“Are you healthy and are you happy?”, she said, in her kind voice with its lingering traces of Scottishness, she being my mum’s friend L, the occasion being my mum’s birthday meal at a local restaurant.
The question was directed at me. Health and happiness. It didn’t sound that appealing. In my twisted brain it sounded very ‘middle-class’; with connotations of gym membership, a regular sleeping pattern and the pursuit of attainable goals in the world of work.
I simply smiled weakly, politely declining to answer. Then, for some reason unbeknownst to both my current and former selves, I winked at my dad. Coffees were ordered and the evening moved on.
The conversation is relevant and significant to me now, almost two years later, because it took place on the very day that I lost my own special version of health and happiness, although I was far from aware of this at the time.
I woke up that day, thinking that all I had to face was another hangover. As the afternoon wore on, however, I became increasingly agitated and restless. My drinking had been particularly heavy that summer, and sometimes my hangovers had been infused with a nasty element of anxiety, but they had been fuck all like this. I simply could not stay still. I would move back and forth from my bedroom to the bathroom, from my bed to the toilet. The change of scenery only brought momentary relief, as in half a minute the same insatiable, horrible desire was back again. Something was just not right, there was a terrifying glitch in the matrix. It was all around, everywhere I looked. The walls of my room, my reflection in the mirror, the late summer sunshine outside my window, it all told me that something was off. I could continue, but anyone likely to be reading this can probably already relate. It was in this state I had to go to my mum’s birthday meal.
The drive from my family home to the restaurant was one of those life experiences that I could have done without. Trying desperately to relax, I twisted and contorted my body, I writhed in my seat, moving around as much as I could without bringing attention to myself. Window open. Window closed. Hands on legs. Hand behind head. Talk to my dad about football? No, the idea of having to respond to conversation filled me with terror. Window open again. Please, fuck, let us get to the restaurant.
The only way I could envisage getting through the meal was to have another drink. Whether this was through a rational assumption that I must be suffering from alcohol withdrawal syndrome, or whether it was simply an instinctive desire, I’m not sure. But for the first time in my life, I did not just want a drink. I needed one.
Finally we arrived. As soon as the waiter came to give us the menus, I asked for a beer. He told me to wait as another waiter would be taking the drinks order, and made a jokey aside which I did not quite catch, probably mocking my eagerness to get the drinks in, no doubt interpreting it as normal, healthy student behaviour. Restaurant protocol was wreaking havoc with my very biology. When the beer came, I drank half of it in one swig. Half a minute later it was finished and I had started on a glass of sparkling wine. Already I could tell that I was going to make it, I was going to be OK.
How can I describe that sensation, the way that even a small amount of alcohol had soothed me? Some alcoholics talk about drinking themselves sobre in the morning, but it would be more apt to say that whilst most of my body remained in abject terror, a tiny part of me became deliciously tipsy, and it was just about possible to hide within this bit of myself. As I drank more, I felt this friendly, euphoric part of my brain grow in stature. Soon I was able to sit still, to eat, to converse; in short to function as a human being once again. It was even enjoyable for me to act as if everything is normal, in the same way an actor or a film star might enjoy performing their role in a play or film.
It was a real buzz that I got from those first few drinks. To have those awful feelings replaced by beautiful ones is something that stays with you for a long time, and it’s something that my brain will physically remember for perhaps even longer, in the form of positive reinforcement and cravings. My withdrawal was cured, and I felt what John O’Brien (author of Leaving Las Vegas) described as the ‘illusion of health and happiness’. But it was back again the next day, with a vengeance, and moreover the cogs had been set in motion, the process had begun which has brought me to where I am today; depressed/bored, sobre and craving, at a loss as to how to regain that health and that happiness I once enjoyed.
The question was directed at me. Health and happiness. It didn’t sound that appealing. In my twisted brain it sounded very ‘middle-class’; with connotations of gym membership, a regular sleeping pattern and the pursuit of attainable goals in the world of work.
I simply smiled weakly, politely declining to answer. Then, for some reason unbeknownst to both my current and former selves, I winked at my dad. Coffees were ordered and the evening moved on.
The conversation is relevant and significant to me now, almost two years later, because it took place on the very day that I lost my own special version of health and happiness, although I was far from aware of this at the time.
I woke up that day, thinking that all I had to face was another hangover. As the afternoon wore on, however, I became increasingly agitated and restless. My drinking had been particularly heavy that summer, and sometimes my hangovers had been infused with a nasty element of anxiety, but they had been fuck all like this. I simply could not stay still. I would move back and forth from my bedroom to the bathroom, from my bed to the toilet. The change of scenery only brought momentary relief, as in half a minute the same insatiable, horrible desire was back again. Something was just not right, there was a terrifying glitch in the matrix. It was all around, everywhere I looked. The walls of my room, my reflection in the mirror, the late summer sunshine outside my window, it all told me that something was off. I could continue, but anyone likely to be reading this can probably already relate. It was in this state I had to go to my mum’s birthday meal.
The drive from my family home to the restaurant was one of those life experiences that I could have done without. Trying desperately to relax, I twisted and contorted my body, I writhed in my seat, moving around as much as I could without bringing attention to myself. Window open. Window closed. Hands on legs. Hand behind head. Talk to my dad about football? No, the idea of having to respond to conversation filled me with terror. Window open again. Please, fuck, let us get to the restaurant.
The only way I could envisage getting through the meal was to have another drink. Whether this was through a rational assumption that I must be suffering from alcohol withdrawal syndrome, or whether it was simply an instinctive desire, I’m not sure. But for the first time in my life, I did not just want a drink. I needed one.
Finally we arrived. As soon as the waiter came to give us the menus, I asked for a beer. He told me to wait as another waiter would be taking the drinks order, and made a jokey aside which I did not quite catch, probably mocking my eagerness to get the drinks in, no doubt interpreting it as normal, healthy student behaviour. Restaurant protocol was wreaking havoc with my very biology. When the beer came, I drank half of it in one swig. Half a minute later it was finished and I had started on a glass of sparkling wine. Already I could tell that I was going to make it, I was going to be OK.
How can I describe that sensation, the way that even a small amount of alcohol had soothed me? Some alcoholics talk about drinking themselves sobre in the morning, but it would be more apt to say that whilst most of my body remained in abject terror, a tiny part of me became deliciously tipsy, and it was just about possible to hide within this bit of myself. As I drank more, I felt this friendly, euphoric part of my brain grow in stature. Soon I was able to sit still, to eat, to converse; in short to function as a human being once again. It was even enjoyable for me to act as if everything is normal, in the same way an actor or a film star might enjoy performing their role in a play or film.
It was a real buzz that I got from those first few drinks. To have those awful feelings replaced by beautiful ones is something that stays with you for a long time, and it’s something that my brain will physically remember for perhaps even longer, in the form of positive reinforcement and cravings. My withdrawal was cured, and I felt what John O’Brien (author of Leaving Las Vegas) described as the ‘illusion of health and happiness’. But it was back again the next day, with a vengeance, and moreover the cogs had been set in motion, the process had begun which has brought me to where I am today; depressed/bored, sobre and craving, at a loss as to how to regain that health and that happiness I once enjoyed.