04/13/2026
đź’śđź’śđź’ś
Addiction & Recovery Stories. It was a Monday morning. At 9am, I dropped Neil at school, gave him a big cuddle, told him I loved him, and watched him run through the gate, calling back, “Love you too, Dad.” By 10.15am, I was on a park bench in Aberdeen city centre, cracking open my third can of Tennent’s and drinking away 19 months of sobriety.
[Article via The UK Telegraph. 27 March 2026.
Long read - 4 mins or save by pressing the 3 horizontal dots in the top (R) hand corner of this post ]
The first can went down fast, that familiar warmth spreading through my chest. The second slowed the racing thoughts that had been building all week: worthlessness, loneliness, anxiety. Thoughts I’d been too ashamed to voice to anyone. I’d been sliding into depression, trying to battle it alone instead of reaching out. That isolation is what alcohol feeds on.
By the third can, I’d convinced myself I had this under control. I’d stay here until 2pm and sober up enough for the 3pm school run. After all, I’d been sober for over a year. My problem couldn’t have been that bad.
I finished what I’d bought, then headed to an old haunt, where I lost track of time. When I next checked my phone, it was 3.07pm. Neil would be waiting at the school gate. My stomach dropped. I stared at the screen, my son’s face smiling up from the wallpaper, and had another drink. That’s what alcohol does to me – it turns me into someone who makes terrible decisions while believing they are reasonable.
Alister knew he had hit a new low when he forgot to pick Neil up from school after a day spent drinking.
The phone started ringing. It was the school, calling repeatedly. I watched it vibrate across the sticky pub table. Then my ex-partner’s mother called. I finally answered her: “I’m sorry. I’m worthless. It’s happened again. I can’t pick Neil up. I don’t want him to see me like this. Can you do it?” I put the phone away and ordered another drink. That was four months ago.
I started drinking when I was 13 – house parties, street drinking with friends. We got alcohol through older mates, from shops that didn’t ask for ID, and, on a couple of occasions, by stealing it. It was binge drinking from the start. It became heavy after I met my ex-partner, Christie, in 2016, when I was 18 and she was 22. I became reliant on alcohol when Neil was born four years later (the first child for both of us). When Christie fell pregnant, I genuinely believed I could cut down. It was easy for her to stop. For me, the hold was too strong.
After Neil was born, I fell into postpartum depression, something I didn’t know fathers experienced, and I drank to numb the pain. I’d just started my first year at university – my second attempt after dropping out in 2016. I wanted a university education in the hope of bettering myself for my son. But between Covid isolation, parenting a newborn, having no dad friends or support network, and moving from central Scotland to Aberdeen, away from my family, I felt completely alone.
Sleep deprivation, depression, anxiety, and resentment over lost freedom took hold, and alcohol made it worse, stopping me from facing any of it. I grew bitter and angry, treating Christie terribly and locking myself away with bottles while she cared for our newborn alone. She left on Neil’s first birthday.
I continued the pattern – seeing Neil on days off, staying sober while he was with me, then drinking once he was asleep – until a drink-driving crash nearly killed me in May 2024.
The accident shocked me into 19 months of sobriety. I’d been terrified enough by the crash to stop drinking through sheer willpower. I moved to Stonehaven, 15 miles south, for work. I got promoted and started to rebuild my relationship with Neil.
A new rock bottom
And then that Monday happened. I can see now that I hadn’t dealt with any of the underlying issues. I’d got sober on my own, with no recovery network and no plan in place for when things got difficult. When the depression started creeping back, the relapse was inevitable.
I woke up in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines, with no memory of how I’d got there – I guess I’d blacked out on a street somewhere. When I was discharged, my mother was at my flat. I’d lost my phone while unconscious, and my family had spent hours in desperate panic. Christie’s mother had been driving around Aberdeen searching. My mother had driven 160 miles from Paisley through the night. Over tea, she told me Christie’s message: “He’s done it this time. He’s never seeing Neil again.”
I knew Christie was right. I had reached rock bottom. But I was still Neil’s father, and that meant I had a choice: give up entirely or do whatever it takes to become the father he deserves. More than that, I needed to get sober for myself. Not out of fear, like after the crash, not just for Neil. For the first time in my life, I actually wanted to recover.
Following Neil's birth, Alister says he fell into postnatal depression, something he didn't know fathers experienced
Following Neil’s birth, Alister says he fell into postnatal depression – something he didn’t know fathers could experience
Within a week, I’d moved back to my childhood home in Stirling – my father’s house – where I slept under the same posters I’d had at 15. I left my job in Stonehaven and enrolled on a recovery programme. My boss was understanding when I was honest about my alcohol problems; in fact, they still check in regularly. I started attending AA meetings and joined a group at a local recovery charity.
As another safeguard, I handed my bank cards to my father. It wasn’t typical practice or recommended by anyone, but after the relapse that had my family fearing they’d lost me, giving him control of my account – paying bills and approving purchases – was about keeping me safe. My mother became the intermediary with Christie, and we agreed I could only see Neil under supervision.
The fact that Christie trusted me enough for supervised contact, and my mother was willing to be that bridge between us, meant everything. After everything I’d done, being given any chance at all to see my son felt like a gift I didn’t deserve. I was determined not to waste it.
One step at a time
The visits aren’t regular yet – they happen sporadically, a couple of days at a time, as and when they can be arranged. My mother drives us from Paisley to Aberdeen to collect Neil, the three-hour journey filled with my nervous energy and her patient reassurance.
When we pull up outside Christie’s, Neil is always at the living room window, watching for us. The moment he spots the car, he’s running out the door. “Dad! Dad!” He crashes into me, arms around my middle. For a moment, everything feels normal.
We stay in the house or go to a local park. We play with his toys, kick a football, watch films curled up on the sofa. My mother fades into the background as much as she can – reading her book, sitting on a park bench 20m away. But she’s always there. That’s the condition for this to happen at all.
I can’t take Neil anywhere on my own. I can’t suggest just the two of us going for ice cream. Every moment has to happen within my mother’s line of sight.
Of course, Neil is only five – he can’t understand the complex issues being navigated between me, Christie, and my mother. He doesn’t ask about the supervision. Intuitively, he works hard to make these visits feel ordinary, managing emotions no child should have to. He just plays, laughs, tells me stories about his toys, about what he wants to be when he grows up. But he does ask another question: “Dad, are you better yet?”
It breaks my heart every time. The guilt, the shame of putting him in a position where he has to ask – but also the love I feel for him, the determination his question gives me. He’s five years old and carrying the weight of my recovery. It devastates me and motivates me in equal measure. He asks every single visit. Sometimes, it’s when he first crashes into my arms outside Christie’s; sometimes at it’s at bedtime; sometimes it comes randomly while we’re playing. Always the same words, always the same hopeful inflection. I hold back tears every time.
“Dad’s getting better every day, buddy.”
“When will you be all better?”
“I don’t know yet. But I’m working really hard.”
This seems to satisfy him, but I can see him calculating, trying to understand time the way small children do. Is it after his birthday? After Christmas? When the visit ends and we drive him back to Aberdeen, Neil grows quieter. The goodbye is brief. He’s learned not to drag it out. “Love you, Dad,” he says. “Love you too, buddy,” I reply. Then he runs inside the house, and my mother and I make the journey back in near silence.
Recovery is a process
Between visits, there are WhatsApp calls. Sometimes Neil wants to show me a new toy or tell me about his day. He holds the phone close to his face, his eyes huge on the screen. “Dad, guess what! I got a gold star!” His excitement is infectious, but when we hang up, I’m left staring at my reflection in the blank screen, sitting in my childhood bedroom, a 28-year-old man who can’t be trusted with his own son. The silence afterwards is deafening.
The shame is physical, like a weight in my chest. I’m lucky to have a family supporting me but being an adult who needs his parents to manage every aspect of his life – his finances, his contact with his own child – is crushing.
I’m not doing this alone any more. After one AA meeting, a peer drove me home and we sat in the car outside my father’s house, sharing our stories long after we’d arrived. That connection – realising I wasn’t the only one fighting this – meant everything. My mother has also been attending meetings for parents of alcoholics. Going on this journey with her support has been crucial.
I’m managing sobriety through regular walks in nature, clean eating, and spending quality time with my mother, father and brother.
We’ve visited parts of the country I’d never seen before. I even went to Spain with my brother for a weekend – something that felt impossible a few months ago.
My old friendships were ruined when I isolated myself in addiction, and I’ve never been quick to make friends. But I’m hopeful that in time, new friendships will form. I’m applying for jobs while signed on, and am working towards goals: a healthy relationship with my son, unsupervised visits, my own place, and stable work.
But I’m not rushing. Recovery is a process – one day at a time.
The truth is, I feel better now than I have since I was a kid. More hopeful; more determined to stay sober. But it’s still one day at a time – I’m taking it slowly. This isn’t the fatherhood I imagined. Every supervised visit, every “are you better yet?”, and all those WhatsApp calls where Neil’s face fills my screen – they are painful, but they are also proof Neil still wants me in his life.
I’m doing the work. I’m attending meetings, following my recovery programme, and I’m staying accountable. I’m fighting to be the father Neil deserves to have. And for now, that has to be enough.
Addiction Actually
