Relapse: From AA Meeting to Hotel Toilet Floor in Just 24 Hours
I am a recovering alcoholic and these stories serve to remind me of the hell I will find myself in if I go back to drinking.
I’d been in AA for around 3 months. I’d had a pretty good sober day, got plenty of work done, ate well, went for a walk in the park. I’d even seen my wife and kids who, thanks to years of horrendous alcoholic behaviour, I now lived separately from.
It was a Tuesday night at my local AA meeting. The usual faces flowed through the door as I sat and waited patiently for things to get underway. One of my favourite storytellers chaired the meet and I listened eagerly as he divulged details of his drinking career. I was enthralled all the way through and identified with 99% of everything he had to say.
In those days, I didn’t tend to hang around after meetings, so I headed outside at 8:30 sharp, unchained my bike and set off on the ride home.
I stopped at a set of traffic lights and noticed a local Wetherspoons pub to my left. This particular place was known for accomodating the worst drunks in my neighbourhood. I had spent many hours in there, talking shit to strangers and generally embarrassing myself.
The traffic lights changed, but instead of pushing on and along the road home, I pulled out of the road and onto the pavement. I stared into the pub, through its windows and into the faces of the ‘revellers’. The lucky, lucky bastards. Drinking away without a care in the world. No-one hassling them and no-one trying to stop them.
The impulse to chain my bike to the railings and head in for a nice cold pint was overwhelming. Despite everything that had happened, despite having to leave my family home and despite the endless benders that had always ended in disaster I STILL longed to get into the pub and ‘join in’.
But I couldn’t. I’d promised my wife, my kids, my friends: I’d promised just about everyone I knew that I’d get into AA and get sober. Everyone knew what a hopeless pisshead I’d become. If word got out that I’d been in the pub it would undo any positive steps I’d made. I couldn’t do it to them.
So on the way home I stopped at the local shop and bought a bottle of lemonade and some olives. And to go with it, a nice big one litre bottle of Absolut vodka.
My mood lifted as soon as I left the shop. I nearly crashed the bike with happiness, weaving in and out of lamposts and pedestrians as I carried the lethal procurement home in my backpack. I chained the bike up and sprinted up the five flights of stairs to my flat.
As I opened the door I was hit with what a sober environment the new flat was. There was no booze in sight, everything was tidy, everything had a place. Everything had order.
I sat down at the kitchen table and placed the vodka and lemonade down in front of me. I got up and got a glass from the cupboard and was hit by an almighty headrush, a combination of guilt and excitement for what I was about to do. I sat back down and was hit with mental images of my kids and my wife.
After a minute or so of going round in circles, weighing up the pros and cons (any pros were obviously bullshit) I practically ripped off the cap to the vodka bottle and poured it agressively into the glass. A large dose, almost filling it halfway. I filled the rest of the glass up with lemonade. My head, now a mess of guilt, contradictions and brain fog, had had enough.
It’s at this exact moment that I should’ve called someone from AA. But knowing they’d try and talk me out of it, I didn’t.
I took a large sip and closed my eyes. The another. Then another. All the guilt started to dissipate, all the feelings of responsibility fell away; replaced by that old familiar feeling: fuck everyone else, I’m gonna do what I want to do. By the time I poured the third drink I couldn’t care less what happened to anyone else as a result of my behaviour.
I headed to the living room and was again amazed at how tidy and homely it was. My wife having taken me to a homestore a few days ago to get some nice things for it so I didn’t feel too homesick. I was immediately saddened by the thought, and went back to the kitchen to grab the bottle of vodka: it had taken a matter of minutes for it to become my crutch again, after almost three months without it. I downed more booze, trying to expel those thoughts from my mind.
The sadness at the thought of my wife making the flat nice for me was coupled with the realisation that the tidy and homely flat would very soon (by the morning most likely) look like the scene of a burglary. By the end of the week it would resemble a crack den.
I got upset. For a few minutes I considered stopping and throwing it all out. But I’d relapsed hadn’t I, I had to get my money’s worth, didn't I?
I poured several drinks in quick succession. I put on a tv series I loved and sat in the armchair nearby, drinks perched on the side, my customary position in the bad old days. Before I knew it half the litre bottle of vodka had gone. I felt wretched but my head had calmed down. The self-medication has succeeded once again. A bullet to the head works in a similar way.
The mess had already started, the spillages etc. But so what? No-one else lived here, it was just me. Who would know?
My wife and kids would know. They’d know when they arrived in the morning to take me out for breakfast that I’d been hammering vodka all night. They’d be able to see the carnage through the letterbox and no doubt smell it too.
Time to Leave.
I got my laptop. I visited a popular flight booking website, left the destination blank and hit search. 130 quid to Madrid, one way, leaving at 4am. I booked it. I called a taxi to pick me up at 2am and set the alarm on my phone, my ipad and my laptop in case I fell asleep from the sheer level of alcohol I was about to pump into my body.
Blackout.
I wake to the sound of alarms going off all around me, except I’m not at home. I’m in the back of a taxi. My trousers are soaking wet. I’ve pissed myself in the back of a taxi. I don’t recognise where we are driving, so I ask the driver where we are.
“On the airport road mate, about 10 minutes away. Nice little drive this time of night, no traffic, see.”
I check my bag and find a large bottle of Sprite, half filled with vodka, and take a large slurp.
“Remind me, where did you pick me up again?”
“Ha, I thought you’d had a few when you got in, I got you from the casino. Don’t you remember?”
“Haha, no.”
My heart sank. I can’t remember leaving my flat, let alone going to the casino. The casino where they serve booze 24 hours a day and aren’t too bothered if you fall asleep, even if you don’t gamble. A very regular hangout spot for me a few months ago.
My trousers are sodden, but I figure that if I pay my fare and get out of the car quickly and into the terminal he won’t realise. And if he does, he’ll already be on the ringroad by them and I’ll be long gone.
What a charming, considerate man I am with a drink inside me.
As I enter the terminal I head straight through security and into the bar. I order a bottle of wine and wait for my flight. I surf through Facebook and leave some drunken and totally inappropriate comments on friends walls, most of which are met with the odd question mark or ‘you ok mate?’. It’ll be just a matter of time before my wife spots them and realises what I’ve done.
As the guilt and anxiety battle for pole position in my head, I’m at that stage where I can consume an inordinate amount of alcohol. I order another bottle of wine. On seeing my reflection in the mirror behind the bartender I fool myself with the idea that I’m just a business traveller taking a late night flight to a cosmopolitain European city to talk business with some potential new clients. I fantasise about this for time time, before realising that I hadn't earnt any money for months and the chances of meeting anyone other than other drunks on this trip are highly unlikely.
I remember boarding the flight but I blackout for the flight itself, having pounded my brain with so much alcohol it had to quite literally turn itself off.
I wake as the plane is landing in Madrid.
As I walk along the travelator towards security I am gripped with fear. Fear of the consequences of what I’ve done, fear of what my wife will do when she finds out, fear of everything. Everything is a fear, no thoughts are positive. I’m also drunk and can’t work out how to call a taxi (as my call register will testify). I call several local London taxi firms and try to book a ride: from Madrid airport.
As the Spanish customs agent waves me through I spill out onto the street. There are no taxis, just queues of people. The vodka I’d bought with me has gone, either drunk or dropped along the way. I don’t need a lift, I need a drink, badly. Everything seems closed in the terminal so I survey my surroundings to find somewhere suitable. The shakes have kicked in and I’m quite a sight to behold. That tidy and homely flat seems a million light years away now. I think of it for a moment and think of the mess in there. I think of my wife and kids’ faces when they let themselves in and realise that their Dad/husband is missing.
My need for a drink is now reaching fever pitch. I stumble from coach stop to coach stop but can’t see any stores or bars. My head is spinning, my anxiety is screaming at me; my desperation for another drink all-consuming.
I change tact, even in my desperate state. Someone here must have alcohol? Someone must have visited the duty free shop? I scan up and down the endless queues, looking at luggage and shopping bags. How can so many people have travelled and not visited the duty free for a bottle of something? How can that possibly be?
I spin around and steady myself, my brow dripping with sweat and my backpack cutting into my chest, constricting it further. The need for another drink is so intense now that I’m willing to do literally anything to get one.
Bingo.
A couple sit at the end of an otherwise deserted coach stop. They have some luggage and a white plastic bag with two bottles inside, clearly marked: Duty Free.
I approach them and force the widest and most intense smile my facial muscles can muster. They look scared and rightly so. I am driven by addiction, and my addiction will stop at nothing to get what it wants.
“Hey guys, I wonder if you can help me?”
“Sure, are you lost?” offers the lady.
“Haha, no I’ve mistakenly arrived at the airport four hours early!”
“Oh no!” they both say, in various different ways.
“Yea, I know, such a nightmare. And my wife has just given birth at the hospital in London, I need to get back there as soon as I can but I couldn’t find an earlier flight!”
They look at me in silence.
“Do you guys know of a bar around here I can go and have a celebrationary drink and wait for my flight?” I practically beg.
“I don’t think there are any at this time of the morning.” says the man, confirming my suspicions.
I don’t know what happened at that moment. They seemed to believe what I was saying to them, but must also have been asking themselves why the hell I’d started talking to them. The man looked at me for a moment, then put his hand into the duty free bag.
“Hey, why don’t you have this from us?” he said, producing a bottle of champagne from the bag.
I stagger back slightly. “Oh I couldn’t possibly.” my hands already extended.
“Please, go ahead. Toast the birth of your new child. Even if it is in a bus shelter!”
“Oh wow, you guys are too much.” The tears of desperation tying in nicely with my bullshit story to acquire more booze. “You’re too kind.” I tell them.
“Enjoy, but don’t drink it all at once!” The lady giggles, I laugh along too. We all laugh. I wipe away a tear.
“Well you’re really very kind, I really appreciate it.” I take the bottle, panic attack raging at 99%.
“It’s nothing.” Says the man, as they board their bus waving to me. I wave back, sadly.
I sit in relative calm on the bench as their coach pulls away. I wait for them to turn the corner before undoing the foil and teasing the cork out, ensuring I lose as little of the booze as possible.
It’s quite difficult to gulp down Champagne. It’s so fizzy that you need to hold an amount in your mouth to stop it fizzing before swallowing, so to get a cupful down you takes a few tries. Then a feeling like a grenade is about to explode in your chest as the gas hits. I get through half of it and feel my hands stop shaking slightly. I decide to walk and drink around the terminal to find either some kind of bar or cafe to get back to the serious business of life-endangering alcoholism.
The funny thing about having an extreme panic attack is that afterwards you feel like you’ve just been in a fight. You feel drained, overly-affable and unable to really think straight. You feel extremely weak and it takes time to get your barings.
By now I’m past caring what the people at the coach stop think of me, if they even thought anything at all. I stumble (quite literally, I nearly land on top of a man sitting outside) upon a cafe for bus drivers. Thankfully they have a well-populated roster of world-class spirits hanging up above the counter. I take a seat and the well-meaning owner comes over to take my order.
“Morning Mister, something I can get you?”
“Yes, I’d like two large vodka’s and a bottle of 7up please. Actually, make it three, just to be safe.” I say, with relative gusto.
“Hehe, no problem Senor, I bring the bottle of vodka and you pay at the end.”
God bless the trusting and non-problematic attitude to alcohol in Spain and Europe, generally.
“Well alright then.” I tell him, managing a sort of sigh/smile.
After serial-drinking around ten vodka and lemonade’s to calm me down, I fill my empty Sprite bottle with vodka and approach the bar to pay the bill.
“Forty five euros, Senor. You wanna pay by card?” he asks.
“Yes please.” I say, handing him my bank card.
After a few attempts, its clear that my card is being declined. The panic hits my like a ton of bricks and I can feel myself getting dizzy. There’s so much to remember being a full-time drunk. Finances are always a major problem.
“Can we try again?” I offer weakly.
“Sure, these machines are always a problem.” he tells me.
The only problem here is me mate, I can guarantee you that.
“Haha, yes, always the way isn’t it!” I bleet, pathetically.
More whirring, more offensively loud beeps from the machine and it’s crystal-clear to us both that my card has been declined again.
My wife, quite rightly, has cancelled my debit card. I only got the new one three months ago.
I rummage around in my bag trying to find my backup card. I keep a prepaid mastercard that no-one knows about so that if I need to get away and consume alcohol until I’m comotose, I can.
I can’t find it. I check all the pockets and can’t locate it. I empty the contents of my bag onto the counter in front of me, the happy-go-lucky cafe owner now more a shade of pissed-off-go-angry.
Most of my fellow patrons are now looking at this trampy looking English drunk with intrigue. I’m all of a sudden acutely aware that I haven’t changed my trousers since pissing myself in the back of the taxi on the way to the airport. Empty miniature vodka bottles cascade onto the floor as the owner gets more and more impatient.
I open my copy of ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’ and the hallowed visa card falls out onto the counter. I’m maniacal with relief and it shows.
“There we are! I knew it was here somewhere!” I rejoice, almost in tears.
The owner, now ashen-faced and totally un-enthusiastic, slides the card into the machine with comtempt. I consider telling him to add a tip but think better of it. He dials in the bill amount and presses submit. More whirring, then nothing. I look at the screen. No declined message, just a message in Spanish. I look him in the eye, he looks at me. I raise my eyebrows in an English ‘Come on, it’ll be ok’ sort of way but it invokes no response.
BEEP! The machine spits out the payment receipt and all of a sudden we’re the best of friends. I nearly piss myself again.
“YES!” I shout.
Some of the customers clap a few times, but not in a nice way.
“You go find another place to drink, ok?” he tells me, deadly serious.
“Oh, of course.” I say. “I’ll be on my way, don’t you worry.”
I pack up my bag and heave it onto my back. I try to make smiley eye contact with a few of the patrons but they think I’m a dickhead. Of this they’d be absolutely correct.
I hail a taxi and climb in. “The nearest and cheapest hotel, please.” he nods and off we go. We end up in traffic, which always makes me nervous. I don’t like being hemmed in. Thankfully, we’re on a main road which has plenty of cafes, bars and shops. If things get too bad I can jump and out and get another drink while the driver waits.
Hotel Del Death.
After what seems like hours, but is most probably only fifteen minutes or so, we arrive at an extremely run down shithole hotel just off the beaten track. There’s some very dodgy looking people outside. Drunks, drug addicts or both. Mercifully, there’s a booze store next to it with a flashing LED proclaiming: OPEN 24 HOURS.
I pay the driver and head into the hellhole. Sure enough, the people outside are an acurate advertisement for the general tone of the place. The receptionist is smoking weed and watching a UFC fight on a tablet.
“Hi, just a room please.” I say, trying to avoid a full-blown conversation.
“Yea? Just for you?” he barks.
“Yes, just me.”
“Thirty euros, my friend.”
I swipe my emergency card and he cheerfully gives me the key.
“No prostitutes amigo, ok? We’re not that kind of place.” he tells me, sternly.
I look around and notice that it looks exactly like the sort of place one would bring prostitutes.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” I tell him, truthfully.
As I wander up the stairs to my room/cell I notice that this place is absolutely stacked to the rafters with degenerates. Doors constantly slam, loud arguing spills out of every door, the pungent aroma of smoke and sick is overwhelming. It smells like death here.
I put the key into the lock for room 8 and turn it. With a few jiggles the cheap door flies open and slams against the wall. This causes my new neighbour to spill out of his hotel room to investigate.
A topless British man appears in front of me, agressively smoking what appears to be a crack joint.
“What the fuck are you doing mate?” he barks.
“Just trying to get into my room, sorry about the noise.” I tell him.
“Ok no worries, bud.” he says, immediately switching to a more friendly deamanour. “You need any crack or weed?”
I look to the side of him and see what appears to be a dead lady on the bed in his room. “Nah, I’m alright for crack. Thanks though mate.”
“No worries. If you change your mind though, let me know. I’m here twenty four seven, three six five. You know what I’m sayin’?” he says, almost poetically.
“I do, I do. Thats very kind of you.” I say.
“Steve.” He states, extending an arm absolutely covered in needle holes, tracking marks and poorly drawn tattoo’s. “But my mates call me Dicey.”
I imediately see why. “Nice to meet you, Dicey. I’m Ladnie.” as we shake hands.
He nods then gestures with his eyes that he’s got business to attend to in his room. Disposing of corpses most likely.
As I enter my room I think about how, despite being a raging alcoholic, I’m still quite judgmental of other people. I look down on old Dicey, and seperate my addiction quite firmly from his. He’s a lying, thieving, cheating, drug-dealing crackhead and perhaps a necrophiliac. I on the other hand am just a plain old, traditional, nothing-to-write-home-about drunk.
I’m not disappointed with my room. It’s a dump. It looks like 100 people came here to die. The walls are stained a horrible yellowish brown and the carpets have worn to almost nothing. The bed is of the single variety and its poor-quality mattress is wrapped in one single sheet. The wifi password is crudely written on the wall in permanent marker, which is a nice touch. In lieu of an air conditioner there’s a fan which serves to stir up the hot and soupy air around the room. The bathroom has a toilet and a sink, no bath and no shower. It makes me extremely sad for a moment.
As I collapse onto the bed, I almost bounce straight off it and onto the floor. Steadying myself I lean back against the headboard and finish off the last of the vodka in the Sprite bottle. With new purpose I head out of my room and out of the guest house towards the booze shop next door.
This is the part of my behaviour where I go into auto-pilot. The daily grind of being a drunk is pretty repetitive, and surprisingly hard work. Drink, sleep, drink, sometimes eat, drink, cry, sleep, drink etc etc. I don’t want to see anyone or hear from anyone. I just want to be alone in my room to get on with my drinking.
I buy two bottles of vodka and two more bottles of sprite. I also purchase shitloads of crisps which I hope to eat at some point. Trying to eat an actual meal is totally out of the question. I’m at the worst stage of the self-abuse here. Nothing else matters.
Heading back upstairs I pass a room containing a man openly masturbating on his bed as a TV plays at full volume. I can only assume this is his preferred way of attracting a love interest. As I wiggle the key in the lock for number 8 I hear gunshots coming from outside.
What a Place.
As I settle down with my drinks I try to ignore the hammering sound coming from Diceys room. Its a loud, clear hammering and is accompanied by lots of swearing. Whatever/whoever is being hammered by Dicey is not co-operating, that’s for sure. It stops and I hear the sound of Dicey’s door open and someone storm off along the hallway. Apart from the sound of loud music my room is now relatively peaceful.
I set my ipad up and connect to the wifi. The signal is weak but its just enough to stream ‘Only Fools and Horses’ on Youtube. As there doesn’t seem to be any glasses in this establishment, I drink my vodka and Sprite from a china mug I find in the toilet. After a few episodes and half a bottle of vodka I fall asleep.
I wake up hours later. Its dark outside. I reach for my phone, which has been in airplane mode for two days, and check the time. 2am. Somehow its noisier outside my room that it was when I arrived.
I feel sick. Properly sick. The sheer level of alcohol I have consumed since leaving my wife and kids behind in England has gotten the better of my digestive system and I need to be sick. Experience tells me that it’s best to just get it over with, so I head to the toilet and cuddle up against it, bottle of vodka by my side.
I swig from the bottle and this causes me to wretch violently, and I’m sick with extreme force. It goes all over the wall initially but I manage to direct the rest into the bowl. Breathless, I try to swallow and put a stop to it, but my body has other ideas. The vomit is coming thick and fast, quite literally, and I hunch myself over the toilet to get on with it. The sickness seems to be subsiding, for a moment at least, so I push myself back against the wall and take a large swig of vodka. This calms me down for a few seconds, but then the sick comes again. I quickly hoist myself back over the toilet bowl and roar huge buckets-worth of watery bile into its depths, the filthy toilet water splashing back at me. My spasming leg accidentally kicks the vodka bottle and it smashes to pieces against the wall next to me. After another 30 seconds or so my body calms down and I lay on the floor, totally exhausted and covered in vomit, glass and vodka.
I manage to turn myself over and crawl towards the bed. I take my glass and vomit covered clothes off and lean against the bed, the cheap and shitty bed sheet a welcome comfort from the ordeal I’ve just experienced. I open the remaining bottle of vodka and pour myself another mugful as a reward for not choking and dying whilst throwing up.
I’m still feeling sick but I’m also sobering up from vomiting, so I force myself to gulp the booze down. This is exhausting but it works for the time being and after drinking the rest of the bottle I fall asleep.
I wake up gasping for air. The room is unbearably hot so I try to push the window open for some fresh air. It won’t budge and in my desperation I kick a hole in the glass to let some air in. Sitting in the chair I lean against the wall and try to suck some of the slightly less hot air in through the broken window. I reach over for my mug and down the remainder of my drink. As I do so I get an extreme cramp in my left leg and have to stand up bolt upright to get the blood going again.
By this point you’re probably wondering why on earth anyone would subject themselves to this kind of self-inflicted suffering and pain? I can only tell you that when you hate yourself to this level and feel such total and utter worthlessness, it genuinely feels like the only option.
With the booze now all gone its time to visit the 24 hour booze store next door.
As I leave my room I spot Dicey and lady I thought was dead sitting together in the hallway.
“You alright mate? That didn’t sound good.” he jokes.
“Yea fine, just some bad lunch or something.” I tell him.
“Lunch? I ain’t eaten for a week. Eatin’s cheatin’ aint it!” he says, maniacally. The lady smiles weakly and takes a powerful drag from Dicey’s crack joint.
“Haha, yea. I suppose it is.” I quip. “Got to go Dicey, got to catch the shop before it closes.
“Its 24 hour mate, it never closes. Sure you don’t want any crack? Sort you right out it will.” he says, totally straight faced.
I think about it for a minute. I briefly consider my situation and ways to make it better. Taking crack with Dicey just doesn’t seem like the right course of action.
“You know what Dicey, I think I’m gonna leave it mate. But thanks again, its really good of you to offer.”
“Anytime mate, I’m here twenty four seven, three sixty…….” his voice trails off as I trudge purposefully along the corridor, now wearing the bedsheet as a sort of tunic.
I get to the shop and pick out some brandy, hoping that a switch of drink might perk me up. I grab some diet coke and head to the counter. The checkout girl is arguing loudly in Spanish with someone on the phone and it’s prickling another panic attack. I beam at her that I’d like to pay and she rings my stuff up. I hand her my card without giving it a second thought.
“Sorry.” she says after swiping it. “No munee in your account.”
“What?” I ask, incredulously.
“You no have munee in your bank.” she reiterates.
“Can you try again.” I ask, acutely aware that I have no other form of payment.
She tries again, declined. And again. Same outcome.
It had been so long since I topped the old prepaid account up that it could well have just run dry. With no other form of payment with me I’d need to raise cash another way. But in the meantime I simply have to have a drink.
I wander back into the guest house and find the guy from reception. He’s playing poker with some bad dudes near the entrance.
“Hey there. Do you have a bar?” I asked.
“Not anymore. We had to close it because people were making their own drinks. I have some bottles of rum for sale?” he told me.
“Sure, I’ll take one, can you add the cost to my room?” I enquired.
“No credit here I’m afraid amigo, everything is pay before you use.”
This was a problem. My anxiety was blasting at ninety per cent and my shakes had started in earnest. I could feel myself getting hot all over, I simply had to find a way to get some money.
“My bank card isn’t working, I need a new one but my bank is only in the UK.” I tell him, insistently.
“Sorry amigo, I can’t help you.”
I look down at my watch, bought for me by my wife just a few weeks before as a getting sober present. Amazingly, it didn’t suffer during the vomit and glass incident.
“You wanna buy a watch?” I ask.
“What you got?” he asks, nonchalently.
“Brand new Apple Watch. Not available yet here in Spain, I believe?” I tease.
He gets up from his chair and comes over to me, suddenly interested.
“Apple Watch huh, I’ve seen those, very nice. How much you want?” he asks.
“They’re five hundred euros new, lets say four hundred shall we?” I say, knowing full well he’s getting the bargain of the century.
He laughs. “Lets say you need some cash and I have three fifty right now. What you think?”
If he had offered me two hundred I would have said yes. In all likelihood, I would have said yes to one hundred. Hell, if he’d have offered to give me one solitary bottle of rum I would probably have said yes.
“You’ve got a deal.” I tell him, feeling absolutely wretched for selling it, but not wretched enough to halt the sale.
I take it off my wrist and hand it to him. His face lights up. The self-loathing really hitting hard here.
“Wait, you got the thing to charge it?” he asks, urgently.
“Yes, its upstairs. I can drop it down to you later.”
“No charger, no deal, amigo. Sorry.”
“Give me a minute, I’ll go and get it.” I say, quietly.
As I climb the stairs to my room I am utterly drained, seeing stars with each step and dripping with sweat. I get the charger from my bag and check myself in the mirror. My hair is matted from the vomit, I have huge bags under my eyes and there’s blood all over the bedsheet tunic I’ve taken very naturally to wearing. Quite a stark difference to my fresh, clean-shaven, sober face when I arrived at the AA meeting just 48 hours ago.
This is what advanced stage addiction looks like I thought to myself. The next step is death.
I walked downstairs with a very small but definite spring in my step. I bound over to the reception guy and plunge the charger into his hands. He thumbs out some notes from his filthy pocket and hands them to me.
I check them. Three hundred and fifty euros. He hands me a bottle of his infamous rum.
“This is from me, a little gift, hehe.” he jests.
Usually I’d retreat to my room, but the thought of going back in there coupled with the risk of bumping into Dicey stops me in my tracks. Besides, the reception man might have an actual glass.
“Would you like to have a drink with me?” I ask.
“Sure.” he says, slamming some actual real glasses down onto the counter.
We pour a shot each. I down mine, he does the same. I fill mine to the top and down it like a madman, which unnerves him slightly. I pour him another shot, this time chinking our glasses together.
“To your health!” he says, enthusiastically.
I start laughing, gently at first, then louder until I am positively guffawing at the thought of ‘my health’. I’ve never felt so utterly unhealthy in my life.
I start to feel ill again.
I’m suddenly hit by a powerful and utterly unshakeable feeling that I need to get the hell out of there. I feel as if I’m in an extremely dangerous situation, and if I drink around these people and get to know them I can’t predict the outcome. I need to go home: If I still have a home. Even in my sick state I know I must leave.
“Thanks amigo, but I’ve got to catch a flight.” I tell him.
“So soon amigo, I thought you were going to show me to how to use the watch?” he replies, looking confused.
“Sorry man, you’ll need to check Youtube. I need to go.”
We shake hands and I climb the stairs to my room, now with a pocketful of cash and a bottle of rum. Minus my watch, of course.
As I near my room I spot Dicey, who is wearing nothing but his underpants.
“How you doing mate, all good?” he asks calmly.
“Yea fine thanks Dicey, I’m just off to catch my plane back to London.”
“What? You can’t go, I’ve got some whores arriving in a minute and they’ve just picked up a load of smack. Good shit too.” he tells me, looking hopeful.
I can feel the blood drain from my face. The thought of taking heroin with Dicey whilst being forced to have sex with drug-addicted prostitutes fills me with an indescribable dread. The sickness is back. I swig from the rum bottle.
“Honestly, that’s a really kind offer and I bet it would be loads of fun, but I’ve got to get back to my wife and kids.” I say.
“Woah, you’ve got a wife and kids?” he asks, taken aback.
I hold up my ring finger. “Yep. Married with kids.”
“Fuckin hell mate, no offence but I thought you’d come here to kill yourself with that.” he nods at the bottle of rum. “You look fucked mate!”
“No, none taken.” I say, amused that Dicey, a blood-soaked crack-addict wearing nothing but his underwear thinks that I look fucked.
“Take care mate.” I tell him.
“You too. Get back to your wife and kiddies, this aint the place for a nice bloke like you.” he tells me.
I re-arrange my bedsheet tunic and head into my room. I grab my bag and fill it with the stuff I haven’t sold. I fill the disgusting Sprite bottle with rum and put the bottle into the bag.
As I leave the god forsaken shithole, I manage to skip out the door without bumping into the receptionist, who is now happily talking to a group of scantily-clad ladies who are asking after Dicey.
I enter the 24 hour booze shop next door and buy myself a “My Wife Went to Madrid and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt.” t-shirt, along with a pair of super-tight speedo shorts. I pay and get changed at the back of the shop, right next to the drains. The sound of Dicey whooping and cheering, presumably at the arrival of the whores and the smack, wafts out his hotel room window above.
I can’t help but smile: ‘ Have a good one Dicey, enjoy yourself while you can. You’ll probably be dead soon.’
My anxiety starts to subside. I am buoyed by the thought of getting back home and getting back into recovery. I hail a taxi and tell the driver to take me to the airport. I sit back with my Sprite bottle of rum and get my phone out of my bag. I turn it on. Still only 96 missed calls. My wife stopped calling after the 96th time. The thought that I might not be able to reach her or see her fills me with absolute fear and more self-loathing.
I call a friend in AA.
“Hello?” the voice says.
“Hi, I’ve been drinking in a Spanish hotel for the last 48 hours.”
“I see. Do you want to stop?”
“Yes. But I need to carry on drinking to get on the plane. I won’t manage it otherwise.”
“Ok, send me your flight info. I’ll meet you the other end. Make sure you send it to me ok?”
“I will. One hundred per cent.”
“Good luck.”
I arrive at the terminal, book a ticket, hurry through security and get to my gate. The waiting area is thankfully deserted, so I get my bottle of rum out and start drinking.
A woman appears out of nowhere and sits far too close to me. With several hundred seats to choose from, why sit near me? I mean, look at me! She eyes me suspiciously, then looks absolutely disgusted as I try to get on with finishing my rum.
“Yes? Can I help?” I ask her, in between death swigs.
“Oh my God, are you some sort of pisshead?” she asks, genuinely.
“Yes I am! What gave me away?” I joke.
“I can literally smell you from here, won’t you be too drunk to get on the plane?” she asks, with some concern.
“Why don’t you let me worry about that, eh?” I tell her, with an air of authority.
The woman moves down to the end of the aisle and begins taking pictures of me, which doesn't bother me in the slightest.
I drain the bottle completely as boarding begins. I stand up, approach the lady checking tickets, show her my passport then throw the empty rum bottle into the bin. It makes a satisfying DONG sound as it lands. I look back at the lady and wink. She puts her hand over her mouth as if to stop herself from actually vomiting.
The Long Road Home.
I arrive back in London physically and mentally wrecked. I enter the arrivals hall where my friend from AA is waiting for me.
I’ve not been back to Madrid in almost two years.
And I’ve not touched a drop of alcohol either.
