Happy Birthday

No, you haven't come to the wrong site. It's still me.... Addy, with a new look.

I thought it high time for a makeover.  My Blog is four years old today.  In some ways it seems I have been writing down my thoughts a lot longer than that, in other ways it seems like only yesterday, when I first ventured nervously into the blogosphere to bare my soul.

When I think back to what spurred me on to join the blogging community in the first place, it was the utter frustration with the situation I found myself in... living with a 24/7 end-stage alcoholic with no idea how to cope, how to make him stop drinking, how to get someone to listen to our cries for help or how to return to normality ever again. I felt as if I was in a nightmare where I was being chased by a faceless monster wielding a big club and where I was unable to run away as my feet were set in thick concrete. Except it was reality and I was not asleep. Fighting alcoholism is not just difficult for the alcoholic but it affects the whole family around them. It is very much like bashing your head against a brick wall, for all that you manage to achieve successfully.

Four years on from that very first post, my life is so different now. I have peace of mind. I can sleep easy. I have control of my life again and do not have to answer to anyone but myself. I can go to bed calmly in the knowledge that the house will not burn down from a fallen cigarette or that I will not stumble over an intoxicated body in the kitchen (or worst, find his corpse). Financial worries are a thing of the past. (When £600 is going out of the house each month on whisky and cigarettes alone, it is very easy to worry.) When I  read some of the entries from that early period, it is hard to think I was actually involved in it. The nasty episodes are withdrawing farther and farther away in the recesses of my memory. It is only when I read other alcoholic blogs or listen to others' stories at Al-Anon, that I get a glimpse of what  I once went through. It makes me shudder. Admittedly I am on my own now and don't have the lovelier version of Greg by my side, the one I married and made plans with, but I doubt I could have gone on much longer with the way he was as a full-time alcoholic. 

At the moment, the blog still serves as a concrete reminder for me and I hope it will also help others going through similar situations or inform those who have absolutely no idea what it is really like to live with alcoholism. It may even make an alcoholic in the making think twice about what will befall them and their family if they continue downwards on the slippery slope they follow. However, I've decided my four-year-old needs some new clothes and have attempted a makeover. It is still a work in progress but for the moment I leave you with what I have managed so far.

Her Majesty

The Queen was in my neck of the woods today. It seemed rude not to go along and say hello. Click on the photo and zoom in. It is her, I assure you!

It's a Dog's Life

I've been giving my Snoopy extra cuddles and pats this weekend. He always gets a lot anyway but this weekend even more so. He may not have won Britain's Got Talent, but he is still very special to me.

The Apprentice?

It's funny what can keep you awake in the night. Sometimes it's not always the difficult problems of life but the stupid and unimportant. Something has been bothering me for the last few nights and I know it's stupid to worry about it in the grand scheme of things, but it has really got to me.....



This last few weeks I have been having a mad push on ebay to get rid of some of the clutter in my home. Kay and I had recently unearthed about 5 large boxes full of baby/toddler clothes in our cellar and I wanted to clear them out of the way before I tackle another room to decorate in the house. I know I could go to a charity shop with them (and I do donate quite a lot) but my philososphy on ebay is to sell good things cheaply so that someone else can get the pleasure from things and hopefully someone with not a lot of money to throw around. It just gives me a good fairy godmother  feeling if I imagine a hard-up family somewhere struggling to pay bills who have got something nice for little expense. (I don't mean that to sound pompous or sanctimonious).




Just one of the many lots

Anyway, I had advertised about 27 items or job-lots on ebay last week. Some of the clothes were really expensive in their day with hand-embroidered motifs or lace collars, others were more run-of-the-mill things from Mothercare or Woolworths, but all in excellent condition and still full of life to give. I don't charge much for the reason given above - 99p here or at most £2 there,  plus postage, of course, which since 30 April costs an arm and a leg to post a bulky feather let alone anything heavier. So I offered to combine postage wherever possible if someone ordered more than one item. I was surprised to see that one person had bid for about eight of the items or lots and out of curiosity I looked up her ebay profile to gain a bit of information about her. To my dismay I gathered she likes collecting children's clothes to sell on again to make a huge profit. Looking at items she has for sale, she sells at incredibly high prices. To cut a long story short, she bought eleven items from me in total from  4 job-lots costing her the princely sum of £4.78.  I was almost selling at a loss, once I had paid the ebay and paypal fees. She even had the gall to ask me if I would combine the postage, as I had advertised. I felt very annoyed, that this woman had used me and would make a financial gain for herself whilst even squeezing postal costs and every last penny out of me. You could argue that I should have not been so naive and put the items on for higher prices, but in the long run, I did want to get rid of them and lower prices tempt buyers more than high ones.




THAT dress!

 There were a few other lots that she had bid for on the following day and I found myself wishing that someone else would bid higher. One was for a toddler's dress that I knew had cost me £30 back in 1990 and she was going to get it for £2.  It is awful to say, but I felt sick at the thought of this woman getting that too and was so relieved when someone else bid higher at the very last few seconds and won it. I was actually jumping up and down with joy that fate had intervened and her darstardly plan had not succeeded. Was it worth getting in a tiswas over? I think not, but a little bit of me is very pleased at the outcome nevertheless. I don't think I'm really cut out for the cut-and-thrust of the business world. Lord Sugar would drop me at the first hurdle.

Book Worm

Inspired by Don't Panic 's post about books, I got to thinking about why and how people read the books they do. What makes them take a book off the shelf at the bookshop or library? Is is because it is a bestseller, a classic, a hobby, a passion? Do they buy it regardless, because they must have it, or do they study the cover, the first page, to see whether it is readable, in tune with what they want to read, or has big-enough print?

In my own case, I have a love-hate relationship with books. Up until the age of sixteen, I read as much as the average teenager, devouring some of the classics like Little Women and Jane Eyre, as well as teen girl magazines. However, once I got sucked into A-levels, when I studied three languages and dissected some of their literature, I had little time for reading anything else.

When I then went on to university to study German in more depth, my life was filled with reading shelves of German literature from the medieval (eg Parzival, Siegfried und Brunhilde) right up to the modern day (Kafka, Mann, Boell and Brecht) with plenty of Schiller, Goethe and Nietzsche thrown in as well. We didn't just have to read the books of course but analyse what the author was getting at, why this character did that, why that character said this. With Kafka, it was a nightmare (quite literally, as his books were based on dreams where all the characters are extensions of the central character and all the actions were symbolic as in dreams.) I still have reams of notes I took at lectures, all analysing, scruitinising, estimating, reviewing, deliberating. In the end it took the fun out of reading, so that I couldn't read a single book without it taking me half an hour on each page, asking myself why did the author say that, what was he trying to say with this etc., what was the purpose of that character etc.

Once I had left university I could not read a single book at all. It was too much like hard work and reminded me of the years of painful study. I almost got a phobia about them. I would happily read a newspaper or magazine - something I could dip in and out of - but it was three decades before I could look at another book again. Greg was quite an avid reader, but nothing could tempt me to pick up a book and lose myself in its pages. Quite by accident, a German friend came to stay and gave me the latest book off the shelves in German bookshops at the time. I liked the cover, enjoyed reading the first page and found myself being drawn into the story until, before I knew it,  I'd finished it within about a week.

Since then, I have slowly returned to reading books once more. It tends to be in the evening in bed before I go to sleep. I may only read a chapter at a time, but I slowly plod through until I can tick another book off my list of must-reads. When I select a book it us usually because I like the cover and what I read in the first page, or I may randomly pick a page some twenty pages into the book and see whether I like what I see there. Sometimes Kay recomends a book she has read (we have similar tastes) so I know if she has liked something, I shall too. What is absolutely essential is that I like the font and size of print. If it is too small and too many lines to a page, it doesn't get selected. Psychologically I like to be able to whizz through the pages to give me the feeling I am getting through the book faster.

I am a great one for new technologies and people praise me for my ability to  do things on the computer or digital camera that they cannot do, but I shan't be buying a Kindle any time soon. I like to touch and feel the book in my hand, physically turn the pages and then place the books on a shelf where I can see them. What about you?

Like a Candle in the Wind

I've just returned from a few days with my mother again, this time to attend a funeral. It seems to be, as you get older, that funerals are more frequent than ever before, as gradually your circle of family and friends gets smaller.

This time, however, the death was the least expected. It was my mother's cousin who had been more like a sister to my mum than a cousin. They telephoned one another at least once a week and occasionally the cousin visited my mother and took her out to lunch somewhere. They had been chatting on the phone only the day before she died and been out to lunch together only a fortnight before. The cousin had not been seriously ill and had only gone down with a mere cold a few days before. It is true to say she was painfully thin (and we often suspected she was verging on the anorexic), so maybe this did not help her general health. On Good Friday afternoon, she had gone out shopping with her husband, but was feeling unwell with the cold and went to bed early on Good Friday evening. The next morning at 5am, her husband discovered her lifeless body beside him. The post-mortem revealed she had died of broncho-pneumonia. Her sister rang me a few hours later to break the news to me and it was the hardest news to take in. Even now, none of us can really believe it. She was 71. For her it was the best way to go - to go to sleep and not wake up, but for her husband, sons, grandchildren and wider family, it just doesn't seem possible.  The funeral was held last Friday in sunny Hastings. The weirdest thing was eating a piece of Simnel cake at the funeral reception that she herself had made for Easter.

Always tell your loved ones you love them: you never know what the next day may (or may not) bring.

BRIGHT SPARKS

Is it just me or do you need a PhD to buy a lightbulb these days?

I had recently looked in my garage cupboard where I keep the spare lightbulbs to discover I was right out of bayonet fitting/common-or-garden lightbulbs to replace the one in the hall ceiling light that had just died. When I subsequently did my supermarket shop, I browsed the shelves for a replacement. Now this was an ordinary supermarket, not a specialist shop, and yet there were so many to chose from, my eyes started to glaze over. Another (significantly younger woman) was on all fours combing the bottom shelf for signs of bulbs that looked remotely like she needed and we both ended up becoming lifetime buddies in our unity against the plethora of choice. Having discarded the options of spot bulbs, candle bulbs, halogen bulbs, with even further variations of bayonet fittings, screw fittings and small screw fittings, I was then faced with even more choices of environmentally-correct ones that promise to give out as much light as required without flogging the poor little dears to death and without running up an electricity bill that would make Greece's debt look tame. However my experience of these super-dooper eco-lightbulbs with vast claims to save the planet are that they take about half an hour to warm up, by which time I have given up and gone to bed! Or tripped over the cat in the gloom.

I finally found something that looked like a pig-normal lightbulb and had a bayonet fitting, but it showed two wattage amounts of 43 or 55 and I was looking for a 60W bulb. Hell, when was buying a lightbulb so complicated?

Excesses, ears and eggs

Thank you for all your useful comments on my last post. It was pretty clear that you thought availability was not the best solution to the problem of alcoholism. It is such a complex problem and the reasons that lead someone to drink in excess are varied and complicated just as are the things that make someone more prone to depression. In fact I consider alcoholism to be a form of depression and, once sucked in and under, it is very difficult to emerge intact again.

Certainly on the practical side, I would like to see three main prongs of attack to deal with the surge of binge drinking and alcohol dependency.

• 
  
  More education, particularly to the young, on the dangers of alcohol. Perhaps along the same lines as anti-smoking, adverts and warning labels on bottles could warn that alcohol kills. A few choice pictures of someone bleeding to death or a diseased liver thrown in for good measure. I accept that, like with many things, the young will think they are immune from disease and death. It's a long way off and won't effect them, but, of course it will. How you get that across, I don't know. But it's worth a try.



• 
  
  Availability - reducing dratically the number of outlets that sell alcohol, the hours they can sell it and the number of bottles that can be bought at any one time - a bit like paracetamol, you can only buy two packets of 16 at one time. (Yes,you can go into several chemists or supermarkets over the course of a day and buy 100 paracetamol, if you have your mind set on suicide, but at least it is not made easy for you). Sorry - to the "sensible" drinkers - but it's all for the common good.
  



• 
  
  Reducing prices will help a little but not as much as the first two.

In addition to all that, we still need the medical profession to understand alcoholism better, as my experience with Greg was that, like a hot potato, they could not wait to get him out of the building and off their hands. There was little money for rehab or detox and so there were too many waiting too long in the queue (usually at least a year) to get into a rehab programme, by which time, the person was too ill to be admitted or dead. Given the numbers turning to alcohol on a large scale nowadays, we could do with far more approachable counsellors or GPs trained to deal with alcoholism in their area, so that they can advise alcoholics and their families how to cope/go about solving the problem. I always found there was relatively nowhere to turn to that could offer real help. If it's like that in a big city like London, then how much more of a problem is it anywhere else?

As I said, it's a complex issue and needs far more thought and money thrown at it, more than little me can suggest, if we are to overcome the enormous problems that loom on the horizon. I do hope Ministers and professionals are working hard at it, or else I dread to think what the future holds.

Meanwhile, on a more cheerful note, Kay is home from uni for two weeks' Easter holiday and it is fantastic having her company again. To coincide with Kay's arrival, the cat has picked up some sort of skin allergy on her ears, with tufts of fur falling out so she looks very odd with two bald ears either side of the furry crown of her head (not a little dissimilar from Dobbie in Harry Potter). A visit to the vet yeterday left me £48 poorer but at least with a diagnosis and some oily antibiotic medication to smear on her ears. Here she is in her latest choice of resting place of the month - my desk!

We're off soon to visit my mum for a few days, so a Happy Easter in the meantime and don't eat too much chocolate, although I can't see Kay and me sticking to that!

Alcoholic fog

Yet again, the powers that be seem to be totally blind to the problem of alcoholism. The latest brainwave is to increase the price of alcohol per unit to prevent binge-drinking. When will they ever learn? Do they not know that a true alcoholic would sooner go without food than alcohol, so increasing the price of alcohol will just reduce their available income for food and thus make them even more drunk. In the absence of food, the alcohol will do even more damage to their liver. As for teenagers and students, they will still get their vodka somehow before they go out for the weekend. Raising the price alone is about as useful as a hedgehog helping out in a balloon factory.


I shall say it loudly and maybe someone will actually hear.... IT IS NOT THE PRICE OF THE ALCOHOL THAT IS THE PROBLEM BUT ITS AVAILABILITY. SOME SUPERMARKETS ARE OPEN 24 HOURS ROUND THE CLOCK AS ARE PETROL STATIONS, SO ALCOHOL CAN BE PURCHASED 24 HOURS ROUND THE CLOCK. IF IT WEREN'T SO EASILY AVAILABLE, IT MIGHT JUST DETER PEOPLE FROM HAVING TO GO AND LOOK FOR IT.


Imagine someone suggesting just raising the price of drugs to stop people taking them. Imagine too heroin being on sale 24 hours round the clock in supermarkets, clubs and petrol stations. There'd be an outcry. Yet alcohol can cause just as much damage as heroin to your brain, your health, your life. I watched my husband dying a slow and horrible death, going from normal to dead within 6 years of his alcohol addiction starting. Unlike drugs, alcohol is legally available any time of the day or night and obtainable from a corner shop near you.

New Labour introduced 24-hour drinking to this country during their last term but they failed to appreciate that as a nation we cannot handle our booze and don't always know when enough is enough. I am not prohibitionist or anti-alcohol. I admit I love the occasional glass of wine or even on high days and holidays the occasional Baileys or vermouth, but when I think about it, why? It is not to quench my thirst because water or fruit juice would make a far better job of that. It has become the norm for people to drink wine with meals, but again, why? Does it seriously make a difference to the food? Did Mr Caveman suffer by not drinking wine with his food? Have we conned ourselves into thinking water with food would just not be acceptable? The trouble is, once it becomes the norm, one glass of wine or beer is not enough. I have even heard some people drink a glass of wine while they are cooking the food and of course go on to drink more with the meal. Before you know it, you have finished one or two bottles every day. Once your drinking escalates, it is not easy to stop or get out of the habit and all too soon you are addicted. With the addiction comes damage to liver and the brain, not to mention internal bleeding. So even these silent drinkers (ie not the official binge-drinkers we see on the streets) are aided in their drinking by alcohol being too readily available. In the supermarket? Then gather essentials.... milk, bread, fruit, meat. Oh and how about a bottle of wine? Getting petrol? That'll be twenty litres of unleaded and a bottle of whisky. Not only is the nation facing a problem of obesity (currently one in four are obese and soon will be one in three) but we are creating a whole new young generation of alcoholics with liver disease deaths rising faster than heart disease or cancer. Surely a sobering thought , not to mention the pressure on already stretched NHS resources..

Whilst the debate continues ( it may now seem that imposing a minimum price on a unit of alcoholic drinks is illegal under EU competition law), I would like to see the return of sensible licensing laws with pubs and clubs shutting, like they used to, at 11pm or midnight. Anyone drinking too much would be refused a drink by the landlord. I would like to see supermarkets and petrol stations banned from selling alcohol at all and I would welcome the return of off-licences open only for a few hours in the evening. I appreciate the counter-argument that it would make life difficult for the "sensible drinker", but isn't that a small price to pay to stop the drunken louts on our streets and to deter Aunty Mabel from succumbing to the daily bottle of gin behind her lounge curtains, certain of a slow and painful death if she continues? We managed with stringent laws like that in the past. Why not again?

Win Some, Lose Some

I have blogged before about the fact that I occasionally sell stuff on ebay. My relationship with ebay started off by accident when I offered to buy something rare for a friend who did not have a computer. It then progressed into selling when Kay was going on a school World Challenge trip to Latin-America. World Challenge stipulated that part of the challenge was that she had to fund the trip by her own means and I stretched that condition loosely into selling off some old toys and clothes for her on ebay to provide extra funds. I got quite good at judging the kind of things that would sell and the level of pricing (not too high to scare people off and not too low to secure a bit of profit). The purchase of a cheap digital weighing scale for my study meant I could weigh things exactly and accurately calculate the correct postage in advance before I typed the advert. I quite enjoyed doing this. I think it appealed to the hidden entrepreneurial spirit in me. I also used to love helping out on the Christmas Gift Stall at Kay's old school and always felt extremely bereft when the end of the Fete came and my sales help was over for another year. Selling was obviously in my blood.

Recently I have been sorting through/clearing out storage boxes in the cellar and unearthed loads of Kay's abandonned toys.... enough Polly Pocket houses to construct a whole street; a whole classroom of Barbie dolls; more Barbie clothes than at London Fashion Week; toddler games that would make the whole 2-week Olympic Games look boring. You name it.... she must have been the most spoilt child in the world (although every time she had a birthday party under the age of 8, she used to invite nearly the whole class, so ended up with a lot of small presents from that era!)

My ebay sales (£3 here and £5 there) soon added up. Now I know many of you are going to say that it would be easier just to give it all away to charity shops and I do give a lot away, but, as I say, I enjoy the thrill of watching things sell, the price mount at the auction, the wrapping up and the knowledge that they are going to a good home. I imagine the Barbies in their new home in Cardiff or my mother's vintage crocodile handbag in Chester or the jigsaw puzzle in Southampton or the board game in the Highlands of Scotland. I've even recently sent an item to China and another to Russia. I know they are going to be useful to someone specific as opposed to a nameless person at a charity shop.

This last fortnight I managed to make about £80. I was feeling so pleased with myself and had been musing what luxury to spend my little fortune on. All sorts of ideas sprang to mind and it was a struggle to decide which one was best. Then two days ago, the dog and I jumped into the car to drive to our nearest park for a walk. I turned the key in the ignition. The car coughed and spluttered and made a sort of death rattle sound. I tried again. This time just a squeak and a sigh. To be honest, I think the sigh might have come from me: from the car there was absolutely nothing, nada, zilch. To cut a long story short, one AA man (Automobile Association not Alcoholics Anonymous!!) arrived later to confirm my worst fears - the battery was as dead as a dodo. He managed to get the ignition started for me and I limped over to my nearest car part supplier who put in a new battery for me. The price? £82.

That was the bad news. The good news? The battery was the original one that the car manufacturer had put in 13 years ago when it was made. Both the AA man and the car part shop were amazed the battery had lasted so long. With any luck, this new one will see out the car for as long as I need it. Otherwise I'm going to have to start selling a heck of a lot more on ebay!

Greg

29 April 1949 - 6 March 2010

Two years and counting.........

It's coming up to the second anniversary of Greg's death and I'm surprised at how my feelings keep changing. All part of the grieving process, I know, but nevertheless strange to experience it for oneself. Two years ago, I'd just come through six years of hell, living with a full-time, non-functioning alcoholic. Six years of us both shouting, weeping, frequent trips to A&E, doctors, detox, counselling clinics, queuing at supermarkets with cratefuls of whisky, cleaning up toilet accidents on the carpet, because he could not make it in time. Not to mention the sleepless nights worrying whether I'd wake up at all the next morning, because he might forget in a drunken stupor to put out his cigarette and burn the house down. In addition there was the shame and embarrassment of being seen out with him, as he never washed, cleaned his teeth or changed his clothes and had lost all sense of social propriety.

The climax of these six years was the final week of his life up to 6 March 2010. Looking back now to his final visit to A&E at the very end of February 2010, I was annoyed that yet again here we were wasting doctors' time over something that was in his power to stop and that his many promises over the previous years never to get in that state again had been broken. He was admitted to a ward and I was forbidden to visit him, as there was an outbreak of the winter-vomiting bug and visitors were not allowed. I was furious with him and stormed out of that casualty department, both soul-destroyed by yet another broken promise, yet elated that I was going to have a night or two on my own where I could sleep peacefully for a change in a smoke and alcohol-free zone. An oasis of respite in a desert of despair.

A few days later, I was to be tested on the principle of "be careful what you wish for......." as he was moved to Intensive Care for the last 5 days of his life. It was only then that the hospital allowed me to visit him, but by then he was already unconscious. Watching him die was harrowing. Physically he no longer looked like my husband. The alcohol had ravaged his face, his hair and his body. Gradually bit by bit his body was delivered over to the toxins. His lungs were full of water, his kidneys started to fail and his liver was diseased beyond help. He was bleeding internally and because of the kidney failure he was swelling up like a sumo wrestler, but his skin could not cope with this sudden increase in size and was bursting all over, oozing liquid or blood. I could no longer converse with him as he had been sedated to the extent he was unconscious. The only sound in the room was that of the life-support machine. I didn't even get to say goodbye, although I whispered it to his lifeless body.

My life changed drastically from then on. I heaved a sigh of relief with thoughts that the living nightmare was finally over and I could dare to breathe freely again. I picked myself up and started to deal with the many practicalities that came steam-rollering in. People to tell, a funeral to arrange, letters to write, bills to pay and accounts to close. Once the hurly burly had stopped, my daughter had returned to university and I was alone, I threw myself into house projects to distract me. The house had been badly neglected as Greg had had neither the health nor sanity to do it himself any more and all our spare money had gone on his cigarettes and whisky addictions, so there was no possibility to get a professional in to do it. It was a case of killing two birds with one stone - a much-needed refurbished house and a distraction for me. Whenever I thought of Greg, I was still angry for what he had done to himself and to us. That anger inside me was hard to shift. I couldn't cry at the funeral or in the weeks and months afterwards, even when I tried as hard as I might to think back to the more distant happier times.

Then came a period when I mellowed a bit. I thought how sad it was that he was missing out on things...such as Kay's progress at uni and her placements at hospitals. He was missing out on important world issues too, as he used to work as an international journalist. Things like the demise of Gaddafi and bin Laden, the Euro crisis, the London Olympics, the Middle East problems to name but a few would have had him working extra shifts when he could still work and had him sitting on the edge of his seat shouting at the television news in his retirement. Now, he would never know these things and I felt a certain sadness that he wouldn't know them.

Next week is the second anniversary of his death and I find my anger is subsiding even more. Possibly it is due to the fact that the passing months have helped to erase the nightmare. It is true that when I read some of the archive to this blog, I have to pinch myself that things were actually as bad as that. On the other hand, everywhere I turn there are constant reminders. Programmes on TV highlight the escalation of binge-drinking, SOS buses, fly-on-the-wall documentaries featuring doctors dealing with alcoholism. Even some of the soaps carry alcoholic storylines. Kay is being confronted with it too in the line of her hospital placement. She recently examined a 57-year old man who was an alcoholic in the final stages. To cap it all, I heard Alistair Campbell say on a recent Panorama programme that maybe Labour got it wrong introducing a 24-hour drinking culture to this country. Tell me about it! What have I been saying all this time?

Two years on, I miss Greg like crazy. Selfishly, I wish we still had our golden years together to explore the world and see a bit more of life or just muck around at home together. I wish he were here to potter as he wished, switch on the radio or TV and soak up all the current news. I wish he were here to see Kay as she grows into a beautiful independent young woman and I wish he were here to grow old disgracefully with me. I do appreciate better now that he had an illness he could not fight, a sort of depression that can physically kill. He would not have wanted to cause suffering to his family. He did not want to die. The illness dictated it. His broken promises did not just let me and Kay down, they hurt him too, because he believed he could fight this disease. His last words to me in that A&E bed were "the drinking stops now, I promise".

I am no longer angry with him (although I am angry with a society that could allow it to happen and turn a blind eye to our repeated pleas for help.). I am no longer sad. Instead I ponder; I question; I yearn. But I still cannot cry. Maybe that phase is still to come.

Falling over to get a badge

I'm due a monthly visit to my 88-year-old mother to do chores for her - the usual gardening and odd-jobbing, big food shop etc. I should have gone a few days ago, but the bad snap of Siberian weather we have been experiencing in the Southeast made me nervous about leaving. I don't like the idea of driving in snow unless I really have to. I also worry about pipes freezing in the house while I am away and worry even more so about the cat freezing into a lollipop. She has her own front door (ie a catflap) but will insist on waiting at the back door for hours on end so that I can let her in and out again. When I am home, she does not have to wait long, but when I am away, she'd sit outside there all day, hence my worry. Now the temperatures are rising again, hopefully she'll not come to any harm while I am away. My neighbour checks on her twice a day, so she'll get fed and my neighbour always like to sit with her for a half-hour or walk around the garden with her, so she will not be starved of company.

One of the jobs I am doing for my mother is to update her disabled blue badge for her. She has scoliosis (severe curvature of the spine) and these days can barely stand unaided and hangs on to furniture when she walks across a room. Any walking outside the house(when we go shopping or to appointments together) is very slow and extremely painful. (She is even afraid to go into her own garden alone in case she falls and nobody knows she is there.) Having the blue badge means she can park on double yellow lines or in special disabled parking bays close to where she needs to be. It cuts down time and pain. Sometimes it can be quite galling when, say, at supermarkets, we have trouble finding a disabled bay to park and we then see someone returning to their car so obviously NOT disabled, in fact they positively have a spring in their step. It reminds me of a Michael McIntyre sketch about what we expect when we see someone parking in a disabled parking space. I attach the only link to the sketch I can find, although the sound quality is poor. Do we expect them to open the car door, fall out and crawl to their destination? All joking aside, we certainly don't expect them to be wearing 4-inch killer heels (as I have often seen happen) or walking at great speed with no apparant physical disbility. Unfortunately the system is often abused by healthy relatives who "borrow" the passes to nip to the shops. My mother's pass is due for renewal and this time the application is more stringent - she has to supply signed photocopies of her passport, utility bills, her latest prescription and have two recent photographs signed and confirmed by a non-relative of some professional rank that it is a truelikeness of her, plus the usual questions about how far she can walk without pain or difficulty. All by a certain deadline which has already passed. I am all for stamping out fraudsters who abuse the system, but tell me, how is an 88-year old woman, housebound by her disability, who never goes out unless I drive her somewhere once a month, supposed to get photocopies and signatures from strangers? She's disabled. Hello! That's why she needs the badge. You would think the authorities could offer to make personal visits home in extreme circumstances, but that looks out of the question. I think I'll get my mum to deliver the application to the local authorities personally on all fours - the way she always goes up stairs - she's bound to get her badge with no problem.

Attention, All Medics!

The Immortal Alcoholic has highlighted a problem that seems to be happening worldwide - that of the medical profession not taking alcoholism seriously and treating alcoholic patients as "throw-away people". Just like the case Immortal Alcoholic presents, as soon as your average alcoholic turns up at Accident & Emergency with a non-alcohol related complaint, the staff, on hearing that the person is an alcoholic, tend to roll their eyes heavenwards and dismiss the symptoms as unimportant or alternatively automatically connect the symptoms to the alcoholism and fail to do further more searching tests.

cartoon from http://www.cartonstock.com/

I have personally witnessed this happening in the many visits Greg and I used to make to A&E, some alcohol-related and some not. On one occasion, Greg had torn off two of his toenails. (Because of his sloppy hygiene, he had allowed them to grow ridiculously long and then would walk barefoot around the house until one day he caught them on a sofa leg and they ripped off.) I managed to get him to Casualty with blood pumping out of his toes, but as soon as "alcoholic" was mentioned, he was left unattended on a stretcher for several hours as a non-priority to "sleep it off". On another occasion, I took him to A&E because he was feeling very unwell, kept collapsing and looked pale. He was sent home, almost immediately as the staff concluded he needed to sober up, even though he was at that time clinically dependent on alcohol and could not just stop drinking without a proper detox system in place. The next day he collapsed at home complaining of the same thing and was taken this time by ambulance to the same A&E, wherepon this time they discovered he had internal bleeding and had probably had it the day before too.

I know from what Kay tells me that precious little time is spent teaching medics about alcohol abuse and what is taught is very superficial. It is shoved in to a small corner of a lecture here or there when covering other subjects, such as the liver or dementia or depression. It is not really given much weight of its own and certainly not the wider implications of how it affects the whole family, or how an alcoholic has every right to be taken as seriously as someone with cancer when the alcoholic is seriously ill, even if the damage is self-inflicted. Oh no. The eyeball rolling is by far still the most common reaction.

Alcoholism is on the increase. Dawn closing times at clubs and pubs means people have longer time to drink even more. Supermarkets and petrol stations stay open all night and sell the stuff. Students and the young in general seem to be out till the wee small hours binge-drinking on a regular basis. Clubs offer ridiculously cheap shots to lure customers in. Some large towns have an SOS bus hanging around the main town centre to help cope with the amount of injured drunks stumbling around at the weekend and relieve the pressure on the local A&E. This problem is not going to go away. In fact it is going to get worse. So like it or not, the medical profession needs to address how they intend to deal with this. I know that they are understaffed and that money in the NHS has to go a long way round, but one day they will dismiss a person as an alcoholic and fail to see something more serious.

Alcoholism doesn't hand-pick its victims. There but for the Grace of God and all that. One day, it could be their child or their mother or brother. It could be yours.

Let them Eat Cake

This afternoon, I popped into Sainsburys and Lidl to do my weekly shop. (I often make a point of doing a separate Lidl shop because I can fill up with all the things I miss from living in Germany and browse round their tempting non-food bargains too.) In both shops, the person in front of me at the till had difficulty paying.

In Sainsburys, it was a young woman with her child.The woman nervously fingered the change in her purse and then handed back a tin of baked beans as she did not have the full amount to cover the bill. In Lidl, there was a man in front of me. The cashier was quickly scanning the items through for the man to pack, but he was too busy searching in all his pockets for his debit card. More items went through, still he frantically searched through jacket pockets, then trousers, then even shirt pockets. With nearly all the goods scanned through, he then announced to the cashier that he could not find his card and would have to pay by cash. The trouble was, he did not have much cash either. The next 10 minutes was spent with him sorting out from the scanned and unscanned items, what was essential and what not. He kept the bread and cheese, but returned the fruit juice and sausage rolls. Then he swapped the cheese for some meat. Later he added the cheese back in. The poor cashier was furiously cancelling items on the scanner, then scanning new items, then even rescanning some of the items earlier rejected!

It got me thinking..........Here were two people in the space of an hour, both happened to be in front of me, both having trouble paying their bills and then there is Mr Hester at the Royal Bank of Scotland. Spot the deliberate mistake!

A record

( picture from dooyoo.co.uk)

I went to my local Al-Anon meeting this week and it was a record turn-out - twice the usual number of attendees. Extra chairs were needed and the usually perfect circle became a somewhat bulging oval. There were a few newcomers, a few others I had not met before [I attend meetings irregularly, particularly when I am away for a week visiting my mother]. Proof positive that alcoholism is on the increase.

Newcomers invariably ask the same question that us old hands have once asked ourselves at our first meeting - what are the ways to help the alcoholic to stop drinking? Ha. If someone could bottle that answer (to pardon the pun), they would be a millionaire. The sad fact remains that there is nothing anyone can do to stop the alcoholic from drinking. Only the alcoholic him/herself can bring that about. If the alcoholic does not WANT to stop and will not TRY WITH ALL THEIR MIGHT to stop, there is no magic wand available in the cupboard. No amount of money, detox, rehab or medical intervention is going to bring that happy ending about. It can only come from intense effort by the alcoholic themselves to avoid the demon drop. I was once told that for every ten alcoholics, only one will succeed in becoming sober and staying sober: the other nine simply don't make it through and will lapse and relapse time after sober time into drinking or will kill themselves. It's a disease in all senses of the word.... one that neither the professionals, the alcoholic, nor certainly their loved ones can always cure. A lot of newcomers are also befuddled by their first Al-Anon meeting - I was. It's not about helping the alcoholic to stop drinking, but about the long climb to sanity for someone who has had to live with an alcoholic. It's about looking after ourselves not the alcoholic. It's a spiritual programme to heal ourselves and make us stronger to cope with the alcoholic. It's also knowing there are others out there like me, who have gone or are going through what I went through. To know you are not alone is a tremendous support. That doesn't always come across in the Al-Anon literature.

Earlier in the month a study said that people should have two alcohol-free days a week. That surprised me. My view is, we should rather be thinking more in terms of having only two alcohol-drinking days a week. Are we all drinking that much that we need to limit it to just two alcohol-free days? I grew up in a family where alcohol was only available at very special occasions like Christmas or birthdays with a zero in it. We couldn't afford it for one thing. No wonder people nowadays need benefits and large salaries to cope with their drinking habit, if they're downing alcohol on a daily basis. This rant, by the way, isn't about sobriety and prohibition. (I have the occasional little drink about once a month). But, until you have lived with alcoholism and watched a loved-one die from it, you cannot possibly understand what damage it does - to relationships, to health and ultimately to life. But once you have witnessed that, believe me, you would never want to drink again.

So far, 2012 is not good.

Happy New Year! Or is it? Not in this neck of the woods. It has not been the best of starts. Nothing catastrophic of truly major proportions, but not exactly hunky dory either. Here is a litany of my woes......

January 1st - at about 11am- Kay and I take Snoopy for his first walk of the year around the block. See a middle-aged woman sitting on a wall outside our local vet, crying her eyes out. I ask if I can help. She tells me amid sobs and gulps with a mascara-streaked face that her dog is just being put down. Her husband is inside the vet's house, so she does not need any help, but thanks me anyway. I feel for her and spend the rest of the day thinking about her.

January 2nd - Kay wakes up with the beginnings of a cold and a huge ulcer in her cheek (her wisdom tooth had crumbled over Christmas. According to the dentist it was a naturally-weak and useless tooth) and had rubbed this huge hole in her cheek which was failing to heal.

January 3rd - Kay is due to get a train at 11 from Kings Cross back to uni up north. She wakes up feeling real awful with swollen neck glands, a swollen cheek, earache and a sore throat, not to mention pouring nose. She cannot swallow and feels sick. There follows a short debate as to whether she should go or stay, but I tell her that I have to get my mum back home (60 miles away) tomorrow, we have ordered a supermarket delivery for her on 4th and a new (digital) TV is being delivered to her on 6th. I therefore cannot be around to help Kay, if she decided to stay at home for any longer. Kay reluctantly agrees it is better for her to return north today.

We struggle on public transport and in heavy rain and winds with two heavy cases, a laptop and handbag to Kings Cross. We get there with half an hour to spare: things are looking good. Until we see the indicator board. Her 11:00 train has been cancelled along with her seat reservation. Great ! The next train is an hour later but with no guaranteed seat. In fact there will now be two train-loads of people trying to get the few random unreserved seats. There are hundreds of people in the station forecourt all in the same position, as several trains have been cancelled - not sure whether it is due to adverse weather, or signal failure somewhere in the midlands, or both. There is a film crew gleefully shoving a furry microphone on a pole thingymy in people's faces as they complain to the harrassed-looking station staff behind the information desk. Then we are told the 12:00 train has also been cancelled and we have to wait for the 13:00 one. THat's three train-loads all vying for non-reserved seats. Kay will only be guaranteed her passage (but still not the seat reservation on that one). If she fails to get that and wants to take a much later train (to guarantee a better chance of some more random free seats) she will have to pay £124. Kay breaks down in tears. Her neck glands and cheek are excruciatingly painful; she will doubtless miss the appointment with a doctor she had made to get some medication; she faces the prospect of a two-hour wait on the chilly station forecourt and (eventually, although who knows when) a three hour journey standing all the way with two suitcases. And a laptop. And a handbag. I relent. I tell her she can come home. I will cancel all the commitments. We stagger back in the opposite direction for home with the two suitcases, the laptop and the handbag. As we emerge from our local station, the heavens suddenly open. There are 60mph gales and a torrent of water that is like a wall of glass. We dash for my parked car and head the last half-mile home in a sea of water that even the fastest windscreen wipers cannot cope with. All I can see is oncoming headlights with no car attached to them - the wall of water has turned into a thick fog, the rain is so heavy. The road is covered in a 6-inch film of water, so driving at speed is out of the question. We get home and sit in the car for about 5 minutes as it is definitely too wet (and dangerous) to leave the safety of the car for the 6-foot walk to the front door at that moment).

Eventually we dash for the warmth and dry of the house and I set about frantically cancelling or rearranging all the deliveries to my mother over the next few days, or notifying everyone who I had told I was going to my mother's for a few days that I was now going to be home again after all. Then I take Kay to our local hospital walk-in clinic (as she is no longer registered with our local doctor). We wait nearly three hours to be seen and she has now thankfully been prescribed penicillin for her ulcer and throat pain. She has booked another train north for Saturday. I will take my mother home on Sunday and stay a few days with her, set up her new TV etc.

Tuesday 4th - I head off to the dentist to have a temporary filling as one of my large molar fillings fell out yesterday. When I get back, I discover Snoopy has somehow got hold of a packet of chocolate biscuits (Jaffa cakes) and eaten about 8 of them, smearing the melted chocolate on the cellophane wrapper all over the carpet. Watch this space.......Chocolate and dogs do not go together, so what comes out in due course will not be pleasant.

Happy New Year!!!

Seasons Greetings

Kay is due back home tomorrow, I'm collecting my mum next Wednesday to bring her here and we are going to hunker down for a fortnight and eat, watch films, eat, chat, eat, sleep and eat. There may be the occasional foray into the cold outside to walk the dog or stock up on food or possibly even shop in the sales. I love the Christmas season and unashamedly fill the fridge and cupboards with all sorts of goodies. Our Christmas has always been a mixture of English and German tradition. We'll have turkey but with cooked red cabbage. Christmas cake AND stollen. There'll be Pfefferkuchen (chocolate gingerbread) and a box of Celebrations to graze on inbetween. This year I can even have a few drinks without feeling guilty that I am being hypocritical to Greg. I suspect I shall put on a few pounds, but hopefully not as much as I have lost in the last six months.

So, before I disappear to hibernate for the next few weeks, I should like to say to those reading this blog..... thank you very much for following me and putting up with me; for your advice and your concern.

A Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.

Cheers!

Don't get old, although the alternative doesn't bear thinking about

There's been a lot of talk recently about how the elderly are treated in hospital, in care homes or even in their own homes. The news tends to focus on the neglect or abuse of old people. Often the excuse is lack of staff and lack of money, but surely lack of compassion has to feature somewhere on the list. Kay has recently been doing a work placement on an elderly ward in a hospital and what she has sadly witnessed in a few weeks could fill volumes alone.


It's true that a large proportion of elderly people who need care are suffering from one form of dementia or another and that can make compassionate treatment or care difficult. They are confused, unsure of why they need help in the first place, where they are, cannot feed themelves, cannot get to a toilet in time and sometimes can be violent or depressed. But inside every old person is a young person trying to get out. They were once 16; they were once newly married; they may have been heroes fighting in France or captured in Burma; they were parents; maybe held down responsible jobs; won Nobel prizes; and maybe were the trendsetters in their professions. You wouldn't think so to look at them now, either curled up in a hospital bed or limping down the street, leaning on a stick or zimmerframe with their silent friend - arthritis; wearing a mismatch of genuine vintage clothes from their wardrobe because their meagre pensions barely cover their living costs let alone stretch to new clothes. They complete their look with hearing aids and thick glasses, yet not out of choice - over the years their eyes and ears have seen so much and heard more than you'll ever know, but cruel old age has robbed them of their efficiency. How often have you got annoyed with an old codger in the car in front pootling about at 15mp. But if you had a bad back or couldn't turn your head quickly because of arthritis, you'd be exactly the same. You don't elect to get aches and pains, they just turn up unannounced, more's the pity. Having a car is their only hope of independence, however slow that might be. It is so easy to see the outside shell of an old person, even if you bother to look at that, but not consider what lies within.


My mum (doubled up with arthritis and scoliosis) always says "don't get old, although the alternative doesn't bear thinking about". She jokingly means the alternative would be suicide to avoid getting old. Getting old, God willing, is something that will happen to each and every one of us. Do we want the younger generation to treat us like imbeciles and nuisances one day? I am sixty-one now, but feel just as energetic and young as I did when I was twenty-five. I feel twenty-five on the inside and suspect I always will. (Thankfully, people compliment me that I look ten years younger than I actually am, but even so, the day will come when I don't.)

I'm currently reading Any Human Heart by William Boyd. I had not seen the TV series and my friend, who evidently had seen it, had bought me the book as a birthday present to make up for my serious lapse. I won't give anything away about the story, other than to say it is the lifetime journal of a fictitious twentieth century author, starting in 1906 and finishing in 1991, but yesterday I read the following:

October 1955. To the passport office to collect my new passport, valid for another ten years. ................ These ten-year chunks that are doled out to you in passports are a cruel form of momento mori. How many more new passports will I have? One (1965)? Two (1975)? Such a long way off, 1975, yet your passport life seems all too brief. How long did he live? Well, he managed to renew six passports.

I had never thought of passport renewal in that way before. I have certainly shuddered when I have compared the photo on the last one with the photo on the new one (a few too many laughter lines here, a bit too much grey hair there), but I had never given a single thought about whether I'd need another one, two or three passports to see me out. Measured in passports, our whole life is really quite short. A bit scary, really.

Baby, it's cold outside

The temperatures have dropped drastically this week. We have had an incredibly mild autumn and winter so far with plants and wildlife definitely confused into thinking it's possibly spring already, but this week has seen the appearance of snow in the north and icy frosts here down south. My breakfast-time walk in the park with Snoopy has been very chilly with a biting wind to boot. Even my thermal gloves have been struggling to cope. My dog-walking companion has been urging me to wear a woolly hat, but hats and I just don't go together. I end up looking a bit like Benny from Crossroads. However today, I decided health and safety should take precedence over vanity. The look was not good and I felt distinctly uncomfortable, wishing the frozen ground would crack, open up and swallow me! In retrospect, I think the hat looks far better on Snoopy.

The difference

In the last few years before Greg died, I used to do a lot of things on my own. He was not interested in doing anything anymore that did not involve drinking himself into oblivion. We did not eat together, watch TV together, sleep together, go out together (in fact he never went out at all in the end, as he could barely put one foot in front of the other and dressed like a tramp, did not shower and was totally anti-social). So I would go Christmas shopping alone and usually come home to show him what I had bought for other people especially for his side of the family. Most of the time he barely took any notice.

Since he has died, I still do things on my own..... eat, watch TV, sleep and go out, but now it is very different. Today I was doing some Christmas shopping in Oxford Street. It was lovely to see all the Christmas trees, street decorations, the hotels all done up ready for the onslaught of office Christmas parties during the month of December. I was quite successful with my shopping too. But the difference was, I came home to an empty house and had nobody to share my booty with. I don't say that in a "poor me" sort of way. Simply fact. Even though Greg was usually comotose for most of the time, at least he was something living in the house to show things to, however disinterested. Somehow showing the dog is not quite the same!

The Naked Truth

Kay's home for the weekend to celebrate my forthcoming birthday. I haven't seen her since she started the new term in September. She's suddenly become so confident and self-assured in those few months. I think it must have something to do with the fact that she spends all day going up to strange people and asking them to take their clothes off. ( Do I hear gasps? ........ as part of her medical course, she's currently doing a clinical placement on an elderly ward in hospital, before you guess wrongly!) She came home very late last night and we chatted and laughed into the wee small hours. It's great!

Alterations in progress

I have been thinking a lot recently about the amount of time that has passed since Greg died. It helps me perversely to get closer to him and to accept what has happened, how I have coped since he went etc. I usually do all these complicated calculations in my head and decided yesterday to succumb to the time ticker I have now installed on the right of this page. Up to now, I have been able to say that Greg died this year, then last year, but from 1 January, it will become "the year before last" and therefore more of a mouthful to say. The time ticker will be more accurate, although no less of a mouthful to say.

I wonder whether to change the blog design. I've had this one since I started back in May 2008, so I question whether a change is due. On the other hand my blog is so part of me now, it is like stepping into an old pair of pyjamas to watch TV. It wouldn't seem right watching TV in a ballgown. I am still undecided.

I have also been reading back through some of the archive to remind myself what the last years were like. The last twenty months have been much more peaceful and I needed reminding of how grim things had got in the years before Greg died. So now I have created a new page for my archives so I can dot back to them more easily. Not pleasant reading. A shudder passes through me when I recall those days. Greg really was a lovely person. So kind, thoughtful, sensitive, wouldn't-kill-a-fly type of guy. Intelligent, knowledgeable, in a high-flying career. You would not have thought so if you met him in the last five years of his life. That alcohol changed him into something else. A monster, a tramp, a depressive. He had a streak in him that didn't like being told what to do, but that amber liquid led him by the nose wherever it wanted him to go. It led him to a place where he could not fight it and it finally consumed him. It takes a lot to get my head round that.

Leaps and Bounds

On the back of what I wrote last week, my confidence knows no bounds. Last Thursday I met my two best friends here for a long-due natter and yesterday I met some American friends who were passing briefly through London on their way home to San Fransisco. As I had not seen them since before Greg died, they invited me to lunch here. Like I said, no big deal for some people, but for me ..... it's gargantuan.

Anxiety

Not many people know that when I was younger I suffered from intense anxiety and had a phobia.

It first started when I was about nineteen and in my first year at university. I had been "normal" all my life up to that point with no real problems other than what outfit to wear to the school disco or how to get rid of that spot that was erupting on the end of my nose. I sailed happily through that first year year at uni, but as we approached the end-of-year exams, I suddenly began to feel very tense. I started dabbling with smoking the occasional cigarette - there were vending machines in the hall of residence where I lived (can you imagine that these days?) and I had experimented to see if they would help me relax . Whether it was that or just stress of the exams, I don't know, but one day while I was out with a boyfriend having a meal in a pancake restaurant I suddenly had an anxiety attack. I had ordered the meal and we were chatting away, when the waiter brought my order to the table - an enormous apple and strawberry pancake with lashings of whipped cream. I took one look at it and my face began to feel very hot and I started to shake. My throat closed up and I could barely swallow. My stomach seemed in my throat and I felt I was going to vomit and/or faint at any minute. I felt everyone was looking at me (they weren't, of course). I just did not feel comfortable sitting there and whispered to my boyfriend that we should leave straight away. He was naturally unhappy about leaving the restaurant there and then. We were impoverished students and could barely afford a meal out in the first place. To leave before we had even eaten it naturally seemed to him a waste. I recall we sat there for quite some time with me feeling hotter and more faint before I had to make a dash out of the restaurant for fresh air. My pancake lay untouched on the table.

A few weeks after that, we were in a cinema and watching Anne of a Thousand Days about Anne Boleyn. We were just getting to the gripping bit of the film where she climbs the scaffold to be beheaded when again I felt the same familiar symptoms of anxiety washing over me. I had to push past people in the row I was sitting in to get to the aisle and ran to the toilets. I really thought I was going to throw up again, my heart was pounding and my stomach just seemed to stick in my throat. I remember a toilet attendant (there were such people in cinemas in those days) asking me if I were pregnant - just because I was a young student and felt sick! One thing is for sure, I never did get to see the end of that film!

After these two experiences, I seemed to feel queasy a lot of the time after that and any situation involving eating out with other people made me extremely nervous. I worried about being in situations where there were a lot of people and where I could not make a quick exit if I needed to. In no time at all, I grew to have a phobia about it which lasted well through my university days and into my twenties and thirties. To most people a good way of celebrating something or meeting new people is to have a good meal out, be pampered by waiters and eat things they would probably not eat at home. Weddings, birthdays, even funerals often come with meal invitations attached. Not a problem for most people, but for me it was a nightmare. Even my own wedding was a turmoil because I was terrified of eating at the wedding breakfast with all eyes on me. Not only that, but I had a job as a civil servant which involved being wined and dined by businessmen, who wanted to wheedle government money out of me for their commercial projects. They would invite me to the grandest lunches in the grandest venues and all I would be thinking about was what excuses I could use to turn them down. Funnily enough I did not mind stand-up buffets where I could pick and choose my food and walk around. It meant I always had a means of escape if I could not cope with the situation. For me the worst was sit-down meals, where you were rooted to the spot, sitting opposite other people with no means of escape other than one that would attract attention. I would feel wrongly or rightly that everyone in the restaurant was looking at me and the hot face, tight throat, pounding heart, nausea and shaking would start all over again.

In my late twenties, I was referred by my doctor to a psychiatrist who at our introductory appointment suggested using Cognitive Behaviour Therapy on me. The idea was to make me confront my fears by gradually coping with small things and over a course of time building up to large things. If, say, someone has a spider phobia, it would start with looking at photos of small spiders, then large spiders, then seeing one for real in a glass case and then having one placed on your hand. In my case it would mean starting on one end of the scale with eating , say, a sandwich with the therapist in a grotty cafe with my back to people and eventually ending up at the other end of the scale eating a four-course meal on my own facing other diners in a posh restaurant. Obviously with many gradations inbetween. It goes without saying that I was so terrified of the idea that I didn't even make it to the next session. However what I did learn from the consultation by retracing my past was what had more than likely triggered my phobia in the first place.


We traced it back to when I was eleven years old. I had just moved up to grammar school and I had been having a cooked school lunch around a table for six. I had taken some extra boiled potatoes, but by the end of the meal had no gravy left to accompany them and so had left the potatoes on my plate. The rules were that we had to then wait until the teacher on dinner duty gave us permission to take our used plates to the counter and collect our dessert. Our history teacher was on dinner duty that day. She had stood over me and insisted I eat up those dry potatoes making the whole table wait until I had finished before we could go up to the counter to collect our dessert. The dry potatoes stuck in my throat and made swallowing difficult and of course all impatient eyes were on me to hurry so they could get to the dessert. I often wonder if that teacher realised the damage she did that day as that experience of being unable to swallow the dry food and all eyes being on me was certainly the trigger to my phobia later in life.

By the time I got to my mid thirties, my phobia had also embraced not being able to sit in a cinema or theatre for fear I would have to run out in the middle of a performance and attract attention, just as had been the case in Anne of a Thousand Days. It was really beginning to ruin my life and I spent all my time making excuses to avoid anything that would involve eating out or having to sit in a cinema or theatre.

Then a promotion in my job meant I had to travel abroad a lot and meet up with diplomats and senior businessmen. My first reaction was to run a mile in the other direction and pack my bags full of biscuits to nibble in the quiet of my hotel room, but then something weird happened. Because I had no choice but to eat with other people, because I couldn't just hop on a plane to escape, I found I coped with it. I suddenly realised that the situations I feared were in fact not as bad as I had built them up to be in my imagination. I did not throw up, I did not faint, I did not die, I got through them. The fear of the situation beforehand was worse than the actual experience. What is more I actually began to enjoy them after a while. From then on I seemed to sail through any eating engagements with absolutely no problems, even dining with politicians in the House of Commons and with captains of industry in swish restaurants. I still had an element of anxiety, but experience taught me that I would cope with it. At that time I had also had some sessions with a physiotherapist who had taught me the correct way to breathe - from the pit of my stomach (if you have ever watched a cat or dog sleeping you will see they breathe like that) rather than from the upper chest. That all helped to relax me and control any anxiety that might pop up.

That was soon to change again shortly after I had Kay at the grand old age of 40. I became a stay-at-home mum and my confidence started to crash to the point where the old fears and anxieties came back. I did try to overcome it again, but I had to psyche myself up for it and it had to be on a day when I was feeling strong enough to cope. If I was having a bad day for any reason, then I could not do it. I seemed not to build on my successes and regarded them as one-offs, so that when I had to repeat the experience, it was like I was doing it for the first time all over again. I did make the occasional trip to a cinema to take Kay to the latest Disney film, as I did not want her to miss out because of my shortcomings, but it was not easy and I would have to have an aisle seat for a quick getaway should I ever need it (which thank goodness I never did).

Then Greg took early retirement seven years ago and our whole world turned upside down with his alcoholism. If I was scared before of drawing attention to myself, then one of those early incidents here sure did that. There were to be many more over the years where I had to cope with embarrassing situations and where I had to cope full-stop. Again I had no choice. The problems were there and had to be dealt with. As Greg disappeared more and more from our marriage into his own alcoholic world, as his health failed, with every hospitalisation, with every crisis, I had to cope. And I am pleased to say that my phobia had to take a back seat. A very back seat. (I am not speaking lightly here and dismissing anxiety as nothing, because it was hard to fight it, but when there is absolutely no choice, you can't afford to hide behind it.) Ironically, Greg's alcoholism has helped me to be a stronger person. When I was clearly the only one who could raise my daughter or go to a parent evening or take her on a much needed holiday or up and down the country looking at universities, not to mention eventually getting her up there, I had to be the one to do it. No other choice. There's a lot of truth in the saying "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger".

The pinnacle of my success came two years ago in September 2009 on the weekend I first took Kay up to her university lodgings and helped her move her stuff into her room. At the end of the day, as it was late, I booked into a hotel room nearby for the night. The next morning I calmly entered a crowded breakfast room full of couples (so obviously, like me, dropping their sons or daughters off at the university too) and, sitting alone in full blatant view of the other hotel guests, I had a full cooked English breakfast (sausages, bacon, egg, tomatoes and mushrooms, followed by toast and jam and lashings of tea). I went back into my room afterwards and smiled a big smile. No big deal for most people, but for me.... it was as if I had just climbed Everest.