My amazing older sister drank herself to death during the 1st COVID Lockdown and died alone in the hospital. A divorce in 1988 increased her drinking, and it never got better after that. I never got to say goodbye. I wasn’t allowed to see her. The last time I saw her, she was being wheeled backwards into an ambulance, and she looked terrified. She was out of it, she’d collapsed, but was aware enough to know, kind of, what was happening. Those ambulance doors clanged like a massive mouth clamping shut (honest, that’s not artistic licence, that’s exactly how it looked) and that was it.
Gone.
That beautiful, gentle soul was just 60 years old. She was the Yang to my Ying, the scratch to my itch. She filled every room she walked into with a raucous laugh that would make dogs three streets away wince in pain, and I was the one who could make that laugh happen. We would have long, hilarious family nights, year after year, holidays where the drinking never seemed that much of a problem. Perhaps she hid it well. Maybe I chose to turn a blind eye. Most likely, I was three sheets to the wind myself.
We tried to help her prior to COVID-19. She’d stayed with us so that we could keep an eye on her, and she was doing all right. She moved back home to her place, then…lockdown – isolation – alcohol shop within walking distance. What a fucked up perfect storm and perversely, an ideal opportunity for anyone with the drinkers mind set.
All I can think of is the alcohol demon leaving her body, (‘This one’s gone) and moving on to the next willing soul. There’s plenty to choose from. That fucker has no conscience, only hunger. It’s like fire. Always hungry, and the only way to put it out is to literally starve it to death.
I miss her so much it aches. And d’you know what the stupidest fucking thing is? I continued to drink like a man possessed after she died. Maybe it was, in a way, pure anger, spite, and I don’t know what else. I was driven. Man, I was committed to the cause, and that alcohol voice was almost seductive in its encouragement. I was vying to be at the front of the queue for long enough, but not anymore.
When I was drinking, my life was an uncontrolled mess, unravelling in front of me as I watched. And that’s what the alcohol can do without a care. The first three stages of recovery – precontemplation, contemplation, preparation – had been working away in my brain for months, kind of behind my back. I didn’t KNOW that was happening at the time, but looking back now from over 6 months sober? – Yes! – that is exactly what was going on.
In these 6 months sober, I have learned that the stages of recovery are precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. The action stage punched me in the face repeatedly over the course of about 72 hours. Man, that was painful and hard work, but necessary, and that’s when I got to Day One—my last day one, I hope!
What did it take to move me from precontemplation, contemplation, and preparation to action? It took a full-blown seizure, mental breakdown, and a nine-night hospital stay to break the chain of self-destructive drinking in denial. Even after all that, I fell foul more than a handful of times, but pulled back HARD on the reins, and this time, so far, I’m making it stick.
If six months sober has taught me or brought me anything, the word that comes up most on my ‘How we Feel’ app when I check in there daily is the word ‘Peace’.
Peace. Comfortable. At ease. Content. All variations on the same theme, and all brought about by removing one single thing from my daily equation- a thing which I’d been conditioned to think was there to assist me in the way of life I aspired to, but was actually the main cause of the chaos that blocked the road. Here is a humbling thought, but it’s also very true: before I stopped drinking I was the one paying voluntary contributions to this absolute horror show. The definition of insanity: ‘ Doing the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result.’ No matter how unique I may think my crappy situation is, leading me to push the self destruct button marked ‘alcohol’ – well, life itself has seen it all before. Nothing new here, folks, so if you’d kindly move along.
I can only speak from within my own little world of sobriety, but I hope that awareness and especially self-awareness are on the up and that people are making attempts to jump from awareness to action. At one point, there were 73 people on the Monday morning SMART meeting that I attend. Any form of attempt is better than inaction or ‘If you fling enough shit, some of it will stick’, as my Philosophy Tutor didn’t used to say. Don’t get stuck in the cycle because alcohol WILL take you.
I’m happily, seriously happily, at stage 5 – maintenance, and as such, I’m not drinking today, which is day 188 alcohol -Free! .
It’s my line, but I’ve never meant it more – I didn’t drink yesterday & I’m NOT drinking today.
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