Anna Blake (pictured with her son), head of sales and marketing at Solar Gates UK, discusses her road to sobriety and the support from her company and this industry.
If I am brutally honest, there was a time not so long ago when my life hung in the balance. I was down, beaten and very sick and had lost everything except the roof over my head (and even that was only a couple of weeks away from being lost).
But it wasn’t always like that. My upbringing was idyllic, my family awesome. Although looking back, alcohol was around from a pretty early age. As a teen and into my twenties I partied, got married, partied some more and generally life wasn’t too bad. I had a decent job and yes occasionally life suffered a bit, ‘sunny Sundays’ on the sofa sleeping and late in on Mondays, but life was mostly OK.
Trying for a family took its toll on me and my marriage. During that time I would seek comfort in the bottle; it was what I knew would help me feel better.
When I finally got pregnant, giving up the wine was hard, but I had something else to concentrate on. After my son was born, life became turbulent. Babies are tough and soon postnatal depression, not helped by alcohol, started to bite and my marriage suffered.
By the time my son was four, I had lost the lot, including any semblance of myself.
Addiction is horrible, I knew I had to stop. Oh my god, I so desperately wanted to stop. Almost daily the pain and overwhelming emotions hit me when I realised I just couldn’t stop. Just one more. I’ll fix it tomorrow I would promise myself, day after day, after day.
Eventually, a shadow of my former self, I begged my awe-inspiring dad for help. As always, he came through for me.
I went to rehab where I learned so much about who I was and the kind of person I wanted to be. I learnt to value myself and love me for exactly who I was.
It was important for me to make my own journey and accept responsibility for my own future. But with a little sobriety and stability under my belt, I was introduced to Solar Gates UK by their managing director and started to do a bit of freelance work for them. The stability of my continued sobriety and some work showed the world what I knew – I was ready. I could be a parent, family member, citizen and friend.
I went on to work for a couple of companies (while still freelancing for Solar Gates), bought a house, got 50/50 custody of my son and finalised my divorce. And then – when I was ready – Neil Sampson and Chris Long interviewed me for a permanent position!
My Solar Gates and highways industry story started. I decided to go at life head-on. Solar Gates has so many stories and amazing people who work there and this great culture where you can just be yourself. I quickly realised that it is the people and leadership that make this organisation so special.
Not all of my recovery has been easy – there have been some stormy times – but I have realised that I am incredibly resilient now. Each day I get stronger and more confident in the person I am.
Self-doubt and fear still often run riot in my life, but I am certainly much tougher and more confident than I have ever been before. And I have the tools and self belief to tackle each day as it comes.
I have also discovered that I only get to keep this new incredible life if I also spend time helping others. I found that my life is more meaningful and purposeful when I am able to help others. I have to give my story away to help others, in order to keep my recovery going.
If I can come back from where I was, anyone can. It took guts, courage and sheer grit. But it also took me to make the decision to do something about it. To do something about it for me, not anyone else.
Perhaps that is why I had to get to the bottom where there was nothing and no one left to try and fool. Only myself. Then I was ready to reach out to the many addiction recovery services such as Alcoholics Anonymous and do it for me.
In a mission to help others, Solar Gates UK has launched an addiction awareness campaign. As an organisation, Solar Gates is aware that there is much more the highways industry can do to help the people of our community who are presenting with alcohol and substance misuse disorders. Its aim is to take an in-depth look at what some organisations are doing really well to help employees into recovery, like Transport for London, which has a whole department dedicated to this.
