Earlier that day I had been allowed out to the supermarket, and had bought a Simpsons video, one what had a Halloween special as the first of four episodes. By the time the first instalment of that Halloween special was over, I had consumed the contents of the bottle. Apparently I then tried to make my way out to a pub, even though the ward was locked for the night. Then I decided that the little nurse alarm beside my bed was obviously there so as I could get them to bring me in coffee. They didn't like that one bit.
And so on and so forth.
My last stay in the nuthouse was just over a year ago. It lasted a month. The day after I got out, full of optimism and health about the skull, I walked into the Students Union bar in the University I was then enrolled in, and drank myself stupid.
That drink lasted three months.
At the end of it, all the old patterns had returned, only much, much worse. What used to be a day drinking, a day crying, and then a few days of normality, was now four days drinking, three days going out of my mind, lying in bed caked in tears and sweat, and then, on the evening of the first day back in reality, the cycle started anew.
It was, without invoking the spirit of Douglas Sirk and getting all melodramatic, utter pestilent hell. Just, y'know, if it's metaphors you're after.
I had tried everything, and nothing worked.
I had gone to drink councillors, whatever the fuck they are, who had told me of controlled drinking, an experiment which allowed for one very controlled drink followed by many, many maniacal variants.
I had tried going for the old shandy, which isn't really beer after all, I mean it's mostly lemonade. Once again, failure. I would order my shandy, certainly, and I would let The Duchess taste it, so as she would see it was indeed mostly lemonade. And to be fair, that entire first pint was nothing but shandy. It was just that the other nine or ten weren't.
I tried religion, adopting Catholicism, Mormonism and even Hare-Krishna. The latter was during one of my periods in the hospital, a nurse pulling back the curtains around my bed to reveal The Duke sat atop the mattress, legs folded, chanting in some incomprehensible language by way of fixing my head.
Article comments
1 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Man, that felt good right there. I'm glad i got that out is what. It'll be a year this week, by the way, just by way of epilogue.
And to the individual who requested this here conclusion of sorts, i hope you liked it.
Thanks.
2 - Mary K. Williams
God Bless you Duke : )