On the 11/11/21 i will finally be clean of all drugs and alcohol after 20 years, I managed to quit alcohol in 2001 and have recently quit smoking weed.  The following is the tale of my descent into and emergence from chronic alcohol and valium addiction.

I, as many people vividly remember the twin tower attacks in NYC, I was working in a publishing house at the time and arrived at work at around 9 that morning. Everything was normal and tedious, I at this point had a chronic alcohol and valium dependency which I was in extreme denial about.  I remember praying for some distraction from a horrendous valium and alcohol hangover.  The morning sailed by quickly and then at around lunchtime I heard chatter in the office that there had been an accident in NYC and a plane had crashed into one of ‘the twin towers’. I thought to myself ‘what an awful pilot’.  I’m ashamed to admit that i had no clue what ‘the twin towers’ were and thought not much of it.

Then a short while afterwards someone came in our office and said a second plane had crashed into the other tower.  At this point it was lunch and the whole office decamped to the pub to watch the scenes unfold on the tv whilst having a burger and a pint meal deal.  Im even more ashamed to admit I was happy as it meant i could consume some beer earlier than expected and relieve my craving for alcohol.

In the pub we watched as the news ran video of the planes slamming into the towers and exploding in a ball of flames.  Truly shocking and horrendous images of dust covered people running from what I now knew were the tallest buildings in New York and the financial centre of America.

As I saw the pictures I couldn’t help but notice that the buildings looked like a huge number 11 jutting out of the ground.  Then my obsessive drug and alcohol addled mind noticed that the date, in American format, was 9/11 and that was the emergency services phone number – 911.  It must mean something I began to think.  My mind was already crumbling prior to this day but I felt an acceleration and unpleasant excitement as I watched the first tower crumble to dust on the tv screens around the pub whilst I ordered another pint of beer.

Around this time and for most of my life numbers have held a deeper meaning.  As I saw one of the giant number 1’s of the twin towers fall I quietly thought to myself that the 11 had been destroyed. Everyone else in the pub saw skyscrapers and terrible suffering and i saw a giant 11 and knew it must have a deeper meaning for me and me alone.

I swallowed handfuls of valium drinking myself into a stupor and spent the afternoon in the pub with most of the office watching the final tower, or to me the giant number 1, crumble into dust.  I felt detached to the horror and instead saw it as a symbol or signal to me that something was irreparably broken inside of me.  My date of birth is 11th of January or 11/1 and the destruction of the giant 11 that day, on 9/11, had a message for me and only me.  I knew my time of drinking and drugging my way through life was coming to an abrupt end and I was scared.  My body and mind could take no more.

That night I obsessively flitted between sky news and the internet watching the towers fall again and again.  Each time I saw the 11 destroyed I felt a deeper sense of meaning and yet no understanding or empathy for the horrendous suffering people were going through in NYC.

In the weeks after the towers fell I watched daily news on the attack and felt more that it was telling me something.  My drinking had hit an all time high and I was drinking a litre of vodka or whiskey daily as well as wine and beer in copious amounts.  My valium intake had grown to ridiculous amounts and I was shopping around doctors for multiple prescriptions to keep up with my bodies demands.

I wondered whether the giant 11 shaped towers destruction foretold my internal destruction and my unhealthy preoccupation with the terrible event grew daily.  About a month after the towers fell, so did everything in my life.

My partner had become sick of my drinking, my valium intake and obsession over 9/11 and finally left me for a coworker of mine.  She left one morning and refused to even talk to me.  My drinking as a result accelerated and I couldn’t work out whether i was drinking cause she left me or she left me cause i was drinking.  All the while the number 11 haunted me and i began finding it everywhere.  Her phone number added up was 11, the house of the guy she left me for was number 11, i would see the number 11 on buses and trains, i would see car number plates with 11 and would work out that names when represented by numbers would equal 11.  I was losing my mind and drank harder and faster than ever before.

Around this time i took to drink driving, something I’m deeply ashamed of and would regularly be so drunk I couldn’t walk and so would instead drive home from work, hammered.  Empty bottles of valium littered the floor of the car, along with empty vodka or whiskey bottles.  I started smoking weed heavily as well and this made me all the more paranoid and wasted.

On one particularly heavy drinking session i woke the next day still drunk.  I went into work and took around 30mg of valium and drank a half bottle of vodka.  Next thing I knew a meeting was called and in that meeting i passed out in my chair in front of all my coworkers and my boss.  I was instantly pulled into the office and in my haze I told my boss I was sick of meetings and that he should fuck off.  I was of course sacked and I noticed the date on his desk calendar read the 11th of October.  I was sure now that 11 was gonna destroy me and destroy me soon.

I managed to find my car after leaving the office and somehow succeeded to start it and drive towards the tunnel I had to go through to get home.  In the tunnel with tears pouring down my face I accelerated to 90mph whilst eating a pizza.  As my car touched a 100mph I noticed a sharp left hand bend ahead and I lost control of the car and it started to spin.  The car smashed into traffic cones and was facing the wrong way.  I looked down and saw pizza all over my lap and began to maniacally laugh at how close I had come to killing myself or other people.  As i pulled away I saw a marker sign and it bore the number 11.

The next few weeks are a haze of drinking and shouting down the phone at my ex.  I smashed up our old flat with a baseball bat and cut the heads off of her cuddly toys.  An all encompassing mania had taken hold and i was dangerous to be around.

One night I drank way too much and took way too much valium.  I promptly blacked out and woke to my brother’s scared voice saying ‘is he dead’ I jumped up and downed the rest of the vodka I had and preceded to be vile and obnoxious to his friends, luckily they saw the funny side, if there was a funny side.

About three weeks into October 2001 I decided a trip home to visit my mums was on the cards.  To help babysit the cat and watch the house for her.  I was supposed to leave at around 1 as it was getting dark early.  I of course spent the morning in the pub and drank way past 1.  It got to around 4 and i was pissed out of my mind so thought the best thing to do was to take an ecstasy tablet to sober me up.  Bad idea, it was so strong and i had to stop half way to get my shit together.  As i drove everything took on a cartoon like surrealism and Im not sure how i managed not to be arrested or crash.

As I hurtled further into oblivion I became further obsessed with the number 11 and it would taunt me daily.  My drinking increased to insane amounts and my grip on everything became untenable.  My weight soared as i consumed greater amounts of beer and fast food.  I felt hopelessly addicted to alcohol, valium, food and the number 11.

My finances plummeted and I decided to sell my car to my dealer for 20 bags of weed.  A truly ridiculous thing to do, but I had given up caring about anything and anyone, let alone myself.

As October came to a close I decided to visit mum on the train, seeing as I had sold my car for weed.  Once on the train i settled into seat 11a, I lied to myself that I had chosen it randomly.  I sank a bottle of vodka and crushed and snorted valium in the toilets on the train.  When my mum picked me up from the station she just said ‘Good god Stuart! You look awful!’ I said to her that i had a cold and wondered what she meant.

Here in the safety of my mums I preceded to drink myself into a catatonic state.  The following day my brothers arrived and my drinking continued.  Later on in the night me and my younger brother hit the alcohol cabinet when my vodka had run out.  This is where it all gets very hazy.  I started to argue about something with him and he took my phone off me and drop kicked it into the street outside, smashing it into little bits.  I then apparently lurched at him trying to grab him round the neck and maybe even strangle him, a pathetic drunk attempt and not a sincere attempt at murder.  Next thing I know my 15 year nephew punches me in the eye to get me off and momentarily knocks me out.  I lay on the ground for a while and then jump up and run into the street, collapsing into a ball a short way down the road.

My mum managed to talk me around and to come back in the house where I’m promptly passed out after smoking a joint in her bed.  The next morning was the 10/11/2001 or the 10th of November and an intervention had been staged by my family.   I was to go with one of my older brothers and enter rehabilitation in Kent.  It was a surreal day as I was still high as a kite and drunk from the previous days activities.  I reluctantly agreed I had a problem and was put in the car and had all my cashcards, passport and ID taken off of me.  This was done to stop my ability to spend or do anything.

When I woke up on 11/11/2001 I didn’t plan on it being my last day of alcohol, but it was.  I was found by my step sister swigging vodka from a bottle in a cupboard under the stairs and that was my last drink.

So there are am sat in my brothers Doctors surgery and its 11/11, my mind is switching between absolute craving for booze and the realisation that 11 is back to finish me, to haunt me and to taunt me.  I try to listen as the doctor tells me I have damaged my liver and that I must go into rehab and quit booze for good.

So 11/11/2001 was the last time alcohol passed my lips.  Then began a struggle of months or even years to stay clean, but that is another story.  The more sober i became the more I realised my poisoned mind had created an obsession around numbers and in particular the number 11.  This was an early sign that I was more than likely not merely an alcoholic but also suffering with chronic mental health problems.  Problems that would rise up many times in the coming years.