Brendan

She sees him there

lying in his own shit

and piss and vomit

and rage ignites

explodes within her chest. 

I hate you she screams,

I hate it when you’re like this…

(She is like the rest,

those that preach and pester

drive him to distraction.

She does not – or chooses not –

to listen understand

that with every morning waking,

his mind screaming, body aching

he is yearning dying

for that first liquid mouthful…

(She is a tangle in his hair –

he should tease her out

and toss her on the pile

of   f*cking interfering arseholes.))

She carries on

with her relentless screeching moaning

and he mumbling groaning

wraps head in hands

to SHUT HER OUT,

then pleads with her to go buy him a bottle. 

And all she wants to do is squeeze throttle

the last whisky smelling breath life outa him

and she explodes again with steaming anger

and tears streaming down her face

she pummels him with empty fists.

He is fighting for his life now,

thumps her and rises from his bed,

his legs unsteady he collapses to the floor

and he lies there, twitching. 

She recognises, knows those orgasmic groans

and forty minutes in, watching with a selfish glee

rather than inserting *Diazepam PR

she steps over him instead.

She closes the door,

realises she doesn’t care

anymore in any effing way. 

She wants him dead,

wants an end to it,

she pours herself a coffee

lights up a cigarette

and listens to the news.

Anna :o]

Brian at dVerse has us telling stories – and this is a story that I guess I have wanted to tell for some time.  It is a story of Brendan – who could quite easily be a Brenda – who is a resident in my workplace.

Brendan is a (very) intelligent long term and readily admitted alcoholic who has insight into how his alcoholism has detrimentally affected his life.  He is the first alcoholic who has given me insight of the horrors of waking, knowing that there is no alcohol in the house, of how knowledge of this lacerates your body with the most unimaginable exquisite pain.  He tells of scrambling to find money to buy the first bottle of the day, hiding in some quiet space to take the first sup and the relief that this brings.  He also relates the horror of being penniless – knowing there is no end to his craving…

Sadly, what Brendan has no insight into, is the effect of alcoholism on the brain.  His recall is less than thirty seconds and he tells me this story over and over again, night after night.  What a sad waste of a very intelligent life.

*Diazepam PR (per rectum) is a drug given when a patient is in status epilepticus.  A sudden cessation – after an episode of heavy drinking - can cause seizures and several of our residents are admitted in the knowledge that we must continue to feed their drinking habits.  And this we do until some cease to drink of their own accord and ?oddly enough they do not have seizures?  Some who continue to drink do have seizures…?

Image: courtesy of Wikimedia Commons