Before the light – A Prologue

It’s dark. Confused. Pillows soaking. So am I.
Sleep disturbed. Roll over
Everything hurts
“Not again”

Mouthful of clotted cardboard. Tongue made of flour. Leather and chalk
Eyes can’t, won’t open
Wracking cough forms anyway. It’s going to hurt. It does.
Sweat. Stink. Curl into a ball, wishing to die. Wishing to be no more

The dull throb explodes. Jackhammer through the skull. The stomach sends its own message
Get to bathroom. Move slowly

Nothing prepares me for the shame of the morning after.
Not the previous morning’s hangover. Not the one before that. Not the absolute certainty – sworn on everything – that the next drink will be the last one ever.

God, I promise – “never again Mum, I promise
Back from the bathroom. Nothing left inside.
Dignity – none of that left, either.

Ripples of memories, it had been a crap day.
Almost hit someone with that 2nd empty bottle flung out of the car window, driving up the N7, passing Dunoon. Cut short a photo shoot to get to the bottle store before it closed.

The alcoholic’s logic.
“I am proud to never drink spirits or drink on the job. I don’t buy alcohol until I’ve finished work”
So I finish work early. Beers can’t go in the car earlier – they’d get warm.

All I wanted was a drink to wash away the pain, the fear, the excuses, the reasons, the futility. To drown the rage. Quench the anger.

I’d lost my moral compass some time ago. No sense of heads and tails. No bearings of who and how I used to be.
Not sure how many years it’s been going on.

Wind back. It could be a year, 6 months, or two weeks. Not much has changed.
On the days I was not shooting in Camps Bay or Clifton, “I’ve got to go and buy food for supper, Won’t be long.”

Always the same. A quart of cheap Castle, two craft beers and a bottle of cheap wine. Some days, two quarts. Those days were not so good.

At least the drive drinking was only 20 minutes.
Leaving Cape Town was worse.
By June, I was cracking open the first beer between my knees with a two-rand coin as I cleared the flyover past the Convention Centre.
Three months earlier, I had the common sense – at least – to wait until I was 6 miles out of town.
By October, I did not care. Deep down, I was crying for help. Unable to ask, of course.

Too much shame. Too much guilt. Too much embarrassment

And pride.

As the bottle cap flipped off, I could barely breathe. Why a coin, not a bottle opener?
A bottle opener would be too obvious; I’d never have one in the car. Instead, I risk swerving, popping the cap with a coin at 80 on the N7.
The first mouthful was the Ambrosia of the Gods. It was the Slayer of Demons. It morphed the horrors into kitty cats.

It was also another millstone.
Each time I said “I don’t care,” I lashed my soul. Another bullet in the chamber, barrel spun, eyes closed, trigger pulled.

Each empty went out of the window. A thud meant grass. A smash meant the hard shoulder.
I cared more about not getting caught with the empties at home than about someone getting hurt.
But I did care, and that contradiction was also killing me.

This was barely existing.
Lies. Shame. Guilt. Blackout. Cold sweats, never enough sleep
Missing shoots. Blaming clients. Forgetting appointments. Excuses not to see friends.
More lies. More deception. More rage. More blame.
More alcohol. More insanity
More swerving while trying to open a beer with a coin

“I’m cooking a roast meal tonight.” I could always manage to cook a mean roast chicken, however drunk I was. And the bottle of wine? That was for the cooking.

Waking up at 3am. Drenched.
That was the killer. The absolute dread. I had blacked out again.
What have I said or done last evening?
The sweats, the soaking sheets. Satan breath in my mouth. My lungs. My nose. – fueled by cheap beer and red wine

Teeth not cleaned again.
Never again.

“This is the last time I drink.”
That record I played every night. Promises broken by 2pm when the hangover became bearable, dissolved by the dread, overwhelm and shame.

I never wrapped myself around a bridge or a tree. Never hit another car or anyone.
I’d never been scared to clarity.
It was not the last time I’d drink.

One day in November 2018, clarity arrived anyway. The loaded gun now had four bullets, and I’d fired once already.
I did the hardest thing I’d ever done.
I asked for help.
“I think I have a drinking problem. I need help.”
I did not know him well, but I dared to ask.
He looked at me and said, “Sounds like you have. That’s okay, I’m 18 years clean. Let’s go and talk to this ‘oke I know in Kenilworth”.
Of all the men I could have asked, I picked a recovering alcoholic. No judgment, no shame, no horror, no revulsion.
There was no ”You fucking twat, lying drunken selfish bastard” and every name I called myself for years.
He called me Hamish.

I have no off-switch.
There is a saying in AA, “One is too many, and a thousand are never enough”
I’m fine til the first drink, and then I stop when there’s none left.

I found the right rehab just south of Cape Town. Booked in with a few days to spare – clients, last shoots, bills.

21st December 2018, with a hangover and packed bags.
I deliberately checked into an institution.

The world did not notice.
It carried on absolutely without me. It did not stop. It did not pause. It did not notice.

My world, however, absolutely totally irrevocably stopped.
Everything changed.

Implosion. There was rebirth.
Rebirth. Death. Pain. Honesty. Truths. Choices. Answers to profound questions. Realisations.
Twenty-one days of tears. Almost constant.
3 more weeks and I climbed from my rubble.

That is the beginning.

Written November 2019