We chatted inconsequentially, about mutual friends, her business, our children, the property market.
Suddenly she said, ‘Tell me about drinking too much.’
I shrugged. ‘I drink too much, end of story.’
‘Shall I tell you about my drinking? Would that help?’
‘If you like.’ I was awkward, unused to somebody being so open about drinking. I kept mine a secret, even from my closest friends. I liked to drink alone. That way, I could drink as much as I liked. That way, I was the only witness to my shame. And I was ashamed. Alcohol does that to you.
Lulu said, ‘Every night, I promised myself that I wouldn’t drink the next day and every morning, when I woke up, I promised myself that I wouldn’t drink that day. As I left the house to go to work, I promised myself, again, that I wouldn’t drink that day. As I stepped into the off-licence, I pretended that two miniature bottles of vodka didn’t really count as a drink. If I drank them on my way to work, it would level me out sufficiently to get through the morning. Any more, and I’d be a wreck. Once I had drunk them, I swore that I’d never drink again.’
I said nothing. Those promises were familiar territory. I had made them myself, countless times.
‘I’d get through the rest of the day somehow, but my mind was always fixed on alcohol. Perhaps if I just had one drink, after that I could stop completely. Just one couldn’t hurt, could it? Then I would decide that, no, I would be good. I would go home, have a bath, make myself something nice to eat and have an early night so I’d be fresh for work the next day.’
She looked at me, her eyes clear.
‘I knew that was what I was going to do. But I still stopped at the off-licence and bought myself a bottle of wine and got straight into bed without washing or eating and I drank until I passed out.’ She grimaced at the memory. ‘I don’t even like the taste of alcohol.’
Nor did I. In fact, I’d come to hate it. But I loved the effect, the way it stopped the pain, stopped me feeling.
She said, as if reading my mind, ‘I drank to change the way that I feel.’
I wanted, right then, to change the way that I felt, or how she was making me feel. Even thinking about it made me want a drink. What could be the harm in having one drink, to make me feel better? Perhaps she didn’t know what she was talking about. After all, it wasn’t as if she had been drinking that much. I knew people who drank far more and they didn’t think they had a problem. ‘It doesn’t sound too much, a bottle of wine and two miniatures a day.’
‘It’s not how much you drink. It’s how you drink. And why.’
‘I only drink because of the depression. If it wasn’t there, I wouldn’t drink,’ I laughed nervously. ‘Or I wouldn’t drink so much.’
‘I know. I’m a depressive. Manic, actually. Bipolar. It gives you a real thirst.’
I laughed.
‘Seriously, though, a drink doesn’t make it better. It only makes it worse. How much are you drinking?’
‘A bottle of wine, perhaps two a day.’
‘Can you stop?’
‘Yes, no,’ I sighed. ‘I don’t know.’
I thought of my psychiatrist. ‘You must stop drinking, Sally. You’re not giving yourself a chance. You’re taking antidepressants with one hand and a depressant with the other. You’ll never get better if you keep drinking.’
I sighed. ‘No. Well, I find it hard to stop. But I’m not an alcoholic.’
Lulu’s smile curved. ‘What’s an alcoholic?’
‘Someone who sleeps on a park bench? Who passes out? Who gets violent? Who can’t hold down a job?’
Lulu’s smile curved even higher. ‘I am an alcoholic.’
I looked down at my hands.
Her voice was gentle. ‘Sal, I know exactly how you feel. I tried doing it on my own too, and it doesn’t work. We need help. We cannot do it on our own.’
‘But you look so well, and happy.’
‘I go to AA. It works, I promise you. Why don’t you come to a meeting and see what you think? I’ll look after you. It’s not scary. It’s only the thought of it that’s scary.’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I can stop on my own. I’ve done it before.’
Lulu got up and hugged me. ‘We’ve all done it before. We’ve done it so many times we’re sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. We all think we can do it on our own. It’s just that we don’t have to. We don’t have to be alone.’
I nodded. For some reason, I wanted to cry. ‘OK.’
‘I have to go now. Call me,’ she said, and I watched her walk up the road, her flowered silk skirt swinging.
I bought a bottle of wine on the way home. I drank it and then I went out and bought another. I drank that until I stopped feeling anything at all.
Tom started to disappear again. I felt him slipping further and further away from me. I wanted him back, wanted the intimacy we used to share so easily. I felt as if we were standing on either side of a huge chasm, both unhappy, both unable to reach the other. I started to blame him for destroying the thing that we had. It never occurred to me to blame myself. I was the one reaching out. He was the one who was refusing to take my hand.
He sent me an email.
Darling,
I find myself slipping into old patterns of behaviour that I know have upset and confused you in the past. My solution, to withdraw and regroup, just exacerbates things but I don’t know what else to do sometimes.
The source of it all is my anger with myself, I suppose, which makes it hard for me to accept or return affection. I’m sorry.
xxx
I started to drink a little harder. My loneliness grew, until it seemed unbearable. I was never going to get out of this place, was never going to be able to connect. Everything was in pieces, and I could see no way out.
The person who had put in an offer on the flat wanted to move very fast. Could we complete in four weeks?
‘He’s fallen in love with it. He says it’s perfect.’
I thought of the damp walls, running with tears. But they were my walls and my tears.
‘I don’t have anywhere to go.’
‘I’ll help you look,’ the estate agent said.
‘OK, but it must have a garden.’
‘In the meantime, can you get on to your solicitor so we can start the ball rolling?’
‘Of course.’ I didn’t have a solicitor. Panic rose, acrid in my throat. I had to find a solicitor, and somewhere to live.
‘Four weeks?’ I said.
‘You can always rent.’
‘That means moving twice.’
‘He’s come in on the asking price. In the present market, it’s a great deal. I’m not sure you’ll get another offer like this. You might have to drop ten thousand and that’s going to cover rented accommodation, and more.’
I sighed. ‘OK.’
When I put down the phone, I felt very tired and very alone.
‘My name’s Sally, and I’m an alcoholic.’
The words stuck in my throat. Fifty people were looking at me.
‘Hi Sally,’ they chorused. ‘Welcome.’
Lulu, who was sitting next to me, squeezed my hand. ‘Well done,’ she whispered.
I sank lower in my seat. ‘Everyone’s looking at me.’
‘They always do that with a newcomer. They want to remember your face, so they can help you.’
‘Oh, God.’
I was sitting in an AA meeting because I knew that my drinking was out of control. I could pretend to my friends that I did not drink too much, because I kept most of my drinking a secret by drinking alone. I could pretend to myself that a bottle or two of wine a day was not excessive. But I could no longer pretend that I could stop drinking for more than a couple of weeks. I always went back to it and that failure, together with the knowledge of what I was doing to my brain, made me feel worse than ever. The guilt and the shame were appalling and, every time I felt them, I simply wanted another drink. I was trapped in
a vicious circle. So I called Lulu and asked her to take me to a meeting.
We sat in an old church hall, on moulded grey plastic seats arranged in a semicircle to face a low table. Behind that sat two people, a man and a woman. The woman was young, with long straight shiny hair and a wide smile. She wore skinny jeans and a leather jacket and a red cashmere scarf, which she kept winding and rewinding around her neck. ‘It’s fucking cold in here,’ she said. ‘Is anyone else fucking cold?’ Then she clapped her hand to her mouth. ‘Fuck,’ she said, ‘sorry. I gave up swearing last week.’
The man sitting next to her, who was wearing a black baseball cap pushed low over his eyes, patted her gently on the back. ‘A day at a time,’ he said, grinning.
‘More like a minute,’ she said. ‘OK, everyone, welcome to the Monday night meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. My name’s Sarah and I’m an alcoholic.’
‘Hi Sarah.’
Sarah said, ‘The format of this meeting is that the speaker will share his strength, hope and experience for fifteen to twenty minutes and then there’ll be hands raised for sharing until the last fifteen minutes when we’ll slow the meeting down for anyone in their early days to come in and share. It was suggested to us that we sit back and relax and listen to the similarities, and not the differences. And now it gives me great pleasure to introduce our speaker, Chris.’
‘My name’s Chris and I’m an alcoholic.’
‘Hi Chris.’
Chris leaned back in his chair and threaded his hands over his chest. ‘Yeah, hi,’ he said, affably. ‘I have to tell you that this was not my idea. It was never my idea to end up sitting in a church hall with a bunch of drunks. It was never my idea to be a drunk. I wasn’t a blackout drunk. I never went to prison or lost my job or lost my house or ended up in any of those places that alcohol took so many of us to. I was a high-class drunk, I wasn’t like you.’
He grinned. ‘I was special and different, or so I thought. It took me a long time to understand that a drunk is a drunk. It doesn’t matter where they come from. It only matters where alcohol takes them, which is to the bottom of a bottle, staring into the abyss.’
A few people nodded, some yawned. Others had their eyes shut but I could tell, from the quality of attention, that everyone was listening.
Chris shrugged. ‘I drank for a simple reason. I wanted to stop the pain. My pain was, you know, heroic. Nobody else could understand my pain. That’s why I drank. I couldn’t connect with other people. I looked fine on the outside, life and soul and all that, but on the inside, man I was a mess. I didn’t tell anyone, I thought I could fix it myself. But I couldn’t and the place it took me was where I always knew I was going to end up, on my own. In the last few years of my drinking, it was just me and a bottle. I didn’t answer the phone, I didn’t go out, I just sat on a sofa with the TV on and,’ he shrugged, ‘I drank. I was looking for the solution in a bottle and we all know what a shit answer that is. But I wouldn’t be told. I thought I was better than that. I thought I was special and different because nobody could understand my pain. It was only when I got to these rooms that I understood that I wasn’t special or different or that my pain wasn’t special or different. It was, like…,’ he stretched the word out for emphasis, ‘normal.’
A few people laughed.
I didn’t. I knew what he was talking about. They say in AA that you don’t hear what you want to hear. You only hear what you need to hear. It takes you a while to understand that. It takes you a little longer to be honest enough to admit it and even longer to accept it.
‘How was that?’ Lulu said afterwards.
‘It was—interesting.’
‘Interesting good? Or interesting as in, I don’t know what to say so I’m just going to say that to shut you up?’
‘The latter.’
‘Don’t worry. It gets easier.’
‘Sure.’
‘What are you going to do now?’
I just wanted to get out of there, to get home and be on my own. To try to stop the pain that nobody else understood. Except they did which, somehow, made it worse. Now, I had no excuse. Now, I really wanted a drink.
‘I’m going to go home and have an early night.’
‘Will you be all right?’
‘Sure.’ I was going to have a drink. Just one glass of wine. That couldn’t do any harm. Just to stop the feeling in the pit of my stomach.
She gave me a quick, scented hug. ‘Of course you are.’ And then she said, as if she could read my mind, ‘Try not to have a drink. Remember, it’s the first drink that does the damage.’
‘Sure. I’ll be fine.’
I turned away, but not before I caught her look of patient affection. Inwardly, I winced. She understood. ‘Look after yourself,’ she said.
I bought a bottle of wine on my way home and drank myself to sleep.
Tom said, ‘I don’t understand what it is you want. I can’t seem to make you happy.’
‘You do make me happy.’
‘So why are you so unhappy?’
‘I don’t know. Depression, I guess. I’m lonely. You make me feel so lonely.’
He shifted away, a quick exasperated movement. ‘Why? You have an interesting life. You’ve got hundreds of friends. I don’t see what I have to do with this.’
‘You keep disappearing.’
‘I have stuff to do, you know? I’m up to here with it, with the kids and work and legal stuff.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
‘I don’t want you to be sorry. Me being busy is not personal. It’s just the way it has to be at the moment. At New Year, you said you were happy. I thought we were both happy.’
‘We are happy. It’s just that we seem to keep going around in circles.’
Tom sat down abruptly and buried his head in his hands. ‘You always seem to want to be somewhere and I don’t understand where it is you want to go. There is no end point. Life is a series of circles, that’s all it is. We never get to a place where we can say, here it is, this is the place I am happy. The minute you get there, it’s gone. That’s the nature of life, to go round and round.’
I looked at his bent head. I knew that I wanted too much of him. I wanted him to take away my pain. I did not know, back then, that nobody can take away another person’s pain. It is not in their power. I wanted to be rescued from myself.
I put my hand on his back. ‘Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry. So, would you like to go round in circles with me?’
He sighed. ‘Yes.’ Then he stood up and wrapped his arms around me. ‘Yes, of course I would.’
‘I love you.’
His arms tightened. ‘I love you too.’
I couldn’t find a flat. There was nowhere I wanted to live, nowhere I wanted to be. I didn’t even want to be in my own skin. With every call from the estate agent, every letter from the solicitor, I felt the darkness moving in.
‘I can’t do this,’ I said to Nigel.
‘Then don’t. Call the whole thing off.’
‘I can’t. I promised.’
‘You’ll make yourself ill again. I don’t understand why you wanted to move house in the first place. It’s the worst thing we, as depressives, can do.’
‘A fresh start. A new beginning.’
Nigel laughed. ‘We’ve only just got out of the hospital. That’s enough of a new beginning. You were suicidal, remember? Right now, the most important thing is to feel safe and being in your lovely cosy flat is going to make you feel safe, not selling it and moving into some ghastly rented place. Call them. Tell them you’re too ill to sell right now.’
‘I’m too tired.’
‘Then I’ll call them.’
‘No, I’ll do it.’
They were not pleased. Nor was I. All my plans for a new beginning seemed to be lying in tatters at my feet. I was never going to get out of this place. I didn’t mean my flat. I meant that other place. My head.
I hit Tom.
I have never hit anyone in my life,
before or since. I thought I was incapable of violence.
I slapped him hard across the face, a gesture so filled with need and passion and disappointment and anger and complicated love that it shook me to my centre.
It shook him too. I could see it in his face.
We had lost each other.
‘I’m going,’ he said.
He sent me an email.
I’m sorry to make you unhappy but I don’t have room in my heart to give you what you want.
The pain was so bad I thought it would kill me.
20
Suicide, the Last Goodbye
An individual in despair despairs over something…In despairing over something, he really despair over himself, and now he wants to get rid of himself. Consequently, to despair over something is still not despair proper…To despair over oneself, in despair to will to be rid of oneself—this is the formula for all despair.
Søren Kierkegaard
The first time I tried to kill myself, it was not so much a trying for death as an abandoning of all pretence that I had, or any longer wanted, a life. I simply gathered together all the pills that were close at hand and took them. I didn’t count them, didn’t even look to see what they were, I just swallowed them. So, when I woke again, I wasn’t too much surprised, just accepted my being alive with a kind of weary resignation.
I felt neither pleasure nor pain. In truth, I felt hardly anything at all, not fear or wonder or any sort of horror at my own actions. I simply felt that, as the taking of unscientific quantities of pills hadn’t succeeded in killing me, that I might as well carry on with the grim business of being alive. I was a burden that I had to tolerate, at least until the agony of staying alive became too much to bear at which time, I thought, I would simply try a little harder to die.
Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression Page 23