MY HEALTH EXPERIENCE:DAVID YELLAND If it wasn't for my son, I'm not sure I would have given up
HAVING BEEN editor of the Sunnewspaper for five years, in 2004 I moved to PR firm Webber Shandwick and had the title of vice chairman for UK and Ireland. By the summer of 2005 though, my life was completely finished. I had lost my moral compass, lost everything really and was a complete wreck. I could feel my liver, and I had tingling in my feet and arms and going up my limbs. I knew I was dying.
There are many thousands of people that happens to. Most of my drinking wasn’t that hard to hide. Because you’re an alcoholic doesn’t mean you drink two bottles of whiskey a day. I discovered “the morning drink” in 2003 when I started drinking early, not every morning, but many. I did that for about two years.
The absolute worst part of my drinking was that part when you drink but it doesn’t get you drunk. It was purgatory. The most horrid last stage of alcoholism was where I was waking at 3am or 4am and the first thing I’d do was drink. I’d then get up in the morning and drink more and watch people outside go to work and think what a bunch of losers. Someone once said that the way drink gets you is very very slowly, then all of a sudden.
In 2005, my ex-wife was in a wheelchair, as her cancer had spread. We had a six-year-old son together, Max. My whole world was disintegrating at every level very fast. I think there was this survival mechanism that triggered me into doing something about my life.
Because I had been adopted myself, the idea of Max not being brought up by either of his parents or of both dying was something I couldn't accept. It wasn't about my job or financial issues. It was about life and death. The Mail on Sundaysaid in a recent article my son saved my life, and it's true. If it hadn't been for Max, I'm not sure I would have come in for treatment.
In September 2006, my ex-wife Tania, died. I had been sober for 15 months, just enough time to get some balance in my life and everyone could see I had changed. At the funeral I remained sober. It was hard because there was a lot of guilt and remorse. The reality is that drink did play a part in the break-up of the marriage, although it wasn’t the only reason.
A lot of people were around at the funeral and they drank a bit. I was upstairs putting my son to bed, where I was supposed to be. If you don’t drink at that moment, that gives you strength. I now realise how alcohol for me, even one drink, drew a dividing line between my family and me.
My drinking, though, was always around happy things, like if I produced a great paper or got a pay rise, that’s when I would drink. When I got sad news, like when my ex-wife was diagnosed with cancer when she was pregnant, I didn’t go out on a bender on the back of it.
I was attracted to journalism in the first place because I watched a documentary on Fleet Street when I was at school. It showed a pub on Fleet Street and all the hacks getting pissed. That worked for me for years, when I drank every night.
I'm glad to say life for me now is very happy. I have a great relationship. Professionally I do various things, including being a partner at PR firm, Brunswick, and writing for the Guardianabout the UK election. The one thing I don't do is just work for one person. I have the freedom to do various different things. A lot of my time is spent with my son.
I don’t know what the statistics are for successfully remaining sober. All I know is that I knew on the night I went to rehab, when I drank my last bottle of red wine, that I wasn’t going to drink again.
I’ve written a book now, which is an honest attempt to get as near the truth as I experienced it. The book is really not about alcohol though. It’s written through the eyes of a young boy whose mother has died. I wanted to try to write about the enduring love of a mum and a dad even though they are divorced. A lot of it is for my son, of course. I wanted him to understand his parents loved each other but couldn’t stay together. I also wanted him to understand that his dad did drink and has now stopped.
There are some very big issues in it that are hard to talk about in the UK for an ex- Suneditor. Issues like love and faith and that's really what the book is about. I realise that a consequence of writing this book is that it makes it a lot harder for me to walk into a pub and have a few drinks.
That said, I’m never tempted to drink and don’t like alcohol. If it gets anywhere near me I take action and move it away for me. My life will get better and better if I never touch another drink. If I drink again, my life goes down the swanny very quickly indeed.
In conversation with Brian O’Connell
