19

Rock Bottom to Release

That summer I went to stay with my mother, and found her resigned to a much restricted life, seeming to enjoy more than ever the superb view over Belfast Lough to Greenisland and Knockagh war memorial, with her parents’ old house clearly visible on the opposite shore below. The Liverpool boat passed close inshore on its daily voyage, as did naval vessels, tankers, cargo ships and an occasional oil rig. The shoreline was hidden by a wilderness of gorse, through which a narrow track led to the beach, but it was years since she had been able to walk that distance. Once an avid reader, her eyesight had continued to worsen, and I suspected she no longer saw clearly the television to which, after initial rejection, she had become addicted. Her doctor thought she had suffered a series of minor strokes, and there were signs too that dementia was setting in. She enjoyed the improvement in diet that came with my presence, and loved to see pictures of the children and to have me read their letters to her – they were good about writing. There were quiet times when I cut and filed the nails of her once beautiful, now knotted and blue-veined hands, while we shared memories of Donegal. But each day brought a series of humiliations. Her carer came at eight in the morning to get her up and washed. I had learned to change her colostomy bag when necessary. I prepared her breakfast, though had I not been there, the home help would have done that as well.

I worried about what would happen to her when I returned to France. My loyalties were divided; in effect, I felt trapped. But the decision about what to do next was taken out of my hands. After giving my mother lunch one day, I left for a walk along the coastal path towards Helen’s Bay, saying I would be back in time to prepare our evening meal. When I got back, her chair was empty. I was aghast, and my first thought was abduction of a defenceless old woman. Her handbag was gone, but there was no sign of disturbance. I went to her bedroom, where a suitcase had gone from the top of the wardrobe, and some clothes were missing; her hairbrush and hand-mirror were not on the dressing table. In the bathroom the toothbrush mug was empty, and a sponge was missing from the bath-rack. A lump settled in my stomach, which I treated with a glass of almost neat vodka. I rang Dodi, who was equally shocked. The doctor’s surgery was closed, so I rang her carer, who was evasive. When, by process of elimination, I tracked down the name of the nursing home my mother was in, the proprietor said: ‘Your mother doesn’t want to see you.’ I was unable to discover who arranged my mother’s admission to the nursing home, and why it happened the way it did. Only recently has it become obvious it was probably Rosemary’s decision to take such drastic action. She was later transferred to a local authority care home at Crawfordsburn.

I cleaned the house, booked my flight to Geneva, and arranged to stay for a couple of days with a Quaker friend, Harold Sidwell, on the other side of Belfast. I was on the carriageway approaching Holywood when a police car brought me to a halt. At the barracks, breath and urine tests were required, and my car was impounded for three days, but I was allowed to take a taxi to Harold’s house. He was sympathetic in the trustful way of nice people who have no conception of what the alcoholic suffers and is firmly convinced that all that is needed is a bit of willpower. He also found it hard to believe I was as desperate as I claimed, because a few weeks earlier, when he had cycled to Craigavad to visit us, he had noticed nothing amiss. I was ashamed of having bought a bottle of vodka from the offlicence nearby, while Harold went further afield to buy food for our supper.

I decided to find out where I could be admitted for yet another detoxification, so that at least I would arrive back in Divonne in a sober state. The choice was between a mental hospital in Downpatrick, or the psychiatric unit of Purdysburn Mental Hospital, on the outskirts of Belfast. I decided on the latter. The doctor examining me thought I exaggerated the severity of my condition, and was merely suffering from depression; I was too coherent to be in the late stages of alcoholism. He agreed, however, to keep me under observation for three days and treat me for the withdrawal symptoms I knew were inevitable, considering my intake over the last emotionally charged week.

So that the three days should not be boring, the medical officer took me to a large room devoted to occupational therapy. Groups of dull-eyed women sat at tables making objects ranging from barbola work to felt flowers and coiled clay pots. A Bechstein grand piano stood alone at the cenre of the room. I was introduced as Elizabeth ‘who will be with us for a few days only’.

A good-looking woman about my own age approached saying she felt we might have a lot in common and that I looked interesting. She then told me that she was interested in traditional Gaelic lyrics and songs and was a professional pianist. I said how much pleasure it would give me to hear her play. So she sat down at the keyboard and began to sing, in a smooth contralto voice, a selection of songs and lyrics from all over Ireland. Some were long, but she was word perfect. At the end the group responded with a round of applause.

Then she joined me and the MO and without any preliminaries lay down on the floor, exposing her unclothed nether regions as she did a few floor exercises. This was the Korsakoff’s syndrome about which Dick had told me. ‘Very sad, she used to run a legal practice and was much in demand to give recitals.’ At home, however, her behaviour had become intolerable so her family arranged to have her ‘sectioned’.

Witnessing this spectacle should have provoked an accelerated ‘rock bottom’ in me but it did not. Some wit in AA said ‘some of us reach the bottom of the bucket, then dig a hole in it.’

I made a court appearance in Bangor, at which the magistrate, who had a reputation for imposing savage sentences on persons convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol, imposed a fine of £500 and loss of licence for six years. When this news reached Divonne, the family decided unanimously that it was time for yet another confrontation. I was told that, unless I agreed to go for further treatment, I would find myself alone in the house. Katharine had graduated and was planning to teach at a high school for girls in Tokyo; Mary was in Bath; and Michael, after a gap year, would go to Edinburgh to read geology. Fergus was exhausted, often kept awake at night listening to my introspective ramblings. He could no longer stand the strain of living under the same roof, and threatened to move to a flat near the WHO building. He did spend a few days with Katharine in Canterbury without telling me where he had gone. I was furious and went berserk. This approach is known in AA terms as ‘tough love’. I was not surprised, feeling guilty, particularly when he was away on duty travel, for the anxiety that accompanied him wherever he went. Apart from this, I had come to an independent decision to go to another treatment centre, this time in Surrey, in a further attempt to kick my dependency. I had been thrown out of a clinic five years earlier for not being ready, now surely I must have ‘reached bottom’. My family certainly had.

This time, just after Christmas 1986, I was able to pack my suitcase in an orderly way, but the parting from Fergus at Geneva airport was the most poignant yet: my choices, it was clear, had finally run out. Sober on the flight, I could not resist the opportunity to buy a flask of vodka at Heathrow. It was after dark when my taxi drove up the drive to Farm Place. I had become garrulous on the journey, chatting to the driver, whose mirror will have reflected my furtive swigs, and who probably knew what type of ailment was treated at this clinic.

My arrival coincided with the evening meal of the director, and she left me in no doubt how inconvenient the interruption was. The nurse who checked me in asked if I had any alcohol, so I confessed, and was directed to the cloakroom, where I poured the remainder down the handbasin. The large room I was to share with five other women had a capacious Victorian wardrobe, with shelves, hanging space and drawers, and an en suite bathroom. The only injunction given that night was to forget I had previously been in treatment, lest I should feel in any way superior; soon two of my room-mates revealed they too had been in rehab.

The director, to whom I had taken an instant dislike, interviewed me next morning, all the background information lying on her desk. I was in no position to be other than totally co-operative. I kept reminding myself of the importance of keeping an open mind, and that principles should always outweigh personalities. Notwithstanding, I could discern few redeeming features in this cold, charmless woman. I wondered if perhaps a generous spirit lay within, but so far could not detect any sign of humanity. It was an inauspicious start. I hoped the other counsellors would be more sympathetic – most of them were.

At the first group meeting the director turned to me: ‘In over twenty years working with alcoholics I have met only two women as sick and steeped in denial as you, and both are dead,’ she said. I believe it was a calculated attempt to break my pride, but it merely provoked antagonism. Anyone unwise enough to protest against such tactics, however, was accused of self-justification. Like practices at other clinics, we were told to voice direct criticism about our immediate neighbours: this was regarded as a healthy exercise in honesty. We also had to list their good points, an exercise so excruciating for some – particularly newcomers – they broke down in tears.

Domestic chores were legion, and each morning a rota list, which it was our duty to read, appeared in the hall. Personality conflicts were rife, and character defects revealed in consequence of petty disputes were subjected to open discussion: thus providing malicious members of the group a heaven-sent chance to vent their ‘honest’ feelings. Triumphs, however, were mostly short-lived when the spotlight settled on the accuser rather than the intended victim. From many of the stories I heard, I felt that addiction to hard drugs resulted in a more rapid and profound decline in moral standards than did alcohol dependence alone. When it came to manipulation, theft, deviousness and cruelty, both mental and physical, the ‘pure’ alcoholics were, in comparison, paragons of virtue. It hurt me that any effort I had made to help others was interpreted as ‘people pleasing’ – an attempt to curry favour.

I went through Steps 1 and 2 again; this time there was no question that life was unmanageable, or of my need to be restored to sanity. I rewrote my life story and read it aloud to the group, afterwards analysing their written comments. They were painfully similar to those made five years earlier, one letter accusing me of being an attention-seeking drama queen.

Now that many reservations I held about the existence of a higher power had been resolved, Step 3 was proving less difficult. My research on theological matters was superficial, and my studies no more than basic, but I was starting to overcome some prejudices, was less judgemental, and more open to compromise. Step 4 demanded the taking of a ‘searching and fearless moral inventory’, and I enjoyed this task; but brutal comments from my peer group indicated the need for further fearless searching.

Step 5 was seen as vital, without which there was little or no hope of recovery: ‘Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs.’ In the outside world it was considered wise, if one was religious, to do this step with a minister of religion; otherwise a trusted friend or, rarely, a total stranger. At this clinic it was the director’s husband Heinz, a lapsed priest, to whom what amounted to a confession was made. He would never have been my choice, and he sensed that. Some patients emerged tearful from the ordeal; others beaming with relief, and glowing with satisfaction at having ‘passed’. When my turn came, I failed, accused of being full of unresolved anger and resentment. This had not been the case, but after such misjudgement, it became so. I was angry at not being offered a choice of person with whom to share such an intimate and critical step. It was suggested that I remain a further month, at the end of which I would repeat Step 5, and thereafter – assuming I had ‘passed’ – would go to a halfway house for three months before returning home. I knew this would not work and that if I were to agree under duress, I would merely accrue further resentments. So, having informed a very disappointed Fergus what had happened, I discharged myself.

Many of the patients were sympathetic, sharing my dislike of Heinz’s role as father confessor. Some gathered in the porch to say goodbye; a few hugged me with genuine affection, saying they were sure I would make it in the end. The director, arriving on the scene, said sharply that this was not an approved discharge, and ordered them to go about their respective tasks forthwith.

When I returned to Divonne, the atmosphere was subdued, and our relationship cautious. It was like the first days in Ghana – we were in love, but an element of the unknown inhibited total commitment. I felt drained by what had happened at the clinic, withdrawn and incapable of spontaneous gaiety. I was not drinking and did not feel the urge to do so, despite the usual stock of alcohol being in the house. There was an indefinable change in my attitude at every level, but I still had a sense of not belonging, being a soul apart – maybe it was always going to be that way. I recalled what Donald Gilchrist, a devout Catholic who experienced long periods agonising about the future of mankind, had said: ‘When it comes to the crunch, you’re on your own.’

Spring brought the usual riot of conflicting colours – shortlived mauve magnolias, proximate to garish yellow forsythia, deep blue grape-hyacinths, daffodils and tulips – and in early June the glory of the mountain meadow outside. From the kitchen window I could see young nuthatches, on the point of fledging, peeping out of their nest box; then each sat for several minutes on the windowsill, before flying off to various bushes, from which their chirruping would attract the parent birds bringing food. Soon it was high summer, hot and humid, with the threat of violent storms in the air. Early one morning, while I was making tea to take up to our bedroom, an overwhelming urge for a drink to boost my energy struck. When a bottle of strong ale lurking in the fridge did not give the required boost, I drank some neat brandy. Retching violently into the sink, I exclaimed, ‘That’s it!’ And it was.

Immediately I felt a sense of release, and Fergus said: ‘What’s come over you? I heard you singing this morning, and I haven’t heard that in years.’ Not long after, when I laughed at some trivial incident, I realised how long it was since I had laughed spontaneously. Ideally, the miracle should have coincided with Fergus’s birthday on 25 July, but it happened exactly one week earlier on 18 July 1987. Later he told me he had sensed something radical had happened: was it possible I had gone through a spiritual awakening, as described in the AA literature? I returned to regular meetings, where the transformation was also noticed, though some members, who had followed my antics over the years, found it scarcely credible. Those who delighted in clichés were comforted by ‘another miracle in AA’.

Katharine returned from Japan for Christmas, and on 12 January 1988 we celebrated Michael’s twenty-first birthday with a large party attended by friends of all generations, some ‘normal’, but a number we had made through AA and Al-Anon.