I offer enough in return? You can see the pattern can’t you. not feeling worthy in this aspect has been caused by past traumatic experiences with other partners.

In all my friendships, relationships whether it’s with family or girlfriends I struggle to feel good enough for them. I want to, believe me but this is a long path to feeling completely at ease with myself. I hope I get there.

Thanks for reading, longest one yet!

Nick Denton

Sobering Thoughts

So, if you have read the first three blogs you are probably thinking can this get any better? Well put down your beer (see what I have done there) and have a read of this one.

I hope that you have been enjoying them so far and to anyone out there who is struggling, please know that there is a large community of us working through all of our struggles on the daily. You are not alone. I have reactivated my old Facebook account to allow me to share this blog on another platform. The idea being that Sobering Thoughts can reach a further audience and I can provide another voice that emboldens people to speak out about their problems. I said from the outset that first and foremost this blog is to help me. But from the overwhelming number of messages I have had from fellow strugglers, the blog is assisting people to come to terms with whatever internal battles they are having and pushing them to vocalise or in some cases write about how they’re feeling. This is brilliant and long may it continue. I have also been contemplating the idea of starting a group for Sobering Thoughts on Facebook which people can become a part of. I know that I am still in the infancy of this blog writing business, and I am in no way an expert but if there is another safe platform and space for people to share then why not. Let me know if this sounds appealing to you or anyone you think would benefit from it and I can look to get things moving over the next few weeks.

Over the course of the first three blogs, I have not delved deep into a topic, so I wanted to focus on something specific this week. Having spoken to a couple of friends on this particular subject I feel it’s a great talking point. This piece will be divided up into two parts with the first discussing ‘imposter syndrome’ and then the second part looking at how a person’s (me) sense of belonging may be affected by this, part two will be released next week as there is too much to cover in one blog.

‘Impostor syndrome’ well what is it? Basically, the standard definition is as follows, “is the experience of feeling like a phony. You feel as though at any moment you are going to be found out as a fraud like you don’t belong where you are, and you only got there through dumb luck,” This is definitely something I have felt my entire adult life. I believe that having this on your mind regularly effects how you are day to day, how you interact and the way you feel about yourself.

Let’s take the professional environment. Are you an achiever at work? Do you feel the success you have achieved is deserved? In my case I have doubted myself ever since I started working full time at the young age of twenty-two. Now, this could be down to a number of factors for example the work environment itself. Is it healthy? Yes and no in this case. It started off very healthily but in the first year of me working full time I went through a very difficult time personally which made me feel very inadequate as a person. I will never individually name people, employers, organisations (in a negative way) etc in these blogs out of respect and decency from my side but they of course will know who they are, maybe. I began working for the first business in January 2013. The company was in its early days, and I was genuinely enthused by the prospect of building this business up. Reflecting now, I would like to think this was definitely achieved in some parts during the years I spent with them and part of that was down to me, despite the final eighteen months of my employment being slightly more traumatic. My confidence had been eroded by the end and I seriously had reservations on whether I could carry on in the business world. I had started to feel like a fraud, I didn’t fit in. This wasn’t for me at all, I wasn’t good enough to work at any higher level of any organisation. When your confidence and character are displaced like that, it can be hard to come back from and I don’t think I have ever completely recovered.

When you go through this type of experience at work naturally it has a knock-on effect at home and in your life away from work. You begin to question am I good enough in every aspect of my life? Some people are unable to compartmentalise the different sections of their lives, I am certainly one of those people. I hope it is something I can work on and achieve over time.

In my last job I was made redundant during the pandemic. Now this at the time was not uncommon and many people were employment casualties in 2020. This again made me question everything. Why am I being made redundant? Am I failure? Not everyone was being laid off, only around 10% of the work force and I was one of the chosen few. I am not sure if anyone could look at that and not come to the same conclusion of feeling abject failure and rejection. I felt very let down by my employers and in particular my boss who I thought had not tried to protect me and my colleagues in our department. The self-doubt simmered once more. Was I not good enough to be kept on? I had really enjoyed this job and loved the people I worked with (even more so in the case of one of the employees) which made leaving even harder. I had thought I was achieving success in this role and selling to my full potential, but this was cast aside when it came to choosing who was being kicked out the door. The resentment to this decision for not only myself but the other people who were released has only intensified with seeing how that business is now flourishing in its marketplace. I applied for hundreds of jobs and got nowhere with any of them, this led to feeling a high amount of anxiety. I countered this feeling with the only tried and trusted method and began drinking heavily. This led to further feelings of anxiety, self doubt and the vicious cycle of drinking, getting up the next day repeating and not feeling great up about myself. Thoughts of losing my flat, my possessions and not being able to cover the bills began to spread into my head. This is not a good place to be. I also have the hungriest cat on planet earth who requires regular feeding, sometimes in the early hours which I must say is not welcome. Thanks Nigel. Yes, he is called Nigel. See my Instagram for regular posts and stories on the greatest feline of all time.

Thankfully and very luckily, I was employed again after this disappointment and my employers as I mentioned in an earlier blog have been superb and incredibly supportive to me in my recovery. Supportive, respectful, and fully invested in me to succeed for them. I know I am very fortunate to have them, and they have also made me feel like they are lucky to have me. I feel respected, valued and not seen as just a number on a payslip. You can’t buy that. Thank you to Summit Platforms, a truly great company to be a part of.

We spend a large amount of time at work and the importance of having a stable job environment is paramount to having sound mental health. The feelings I have had within the time I have worked have very much been up and down. Feeling that ‘impostor syndrome’ status is not healthy and one that I need to work on more and more as my therapy continues. I need to embrace the achievements I have had and not dwell on the perceived down points that will naturally occur at the workplace. We all get them, even the most successful of people have had setbacks. It is never a smooth journey. I want to work in an environment where I feel valued, and my voice is heard. Sometimes, as my colleagues may testify to I have too much to say for myself and again that is something I am working on. If you aren’t feeling valued in your job, my advice would be to evaluate that and do something about it. Speak to your colleagues, your superiors and if they don’t want to listen then you will know that they aren’t for you and it could be time to move on.  

In part two, I will be focusing on how my sense of belonging has come into question over the years. This will be more to do with my personal life and how my relationships with friends, family and partners have been affected. I hope you can join me next week.

Thanks again for reading.

Nick Denton

Sobering Thoughts

Have you ever thought to yourself, am I drinking too much? If you are mulling this over in your head I would speculate that you probably maybe definitely might be. And that is OK. The good thing is that you are thinking about it and recognising there might be an issue. Now don’t for one second think that I am an expert on this or in any way judging you. After all, how could I. But what I can do is tell you about my pathway to realisation that alcohol was no longer the friend and companion I thought it was.

In my experience, I am not what you would consider a ‘normal’ alcoholic. I drank too much in short spaces of time. What the kids call binge drinking. I don’t look at myself as an alcoholic but as someone now who simply does not drink.

But what is an alcoholic? In Simon Chapple’s 2019 book ‘The Sober Survival Guide’ which I highly recommend, he tells us that, “over 90 percent of people in the western world drink alcohol, and sadly over two million of them a year die as a direct result,” that’s a scary number. Alcoholism takes many different forms and isn’t the stereotypical fella drunk in the park at 10am shouting at mysterious dragons he has been chasing all night. I dread to think what those numbers look like now following the pandemic, but they most definitely will have gone up.  It’s recommended to drink no more than 14 units of alcohol a week, spread across 3 days or more. That’s around 6 medium glasses of wine, or 6 pints of 4% beer. Not a lot really, is it? A few months back I was drinking heavily 6 pints would have been a quick session on a weekday evening. That would have then led to a bottle of wine or maybe a few more beers later that evening. The fact I was able to get up the next day and function for work or whatever I was doing is astonishing. What a pro. But let’s face it, that is not a good thing.

I have always struggled with binge drinking, being one of those people who push the boundary of what my body can handle. I will cover a few of the drunken episodes in various other blogs but I want to focus on the specific period of heavy drinking and poor mental health prior to my recent state of sobriety. I said at the outset that I would be as honest as I can be and that is still my intention. This will be a positive for my ongoing recovery and continuous good mental health. However, there will be a small number of issues, incidents, topics I can’t discuss. I am hopeful to keep these to a minimum though.

In October 2021 my mental health plummeted to an all-time low. I can’t pinpoint exactly what sends me into the spirals of depression I suffer from, but I am working on that in my recovery and it will be a critical part of keeping my mental health solid. This particular episode had begun towards the back end of the summer and lasted roughly until after Christmas well into the new year. When you analyse it, that’s a long period of time. On October 17^th my internal mental condition was at a point where I no longer wished to be alive (I did warn you this wasn’t going to be laugh a minute didn’t I?) any longer. I am going to cover the night of October 17^th in a full post in a couple of weeks’ time, but I want to focus on what happened afterwards.

Everything changed after that night, I think people look at you differently once they know you have mental health problems. In some cases, I don’t think they mean to. It’s a natural reaction. There are many different outlooks on mental health, and I have encountered them all. I had a former colleague who basically denounced its existence. The old school approach of ‘just get on with it son’ was their outlook on someone having non visible symptoms of illness or injury. In other cases, people are unable to understand what you are dealing with having either not gone through it themselves or they have not been in direct contact with someone facing those challenges. I completely accept this position, and this is why conversations need to be had so as a society we understand more and develop methods to combat this critical issue. Some individuals lack the emotional intelligence or empathetic qualities to understand, and we may never get them on board. However, in my experience the majority of people are very supportive, and I am thankful for that. I certainly wouldn’t be feeling a lot better today without my support network.

The following weeks were a nightmare for me and of course those close to me. I had to take time off work. Fortunately, I couldn’t have asked my employers to be more understanding of the situation. They have been incredibly supportive, and for that I will always be very grateful. I was told to take as much time as I needed and not to worry about my job. I can only speculate but I don’t think other companies would not have been as understanding. Summit Platforms were superb, and it has made me value my employment with them even more.

I don’t remember a lot about those first few weeks, a combination of long days watching lots of documentaries. For some reason I got really into police documentaries – 24 hours in police custody, Britain’s worst murder cases and others. I guess it was a form of distraction. Most days I would do this till around the early afternoon then I would go for a walk which more often than not coincided with a pit stop into one of three pubs I had frequented on a regular basis. I found this to be an opportunity to escape my negative thoughts and feelings about myself. In reality I was delaying myself confronting my issues and blocking them out until the next day when I would invariably do the same thing again. It’s a vicious cycle, one very hard to break. The more I would drink the better I would feel at that time but then this would lead to feeling worse the day after. I became very crafty in the ways I could hide this from everyone. When I say crafty, mostly that just means lying or not being specific on what I had been doing. I feel very guilty for this now, but at the time I just didn’t care.

From October until well into January this continued even when I went back to work. I would be drinking heavily. Again, I must stress this wasn’t every night but near enough. I think I was able to process it better internally as I wasn’t getting up in the morning and thinking right where is my frosty jacks’ bottle? I need to feel better. It wasn’t like that for me. I enjoyed going to the pub even if it was on my own. I loved to sit for a couple of hours demolish a few pints, watch some sport on tv or just sit on my phone not having to think about why I was so sad. For some, this will be a really alien concept for them to comprehend. Going to the pub on your own? Why do that? Weirdo. Yes I am probably a bit of a weirdo.

The time passed by quickly in those first few months following the night I had decided Nick no longer needed to be on planet earth. Speaking in the third person now, who do I think I am? Craig David? I didn’t feel any better despite having talked to several people. I had also started taking medication along with starting my therapy sessions. Although I am unable to go into the sessions in any detail, I can talk about the process of starting the sessions and what I hope to achieve by going to them. I will cover this in one of the blogs next month. I don’t think I responded well to the ideas of therapy or medication from the doctors, but I felt that I had to try something I had not looked at before. I have had spells of depression throughout my adult life, but I had never tackled it head on. I felt I owed my family and loved ones that. I have put them through enough over the years, I needed to try. But I wasn’t prepared to give up the booze. Why would I? It was a good friend of mine. We had some great times together. The most loyal of companions or so I thought at the time. Analysing it now, old Jonny Drink wasn’t giving me much in return for such devotion.

So much self-loathing in those months from hating how I looked to questioning myself and character. I would wake up every morning and start to recall moments from my past that I am not proud of, the people I have hurt, the mess I have made, the respect I have lost from friends and family. I still thought at many times I would be better off gone, not causing myself or anyone else any pain or suffering. I felt like a burden and had done for some time. I was convinced I’d be deserted by those close to me and that I deserved to be. Christ that is a lot to deal with when you wake up, and then you have the rest of the day to contend with. I probably earned those few pints of “pilsner baby” (see the works of Bootlegger for this reference if you are confused by it) in the evening time.  

The cycle was so hard to break but I have, for now. I have to maintain it, otherwise I will be back to a place I don’t want to be.

I feel conscious that I am promising to talk about a lot of things in future blogs so please bear with me. There is so much to unpack and talk about my head is exploding with ideas every week.

Remember to follow me on my social media for updates on new releases. I hope you have enjoyed the blog. Leave me your comments, I genuinely read them all and I’m touched by the warm responses.  

Thanks for reading!

Nick Denton

Sobering Thoughts

For those of you with exemplary musical taste you may have picked up on the title of the blog being a track by Editors. Well done if you did, that’s a point for you. Naturally you would think we would begin this story at where I can pinpoint my troubles starting but let us buck that trend and start in the here and now.

Saturday was a good day. I went to the eighth wonder of the world to watch the ever-improving Newcastle United. Unfortunately, I was one of those idiots who kept their season ticket during the final thrilling years of the Mike Ashley era. You would be forgiven for thinking that I had brought on some of the mental trauma in my life by continuing to pay money to watch the toon, especially during the tenure of the one and only Steven Roger Bruce. However, let me tell you vindication is mine. I was rewarded for such ludicrous loyalty and in came the new regime which under the stewardship of Amanda Staveley and co seems to be going in the right direction. I usually go to the football on my own and enjoy that but Saturday was different in that my pals were there also. More on those reprobates in other posts as we move forward.

Saturday was a big test for me. I had gone thirty-one days without a drop of alcohol, and I knew that my friends would be having a few drinks throughout the day. There were moments that I thought about getting a beer and joining in. This shows where I am currently at with my sobriety, not quite being in that mental state to not want to drink at all. Will I ever get there? I am not sure, and I don’t think I can answer that right now. It is still early days on this change of course and there are likely to be days and moments when I feel like this even if I am not out with friends or in other social situations. One of the critical aspects with my relationship with booze that I want to change is how I perceive alcohol to be a positive influence in my life. It isn’t and it never has been. It is like one of those relationships you have had with an ex that you know is shocking and yet you still want to be with them for some inextricable reason. We have all been there I am sure, unless you have dated me of course then how could you feel like that….

For the past few weeks since stopping drinking I have been following an online coach called Leon Sylvester. I came across his posts on YouTube (see Sober Clear) and they instantly resonated with me. Our relationship history with alcohol was very similar and our mental health struggles ran parallel along side the excessive use of alcohol. Let me label booze for what it is, a depressant and a highly addictive one at that. Like recreational drugs, alcohol is similar and provides short term highs but with longer term come downs. In my opinion, (which you are probably beginning to understand is very rarely wrong) alcohol is one of the most dangerous substances you can abuse in comparison to other drugs which are prohibited in the UK. Alcohol is so readily available to everyone and normalised in society as something to regular use to excess. I will cover this in more detail in later posts.

Since stopping drinking my mental health has improved dramatically. The difference is night and day. Its difficult to express how much better I am feeling. Part of me wishes that I could still have that odd night out or odd glass of wine (yes I am sophisticated) but deep down I know that one glass of wine is leading me into a bottle and then the day after will be a hungover day. That will then lead into a couple of drinks to feel better and the vicious cycle resumes. I just can’t do it. As I mentioned earlier I am hopeful I will get to a position where I no longer have FOMO when it comes to alcohol. Yuk, FOMO. Get in the bin Nicholas.

The last thirty-three days have allowed me to feel better about myself. I have started going to the gym and exercising more, I have started writing this blog. I have been far more productive at work. I have been generally more fun to be around (I hope) all positive effects of not drinking most days like I had been. In this time, I have also attended four psychotherapy sessions and two alcohol support sessions. At first (probably because I was still drinking) the sessions were not going well, and I didn’t feel they were beneficial to me. But over the course of the last few weeks, I have felt more positivity towards both these support systems and embraced them for what they are.

Although the last month has been positive, I am not naive enough to think that’s me sorted and I will never feel negatively again. This is a long process that will last me until the end of my life. In future blogs I want to get into the details of how I was feeling and what were the causes but of course I want to also talk about how I am feeling in the present as well as looking at the darker past. This is exactly why I wanted to start this now because I am still learning a massive amount about myself as my therapy sessions continue and I begin to navigate my way through a life without alcohol.

If you have any questions with regards to anything you have read or just a general query, please get in touch via email or through my social media. All details can be found on the contact page on soberingthoughts.co.uk

I hope you have enjoyed reading this and please feel free to leave comments on the blog page. Thank you to everyone who read Volume One. The feedback was fantastic and really appreciated.

Nick Denton

Sobering Thoughts

So, you have made it this far. You will likely be here for different reasons. If you know me then I am sure for some of you having a sneak peak into the mind of Nick Denton will no doubt be at the top of your agendas every week. From now until this blog blows up so big that I am on your television screens, wireless sets and every new social media platforms that have yet to be invented. For those of you who don’t know me, I am warning you now that sarcasm and facetiousness will be a regular feature within these posts. The previous sentence is your first taste of that, I hope it didn’t disappoint. After all, sarcasm is the highest form of wit.

I want to make it clear from the very outset the main purposes of these posts. I believe they will primarily aid me in my recovery and allow me to write openly to convey my thoughts in a way that I am unable to articulate to loved ones, friends, colleagues, mental health professionals or alcohol support groups. I am not seeking pity, empathy, or any recognition from this. As I said, it is to aid me on my path to a better quality of life. However, if anyone who reads any of my posts and finds anything that resonates with them then I hope it can help. Even if one person reads something and decides to get help or talk to someone then Sobering Thoughts will be a force for good. And yes, I did come up with the name. I am quite pleased with it.

I wanted to start writing these posts now. The main reason being is that I am not fully recovered. By contrast, I am very much at the beginning of my ‘journey’ towards what I hope to be a much happier place. I really dislike the term ‘journey’ but hey ho, its very much the buzzword of its time. I have only recently started getting the necessary help and support to my problems in the last couple of months. Prior to this, it has mainly been an internal struggle. I do not recommend this approach one bit but sadly, I know many people continue along this path and some tragically with devastating consequences. Mercifully, mental health and wellbeing are no longer taboo subjects. We have all heard the awful statistics relating to mental health and suicides particularly in men under the age of 45. Therefore talking, writing, reading about this subject has never been more important. I read an interesting quote recently from Henry Windsor (also known as Prince Harry) who said, “The experience I have had is that once you start talking about experiencing a mental health struggle, you realise that actually you’re part of quite a big club.” This is true and for some that provides a lot of comfort knowing that people from any background can be affected by this. Help is out there in many different forms, and I want to explore this more as we go.

I will be covering two main issues throughout these posts. Firstly, my ongoing battle with mental health which up until recently had been a private struggle only shared with a handful of people close to me. Secondly, I will be focusing on my dysfunctional relationship with alcohol and how it has been a major factor in the downward trajectory of my mental health. I believe the two to be intrinsically linked in my ongoing struggles. This is my take and my take only. I wouldn’t wish to speculate or try to pretend I know how and why people struggle with their mental health, everyone is different.

Throughout these posts I plan to be as open and honest as I can be, sharing some of the darkest moments I have endured, the worst drunken episodes I have had (trust me when I say that I could write a post a week until around the age of 147) but also trying to provide some much-needed brighter moments as I move on from this dark time in my life. I hope that if you are reading this and you have had or are having your own problems you will be able to start your own conversation about how you are feeling. Whether that is with friends, family, partners or even myself. I would also be keen to help in any way that I can.

I will be posting weekly and I can’t promise it will be laugh a minute, however the tales of drunken episodes will be probably be humorous enough to balance out any more serious undertones.

Thanks very much for reading so far, next week I will begin discussing where my issues began with both mental health and alcohol.

Nick Denton

Sobering Thoughts