A moment that changed me: realising, aged 16, that I couldn’t handle alcohol | Lou Sanders

I was 16, on holiday in Alicante on my own – my Aunty Sue was due to join me the next day. So in preparation for her arrival, I drank almost a litre of vodka, hit the town and passed out. A Spanish stranger called an ambulance and the local hospital kindly pumped my stomach. “Olé! Olé!” as they say (translation: Oi! Oi!).

I was in a foreign place, didn’t speak the language, and had no idea where my hostel was. I thought I was streetwise but I was a street idiot. Like many people my age, I was a turbulent sea of emotions: a mix of hormones, some unprocessed family happenings, and a classic case of a broken heart. Because of this emotional maelstrom, the male nurse thought he could drop me back to my hostel via his place and have sex with me, since I was too low on self-esteem, and way too out of it, to put up any sort of counter-argument. Turns out he was right. Muchas gracias, maaate!

I’d like to say that this was the moment that changed me, but I still needed another 117 occasions just as murky to decide that maybe drinking wasn’t for me and that, rather than saving me from my problems, it might have actually been causing quite a few of them, or certainly giving them some fertile ground in which to blossom.

A year later, when I was 17, I was working as a bartender in one of the roughest pubs in Margate. To give you some idea, a lot of the clientele had the latest jewellery in electronic tags, and some of the customers were working as local concubines. It was run by a couple called Pam and Bob and they, as you can imagine, had seen all sorts.

The establishment let you accept drinks as tips while you worked. Big mistake, Pam and Bob, big mistake. I’d had some super-strength lager on the bus over, so the double whiskies really topped off the trouble. By 10pm, I had burnt the arm of my jumper, I had one foot stuck in the bounteous fag bin, and I had smashed a whole dishwasher tray full of drinks into a wall. I was not winning any bar-staff awards that night and, of course, got asked to leave. Later on I found out that I was so drunk my bosses thought that I couldn’t have just been intoxicated – I must have been on drugs. I was not on drugs – well, not that night anyhow.

Around this time, I was also arrested for drink-driving. I was driving at 5mph, so as not to arouse suspicion. Then when I realised the police were tailing me, I thought I could trick them by indicating left, and, you guessed it, turned right. They saw through my plan and pulled me over, but drunk me had another scheme; I downed a bottle of lemon grass aromatherapy oil and told them I was “in a rush, so must be getting on”. Needless to say I was prosecuted, and quite right too.

I have lost count of the incidents through the years and the number of times I gave up drinking. But I did get better at controlling it. When I was younger I used to wet myself and pass out, and I’d often come to with a “friend” who had decided that he would try to remove my clothes and insert his penis in me. It’s a shame judges sometimes blame the women in these scenarios, because if a woman was passed out drunk and someone started punching her in the head (another physical violation) would they say – “to be fair she was drunk, so she was asking for it”? She was only asking for “it”, if “it” is a fully clothed snooze, thank you. Or indeed a nudey-snooze if she so fancies.

Anyway, I cleaned up my side of the street and bit by bit became stronger and started working on the trauma and shame. I do believe that if you are lucky and meet the right people, some horrific situations can be an opportunity to grow stronger, and every single person has a spectrum of events happen to them, which don’t have to define them. I’ve forgiven all the people who used me and abused me when I was drunk because, really, they were just as unconscious as me – just in a different way.

There was no knowing when the beast would be unleashed. But, at some point, the beast was always unleashed

I thank them for all the lessons they brought with them – through their “teachings”, as they all helped me to reach that well-documented rock-bottom, so that all I could do was build upwards. And year on year, slowly but surely, I built a rock-solid foundation. I’ve also forgiven myself for everything in the past (I think), and I hope that all the people who I’ve inflicted my pain on have forgiven me too.

Giving up drinking was a slow and gradual thing. In my late 20s, I drank a fair bit, and was for the most part a big, fun drunk without incident. But there was no knowing when the beast would be unleashed. And, at some point, the beast was always unleashed. I had so much shame and guilt that I drank to forget it. Which is a bit like saying you crave exercise so much that you cut off your legs.

Now, finally, I love not drinking. I love the clarity and simplicity of it, but it’s taken a long time to get here, via many, many mistakes. I used to think I was missing out, so inevitably I would always, slowly, creep back to the wine. Then, through a combination of being in the right place at the right time, meeting the right people and finally being ready – I gave up for good. I also read a great book called The Easy Way to Stop Drinking, by Allen Carr (not that one). It somehow made me realise that I wasn’t missing out; in fact, I would only be missing out if I started drinking again.

The word sober sounds so serious. I still love dancing till 2am and talking shit. I still love all the enjoyable things I did drunk, but there’s choice and power in my decisions now. And I’ve also given up drinking lemongrass aromatherapy oil; that was the big one for me.

• For information on all of Lou’s upcoming projects please visit lousanders.com

A moment that changed me: realising, aged 16, that I couldn’t handle alcohol | Lou Sanders

Stop pretending we can’t afford the NHS: that’s the message of our march today | Larry Sanders

We are living in a world in which the politics of the leaders of two of the world’s great nations – America and Britain – is built on broken promises. During Donald Trump’s election campaign he promised to “take on Wall Street”. So when just weeks later the president announced a cabinet full of banker billionaires, my brother, Senator Bernie Sanders, said: “With all due respect, Donald Trump is a fraud.”

Meanwhile, here in the UK Theresa May took up her post as prime minister on the commitment to “work for all, not just the privileged few”. Well, it is just weeks since our NHS descended into a humanitarian crisis, and we are already looking at another round of privatisation and cuts. Which is why at midday today we will be marching on parliament in support of the NHS.

We don’t need reminding of the horrors we saw over the winter, with people dying on trolleys and turned away from hospitals, and the British Medical Association warning our most cherished institution has been pushed to breaking point. The NHS is facing a £22bn funding gap, with the demand for care set to rise 4% a year while the health service’s budget will go up by only 0.2% every year between now and 2020.

This crisis in healthcare has been exacerbated by the current Tory government – but its foundations were laid by New Labour and further strengthened by the coalition with the Health and Social Care Act of 2012. The creeping privatisation of the past quarter of a century has introduced vast fragmentation and inefficiency into our health service, and, combined with chronic underfunding, has left the NHS on the brink. Anyone who has visited a hospital recently knows how hard doctors, nurses and all the staff are working to make sure patients are cared for with dignity and compassion, despite the strain on the system. It is time we listened to their concerns.

Prime minister Theresa May pledges to build a ‘better Britain’

Adding to the pressure facing hospitals across the country is the financial crisis in social care. We’re living longer, and that’s a great thing – last year, aged 81, I stood in the Witney byelection after David Cameron resigned. But while there are currently one-third more over-85s than 10 years ago, adult social care budgets have been cut by one third in the same time. And the care funded by local authorities accounts for just a small proportion of the care elderly people in the UK currently receive. Every year family, friends and neighbours provide £55bn of unpaid care, four in 10 people in care homes pay for themselves, and a staggering 1.2 million people over 65 with care needs receive no help at all.

We are simply not providing enough care and support for people in the community, at home and close to where they live. This means elderly people are more likely to end up in hospital, and when they get there it is more difficult to get them home again. People who are medically well are stuck in hospital because there is nowhere suitable for them to go and too little support for them at home. The system is failing these people who could be living at home or in supported accommodation instead of being isolated from their communities on a hospital ward. But it also fails those who desperately need the hospital beds these elderly people occupy.

The government’s response has been to engage in a cruel con where local councils were told there was “new” funding for social care, only to find much-needed funding cut from elsewhere. It is little wonder the system is on its knees – and the prime minister’s insistence on ending free movement as part of Brexit risks starving the NHS and care services of the staff they so desperately need.

Today thousands of people will march in support of the NHS, unwilling to stand by and watch while this government dismantles public healthcare – and I’m proud to be among their number. The government tells us there isn’t enough money but this isn’t true. We are the fifth richest country in the world – we have the money to stop our health service turning into a humanitarian crisis, and to care for people when they grow old: in hospitals, the community and homes. We have the money for a fully funded public health service. If Theresa May is to keep her promise to “work for all, not just the privileged few”, she must not let the NHS and social care crumble on her watch.

Stop pretending we can’t afford the NHS: that’s the message of our march today | Larry Sanders