Idealist; one guided by ideals;

Those of you who know me well would know that during 2007 I became worried about my alcohol consumption. Those who know me better would know that I quit drinking (read: not a single drop of alcohol) for five months. Thats one hundred and fifty-four days without so much as a sniff of alcohol. Three thousand, six hundred and ninety-six hours.

This period of abstinence will be always be known for the heightened level of self-knowledge and introspection I attained during my sober hours. I truly believe I learnt more about my innermost self in these five months than I ever had in 22 years of life. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

At the end of 2006 I was increasing my alcohol consumption. I knew this. I also knew that I like alcohol a little too much. I had long suspected alcohol was A Little Too Much Fun. Under the circumstances however, my occasional over-indulgences could be swept under the carpet of “the festive season,” or “my youth,” or even “a reward for working so hard.”

In 2006 I spent Christmas with my girlfriend and her family up in the Sunshine Coast of Australia, reveling in my happiness and my invincibility. “How lucky I was” I thought. I marveled at my accomplishments, the uphill battle I had fought since moving out of home four years prior, I patted myself on the back, kissed my girlfriend and downed another beer.

My girlfriend left the country on the 24th January 2007 to a tearful farewell. I wondered if we would survive the seven months apart–longer than we had been together at that stage–and feared for our longevity. I underestimated the severity of her absence.

We said goodbye to each other outside the departure gates, not saying anything meaningful or unique and yet speaking volumes at the with our sadness. My grief was written across my face as she turned and walked away. I cried on the way home.

One of the last things she said to me before she left was: “I hope your grandma is okay.”

I had completely forgotten.

I had gotten a cryptic email from my father a few days earlier that hinted at some looming disaster, an impeding doom, an unavoidable catastrophe. I struggled to understand its import and meaning, and once I had deciphered it, struggled to forget.

The week after Jess left, my father called to tell me that my grandmother was dying. She was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer … the granddaddy of all cancer – the average survival window from diagnosis is 3-6 months. The doctor had given my grandmother a death sentence. Only a few months previously she was putting the finishing touches on a new book, and planning the outlines of a few more to come. Now even treatment was out the window, the only thing left was “to get her affairs in order” and “make her comfortable.”

My response to this was to drink.

Indeed, looking back to those months all I remember is being profoundly listless and lifeless at work, rushing home at 5:30pm, opening a six pack of beer and downing them in quick succession. I cannot explain to anyone who has a social-drinker’s relationship to alcohol how much this burgeoning relationship meant to me. The fugue of drunkenness protected me. From when I arrived home in the afternoon until I passed out at night, I was safe. Reality could not intrude and its harshness was dulled with the casual acknowledgment that, no matter how bad things got, “there was always more alcohol.”

If you had asked me at the time I would have said that “the alcohol is helping me process Marie’s impending death and Jess’ recent departure … its putting me in touch with my emotions, I feel capable of expression when I drink.” That is bullshit. I was so incredibly numb for the entire period that to this day I wonder if it was actually me who experienced those months of turmoil.

It feels as if those crucial months were experienced by someone else, and the knowledge and memories I have from it are merely second-hand accounts, the product of someone else’s experience. To this day, it remains a great regret of mine: that I was so drugged up as to not realize that I should be making more of the remaining time I have with my grandmother–the most amazing woman I’ve ever known. But all I could think during my last two weeks with my grandmother was: “I need to get my hands on some of that Morphene!” Several times throughout my stay there I thought about raiding the medication cabinet.

I have always felt that Marie and I were kindred spirits. We were both Wood Oxes in the Chinese Zodiac, and I always felt that we saw parts of ourselves within the other person–I was her and she was me–just at different stages of the journey.

I constantly feel myself torn between the twin desires of striving for success and the comfort of an relaxed existence and I think perhaps one of the most valuable things I could have asked her during this period was: “So … is it worth it, to try so hard?” But I’m not sure what answer she could have given.

By the time I flew over to Auckland for a two week visit in February she was staying at home in a specially imported hospital bed and was loaded up on morphene. I sat with her for a large majority of my ‘holiday,’ as she dosed in out of morphene-induced delusions and hallucinations. We didn’t say much, but I believe it was comforting for her to wake up every now and again and see me reading on the couch beside her bed.

But I’m losing track. This blog was originally about alcohol. I seem to have gone ‘off-brand.’ But perhaps its fitting. Alcohol to the alcoholic is inseparable from the larger fabric of life and experience … it is like breathing – can you imagine how hard it would be to deal with death of a relative? … now try to imagine how hard it would be without breathing!

On the day of the funeral I was drunk from 2pm until 5am, when I passed out, with a glass of red wine in my hand (to this day I wonder how I managed not to spill it while unconscious). At this stage it took a six-pack to get me tipsy (classified as ‘binge-drinking’ by the health authorities), and so a concerted effort was required to get me shit-faced that day. But I was up to the challenge.

Marie died on Friday 13th April. Black Friday. At the time, my grandfather, Warwick, was on life-support in the Intensive Care Unit after having a stroke three days prior. He recovered, thankfully, and returned home in full health several days later.

Once I had been sober for a while I realised that my priority must be to make use of the time I have been granted with my grandfather, and so I flew over to New Zealand for a long weekend and spent some time with him.

Black Friday (Friday the 13th) normally occurs once per year. In 2007 it occurred twice. The first occasion heralded my grandmother’s departure from this earth. On its second occurrence in 2007 we bid farewell to my grandfather.

But this is all incidental.

Which is to say, there were factors that I had never before had to deal with. My emotional state had never been wrenched by the simultaneous loss of two grandparents and a girlfriend. And while these were undoubtedly important events, and perhaps sped my rush towards alcohol, they were not the cause. And alcohol was not their remedy. The two were linked, and yet unrelated.

And I will need more than one blog to tell the story of 2007. This blog is not the story of 2007. This blog is about my love affair with alcohol.

On the 10th May I wrote an email to my girlfriend that can be summarized in the following sentence: “Surprise! I’m an alcoholic! This is your responsibility, make me quit drinking.”

Needless to say, this freaked her out. It freaked me out too. The next day I went to my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

I will say very little about AA in this blog, because I feel like it would be a betrayal of trust of all those people who shared their stories with me, and all those people who listened patiently as I recounted mine.

However I will say this: if you suspect you might have a problem with alcohol, or you sometimes worry about your alcohol consumption, don’t wait till its too late. Go to a meeting. If its not for you, fine. But I really and truly believe that I wouldn’t have been able to get sober were it not for AA. For the first two weeks of sobriety I went to an AA meeting every day, and I credit those meetings with keeping me sane during that time.

Five months later I began drinking again, but I am conciously and constantly monitoring my alcohol consumption. If you were to ask me whether I will ever see the inside of an AA meeting again, I would probably say ‘yes’. I would like to say ‘no’. But the reality is thatI probably will … how soon I do depends entirely upon me. But recognising the problem is half the battle…