HERE’S TO YOURHEALTH

This week’s HTYH is a continuation of Judy P.’s story:  I’d wake up, start drinking again and pass out four hours later. My body, clothes, bed and apartment reeked of vodka and that’s how it was; there was nothing fun about it. I was sent to a state mental hospital and it wasn’t my first time for mental wards. I had been in and out of mental institutions on several occasions and thought it would be the same at this state asylum. In my muddled mind, I thought they would keep me during the day and let me out at night so I could drink again, but that’s not what they thought; they locked me up, filled me with dope and I slowly shuffled around there for six months. I could still throw a punch, but it took a long time to get there; it was like living in slow motion. I wanted out of that institution really bad and one of the things that kept me sober during my first five years of sobriety was that I never again wanted to go back there. I can make jokes and laugh about it today, but let me tell you, there’s nothing quite like being inside one of those places on the night of a full moon. It’s just unbelievable what those people go through and the agony they suffer. I clearly remember the horrible screams coming from the girl’s rooms and there was nobody in there with them. Sometimes I’d wake up and there would be a girl standing over me and she would be staring at me. I was prone to violence, but I didn’t react that way because I felt so sorry for them and, quite frankly, my heart still goes out to them.

My last drunk happened in November when I woke up in a fleabag hotel on the south side of Atlanta Georgia. I knew how I got there; I had some guy pick me up at the state hospital when I was released. He had two cases of Miller High Life and three big bottles of Black Velvet Blend and I was off to the races. I woke up again in that hotel 10 days later and I have no idea who came and got me or who took me to my mother’s house, but when she come home from work, there I was. It was near Thanksgiving time and I attempted suicide again so she took me to the hospital and when I came home she told me to pack my bags and get out.

She said, “I’ve had enough of your behavior and it will no longer be tolerated.”

“I don’t have any money, where will I go,” I said.

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She said, “I don’t care where you go but you’re not staying here! You’re 23 years old and it’s time that you started doing something with your life.”

I was shocked and in a stupor, but I understood there was something desperately wrong with me for her to act like that. My mother is a good mother who would do anything for her children, but she was finished with me. I moved in with my cousin and three weeks later she was telling me the same thing.

She said, “You’ve got to get out of here, I’ve never seen anybody drink alcohol like you do.”

That was on December 18^th and it was cold outside; I didn’t want to leave. There was not one soul on the face of this earth who would take me in. I begged my cousin to stay and promised her that I would go to A.A. if she would let me stay. She called A.A. and I went to my first meeting that night. I was 12 stepped by a man and woman who took me to a little A.A. group, they poured me a half-cup of coffee and the man reached across the table, patted my hand and asked if I had any questions.

I said, “No, I just don’t want to ever again get drunk because I’m sick to death of being drunk.”

He patted my hand and said, “You never have to take another drink of alcohol if you don’t want to.”

I didn’t have a car and couldn’t get to meetings so they had me go around the group after the meeting and ask people for their phone numbers. Today, most groups give the new person a list of their phone numbers, but not then, I had to ask. To be continued…