A Labor MP fought back tears in the Commons as he revealed his alcohol addiction nearly killed him twice.
Dan Carden, MP for Liverpool Walton, made the comments during a parliamentary debate on Pride Month.
He advised young people to be “proud of who you are” and who “you choose to love”.
Mr Carden told MPs about ‘daily denials’ and ‘constant fear of being discovered’ as he grew up Lgbt, warning that it can cause “deep trauma.”
“My advice is to choose to live,” he said.
Mr Carden pointed out that there are high rates of depression, loneliness, drug addiction and suicide among gay men.
“Each of them in turn causing more shame, more fear and more trauma – that’s what happened to me,” he added.
“It took a long time for me to admit that I was struggling with my mental health and alcohol addiction – in fact, it took repeated interventions from the people who really loved me.
“I didn’t know, I denied I had a problem, I suppressed my emotions – as I had learned to do as a kid – and I told myself that everything was fine.
“It was only by looking back that I was able to accept that in my 20s I almost lost my life twice to alcohol, saved only by the actions of others. Drinking destroyed my body, damaged me and my relationships in many other ways.
“Alcohol addiction isn’t about drinking every day or getting drunk. For me, it was about losing who I was over a long period of time.
“It was ending my personal life, using a drug – alcohol – to make myself feel better but ultimately to escape and give up on living. Now I know that has ruined most of my …
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Source: news.sky.com
This notice was published: 2021-07-01 15:53:00