Clare’s story: “I knew that alcohol would soon cost me everything if I didn’t stop.”

Back in 2010, I was admitted to an NHS funded residential rehab. For six weeks I lived in a clean, simple and homely facility with 12 beds for people dealing with addictions to substances of all kinds. There were daily group sessions, one-to-one counselling, yoga, complementary therapies and huge amounts of delicious food freshly prepared by the wonderful cook. I have no idea how much these six weeks of treatment cost but the quality of care and impact on my life were priceless.

I was 29 when I went to rehab. I had grown up with alcohol addiction at home and my Dad was on the waiting list to go into rehab for the third time before he died. By the time I was a teenager, I’d gone from hating alcohol for the devastation it wreaked at home to finding comfort in the numbing escape of drinking. From early on, I knew that my drinking was more similar to my Dad’s than to the rest of my peers. I drank to blackout regularly for 15 years. By the end, I found that not only could I not stop drinking once I’d started, but increasingly I couldn’t stop myself from starting in the first place - even if I knew I had to be up early for work the next morning.

By the time I entered rehab, I knew that alcohol would soon cost me everything if I didn’t stop – my health, my family, my relationship, my job. But I felt totally trapped in the cycle of relying on alcohol to cope with getting through even the most basic, everyday challenges of life. And by this time my life was full of challenges thanks to the mess and disasters caused by my drinking!

But it wasn’t until I was in my late 20s that anybody suggested that I needed to quit rather than try to moderate my drinking. When I finally had the discussion about stopping drinking, and was offered the chance to go to rehab, I felt such relief. The experience was difficult but transformative and I’m happily sober 13 years later.

My treatment was entirely funded through public money and, like many people who need residential treatment, paying for private rehab would have been difficult or impossible. I don’t know how much my treatment cost but I’d argue that the return on investment was worth it. Obviously, I benefitted enormously on a personal level but, even in pure economic terms, there are clear benefits in investing in treatment and recovery. I went back to work shortly after leaving rehab and have been working full-time and paying taxes ever since. I’ve also volunteered my time to facilitating recovery groups and as a board member of a local charity addressing alcohol harm. As my physical and mental health improved in recovery, I had less need to use health services and medications.

Drawing on my own personal experience, I can see that supporting people to address their alcohol use before there is a need for residential treatment would be far more beneficial for us all. But the social acceptability of drinking to excess and the stigma of addiction mean that many, like me, leave it until a crisis point before seeking help. More investment in prevention and early intervention could address this, whilst also providing high-quality treatment services for those in more immediate need. In my case, the investment in my treatment has been truly priceless and completely life-changing.