Category: Families

oin Lou and John in heartfelt conversations on addiction, recovery, and self-care. Available in video and audio formats

Today I celebrate 40 years of continuous sobriety!  Does that impress you?  It certainly impresses me!  What shows is, not that John is a wonderful person (although some people think he is, others not so much), no it shows that alcoholics can, and do, change, there is always hope in addiction. Just about anyone who …

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In this video we discuss our vision for the Forum and invite you to participate in it and connect with each other. Thank you to all of you who do post in the Forum and especially to those of you who post to support other Bottled Up members. The Forum can be a powerful place …

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Tell us what has helped you, what works, what doesn’t work. And, as the video says, this program will do nothing if you do not login to the website and follow the steps of that are laid out.

Detaching from a drinker is often misunderstood. Some people think that it means breaking off contact or becoming very cold towards the drinker. In this video Lou and John try to explain what we mean by Detachment and how it can help you to cope with the situation.

Since we opened Bottled Up over 15 years ago, our website has been visited almost 1 million times looking for information and support, thousands have joined the website and 10s of thousands have joined our mailing list.  So, we know that there is a huge need for help.  In that time, we have continually tried …

Continue reading “Accelerated Series”

In this post we are continuing the theme of mistakes that families and friends can make that are unproductive to change in the drinking situation.

There are many things that people who live with a drinker tend to do that do not help their situation.  Most of these behaviours are well meaning and are just the normal way that families act and react with the people that they care about.

Today marks the start of my 40th year sober, that is no alcohol or drugs for 39 years.  So, I felt that this was a fitting time to talk about a topic rarely mentioned when getting sober, that is opportunity. Forty years ago, I would sit in pubs in Glasgow and talk about the things …

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So, who would have thought it? Spiderman has a problem with alcohol, even superheroes are not immune to the problem. You might say that he was caught in a web of addiction. If you are wondering what I’m talking about, Tom Holland, the actor who played Spiderman, discussed his alcohol problem on a podcast that …

Continue reading “A Web of Addiction”