Chapter 1
The Last Drink
When I came to July12 2001 weighing 137 lbs I was shocked to realize I was still alive. As I lay in what was obviously a hospital bed, I found my hands and feet were strapped tight to the bed rails. A nurse was nearby and she soon realized I had regained consciousness. Dressed in her starch whites, the nurse bent over me and instructed me not to struggle against the restraints that held my limbs secure. The RN informed me I was in an Intensive Care Unit and that I had a seizure the night before. The soft spoken nurse went on to say the doctor did not think I would survive the night. The polite RN commented she was pleased to see I had regained consciousness and that she would inform the doctor of that fact. With a foggy haze blurring my vision, my first thought was I could not share the nurse’s feelings nor her enthusiasm regarding my consciousness; I had meant to die and had prayed for that end.
Immediately I realized I must have struggled the night before. My tongue was badly bitten and I noticed pain in my right shoulder as well as my left leg which meant I had pulled against the restraints and had separated those joints. I began to hurt everywhere and the alcohol horror was upon me….. again. I was gripped in a terrifying “cold”, sweaty fear. The intense feeling of impending doom was enormous and my penis hurt. Much later I was informed that I had been catherized after being admitted to the hospital through the emergency rooms sliding glass doors. I also learned I had walked through the hospitals emergency room doors alone and had immediately gone into a seizure after crossing the threshold. Many months later I would hear AA members comment that my appearance was of a seventy three year old man during this time when I was actually forty six. Fellow AA members later told me they had truly thought I would not survive much longer after witnessing the painful declining struggle of my previous two years; two years that truly saw things progress as foretold me by the “old timers” of AA during my early days visiting that institution. Two years that saw things “get worse”. Two years that saw all those “not yet’s” come to pass such as the career job, devoted wife, nice house and much more all disappearing from my very existence. Two years that saw me in and out of thirteen hospitals, two treatment centers, three DUI’s, jail time, driven to solitude and a bag full of AA’s twenty four hour tokens. And that’s when things got worse. Two years that saw my health deteriorate to a level where I would wander about or worse, drive suffering Delirium Tremens and Black Outs. Two years that saw me lay in my own urine, feces, vomit as well as pools of blood that came from my nose and mouth as my heart and cardiovascular system were near exploding from the affects of alcohol. Two years that far exceeded anything my brother did his final night alive when he purchased one small eighteen pack of Bud Light as my alcohol use soared to three cases of beer a day and a bottle of Jack Daniels. This was a level of alcohol consumption that rendered me, on many of those final days, with a blood alcohol level above .50. Fifty percent blood alcohol is the limit the medical community states as not being survivable. So…… why did I survive and not my brother?
On the morning of July 12th 2001, from my strapped down position on the bed I looked to my right and saw a clear IV running into my right arm. It was a Sodium IV I later learned. I looked to my left and saw a green bagged IV running into my left arm. A Potassium IV was entering the veins of my left arm and much later I learned the levels of these two minerals in my body were so critically low the doctor had said he had never seen anyone survive the lab report that was returned on me the night before. In fact, the lab report had indicated my sodium level was below the level that sustains life. The IV’s had been adjusted to drip and enter my veins as rapidly as possible. Days later the doctor informed me I had been close to a low sodium comma and that he had expected me to lapse into unconsciousness, slip into a comma and not survive the very first night.
The days leading up to July 12th 2001 saw me coming to on the ground or floor lying in a pool of blood as well as being soiled from my on urine and feces. At these moments, with the first conscious thought from my tattered mind, my hand would begin banging against the floor searching frantically for the left over bottle that must be nearby. I remember clearly the one thought that continued to race madly through my mind during these moments; “Just one more drink and everything will be fine”. “One more drink and I will wake up from this horrible nightmare and life will be like it use to be”. “One more drink and all will be normal again”. I had yearned so deeply for those good ole days when a six pack of beer represented a good time. I had always experienced such a wonderful life. My soul ached for sunny afternoons as I worked in my beloved yard and occasionally grabbed an ice cold beer nonchalantly from a nearby cooler as my gaze would catch glimpses of my much beloved wife as we would enjoy beautiful spring and summer days together. For twenty nine years a cold beer had represented success and gaiety. Then these past two….. What had happened? Why? My mind raced with these plaguing thoughts. As I would come to from the alcohol, all my mind and body could think of was getting more alcohol to ward off the horror of the impending withdrawal and sickness I had learned would soon come. I had quickly learned the enormous pain of withdrawing from acute alcoholism. All my life I had thought alcoholics simply had no will power and the worse that could happen was just a simple hang over for a few hours. Dear God what a lesson I had learned. Alcohol horror includes physical, mental and spiritual decay and torment that has no rival. All my life I had held a structured opinion of alcoholics, pathetic losers with no self control or will power and had believed nothing bad would ever occur in my life as I knew with certainty that I was above the fray. On a day that seemed like all other days, a day that perhaps the job no longer held it’s magic, a day when an aging perfect marriage seemed to finally have “issues”, a day when the children were finally grown and seemingly no longer needed me, unknown to me I stepped across an invisible line that I had not known existed. On August 2nd 1999, as I walked out of my much loved career of 22 years for the final day at the age of 44, I walked into a world of acute and chronic alcoholism that would last for 23 months where survival, much less sobriety, is the rare exception. Today, I know most alcoholics never hear about, never learn about nor make it to the doors of AA. If this fact were not enough, I have learned that many more come to AA than stay in AA. Of the minority of alcoholics to come to AA, only approximately 3% will become lifetime sober leaving roughly 97% that will at some future time drink again and eventually die in a state of active alcoholism. Why does a human being do this? Survival and sobriety are indeed quite rare for those of us to share these experiences. “Shared Experiences” that would later became the foundation to my survival, recovery and future life as I would begin to do my very best to “carry the message” to other alcoholics.
As I continued to lay strapped to the hospital bed my mind was incredibly sick and thoughts as well as consciousness came and went. I became unsure of what was real or imagined and my head swooned. Delirium had taken over my mind and the ravages of alcohol had left my body weak and broken. The will to fight was gone; the will to live was broken.
Tied to the ICU bed, my minds eye began to see the faces of my then five grandchildren and my brain screamed that I had to stand up from this nightmare. I never knew if the vision of those babies’ sweet faces was real or the madness from alcohol but I firmly resolved that “Pawpaw” could not die drunk tied to a hospital bed. I could not sentence my innocent grandchildren to life with such a shameful heritage. I realized I had been beaten by alcohol and the battle was over. It was time to surrender. To hell with the wife, the job, the house but those precious grandchildren deserved better than what was “going down” here. The two previous years of “keep coming back” was about to save my life as I began to work the third step of Alcoholics Anonymous tied to the hospital bed and eventually I walked away from that hospital. I never desired another drink of alcohol from that moment forward. As I continued to lay in the silent confines of the room, I began to beg the God of my understanding not to let me die drunk. I begged the God of the third step not to let Pawpaw die tied to that ICU bed drunk, to at lease let me “Stand Up” if but only once and only for a moment. “Please for the sake of those precious babies, at least let me “Stand Up” once again”. “GOD PLEASE DON’T LET ME DIE DRUNK TIED TO THIS HOSPITAL BED!” God answered that prayer.
I was in that hospital for six days and I had no clue of the ramifications or consequences that would soon face me in the days ahead. I knew I had fallen to the chronic final stage of alcoholism where most will not survive. I had no idea why I had lived; I had not wanted to live. I knew everything was gone but even worse I knew that when I came to in that hospital bed, I had come extremely close to death and not a single person I had ever known my entire forty six years of existence was there. At the moment of what was almost my certain death, after everything I had been in life, I had almost died totally alone just like my brother had. Only two strangers, a doctor and a nurse, were at my side. I felt as though it could not really be me that had come to such a lonely place but rather it was the solitude that alcohol carries a person to; that only a chronic alcoholic will know this type of loneliness. It was a loneliness I did not know existed but yet recognized. My memory swept back to six years earlier in 1995 and I quickly recognized the same state of loneliness on my brother’s face the last six months of his life. I had not known how to recognize that “solitude among a crowd” on a persons face until I had actually experienced it myself. My heart first ached and then broke as I realized I myself had allowed my only brother, my only sibling to suffer the last six months of his life in a state of loneliness most the world would never know existed as I practiced “Tough Love”. At that moment I learned of the invisible prison that an acute alcoholic enters when they step across the invisible line as loved ones accuse them of choosing alcohol above all else. Alcohol became a prison for me where the bars are made of glass panels and life becomes entombed in a small “closet like” invisible shell. We can “see” out and “see” all the destruction yet we know we have no power to stop the devastation; to stop the drinking. At this point of alcoholism, black hopelessness sets in as hospitals, treatment centers, employers, churches and families all prove shallow in the battle with alcohol. Today, I know of no worse hell than that which my brother and I had both experienced and suffered in life from the affects of chronic alcoholism and the loneliness it brings in those final days. At that moment, lying tied to the ICU bed, I was finally able to forgive my brother for dying. I was finally able to love him….. again.
I was left with only one thought:
How could this have happened?
