Man who drank four litres of vodka a day got sober after being registered blind: ‘Losing my sight has saved my life’

A Liverpool man who was addicted to alcohol has said “losing my sight has saved my life” after being registered blind forced him to confront his drinking head on.

Ray Clements, 53, would drink two to four litres of vodka per day while using cocaine “just really to keep me out longer”, so he could drink more, at the height of his addiction. It wasn’t until he was diagnosed with Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON), a rare genetic cause of vision loss, that he decided to turn his life around and get clean and sober.

Ray was diagnosed with LHON in February 2022, after waking up on his 49th birthday to discover that his vision “had gone really, really bad”. The condition has gradually worsened over the years, and he now has “very, very blurred” central vision.

In the daytime, he can see shapes, but in darkness he can only make out lights. However, he maintains that sight loss has saved his life as without the wake-up call of being registered blind, he might never have given up drinking.

“On my 49th birthday, I woke up in the morning and my sight had gone really, really bad,” Ray told PA Real Life.

“I just thought I’d crack on. I went out with my brothers and a few friends for my birthday, and I was telling them there’s something wrong with my sight. They’re telling me to get new glasses and all that stuff, but my elder brother also suffers from Leber’s.

“I went a couple of weeks, and then I went to a local Specsavers, and I said: ‘Something’s wrong with my sight’. He found a tear in one of my eyes, and he said it could be that, and I was absolutely chuffed, (thinking) it’s just a tear in my eye.

“He sent me to Aintree Eye Hospital, and they did about 12, 13 tests on my eyes, and they said, ‘Your eyes are fine. We can’t find anything wrong with your eyes’.

“So I said to them, ‘You’re going to have to check for Leber’s, because it’s in the family’.

“They weren’t 100% sure about Leber’s, it is quite a rare condition. So they went away and they checked for that, they said we’ll do a test, we have to send samples away to Newcastle or somewhere.”

During that waiting period, Ray reached out to a friend who, “let’s just say, we had a drinking career together”, he said.

“I noticed something different about him, to be honest. So I phoned him, and he came round, and the truth is, I was sat there absolutely KO, bladdered, drunk as a skunk, however you want to put it.

“And he said to me: ‘Hey, lad, I go to the meetings now’. I was like, ‘What’s that?’”

He explained he was in recovery for his own addiction.

“I was like, ‘That’s not really for me’, and he said: ‘Look, if you ever want to go, just let me know’. And he left it at that.

“I’ll be honest: For two weeks, I tossed and turned over the idea of ringing him, but I just couldn’t build up the courage, because he’s one of them friends where I knew once I said yes, he would be at my door the next day.

“So it took a week or so, and then I phoned him and just said: ‘I think I need help mate’.

“This was Saturday evening, and he said to me: ‘I will be at yours at quarter to six on Monday. Be ready’. And he took me to my first meeting.”

In that first meeting, hearing everyone talk, Ray thought his friend must have told them all his story, they knew so much about his experience. But then he realised those people had all been in the same position as him, and he truly needed help with his addiction.

“It hit me that I’m home,” he said.

“I’m where I’m meant to be.”

Ray made it to 62 days sober. However, on February 15 2022 his doctors returned his test results, and he was formally diagnosed with LHON and registered blind.

“I phoned a few people and said I was OK, and then I went away and drank,” he said.

“And I had no choice. I didn’t understand it.”

The next morning, Ray woke up next to a glass of vodka and realised it was now or never. He needed to get sober.

He went into a meeting the next day, and the room was full, but he shared that he’d relapsed and apologised. A couple of days later, he found a sponsor, and told them that he was registered blind and couldn’t see properly.

“He said: ‘Oh, we can work with that’. And he removed every excuse with that one sentence,” he said.

“Since that day, since February 17 2022, I haven’t picked up a drink nor drugs.”

“Losing my sight has saved my life,” he added.

“That’s as simple as it is… Without sight loss, I wouldn’t have walked in those rooms.”

While sight loss brings new challenges for Ray, he maintains that “I see more clearly now than I ever have without sight”.

“It is what it is, isn’t it?” he said of his sight loss.

“It’s something I’m not in control of. What I am in control of is staying clean and sober.”

Now, rather than living a life revolving around alcohol and drugs, Ray is involved in all manner of hobbies and initiatives. He plays blind baseball for Great Britain, through which he has earned a bronze and silver medal – and is the only Englishman in history to hit a home run in blind baseball.

He is also launching a sight loss non-profit called Finding the Solution, with which he aims to bring Goalball – a sport designed specifically for players with vision impairment, which involves throwing a ball embedded with bells into an opponent’s goal  – into mainstream schools and break barriers in sport for visually impaired people.

Plus, he has sponsored 15 people through their own sobriety journeys, which also helps keep him on the right track.

Ray also has a “beautiful guide dog”, a Labradoodle named Garson, by his side to get him through the toughest days.

“There’s days when I wake up and I don’t want to do anything, and the illness in the back of my mind is all over me, saying you’re worthless, all that stuff, beating you up,” he confessed.

“And then Garson will walk in, and put his nose on the bed next to me, and wag his tail, and look at me, and I’m like: ‘You want to go out, don’t you?’ And I have to get up.

“There have been many days where I’ve been walking around the local park, just being like: ‘Do you know what lad, thank you so, so much. Without you, I wouldn’t be here’.”

In February, Ray will celebrate four years sober, and said he would “absolutely give my left arm to be clean and sober for five years”.

He said that everything that he’s achieved is because of his sobriety, and he looks forward to a future free of drink and drugs where even without his sight, he’s living a full, happy life, with Garson by his side.

Guide Dogs is calling on people to volunteer to help create more life-changing partnerships like Ray and Garson’s. More information is available at guidedogs.org.uk/volunteering