ESH: Deano

ESH: Deano

Get ready to be moved by real-life accounts of how alcohol can take over a life and what it looks like to claw your way back. This speaker meeting from the Road to Recovery Group in Plymouth centres on Deano, sharing his experience, strength and hope just after marking ten years without a drink. You’ll hear how Deano grew up with what he describes as a "fantastic upbringing", yet carried a deep sense of entitlement, fear and self-centredness into adulthood.

Long before alcohol, he was masking fear with bravado and feeling like the world owed him. Once drinking took hold, it became his master: first for release, then for blackout, and eventually as a way to die rather than face life. The emotional core of the talk comes when Deano explains several serious relapses, including his heart stopping for eight minutes, and how members of his AA home group refused to "shoot its wounded".

They resuscitated him, visited him in hospital, detoxed him in their homes and kept bringing him back to meetings. His story shows what consistent, practical AA support can look like when someone keeps falling down but doesn’t quite give up.

He talks frankly about faking it in AA, sitting in the middle while avoiding the real work, and how a blunt comment from a friend — that he might be one of those who never gets this — triggered a collapse of pride and a genuine surrender.

At ten years sober, he describes taking a hard inventory of his recovery, noticing where he’d started to slack off, and recommitting to basics like honesty with his sponsor, ringing newcomers, and relying on a power beyond himself.

If you’re wondering whether AA can still work after multiple relapses or a "good" upbringing, Deano’s message is clear: "Just let go of your thinking tonight… don’t hang about, because this disease doesn’t hang about." What step are you ready to take today?