Living with an Alcoholic

I had this great idea to write a piece about living with an alcoholic that was really funny. But the more I thought about it the more the humour disappeared. I could have easily have written this to make you laugh, but it's too serious a subject. It nearly killed me.

I met Sally three months after I left my wife. She was so exciting, the life and soul of any party. She was a joy to be with, everything was fun with her. OK she drank but then didn't we all. She would have parties every week. Invite friends round and have a great time. She loved music. She asked me to move in with her. I couldn't believe my luck. We'd listen to music play guitar and drink. At first I didn't think anything of it I was having a great time. But then it got wearing. I had to work the next day and after a while I was having difficulty getting up partying all the time was too much for me. OK call me an old fogey if you like but I defy anyone to party 24/7 week after week. You need to rest, you need to detox.

I started getting worried that I was drinking too much myself so I began to refuse drinks. I started going to bed early. Sally got angry with me. She wanted to continue. I begged her to stop and come to bed, but that just brought on more fury.
Some nights we'd finish all the drink in the house and she'd call the local greek restaurant to deliver yet another bottle of wine at one in the morning costing her £9 for a £2 bottle of plonk.
We started argueing. I had to sleep. I had to function at work. I was fed up with feeling like shit ALL the time.

One night I went to bed early leaving her with her drink. Eventually she came to bed, and wanted sex. Despite my tiredness I obliged, she was on top. Suddenly she threw up all over me. It was all down the side of my face and in my ears. I felt disgusted and got up. I wanted to wash, have a shower, anything.
"Where are you going?" she screamed at me.
"I'm going to have a wash. You've just been sick all over me."
"You come back here and finish what you started you bastard!"
There was no way I was going back. She started screaming abuse at me "Well fuck off then. Fuck off back to your ownj place. I don't need you." so I got dressed and walked home.
I was home for about 20 minutes when she phoned, all sweetness and nice. "Where are you?"
"Obviously I'm home, you've just phoned me here."
"Why aren't you here with me?"
"Because you threw me out Sally."
"I didn't, I couldn't have. I love you."
"Well you had a great way of showing it." and I told her what she said. This precipitated another tirade of abuse. I hung up the phone.

For my birthday we'd planned to go out. I got to hers after work and she told me she had a surprise for me. She went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of Champagne. "It's for your birthday." she said.
I was really pleased. It's not often I get bought champagne for my birthday. So we had two and a half glasses each and I was getting ready to go out for my birthday.
"Hang on." she said "I've another surprise."
"Great!" I said "What is it?"
She pulled another bottle of champagne out the fridge.
"Oh Sally the first bottle was lovely but you shouldn't have bought two."
"But it's your birthday." she cooed.
Well I was feeling good after the first bottle so another wouldn't hurt. We drank that as well. Then damn me if she didn't pull a third bottle out the fridge. This is getting stupid I thought. I was torn between her thinking of me on my birthday and her trying to be nice and dreading having to drink anymore. By 8:30 she was wrecked. I wasn't much better. My birthday was ruined and we were argueing again. I couldn't believ that a girl who could be so nice and so much fun could turn into this monster after a few drinks. My stress levels were getting very high. I left her after nine months on prescription tranquillisers and a nervous breakdown.

I remember one evening I was sitting in my car with a friend, not Sally, we were going for a quiet drink, and we were in this pub car park and I was crying like a baby. I couldn't help it. It was embarrassing. We had to sit there for twenty minutes while I composed myself enough to go into the pub. At work I would be talking to customers and I'd suddenly burst into tears. I had no control anymore. You want to be embarrassed? then have a nervous breakdown. It's not a lot of fun. It's not funny. I actually thought I'd write a funny piece about this. I thought I would make you laugh about it. But it really isn't funny at all. I try but I can't make light of it. I still drink to this day. Maybe I drink too much by medical standards. But I never drink shorts and I know when to stop.

When I finally left Sally for my own sanity, she ran away to Thailand where she is to this day. A mutual friend of ours came to see me today. Sally is now a teacher in a Thai primary school teaching English using song and dance. She has stopped drinking and by selling her house she is now very rich in Thailand. She has moved out into the country, out of the city and lives a very simple life, she has a new boyfriend called Kidd, he's a Thai, they are very much in love and are planning a family. I am so pleased for her. She has found herself finally. She will never come back to this country.

IN a way I feel priveliged to have known her, she was excellent when she was sober. You would have loved her yourselves. She was so nice and kind and caring, until she'd had a few drinks. We had a lot of good times together. Unfortunately the bad times wiped out the good. I thought I could change her but ultimately only she could do that for herself.

I'm not about to start preaching about the evil of drink. I've seen it all. Just don't begin to think of drink as your friend. It's really not that funny.
Do what you like but do it in moderation.

I bet you didn't expect this. Mike Da Hat funny as always? Well no. IN between the funny and the humourous, life goes on. It can be shit. I just thought that you needed to know this. I like humour, I prefer life to be perfect, but it isn't. We all get shit thrown at us and we pretend that everything is a bed of roses. We have our public face and our private face. It's about time you know the truth about my life it's not all fun and jolly japes.

Mikel

iPod isn't playing tonight