Testimony in Luxembourg: He isolated himself for seven months in Portugal to challenge alcohol and regain a taste for life

Like what life, even at 45, can start again. Steve, a Belgian living in Luxembourg, confided just a year ago that his addiction to alcohol had almost cost him his life, several times and literally. A strong testimony that he then shared with the readers of The essentialswhen leaving, on November 15, 2023, for a seven-month treatment in Portugal, “four times cheaper than treatment in Luxembourg”. A year later, almost to the day, we find another man, peaceful, who is now “enjoying life healthily”. This care in a Portuguese establishment, “30 km west of Lisbon”, in conjunction with the CNS, was a saving choice for this father of a 12-year-old child.

Steve stayed there from November 2023 to June 2024. From the first day, he was searched. His phone, his computer, his bank card and even his passport are confiscated. The forty-year-old thinks back to those who considered him going for several months of vacation at the beach. A framework between “discipline and rigor”, which he shares with a group of fifteen patients, “narcotics anonymous”, some of whom came like him from Luxembourg. Alcohol, drugs, gambling, everyone fights their own battle.

“Wake up at 7 a.m., breakfast at 7:30 a.m., room inspection at 8:30 a.m. then start of discussion groups and activities at 9 a.m.,” says Steve, who begins to learn Portuguese, the main language of the place. Therapy with horses, art, yoga, sport… the program is daily and busy, with therapists and the intervention of people who were formerly dependent and have since been treated. “We never leave the center, only twenty minutes on weekends to go and have a coffee as a group. No contact with the outside world, the first days, I cried alone in my bed,” the man continues.

“They put our backs against the wall to see how we will react, and if our emotions redirect us towards consumption.” The objective is to take small steps, that is to say to set the ambition to postpone alcohol in this day that begins. From the short term “to understand our mechanism” of dependence and “build our recovery over a long period”. After four months, Steve transferred to another Portuguese establishment for the rest of the course. There, he himself is required to supervise adolescents or adults with disabilities.

“It did me a lot of good to refocus on myself, rediscover myself and understand that life is pleasant without substances,” he confides today. He has since returned to the Grand Duchy, reunited with his loved ones, his son and even resumed professional activity. He does not speak openly about all this, few people know. He can be proud to have left behind some dark memories, from a stab to himself to these twelve bottles of wine consumed at once in the middle of the Covid confinement. “The only thing that has changed is me and my state of mind.”

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