Ross's Story

My name is Ross Carrick, I am 41 years old.
Before coming in to Abbeycare,
I had basically burnt
my life to the ground through my addiction.
Specifically, alcohol,
and opiates, and benzodiazepines.
I found myself in a situation
where I was completely isolated from everybody,
including my family,
basically lost all my friends
through just not communicating
and keeping in touch with my friends.
I was living in a flat by myself
in a remote town in Scotland
and basically not even leaving the flat.
I would order my drink in.
I'd manage to make it to
the pharmacy to pick up my script medication,
which I would be using as well.
And I would just be spending my days
constantly drinking, and using,
and then being asleep
and then waking up and just continuing it.
And that cycle would just repeat and repeat
until quite often I would end up having to get
an emergency hospital detox because of various
physical symptoms
that were occurring because of my excessive alcohol use.
So I'd completely burnt my life to the ground.
I mean, prior to
that period of isolation and
heavy usage, and that period lasted a good few years,
I was actually quite a successful academic.
I was lecturing in law at
top universities around the country
and I finished, I completed my PhD in law
at the University of Edinburgh
and I was working really hard.
And through various circumstances,
I found myself out of employment.
And that's when the sort of heavy period of drinking
started, and other drugs came into that as well.
And slowly
but surely over a period, I would say about ten years,
I through sort of the drinking,
progressing to more and more severe and extreme states,
I ended up losing all my friends
and like I described at the beginning,
sort of finding myself isolated in the flat, only drinking,
no interest in anything, not even answering the phone.
And during that period
that I just described where I was isolated,
I was attached to
an addiction service in my area.
And through them and them witnessing me
repeatedly going into hospital,
getting told how bad my physical state was
and needing
emergency detoxes and all sorts of other medication.
Eventually they said that they had funding to get me
into a private rehab facility for,
well at that point
we weren't sure how long it would be for.
But they presented me with various choices
of rehab facilities
that they could send me into for a long period of time.
And Abbeycare was one of the choices they presented,
and they were able to describe
various differences between the,
there were three
they presented me
with and Abbeycare
seemed like the most appropriate for my needs.
in the first instance
what was very beneficial was a safe space
where you were, you were basically completely
not at all capable of
getting any alcohol or drugs.
That safe, I used to call it a protective bubble
that you were in, and I was in Abbeycare for three months.
Having that space where it was just physically impossible
to go and get some drink, go and get some drugs.
Where everything was basically catered for you
and your food and your
beds and, you know, all your needs were kind of met.
It gave me a bit of time out, much needed time out
from the kind of the chaos of my addiction
and my addictive behaviour
to give me the headspace to be able to start to kind of
even just think about getting better.
And Abbeycare was excellent in that it provided,
you know, an abstinence-based programme
that focuses on the fellowship and the
12 step programme of recovery, along with CBT.
The combination of all those factors,
with expert therapists who were able to,
who are experienced in these things,
including the 12 step programme
of recovery and fellowship,
they were able to, over the three month period I was there,
instil in me
what was important and how to go about staying sober.
But not just staying sober, but getting well, you know,
getting a life that wasn't
just about staying sober, but a life that was
actually where you would thrive in that life.
For me, I had nothing in my life prior to coming
into Abbeycare. I had nothing to focus on,
no social activity at all. Introducing me to the fellowship,
the rooms of the different meetings that I now go to
regularly, and the 12 step programme of recovery, gave
me a sense of purpose and belonging.
A sense of being part of a community that's all about recovery
and like I said before, not just about staying sober and clean
but about being part of a community of people that are
like minded to get a better life for yourself.