It’s a warm summer evening and I’ve finally sat myself down and put pen to paper. I’ve been pacing around the kitchen for the past hour attempting to ready myself, reaffirming the importance of this commitment I made to myself and to my recovery just over a year ago.
I know I could have tried emailing or getting your number to call you, but I can get my thoughts clear and uninterrupted when I write them. And people tend not to ignore a written letter. Is it a little unfair of me to do this? Honestly if you would prefer not to read on I will understand.
I’d like to begin by saying that I hope you and your family are doing well. I have been silent for some time and while I know it may not seem like it, I think about all of you very often. I occasionally poke around the apps to see how everyone is getting on and I saw your older brother had a baby boy late last year – that’s really wonderful! We uncles appear very cool with little effort. Mind you, my swag has diminished as all my nieces and nephews are in their teens now.
I know you got word that I’d chosen to go to rehab and you were supportive of the idea. That meant a lot. I’m not sure if any of our mutual acquaintances passed along the debrief I gave when I left a year ago but I suppose I ought to describe what It was like. The place itself was only a stone's throw from home but it felt as though I was in some far-flung part of the island. With a backdrop of green hills and only a few houses and farms to be found, it was quite picturesque and secluded. When I had my smokes outside at night only the occasional howl of a wolf broke through the silence. All in all It would make a good holiday spot for others if it had a bar. The facility itself was very modest and cosy. The staff were strict but kind. Other residents were mostly lovely and some of them I am still friendly with. To my surprise the food was actually great but perhaps too much sweet stuff for my belt to cope. I had some notion that I’d lose a bit of weight while I was there. But the biscuits …. just so many biscuits.
All that being said, it was in fact no holiday spot. From morning to night each day was filled with individual and group sessions paired with lectures. It could get pretty intense and a little overwhelming at times. Each day retracing the steps as to how I got to this point. Many days ended feeling as though I'd undergone a trepanning. I would fall asleep the moment I lay my head.
The weeks before I arrived had felt like a depressing advent calendar leading to the long unknown, yet when I was there it was only the past that felt long. An urgency came over me. I recognised the potential for meaningful change quite quickly, I became focused and would become anxious if I began to feel it slip, something not everyone shared and perhaps nor would I had it been a year earlier. The people I met spoke a language I understood and I felt a kinship that had eluded me until then. It was profound.
A year has now passed since I left that place, several since we last spoke. I’m now ready to reach out to you. There are things that I need to say. If you do not want to hear them or accept them then I understand, but to move forward I need to bring clarity as to why some things happened the way they did.
I am sorry. I understand now that the torment was relentless during the period when we were fixtures in each other’s lives. Meeting first at a karaoke night we were inseparable within days. Loved up and insufferable to all around, we made the city ours. Looking back, there is a lot to make me smile and it was great, for a time. I tried to hide it from you at the beginning, the drinking, I wanted you to see me as I was during those first days. But it was only a matter of time before my chaos reached out and grabbed you. Unfortunately the thirteen years since have been no better for anyone else, least of all my family. All of the arguments, sleepless nights, search parties, tears and lies were something my mind couldn’t accommodate before, but as I contemplate the impact on everyone now it seems grossly unjust.
In treatment I thought a lot about the last time we saw one another, about what happened before and after. To lose your sister as you did was beyond my comprehension. For my part in the days after, you are owed an apology. When I answered the phone and heard you screaming that there had been an accident, I wanted to be there for you. We had only seen one another a few hours prior, but I sprinted to meet you at The Regents Park gate. It was early morning and both of us were dressed for bed, freezing in mid-November. You insisted I leave as you had to pack for an early flight. You must have been in shock; you could hardly speak. I should have stayed with you. When you were back in London for a few days for your final exam, you asked me to come over each night to the hotel so that you wouldn’t be alone. Do you remember? I kept saying I would come, but I never did. I couldn’t. I felt bound. I couldn’t leave the bar to see you if that meant going to bed sober. I know that sounds unfathomably selfish, and that’s because it was. Nobody deserves to be treated with such disregard by anyone, let alone someone they loved. You left without seeing me and it would be years before you spoke to me again. There are no words to excuse myself for abandoning you for my vices when you needed me the most, and I regret that the final time you saw your sister it was I who was with you. I feel shame about how when you replay that memory in your mind, I occupy a space in it.
When I hugged her goodbye for the last time at the tube station she told me she was really glad you had met me. I believed then and ever since that she was wrong about that, but she really loved you. I am sorry.
The second thing I need to say is this: over the last thirteen years I have had many a ‘morning after’ discussion at the dining table. And when someone would tell me how hard my addiction has been on them, I would often retort that this paled as to how hard it has been on me. The truth is that for everyone my illness has touched, it has been hard. But while everyone found commonality in their experience, I stood alone in mine. When asked why I could not stop drinking, I would answer that I drank ‘because I’m at uni’, or in later years that I would try to ‘cut down’ or ‘do it away from the home’. I provided any number of reasons for the failure to meet the expectations others had for themselves and thus for me when it came to matters of will power and purpose. In retrospect these reasons were more like offerings in order to appease whoever was asking the questions, knowing in myself that It was always more complex. In light of this past year, I can assuredly say that I know now what I didn’t know then. Albeit the truth is rather unsatisfactory; I have no more idea why I drank and why I cannot drink than you do.
I had what is known as a physical dependency and a psychological obsession, but no single event caused it. To that end, my life did not cause my addiction, but rather the addiction has produced this life. Although even if it were the other way around, what difference would it make now? From our formative years we are told to seek more for ourselves, to broaden our horizons through education and friendship. But while everyone around me was trying to forge their own path in life, I was building a cell with the keys on the inside. Alcohol befriended me and lit me up. But in short order it began to foretell darkness rather than dispel it.
I didn’t have it in me to be able to do the things others seemed to manage so well. I couldn’t help it. Each time I abused myself and those around me, I would question whether a life lived so poorly was worth fighting for at all. Living a never ending cycle of distress such as this, perhaps I could do myself and everyone a favour by removing myself. But I have always had that pesky hope that things could change through divine intervention or other inexplicable means. Hope in the divine and spiritual? Not something you would think of me from my days holding court in London? But there it was.
One month before I went into treatment I stirred one morning, half drunk and half awake, but something was different. I knew without question: I was going to die. The hope that had flickered for over a decade was gone. I felt an overwhelming sadness that I had never experienced before, It was breathtaking. Sometimes people would say about me “Surely this now is rock bottom. Where does he go from here?” Well, the funny thing is I believed I had hit rock bottom years ago but instead of doing anything I pitched a tent and waited. That morning wasn’t rock bottom either. I had just finally come to realise that I was never going to come back up.
That morning my shadow met lines in the sand I had drawn over a decade earlier, and I asked for help. Within days I received it. Desperation is an ugly thing, but if you live long enough to reach it then you can move mountains. I know this to be true.
Today I am thirteen months sober. I feel worthy of it. I understand nobody can turn the page until the page has been written, but I work for my recovery every day and, if you let me, I will work it for you too. It fills my heart at this moment with the sun set to be able to tell you soberly that I am sorry.
Thank you, I love you, and if you were here I would run to you.
Finin O’Callaghan is a 36 year old writer from Derry. His work has previously appeared in New Irish Writing in the Irish Independent. He self-describes as a human male who owns a computer.