‘It’s easy to let alcohol get you in a chokehold - but there is a way back’

Fresh-faced and smiling, 29-year-old Toby Winson is a picture of good health, but the former grammar school boy has been to hell and back to get to where he is today. He told Marijke Hall of the demons he had to beat to turn his life around...

could kill him to do so, unless weaned properly. His body was completely dependent on the one thing that was killing him.

“The doctors, and alcohol service Turning Point, said I had to reduce slowly, so my mum had to give me alcohol,” he admits.

“She was giving me three quarters of a litre of vodka a day, which must have been very hard for her to do.”

He’s clearly thankful for the support of his family - mum Gaynor, dad Barry, brother Joe, 31, and sister Charlie, 24.

“My mum and dad always say it was impossible to give up on me because I was still the same person, I was never a nasty drunk,” he says.

Toby, a self-employed builder, says he had two spells in rehab at Kenward House near Maidstone, totalling seven months, but despite teaching him a lot about his condition, it didn’t stop him drinking.

He was also hospitalised 20 times and detoxed using a drug called Librium, which tricks the body into thinking it is getting alcohol.

“One time I didn’t think they’d given me a high enough dosage and I knew that the handwash at the end of the bed was 98% alcohol, so I drank it,” he says.

“That sent me to sleep for a long time and my lips had swelled up.

“They didn’t know what had happened to me. It took them ages to work it out. My dad thought I was trying to kill myself but I’d done it because I thought I was going to have a seizure.”

In May 2015 - during his low-

“I’m in such a strong place it would take a lot for me to drink but I know I can’t say I’m never going to have a drink again because I’m an alcoholic.”

Toby has recently started a blog called Recovery Boy, through which he tells his story.

“I would not wish the life of an alcoholic on anyone so if there’s a chance I can help someone by writing about my experiences, how I got from my lowest point to where I am now, and everything that I have learned to stay sober; then it’s worth doing,” he says.

“It’s so easy to let alcohol get you in a chokehold, but there is a way back no matter how tight you feel the grip is - I’m proof of that.”

n To read his blog and receive regular updates, visit https://recoveryboy.blog/

Thursday, January 31, 2019 Kentish Gazette (KG) www.kentonline.co.uk