From a young age, Finlay remembered feeling like he was put on this earth by accident, that he didn’t want to be here.
“It was like I didn’t get the memo on how to act, and there was constantly a voice in my head telling me how awful I was for it. Drink was an easy way to escape that.”
Somehow, even trying it for the first time at the age of 13, Finlay knew that alcohol could make him black out. And that was always the aim – he was never interested in just experimenting. Drinking in the park until he was paralytic became a regular Friday night feature. Knowing he wouldn’t get away with it at school, Finlay would smoke cannabis in the week to take the edge off and then drink all weekend. That’s how he managed his early years.
“People thought I was fun to be around in the beginning, but the older I got, the more difficult it became to control my behaviour – so I began drinking more in private.”
Finlay would start the night off with others but then carry on at home, alone. He was stashing cans under clothes in his wardrobe – he got very good at hiding things. After some time, Finlay was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and was admitted to a ‘Therapeutic Community’ (a residential, group-based approach to treating mental illness) where they taught him controlled drinking.
“Nobody used the word ‘alcoholic’, but it was pretty clear that I had a drinking problem – to everyone but me that is. I still didn’t believe alcohol was the issue. In my mind, I was just playing the game so that I could still drink.”
When he completed the programme in April 2010, Finlay had a party to celebrate and didn’t stop drinking until the end of the following July. With nobody to supervise his drinking, he was off and running again and back to where he was before therapy.
While he was still convinced alcohol wasn’t the problem, Finlay reached a point where he was so desperate for help that he agreed to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting on the recommendation of a counsellor in the community.
“Honestly, I think I was mainly going just to please them, and I figured I might get some medication out of it. There was no way I was never going to drink again. How wrong I was!”
Within twenty minutes of his first AA meeting, Finlay felt like he could relate to others there more than anyone in his twenty-six months at the Therapeutic Community. He had never sat with a group of people that had done the same sort of things that he had done for a drink. Opening up to them, Finlay could hear so clearly that he was an alcoholic – and two weeks in, he came out and said it. The acceptance he felt in that moment, and in the ten years since, is a beautiful thing.
It was his AA sponsor, a few months into his recovery, that raised the idea of gender dysphoria. While Finlay was making so many positive changes in other areas of his life, it still felt like there was something missing. It was a bittersweet moment of relief to know what had been going on with him for all those years, for things to finally make sense, while also being terrifying.
“I was just starting to build my life: for the first time ever I had good friends and a strong relationship with my family, and here was this new thing that had the potential to turn everything on its head. I panicked that no one would accept me in the fellowship, that my family would disown me and I would start drinking again. But in the end, the pain of staying how I was became greater than the risk of coming out.”
One day in an AA meeting, he got up and introduced himself as ‘Finlay’.
“The response blew me away: everyone was so supportive and immediately embraced me for who I am. It was the same with my family – my mum was incredible. From day one she was sending me texts saying, “I love you my boy”, “my son”. I don’t think it was any great surprise to her, and she was mainly just relieved to see me get some peace.”
Finlay had been sharing his story on YouTube for years as a hobby, and it occurred to him that he could develop that into a career. Since then, ‘FinnTheInfinncible’ has grown in all sorts of ways. He has been writing, creating content and giving talks, all aimed at making the world a more inclusive and accepting place to live. Finlay is also mentoring and coaching others in the transgender community, and have published a book! Not only that, but he decided to continue a university course on a more creative pathway, and have since graduated with a first-class BSc Honours degree.
“I was told in the early days of my recovery to build a life I didn’t want to lose. All of these things I have, I have because of my recovery – it’s the most precious thing I own. Any fleeting thought of alcohol is fast overshadowed by that fact.”
Finlay lost his mum a year and a half ago, but to have made peace with his past, to be out as a gay man and in a happy, healthy relationship with his partner (to whom he is now engaged!), and most importantly, to have mended and developed a beautiful relationship with his mum before she passed, is a massive gift.
“My advice to others in addiction would be to just take every day at a time. If I think too far in advance, I start panicking. But with anything, especially addiction, if you take it one day at a time and think ‘I just need to do this now’ – then suddenly those ‘nows’ add up. It’s a powerful thing to look back on.”
