My routine was usually to wake up early, switch on my laptop and pour a large vodka and orange juice. After an hour of reading the news and downing a few vodkas I'd be ready to vomit, get in the shower and prepare for work. I would fill an empty 200ml vodka bottle from the large vodka bottle and then pour that into an empty sports drink bottle, preferably one that had no clear plastic so that anyone who saw me drinking from it could not guess that it did not actually contain sports drink. I would then top up the 200ml of vodka with 300ml of orange juice or whatever else I had to hand. Orange juice seemed the best. It was easy to drink and gave me some kind of ridiculous notion that I was being healthy in some way. I would prepare two of these bottles and this was my ammunition for the day ahead.
Drinking in an open-plan office presents all sorts of difficulties. Simply opening your bottle while colleagues are sitting close by is a bad idea as the smell will surely be noticed. If you are alone you can never know when someone else will enter your room and march straight over to your desk to ask you something, while you hurriedly put the cap back on the bottle, knowing that the stench of alcohol is hanging in the air around you. I was caught like that a couple of time but no one mentioned it. They didn't need to as I could tell by the change in their expression. The risk is worth it, though. You begin to take a keen interest in the routines of your colleagues; of when they go outside to smoke, or for lunch. What their footsteps in the corridoor sound like. Many days I would take an early lunch, go to a cubicle in the toilets, sit on the seat and drink for 15 minutes. Often this was just to stave off the withdrawals I was starting to feel by this time.
The most inconvenient thing about getting drunk in work is having to mask the scent of alcohol by eating. It's an expensive and unhealthy business. Heavy lunches, savoury snacks that drown out the smell from your breath in the afternoon. Constant chewing of menthol chewing gum.
And on it went. Day after day, week after week, month after month. It was exhausting. But the sweet kick of alcohol first thing in the morning usually provided the impetus to keep going with it. After some time I no longer ever drank as I had done when I was younger. I did not go to nightclubs. Or out for food and drinks. Meeting friends in a bar was just strange as I would most likely have already had a considerable amount to drink and was getting into a morose and tired stage of drunkeness.
I looked in the mirror. My face was red all over. My cheeks were puffed up. I had had to buy trousers with a 38 inch waste and a couple of larger shirts so I could fit into some clothes to go to work in. My back was sore from so much sitting. Walking up the stairs at home left me breathless. I was getting away with it at my job but I wasn't sure how much longer I could keep it up. My boss was on my case. This was nothing new but the more of a desperate individual I became, the more grief I received from my boss and the more my work suffered. But I am not a bad person. Some part of me wanted to succeed. The same part probably that made me force myself to go through this horrible routine every day to ensure I turned up for work and kept the show on the road. In the fog of addiction I never considered the possibility of going to the doctor, telling the truth and taking a month or two off to sober up and get better.
Then, however, a moment of clarity came.
My end of year review had gone badly. My manager's comments for my permanent record were scathing. Although I was a drinker, I had tried very hard in the second half of the year. I deserved some kind of credit, I felt. But I realised that even if I was sober and healthy, I would never have a chance with this boss. The situation was at a cross-roads. I knew I was killing myself. Did I want to die? I wasn't sure. I'm not sure I cared. I did know that when I went to sleep that I did not want to wake up for work in the morning. I was scared of snapping. I had read that around 600 people in Ireland commit suicide each year. When I was young and happy I had wondered what could make a person snap and actually go through with it. Now I knew. It was time to act. Two days after receiving my manager's comments I had handed in my month's notice. Even in this brief conversation my boss had a go at me. I walked out shaking my head but smiling, for once. I felt as light as a feather.
I was drunk on the day I left work. I had to give a speech in the canteen. I got some laughs though I have no recollection of what I said. The following Monday, I signed on as umemployed. I wrote a 3-page letter outlining how nasty my boss was and how I had no option to resign. It worked. The following week I was in receipt of unemployment benefit. I tried to stop drinking. I did ok. But I still used it as a crutch when I had to go somewhere or do anything. So really, I wasn't getting anywhere. After a couple of months I decided something drastic was needed. I called my parents and asked them could I come and stay with them.
When I arrived, my father teased all the details out of me. He could tell by my face and my body that I was a drinker. He weighed me. It was a horrible number. I felt dreadful, angry, embarrassed. But also determined. I had given myself the ultimate humiliation: returning to my parents house as an addict and a failure and I was hell-bent on regaining some semblance of dignity slowly but surely. After a week my face began to look less bloated. I received constant criticism and jibes from my father but I took them without answering back and went about my days hungry from my strict diet and craving alcohol but with the desire necessary for my mind to quell those thoughts.
The first day I squeezed into my running clothes was the worst. My belly strained against my running shirt. The running shirt was a 2010 Dublin Marathon ?Finisher? commemorative shirt. Anyone who saw me wearing it would have had to have had a rather creative imagination to believe that I had ever run a marathon, let alone ran that particular marathon with ease, finishing comfortably inside my 3:30 hours goal.
I pounded around the area under the cover of darkness. My nerves jangled and no amount of endorphins could quell them. My sweat didn't smell like the healthy sweat of a regular person. It was pure poison. My legs and lungs ached. I was out of breath every two minutes. I developed a dreadful pain in one of my testicles. When I arrived home I was sure I was going to pass blood. But I didn't. And I had done it. And I kept doing it. Pushing myself all the time. After a month I had lost 15lbs. Just over a stone in our language. Or 7 kilograms.
I sit here typing this on June 9th, 2014. I arrived at my parents house on May 1st. I have been sober all that time. Everything is better. I have fallen in love with music again. I practice my guitar daily. In the mornings I crave my cup of tea and devour my breakfast. I read books again. Spend good time with my family. I wear clothes I have not worn for almost two years. I walk the streets of Dublin and get ?the eye? from some girls. And it's good. To get here I had to lose everything. My job, my rented apartment, my independence and the illusion I had pedalled to my parents, my friends, my work colleagues and myself for so long. But it has been worth it.
Alcohol ruined my life and pushed me to the brink. But I managed to make my way back. I hope I can stay there.
Drinking in an open-plan office presents all sorts of difficulties. Simply opening your bottle while colleagues are sitting close by is a bad idea as the smell will surely be noticed. If you are alone you can never know when someone else will enter your room and march straight over to your desk to ask you something, while you hurriedly put the cap back on the bottle, knowing that the stench of alcohol is hanging in the air around you. I was caught like that a couple of time but no one mentioned it. They didn't need to as I could tell by the change in their expression. The risk is worth it, though. You begin to take a keen interest in the routines of your colleagues; of when they go outside to smoke, or for lunch. What their footsteps in the corridoor sound like. Many days I would take an early lunch, go to a cubicle in the toilets, sit on the seat and drink for 15 minutes. Often this was just to stave off the withdrawals I was starting to feel by this time.
The most inconvenient thing about getting drunk in work is having to mask the scent of alcohol by eating. It's an expensive and unhealthy business. Heavy lunches, savoury snacks that drown out the smell from your breath in the afternoon. Constant chewing of menthol chewing gum.
And on it went. Day after day, week after week, month after month. It was exhausting. But the sweet kick of alcohol first thing in the morning usually provided the impetus to keep going with it. After some time I no longer ever drank as I had done when I was younger. I did not go to nightclubs. Or out for food and drinks. Meeting friends in a bar was just strange as I would most likely have already had a considerable amount to drink and was getting into a morose and tired stage of drunkeness.
I looked in the mirror. My face was red all over. My cheeks were puffed up. I had had to buy trousers with a 38 inch waste and a couple of larger shirts so I could fit into some clothes to go to work in. My back was sore from so much sitting. Walking up the stairs at home left me breathless. I was getting away with it at my job but I wasn't sure how much longer I could keep it up. My boss was on my case. This was nothing new but the more of a desperate individual I became, the more grief I received from my boss and the more my work suffered. But I am not a bad person. Some part of me wanted to succeed. The same part probably that made me force myself to go through this horrible routine every day to ensure I turned up for work and kept the show on the road. In the fog of addiction I never considered the possibility of going to the doctor, telling the truth and taking a month or two off to sober up and get better.
Then, however, a moment of clarity came.
My end of year review had gone badly. My manager's comments for my permanent record were scathing. Although I was a drinker, I had tried very hard in the second half of the year. I deserved some kind of credit, I felt. But I realised that even if I was sober and healthy, I would never have a chance with this boss. The situation was at a cross-roads. I knew I was killing myself. Did I want to die? I wasn't sure. I'm not sure I cared. I did know that when I went to sleep that I did not want to wake up for work in the morning. I was scared of snapping. I had read that around 600 people in Ireland commit suicide each year. When I was young and happy I had wondered what could make a person snap and actually go through with it. Now I knew. It was time to act. Two days after receiving my manager's comments I had handed in my month's notice. Even in this brief conversation my boss had a go at me. I walked out shaking my head but smiling, for once. I felt as light as a feather.
I was drunk on the day I left work. I had to give a speech in the canteen. I got some laughs though I have no recollection of what I said. The following Monday, I signed on as umemployed. I wrote a 3-page letter outlining how nasty my boss was and how I had no option to resign. It worked. The following week I was in receipt of unemployment benefit. I tried to stop drinking. I did ok. But I still used it as a crutch when I had to go somewhere or do anything. So really, I wasn't getting anywhere. After a couple of months I decided something drastic was needed. I called my parents and asked them could I come and stay with them.
When I arrived, my father teased all the details out of me. He could tell by my face and my body that I was a drinker. He weighed me. It was a horrible number. I felt dreadful, angry, embarrassed. But also determined. I had given myself the ultimate humiliation: returning to my parents house as an addict and a failure and I was hell-bent on regaining some semblance of dignity slowly but surely. After a week my face began to look less bloated. I received constant criticism and jibes from my father but I took them without answering back and went about my days hungry from my strict diet and craving alcohol but with the desire necessary for my mind to quell those thoughts.
The first day I squeezed into my running clothes was the worst. My belly strained against my running shirt. The running shirt was a 2010 Dublin Marathon ?Finisher? commemorative shirt. Anyone who saw me wearing it would have had to have had a rather creative imagination to believe that I had ever run a marathon, let alone ran that particular marathon with ease, finishing comfortably inside my 3:30 hours goal.
I pounded around the area under the cover of darkness. My nerves jangled and no amount of endorphins could quell them. My sweat didn't smell like the healthy sweat of a regular person. It was pure poison. My legs and lungs ached. I was out of breath every two minutes. I developed a dreadful pain in one of my testicles. When I arrived home I was sure I was going to pass blood. But I didn't. And I had done it. And I kept doing it. Pushing myself all the time. After a month I had lost 15lbs. Just over a stone in our language. Or 7 kilograms.
I sit here typing this on June 9th, 2014. I arrived at my parents house on May 1st. I have been sober all that time. Everything is better. I have fallen in love with music again. I practice my guitar daily. In the mornings I crave my cup of tea and devour my breakfast. I read books again. Spend good time with my family. I wear clothes I have not worn for almost two years. I walk the streets of Dublin and get ?the eye? from some girls. And it's good. To get here I had to lose everything. My job, my rented apartment, my independence and the illusion I had pedalled to my parents, my friends, my work colleagues and myself for so long. But it has been worth it.
Alcohol ruined my life and pushed me to the brink. But I managed to make my way back. I hope I can stay there.
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