How the drink and drama saga began...then...

Beforemath-How the drink and drama saga started…

There I was in my doctor’s surgery. The blood pressure was ok, how was I keeping? Well actually, Doc, I’m feeling very low, I’m not sleeping and I’m drinking far too much. I just can’t seem to get a grip on things. Can’t seem to climb back up the hole I’ve fallen down into like Alice in Wonderland... Foolish of me to mention the “Drink” word to a teetotaller General Practitioner who is a one woman “Stop Them All Drinking” Campaign. She makes AA look like party central…Anyone, in her view, who drank more than the stipulated maximum units per week was descending the slippery slope to moral turpitude and residence in the nearest gutter. Is there a Weight Watchers for drinkers? I asked. Yes, sez she, it’s called AA. And before I could say knife I was out the door clutching a prescription for anti-anxiety pills, sleeping pills and the ‘phone number of a counselling service.

I filled the prescription. Took it home. Opened the packet of sleeping pills and read through the possible side effects. They ranged from the merely embarrassing (diarrhoea) to the terrifying (hallucinations). In between came allergic reactions, nausea, weight gain, rashes and - I stopped reading. I’d need to take an anti-anxiety tab if I was going to read any further about the anti-anxiety meds. I tossed the tabs into the kitchen press beside the herbs and spices I don’t use either. Unless they’ve been eaten by partying mice seeking an illicit thrill, they’ll be there yet. Out of date. Or maybe drugs improve with age.

I digress. So - back I went to the doc a few weeks later. “Have you given up the alcohol?” “No Doctor I haven’t. I still don’t feel right. Ok,   I’ll see the counsellor you recommended this week.”  Two months later I rang the doorbell of the stone building. Sat in the foyer. There was a sign on the wall that read “Every day is a new beginning”. Beside it hung a garish painting of a fried egg which on closer inspection turned out to be a sunrise.  Along came my appointed counsellor to bring me to his room. As he led me along the corridor, more aphorisms – the Serenity Prayer – and the coup-de-grace; a plaque stating that this centre for the treatment of alcohol and other addictions had been opened by the Minister for Health in June two thousand and splash.. Dear God. That cute hoor of a doctor had me in rehab…

 Some nights I risked half a sleeping tablet, or if I had to be up early drank my coca with accompanying Xanax biscuit. I happened to mention the name of the sleepers to a friend who works in the Department of Justice, aka “The Courts”… I was floored when she told me that the anti-anxiety meds I had were very highly addictive and that the sleeping tabs were even more addictive plus – they were the drug of choice of addicts and fetched the highest price on the black market! That’s great, I said, I can sell them outside your court room and make a few bob- damned if I’m going to take them. The irony of it is not lost to me; Doctor Temperance in her wisdom had sent me to this place while at the same time prescribing the two most addictive drugs in the legal pharmacopeia…

So I talked to the counsellor whom I was convinced was an ex-priest although of course I couldn’t ask. Talked about this, that and the other, how I felt, how much I drank, blah blah blah. Then unexpectedly, the killer blow. I never saw it coming. He asked a very intimate question about my relationship. Blind sided, from nowhere the tears spouted; I shook with the sobs. Finally the truth forced itself to appear.  There was a large elephant in the room. And it was wearing a wedding ring.

Still racked with sobs as I was leaving, the counsellor told me to take it easy. Could I go home? No I couldn’t. I had to go to work. So that’s what I did. I went to work and tried to stem the tears at my desk. Fruitlessly.