27th March, 2012
Alcoholism & Depravity
(Twenty-Seven Days without Mushrooms)
Alcoholism & Depravity
(Twenty-Seven Days without Mushrooms)
Wake up just before midnight with a cluster fuck of a headache, and start drinking beer. The hangover, I figure I can drink my way out of it. Typically I repress the urge to empty my stomach. Filling it with more alcohol tends to fix the problem. As for the headache, if I get drunk enough that should go away too. It’s a real cunt of a headache, so I have to drink quickly. Time is of the essence. If I’m going to cure this alcohol related illness with alcohol, there is only a small window of opportunity. I empty the first beer down my throat without pausing to breathe. My eyes are watering by the time I’m halfway through. But, it doesn’t make me feel better. It makes me feel worse. The headache is growing; this swollen dull pain where my third eye should be. Not vomiting requires all of my concentration. Every time I move, I can feel my insides becoming more and more volatile. I drink some water. That makes it worse. So, I start going through the fridge.
The only edible thing in the house is a half-eaten bowl of noodles in the bottom of the fridge. Just looking at it makes me sick, but I don’t really have a choice. If I want to keep drinking, I need to counteract the booze with some solids. I crack open another beer and start eating. It doesn’t taste like food. I am forcing myself to eat some foreign substance clearly not intended for human consumption. The beer offers some relief, despite being cheap; and warm, having failed to put it in the fridge the night before. My frontal lobe, or my sinuses; the hole where my third eye should be: it’s getting worse with every bite; worse with every mouthful of beer. Smothering this hangover is going to be too unpleasant to justify as worthwhile. I need to stop drinking, stop eating, and hurl.
The first round of regurgitation is easy. All I have to do is stop repressing it and it flows out like a burst water main. It comes out so fast that it rebounds off the sink and hits me in the face. I see it splatter against my glasses. I feel it dripping off my face. It feels amazing. Rejecting this poison I have been consuming for the past month. Taking it out, rather than putting it in. So, I keep forcing it, emptying my stomach into the sink; the rancid liquid splashing back onto the surrounding counter and mirror, dripping onto the floor. Then I hit that wall that you hit when you’re trying to turn yourself inside out. Hurling becomes painful. My mostly empty stomach is contracting, folding over on itself, spasm after spasm; this poor organ doing somersaults, trying desperately to tell me to stop.
But I can’t stop now. I need to get this filthy shit out, all of it, right away. This poison, I need to drain it with the same urgency one might drain a snake bite. I don’t want it anymore, any of it, not one fucking millimetre; if I get enough of it up the hangover will go away. I figure I can purge myself of the after-effects of alcohol by putting my digestive system in reverse. After about ten minutes I go to lie down, satisfied that my stomach is completely empty. But the sickness is still there. The headache still pounding against my scull, I return to the bathroom.
Chunks of beer marinated noodles are gathered on top of the drain; bits of onion and beef; black beans; and God-knows what else. I leave them sitting there and lean over the ceramic bowl, huffing the smell of vomit; using the contents of my stomach as bait for the contents of my stomach. I hyperventilate, taking short sharp breaths and squeezing my stomach with my abdominal muscles. It works: another fountain of half-digested food stuff flies out of my mouth into the sink. The pain is excruciating. I suspect that I’m vomiting from my intestines now, or my jejunum.
It is highly acidic. It burns my throat and tongue, my gums tingling with pain; forcing my stomach way beyond its capabilities. Maybe, I think, I can keep going until I end up vomiting shit; some kind of backwards enema. The idea makes me sick, literally. I start hurling faster, the pressure increasing rapidly until I am basically a human fire hose. I can hardly stand up, the pain is so bad. So, I drop onto the floor and crawl over to the toilet. An unflushed turd serves as bait for even more liquid. I have emptied maybe three litres out of my stomach by the time I finally stop.
Resting, exhausted, on the toilet, I realise the headache is gone; the sickness, too. My insane plan, it actually worked. I manage to get myself to bed. My mind is filled with crazed thoughts. It is a circus, my psyche. The experience of vomiting, something I hadn’t experienced for weeks despite being a full-blown alcoholic, it provides me a reason to stop drinking. The pain in my stomach, the disgusting spectacle of the fire-hose, I won’t forget it in the morning. Slowly, I drift off to sleep.