Painting by Picasso, 1902
She lived downstairs in my apartment building. She dressed like a lady. By that I mean as if she was caught in a time warp of 1956. Pressed slacks with a matching cardigan and a coordinating blouse. She was younger than me by about seven or eight years. Her hair was carefully blonded and feathered. Always low Cuban heels. Never sneakers or teetering stilettoes. She came to some of the senior advocacy meetings I held. Never saying much but totally lady-like in her demeanor amongst all the jeans and t-shirts.
The rumour mill fired up, as they do. She had a drinking problem. She was selling all her "stuff" her jewelry, her crystal, her china and her designer clothes. Her husband, a doctor, had divorced her years before but had left her with an expensive house in a good part of town and alimony until her Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security kicked in.
Within ten years she had sold the house and managed to deplete the investment account by buying herself a new car every year and taking extravagant trips. She moved into my building about five years ago, her savings close to zero, carless.
One of my close friends in the building had visited her and found her in dire straits in her bedroom surrounded by bottles and no food in the fridge or elsewhere in the kitchen. Just a horrific mess and a bucket beside the bed for her waste. She notified the management who informed her family. They came to visit from great distances. She cleaned up her act and stopped drinking.
As soon as they left, she resumed. She managed to get "loans" from various tenants who took pity on her. ("Enabling" more like it.)
The breaking point came when she tried to wash fecal encrusted cushions in the laundry.
She was evicted about six months ago but she kept returning here, in cabs, buzzing different tenants from the lobby to pay her cab fare so she could wander the halls, banging on doors, looking for loans from her soft touches, the enablers, who were worn down by the begging. I had never given her my telephone number, though she asked many times. She drunk-called all the numbers she had late at night rambling on about her wealth and status and privilege and how she was in a far better class of people than those in her circle.
She died, drunk, yesterday. I didn't know her though I had met her several times. Nobody knew her.
She took a drink and then the drink took her, removing her humanity, her personality, her very life at the end. Her only pal alcohol, fierce and relentless in its hunger to consume her, inch by inch, emotion by emotion, relationship by relationship.
Her only legacy is a reminder to us lucky few sober ones, of how voracious an appetite alcohol has, if left unchecked.
It consumes those addicted to it down to a husk.
*Not her real name
This is a very well-written post about addiction. And you cared but stepped away from being an enabler. It takes strenght to do that. You saw her humanity and you cared to write this post.
ReplyDeleteI've learned through a beloved alcoholic aunt (and many others) that it is a final kindness to step away and allow them the decision to surrender and hopefully get help, Inger.
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My mother was an alcoholic and so much of this hits home. Hard. It is indeed a destroyer. And a fierce fighter.
ReplyDeleteOh EC I am so very sorry, it is a dreadful disease. I am lucky, along with many of my family members, to have found recovery. It runs through my family like a snake.
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It is a strange drug in how it can entrap some and not others. What a sad end to her life.
ReplyDeleteIt is strange indeed Andrew, I've known many kinds of alkies, some hereditary, others this fluke in a family of non-drinkers. It's weird and unpredictable.
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What a story. A sad one.
ReplyDelete-Kate
Very. Heartbreaking. She wore such a mask of propriety.
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I come from a family of alcoholics, or people addicted to other things. My father was not an alcoholic because he would never take a drink. Sadly, he did not help me "preach" this to me children. One is obese, addicted to food. As is my sister, addicted and obese. My other daughter is addicted to alcohol, on the weekends. It is a horrid a drug as any.
ReplyDeleteBrenda is over the pain.
My dad never drank either, Joanne, I believe his father was an alkie though he never spoke of it. And addiction takes many faces. Recovery can be terrifying at the beginning but it eases its way into a peaceful way of living with the closeness one develops of others who recover and hold your hand.
DeleteLoving detachment for those who have to witness loved ones succumb.
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What a tragic story. I was lucky enought to be raised in a teetotal home and see no reason to change that
ReplyDeleteI was raised in a teetotal home too Kylie but that does not protect one.
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A sad tale of a sad existence which happens far too often in the world.
ReplyDeleteFar, far too often River and the stats are skewed as the shame of it infects the entire family so the reason of death is not disclosed.
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Alcohol is a hard master. Thanks for writing this.
ReplyDeleteIt owns the life of an addict, Charlotte. It's a dreadful disease.
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As sad a tale as I have ever heard of similar cases over here.
ReplyDeleteI have seen too much of it Ramana, it's dreadful. I wrote about it here on my aunt who died of it. I adored her.
Deletehttps://wisewebwoman.blogspot.com/2009/12/scent-of-laundry.html
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Tragic tale. Anyone who has a friend or relative with a drug or drinking problem should send them this story.
ReplyDeleteThe reason I wrote it Tom, it is one of the worst diseases one reason being it can be arrested one day at a time. If only the victims hadn't the fantasy they were managing it.
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She should have joined Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Sad that this brought her down from her high perch.
ReplyDeleteAh the shoulds of life, Gigi.
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How horribly sad...
ReplyDeleteI know E, her descent was so horrifying and no one could stop her.
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I read the posts about Aunt Daisy. She was an absolute powerhouse, wasn't she? People who live the way her younger self did leave me awestruck with all that work and activity. What a shame she didn't finish that way
ReplyDeleteIt was a combination of a lot of things that set her on the path to alcoholic dementia, Kylie. And cards and booze in the afternoons in her house.
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What a tragic life for many years it sounds like and then an equally same end to her life. She seems to have been bent on self-destruction and quite out of touch with reality. Of course, the alcohol wouldn't have fostered rational thought. Too bad there were so many enablers.
ReplyDeleteThe enablers were fatal to her, Joared. Not allowing her to reach rock bottom. Ignorance mainly as to what they were doing. People pleasing at its finest.
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What a very sad story. As you say, a heavy drinking habit just gradually consumes the person until they're a shambling wreck of a human being. And as you say, people misguided enough to enable the habit only make things worse. I'm very glad I don't have an addictive personality.
ReplyDeleteYou are fortunate Nick, as you know I do, but I am so very fortunate in recovery.
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What a stunning piece of writing Mary. I knew a lady like this years ago. Abstained for years, brought two children up single handedly and well. Settled into retirement and frequently took herself on little cruises. One evening at a meal she was given a glass of white wine and drank it. And that was that. All her hard work and self control, gone.
ReplyDeleteThank you Anne. I liken that sip of a first drink to a puff off a cigarette. Instant addiction all over again. I've known those with twenty years on the wagon hitting it like never before and dying from it within a year or two.
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And I recall hearing about Georgie.
ReplyDeleteGeorgie was the waitress at the cafe in Dublin where my father went for lunch every day of his working life. He and three other men met there daily. They kept a paternal eye on Georgie. Most of the time she was happy and relaxed but when she wasn't they knew to step in - more than just generous tips, quiet enquiries if she needed help. Georgie's husband used to go on spectacular weeks long drinking binges, funded by pawning everything in the house including the furniture. He would always come out the other side but her life and wellbeing was completely governed by the stranglehold of alcohol.
Oh what a story Anne, and how kind were your dad and her customers to her? The dhivil drink in Ireland has destroyed so very many lives.
DeleteIt used to be called "The Failing". Do you remember. My dad, a lifelong pioneer would point out the houses (often the parish priest's) where men had the failing. Women weren't allowed to have it. But there were many hidden women drunks.
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