LShame, guilt, excess modesty are the enemies of alcoholic patients. The isolation into which their addiction and its share of deleterious consequences plunge some also poses a barrier to another life, that of abstinence, the only possible salvation. Jacques Bouchet took more than fifteen years to understand. To understand that he had to fight his deadly penchant for alcohol, to agree not to embark on this fight alone. “Alone, my destiny would have been different. Thanks to others, I managed to talk about my problems and my anxieties. It was by talking about my demons that I managed to dominate them,” Jacques wrote in the early 2000s.
Dry January: 7 tips for succeeding in the January Challenge
Dry January, January Challenge in French, consists of not drinking alcohol from January 1 until the end of the month, like the Month Without Tobacco which takes place in November. Born in the United Kingdom, adopted in many countries, Dry January can help you understand your position in relation to alcohol. Are you able to do without it? Are you able to control your consumption?
As an outlet, Jacques Bouchet began to collect his memories more than twenty years ago. Story that Fabienne Pottier agreed to publish (Éditions Lis ma Vie). “Jacques has been drinking… and will not drink again!” » was symbolically released on November 18, 2024, thirty years to the day after the start of Jacques Bouchet's second life. Almost thirty years after his last drink, “rosé”, which he still consumed in 1994 like others down a glass of water or fruit juice, his new favorite drink. In his book testimony, almost a confession, Jacques Bouchet confides having tasted alcohol again, in 1996, after two years of withdrawal. “It disgusted me so much that I never tried it again. »
Vodka at 15
Jacques Bouchet crossed paths with alcohol from childhood, raised – by “nurturing” parents, he learned at the age of 15 – on a farm in the Jonzac countryside. His “father” André cultivated vines, among other things. At 8 years old, Jacques already knew the taste of wine. At 15, he missed not visiting his neighbor Rudy, a former legionnaire, who didn't care about serving Cointreau or vodka to kids.
Jacques changed, he analyzes backwards, when he discovered that his parents were not, biologically. “My mother worked for them. Pregnant with me, she asked them to take care of my brother, aged a year and a half, and me if anything happened to him. She died eight days after my birth…”
Being surrounded, the key
Looking back, after sixteen years of daily and sometimes extreme alcoholism, and today thirty years of abstinence, Jacques Bouchet understood: “No matter, ultimately, the excuses and the extenuating circumstances, we are all responsible for this that happens to us. This is good news and bad news, it means that we all have the power to change things, to no longer feel guilty for what happened, but to put things in place to prevent it from happening again. »
We all have the power to change things, to stop feeling guilty
“Putting things in place”, Jacques Bouchet began to do in 1994. “It needed to click… That year, my biological brother died of alcohol at 33 and a doctor gave me two years to live if I kept drinking like I was. It gave me food for thought…” Jacques has always worked, year in and year out, despite his addiction. In the maintenance of gardens, houses, for individuals, or through integration contracts within municipal services in Pays Royannais. Even when he preferred to live outside, under the stars or in a car wreck in the woods, to reserve the little money he earned to pay for his daily dose of alcohol. But even during the time of the “galley”, Jacques Bouchet was never alone. In Royan, especially, in the Marne Yeuse district, he has expanded his friendly network, another lifeline.
He “plays” the alcoholic
In thirty years of abstinence, he sometimes approached the abyss. In these same columns, in 2004, although he had been sober for ten years, he admitted to sometimes being “afraid of diving back in”. Even recently, in 2018, when his foster mother Gisèle died, he felt the anguish of finding comfort in alcohol. “I called the 15th, straight away! » Who directed him towards the La Croix Bleue association (1). Which he knows well. Jacques Bouchet joined in 1994 and the start of his new life, becoming an “active member after a year and a half”, his first source of pride. Today he is even the “anti-alcohol” secretary at the regional level.
Jacques was also involved in Restos du coeur. He participates in the workshops offered by the socio-cultural center, especially the theater workshop, not afraid to slip once again into the skin of a drunken Bourvil embodying a member of the anti-alcohol league nevertheless extolling the virtues of ferruginous water . A simple compositional role for him today.
(1) National association committed against alcohol addiction.
