“And then I asked for help.”
Those were the brave words of one Derry man as he reached a major turning point in his life after years of what he described as “drowning in alcohol”.
Christy, as he prefers to be known, spoke movingly to The Derry News about his experiences because he wanted “anyone reading this piece to hear: ‘If I can do it, you can too’”.
“If I can drink 20 cans a day, hate myself, and believe life wasn’t worth living, yet still find a way to start again, then so can you,” he added.
“‘You are not beyond help. You are not too far gone. You are not worthless’. I thought all of those things about myself, and I was wrong,” said Christy.
In his darkest hour, Christy remembered thinking, ‘Today I end my life’.
“That’s what I once believed,” he said candidly. “Those words lived inside me when I was at my lowest, when I was drowning in alcohol, hating myself, and living in crippling anxiety and depression for over 20 years.
“I thought the only way out was to stop existing. What I didn’t know then, and what I see clearly now is that those words weren’t the end.
“They were the beginning of something else. They marked the moment I ended the life that was destroying me, and started the slow, messy, painful journey into something new.
“For years I lived with self-hatred so deep it coloured everything I did. I didn’t see a person in the mirror, just failure.
“I looked at my mistakes as proof that I was worthless. I convinced myself that the world would be better off without me.
“That kind of thinking is dangerous because it leads you to find ways to quiet it, to dull it, to silence the voice. For me, that silence came in cans – 20 a day, sometimes more. At first it felt like relief. Alcohol made me forget the pain for a while. It numbed me, gave me the illusion of freedom. But it wasn’t freedom, it was a self-made trap.
“The truth is, alcohol stole from me. It stole my memory, my health, my dignity, and my hope. It made me believe I couldn’t live without it, and it nearly convinced me that I didn’t want to. I was existing but not living. I held down a job – which I eventually lost – but it took everything I had just to walk through the door.
“On the outside I was functioning. On the inside I was falling apart,” he recalled.
“Anxiety had me by the throat. Depression pinned me to the bed. Physical pain was constant. Every day felt like a battle I was losing.
“And then I asked for help. The hardest thing I have ever done was admitting I couldn’t keep going like this, that I couldn’t fix it on my own.
“I thought asking for help made me weak, but I’ve learned it’s the bravest thing I’ve ever done. I reached out, and to my genuine surprise, help was there. I wasn’t judged. I wasn’t dismissed. I was supported. And that changed everything, gradually.”
Reflecting on his recovery, Christy said it had not been easy. He revealed that he still struggles.
“There are mornings I wake up and feel like I can’t do it. There are days when the anxiety screams louder than anything else. There are times when the thought of alcohol tempts me but I don’t pick it up,” he said.
“I remind myself that one drink for me is never one drink. It’s the start of a spiral that nearly killed me once, and I won’t let it happen again.
“Instead, I keep choosing to begin again, one day at a time. It used to be five minutes at a time at the beginning!
“I’ve learned that struggling doesn’t mean failing. Weak moments don’t make me worthless. Every day I get up, every day I face the world sober. Every day I fight the thoughts that tell me to quit. That’s strength. That’s courage. It doesn’t look like much from the outside. It doesn’t feel like a Hollywood victory. But it’s real.”
Christy said he was even able to go on a sober holiday this summer “thanks to positive words from Pearse M and others on Twitter” which he added was “an amazing platform for kindness of strangers when I share now and then”.
“Kind words are important when on this journey, as you’re fragile, but you become stronger and the fragility becomes one of many tools that come together to hold you together,” said Christy.
Emphasising his point he said: “Asking for help was the day my life began. Not a perfect life. Not an easy life. But a real one. A life where I can face pain without numbing it. A life where I can admit my struggles without shame. A life where I can keep going, even when it’s hard.
“So yes, today I end my life. I end the life that nearly destroyed me. And every day since, I’ve chosen to begin again. And if I can, so can you.
“Please. You’re worth more than you know, please see that in yourself and seek the help you rightly deserve and share your successes, they can change someone else’s world.
“Take care out there.”