A man from Belfast has praised a local charity for helping him to turn his life around after years of suffering with alcohol dependency.
Barry lived with alcohol dependency for 10 to 15 years, with things getting worse over the last five years sparked by the coronavirus pandemic. Two and a half years ago, he spent three months in rehab, and was supported by the charity Inspire soon after.
Inspire is one of the largest providers of mental health, addiction and intellectual disability services in Ireland, supporting over 25,000 people every year.
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Speaking to Belfast Live about his story as he marks one year in recovery, Barry said: “I don’t think Inspire would have helped me on its own because I had tried it once before. Just showing up isn’t enough, as much as you don’t want to be dependent on alcohol.
“My dependency goes back 10 to 15 years, as other things happened in my life. But it became particularly pertinent over the last five years since Covid.
“I had tried Inspire for the first time just before Covid, and I tried it again a second time after I went into rehab. I tried it again and it stuck.
“Inspire were ready as they always are, but I wasn’t ready and it wasn’t a case of showing up and thinking that was enough. You need to be more proactive than that.
“My time at rehab for three months laid the foundations, but Inspire have become the building blocks to allow me to build, and the glue that holds it all together.”
The 56-year-old continues to avail of Inspire’s services a few times each week, and now said he’s keen to help anyone who finds themselves in a similar position to his a few years ago.
Barry features in Inspire’s new exhibition at the Waterfront Hall marking 65 years of their services. His contribution to the multi-media exhibition is the whiteboard used in recovery sessions to score how he was feeling at each meeting
He added: “I avail of Inspire’s services a few times each week. I’ve reapplied to do another three month course in counselling, but I also attend a recovery group on a Monday for two hours, and everybody who attends that group are in a different place. That’s what my whiteboard is about in the exhibition.
“When you arrive at that group, you check in as to your mood upon arrival out of 10 and write it on your board. I used to be a two or three, or maybe a four. I would write that, but I really felt like a one, but didn’t want to admit that. Each week now, I’m a 10 out of 10.
“Every week at the recovery group, you come out feeling even better. I still learn from each session, I now see other people that are the way I was two or three years ago, and I want them to feel as good as I now feel.”
Looking back on how he felt a year and a half ago and comparing it to now, Barry said the differences are night and day. One thing he worried about was how he would handle social situations without alcohol, but he said this hasn’t been an issue.
“So this time over the last year, through the haze of being in a hospital, I lost count of the times when I was in the hospital, it was 35 or 40 times between falling, knocking myself out, fracturing ribs, kidney failure, breaking the shoulder – just in and out of hospital,” he explained.
“But seeing how I am now, it’s because I’ve flipped things around. I’m just waking up every day and feeling good. I’m now trying to cram my 40 years of not living properly, because the way I look at it, you come into the world with nothing and you leave with nothing.
“It’s about when you’re here and to narrow that down even more, it’s about being happy today. I am a lot happier today than I was a year and a half ago.
“This week marks me being one year free of alcohol. When I was starting my recovery, I would think how would I ever go to a social event again – a rugby match, a concert, a festival, a wedding – without alcohol being an integral part of it to me. Now, the event is the event, it’s about the people you meet – alcohol doesn’t matter. It is so rewarding and ten times better than I thought it would be.
“I just know I’ll never drink alcohol again, and that’s the bigger buzz for me now. It’s the addiction of not drinking that replaces the addiction of drinking.”
You can find out more about Inspire and avail of their services by clicking here.
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