General Fahey
GENERAL
2007-03-12 21:39:56
I was once living and working with a houseful of full-blown alcoholics. The amount of alcohol that household consumed on a weekly basis blew the garbage-removal men away. The weekly pile of empty beer cans, cartons and bottles was like a psychedelic work of art sitting out on the front lawn. No wonder the neighbours never talked to us. There were physical fights most nights and I’ve still got a scar from one over my left eye. At that point, I thought that I had really hit rock bottom. No money, no hope and no one to turn to. So I picked up the telephone book and found the listing for Alcohol Assistance and gave them a call. I had finally realised that I needed help. I could not stand the insane lifestyle anymore, and even though I couldn’t see a way out, I knew there just had to be one. At first, the counsellor wanted me admitted immediately to hospital for detoxification. I had told her what my weekly drinking schedule consisted of (something in the order of about 100 cans of full strength beer a week and a couple bottles of bourbon). When she worked out that I was not going to be admitting myself to hospital, she directed me to two alcoholic's meetings that were being held in town that night. One was relatively close by, but it was non-smoking and the other was about 10 km away, and it allowed smoking. I would walk the extra distance just to smoke my ciggies; I figured I’d need them. The lady on the phone told me that this meeting was behind the church at 7:30, so I left at about 5:30 just to make sure that I got there early. I was hanging out behind the church and at about 7:20, all these cars started pulling into the car park. My first thought was, “All these alkies have wheels… Then they got out of their cars and headed into this hall behind the church. I noticed that there were all these grey heads among them. They were all about 60 or 70 years of age. My next thought was, “Why are all these alkies older--decades older--than me?” There was not a youngster or a middle-aged person amongst the 50 or so people. Being about 28 years of age, I was understandably worried. As the last lady was going into the hall, I ran up behind her and said, “Excuse me, Madam. Is this where they are having the alcoholic's meeting this evening?” She smiled, touched me gently on the forearm, looked me kindly in the eyes and said, “No darling, this is the bingo hall. The alcoholic's meeting is underneath the church at the rear.” Good one, Tyrone.