NI man who ‘lost it all’ to alcoholism is now helping others in recovery

He shares his experience as part of new support programme and exhibition in city

A DERRY man who drank two bottles of vodka a day and lost everything he cared about in life is now sharing his traumatic experience to help others conquer similar problems.

Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, Thomas Campbell candidly described the malignant force alcohol once was in his life and has now shared his experiences as part of a new programme and exhibition in the city for men to socialise, receive support with their mental health and address addictions.

The men all shared experiences in a group and, during the sixweek course, had creative writer Grainne Mccool on hand after each session to help them to express their feelings on paper.

It started with just six words and widened to documenting their own stories at length.

At the opening of the exhibition, Thomas shared his own personal experience of addiction.

“I’m a recovering addict, coming up on about four and a half years sober,” Thomas said.

“From the depth of drinking two bottles of vodka a day, I ended up in Altnagelvin Hospital handcuffed to a bed.

“It was complete isolation. The drink took absolutely everything away from me. It took family, friends, a car — because I lost my driving licence — and it just kept coming back for more until it ended up taking my mental health as well.

“My mental health was so bad that if somebody had have walked past the window of my house, I would have freaked out with anxiety.

“There was one time I spent three days in the bathroom without being able to come out; it got that bad.”

Thomas spent three Christmases alone, with the turning point being Christmas 2019 when he ended up in hospital three times in one week.

“Once was for my mental health, where they thought I was going to take my own life, and the next two then were drink-related, as I had a complete lack of vitamins in my body. It was in shutdown, so I had to get hooked up to IV drips to get fluids back into my body again.

“At that point I was sent to Gransha [an acute mental health inpatient unit] to speak to the teams out there. I had an appointment at the start of January [2020] and they advised me to speak to Northlands [an addiction treatment centre].”

On January 22 of that year, Thomas contacted Northlands and was told he’d have to be sober first.

“That was the day I decided I wasn’t going to drink again,” he said.

A men’s support group was set up in May 2023 at Claude’s Café in Derry city centre, which came about after speaking to a social work team.

“It is a place where men can come and talk and express their feelings without judgment,” Thomas explained.

“We initially thought: ‘We’ll run this for 12 weeks. We’ll have a social worker from each GP practice and if the conversation gets too deep they’ll be on hand...”

After the 12 weeks, however, it was decided that the support group would continue to run and it has progressed from there.

It now has a Whatsapp group and the men often socialise by meeting up for coffee, having cooking nights in each other’s houses or going to football games.

Cafés around the city “loved the idea” and have come on board to offer a space for discussions across the week.

‘The support group is a place where men can talk and express their feelings without judgment’