Thinking of You

It's been a while and certainly some things have been happening in my life that I ought to share here.

First, I think I hit a new record low rock bottom last week when, after a ten day binge I finally collapsed into medicated slumber under the watchful eye of the emergency department at the local hospital.  Strung up with an intravenous feed with valium and whatever - I spent a fitful night rolling from side to side with the fluorescent lights buzzing all night.  And the ER staff blinking over at me every time I stirred with that look of concern and at the same time resignation that I was sort of dangerous or unpredictable as a mental health admission.
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So yeah, I have been living the alcoholic dream this last few weeks and it has scared the fuck out of me.  If this doesn't shock me into sobriety, like the psychiatrist said, then I best get used to being admitted and just walking around all day looking through thick glass at the people on the other side.

Anyway, back to the story...
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When I woke up the morning after, I was all puffy in the face and my body ached from having needles and pads and those sensor things stuck to me.  I tried to get up and a big male nurse came straight over and said I should take it easy, what did I want and he would get it for me.  I just wanted to pee and that was sort of all I could for the rest of the day - walk to and from the toilet and just fumble with the gown and the drip and sit down and piss. 

Other times I just rolled from one side to the other trying to get comfortable.  Or listened to the guy next to me get evaluated.  He had a big toe and three other toes on his left foot - they were webbed or something and that's all I ever saw of him, except for hearing his voice.  Left school in year 10, was from the country, had anger issues and had punched the walls and broken his hands the night before.  He groaned every now and then and they explained he was being scheduled as an involuntary patient.

Then they said it was my turn soon.  In hospital, as I would learn over the next five days, time is something you give freely and the doctors and nurses just flit into see you for moments before flitting away again - like butterflies.  So you have to be ready for when they come with your story. 

My story was that I was a drunk and I wanted help and I wanted to stay for a while so I could detox and whatever.  I repeated this to a few different people and must have let slip last night when I was nearly unconscious from drinking that I had taken some pills too.  That I found.  On the side of the road. Just like ten or so.  I googled them and they were for Obsessive compulsive disorder - can't find the strip anywhere, but somehow this got jumbled into a suicide attempt - or self harm at least.

So, as she sat casually with her legs folded on the edge of the bed, sucking a pen, the social worker said she was tossing up whether to send me back home.

"He hasn't got anywhere to go'" my wife said grimly, "He's not coming back home - that's for sure."

It's funny how stoic and calm and rational I can be at times of sheer crisis - like right now, with my wife throwing me back to the hospital.  At the time I felt that first shiver of fear that I would be going somewhere else - into the endless corridors of the hospital to some locked ward.

A psychiatrist came to assess me and sat there asking the same questions again.  I conceded I was depressed and probably had self harmed.  Said I had 6 or 8 bottles of wine each day for the last 10 days, plus beer and vodka when I got it out.  Almost begging her to let me stay for a while - asking to be a voluntary admission.

By four o'clock I was in a van with security mesh being taken up to the country as there were no beds left in town. 


15 comments:

  1. I hope that you have decided this is your bottom. Continuing to flirt with death over and over again is just plain sad. I went to the funeral of a 33 year old fellow yesterday who overdosed. Enough.

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  2. Enough is a good word. You've had enough. You've done this long enough. Enough, already. Get well, my friend, there is better things waiting out there for you. You've had enough of this shit.

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  3. I am praying that you find a way to love yourself, to forgive yourself and to allow yourself to live in freedom. It sounds rough right now, but rough isn't always bad. Hang in there and keep moving your feet forward. (((HUG)))

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  4. and then I went back to my old blog, the place where I used to use language to help make sense of my drinking brain, where I formed sentences to assist me with my determination to not drink, where I turned phrases that proved I was brave and strong, and where I found a community of warm, supportive, encouraging and understanding people. I went to my blog and wrote a post to myself and to them, and so it began ...

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  5. well said, Mrs D.

    Big love to you Bwendo xxx

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  6. It's not worth losing everything you have, everything you love. It's just not worth it. I'm with Mrs. D. all the way.

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  7. I went to the funeral yesterday...of a 65 year old friend, a teacher, a long term partner, a gardner, a perfectly lovely high functioning alcoholic who drank one last pint after her AA meeting. She didn't wake up. So sad and senseless. She thought she had one more drunk in her. She was wrong & we are left without her. We hope you will choose life.

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    1. I fear he cannot at this point. There is nothing any of us can say and I truly believe that if it was in his power he would have already been successful. I do not know why our society ignores the impact alcohol has on lovely, intelligent individuals and does nothing to figure out how to stop it.

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  8. I'm the mom of a alcoholic and drug addict. If standing on my head whistling Dixie would stop him, that's where you'd find me. I hope you can look past what you've done and realize that it is NOT who you are. I hope that you can love yourself enough to fight for yourself. I hope you will be able to find the joy in the wonderful creation that you were made to be. It will be a great joy to see.

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  9. "Thanks. I don't want to die, and I shall put up a fight. But if I lose the match, I want to make a good end of it."

    Bending forward, Rieux pressed his shoulder.

    "No. To become a saint you need to live. So......fight away!"

    Greetings From New Jersey Bwendo.

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  10. Your wife is doing the right thing. Because you cannot even protect yourself, she cannot expect you to protect your children. She must do this herself now.

    I am sad to say that the path you are following seems to have a known conclusion and you appear to be powerless to change it with just sheer will-power.

    If all it took was "wanting it" badly enough you would have already done it.

    After losing my husband to suicide that resulted from his alcoholism and watching the constant struggle to either "be happy sober" or "be happy drunk" and finding that neither seemed achievable my hear aches for your wife and children.

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  11. I have been there too....48 year old female from Seattle here and I am sober right now but only a drink away from that hospital scene once more...hang in there.

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  12. I am so amazed at your wife's decision - amazed that it took her this long. I am on my feet, applauding her for deciding that she has had enough.

    You, my friend, have also had enough. Syd said it perfectly, beautifully: that's enough, now.

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  13. Great blog ,very honest and open
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