My Name Is… And I’m An Alcoholic
1 × 60mins for C5, TX January 13th 2016, 10pm
In a country awash with booze, 8 million Britons are considered alcohol dependent – and all of us know someone whose affection for the bottle is damaging to their health, their friends and family, their careers. In this groundbreaking documentary, My Name is… And I’m an Alcoholic tells the frank story of 8 people and their tempestuous relationship with alcohol: from their first drink, their love affair with booze and their despair as they hit rock bottom – to what it took to get sober as they built a new life in recovery.
Alcohol is society’s great leveller – alcoholism doesn’t care about where we come from, where we live, or how successful we are. Far from obeying the stereotype we all imagine, the alcoholics we hear from include a professional cellist, too stressed to play on stage without a bottle of vodka disguised as water at her feet; the former Editor of the Sun, too anxious to run Britain’s biggest newspaper without being bolstered by booze; a single mother, drinking through her loneliness and her shame at her failed marriage; a criminal who became alcoholic aged 13, grieving the loss of his mother; a local GP drinking to escape the problems of her patients, and a student counsellor who relapsed just days before filming.
As much a story of the struggle as it is one of hope, this sensitive and resonant film takes us straight into the heart of one of society’s most prevalent and misunderstood addictions.
MY NAME IS… AND I’M AN ALCOHOLIC – promo from Knickerbockerglory TV on Vimeo.
The Alcoholics Guide to Alcoholism 
Thanks Paul – looks good! Merry Xmas to you 🙂
Does look interesting Lucy – Merry Christmas to you too x
I thought that the programme was not particularly helpful. The guy training to be a councillor (sic) who was 52 days sober. I trained to be a counsellor and there was a practising alcoholic in my group. Finally, as he was working at a placement at a doctors surgery, I had to report him. I was glad to see that the cellist was playing again. I thought it was sad that she is eight years sober but isn’t recovered, but is always recovering that she has yet to be set free. Page 84/5 I yelled at the to. Still at least no one broke their anonymity!
thanks for that Lyn – I find that something is better nothing sometimes. There was not enough talk of the solution only some results of recovery (marriage, kids, jobs, etc). The constant cuts to alcohol being poured and lovingly photographed I thought perhaps inadvertently gave away the producer and director’s awareness of alcoholism. Equally I guess we should not completely dismiss what was obviously a lot of effort that went into making it possible. I was looking at the programme from the perspective of that fact there is rarely any alcoholics, other than drunk ones, on British TV. It was good to see some talking about this strange illness in a way some people, and their families, may identify with. The way some of them talked was not that dissimilar to listening to shares at an AA meeting when the progression of the illness is often touched upon. Until I heard the illness is progression I could not identify with it being progressive in me, i.e. as a disease state. I would not give the programme more than 5 or 6 out of ten myself and that is mostly for getting something on the TV about recovering alcoholics, whether they call themselves recovered or recovering is their subjective choice just as it is yours. I certainly did not think it merited wholesale negativity or to be completely dismissed. It could have been a whole lot better from sure.
Very niice blog you have here
Thank you Sidney !