A Dream Come True - Dead Drunk Will Hit Bookstores Soon

Less than four years ago my life was a mess. I had been an alcoholic for almost two decades and had lost all hope of there ever being an escape. I had hit my first treatment centre before even leaving my teens and had been in and out of recovery groups every few years since that time. I had tried and failed at every addiction method that I could find and had been told that my liver was damaged. I was in my late thirties and had ended up somehow living in a Thai village; I was waiting to die.

I heard about a place in Thailand called Wat Thamkrabok and decided to give it a chance. The treatment offered by this Thai Buddhist temple sounded intriguing, but I had failed at hundreds of other attempts to quit drinking. Why should this attempt be any different? It was though, and when I left the temple I felt convinced that my addiction had been completely cured; I still feel the same way today. Not only was my life after the temple free of addiction but it has brought happiness and good things beyond anything I could have possibly dared hope for. I had been a drunken loser for so long that it was hard to imagine that I deserved anything good from life.

The monks at the temple told me about the Satja vow. This is the promise you make at Wat Thamkrabok and the claim is that so long as you don't drink or use drugs your life will get better. I was told that the satja vow would put me on the road that I was meant to take in life and once on that road there would be no need for any further addiction. At the time the vow all sounded a bit like 'magical thinking' and it was hard not to be skeptical; I just wanted the pain stop and would have been happy with that.

In a few weeks time my book Dead Drunk will be released in Ireland, the UK, and Asia. This is actually the second book that I have written since becoming sober. I would write as a drunk but it was always self-pitying rambles that was only fit for the bin; luckily this is where it always ended up. As soon as I became sober, the writing became a lot easier and I now work as a full-time freelance writer. Finding the job that I love is not the real miracle though. The reason I believe so much in the satja vow is the ease by which things have occurred.

It would be easy to say that getting published is a matter of having great luck. For me it seems like a lot more than that. The right people keep on appearing in my life and directing me where to go next. I wrote a blog about three years ago and an established writer contacted me and suggested that I try and get it published. This sounded like an impossible aspiration but I tried and people were extremely helpful. Every step of the way there has been others to help me and direct me; I always assumed others were as selfish and self-absorbed as me so the help came as a surprise. All that has happened just seems so much more than luck; I feel convinced that the satja vow that I took at Wat Thamkrbok temple is what has put me on this wonderful journey.

This Monday I have meeting with my publicist; less than four years ago I couldn't get out of bed without a couple of beers and would regularly shit my pants in public. Four years ago I couldn't look after myself, but now I'm the father to the cutest toddler in the world and married to a beautiful wife. Not only is there life after addiction, but it can be beyond anything an addict could ever imagine.