For any of you who actually give a damn, I apologise for my silence, however I don't really want to bore your buns off with trivial chats and meaningless babble, but today I feel the need to speak to you all.
It is true to say that my heart really does hurt today and of late there is a lot to be sad about. Humans blowing each other up in the name of an artificially manufactured god owned and embellished by years of mass manipulation. Political in-fighting and social manipulation for self-aggrandisement. Men women and children exploited enslaved in our so-called civilised lands. And last, but by no means least, the atrocities that we do to others and ourselves in the name of such puerile notions as wealth, fame and greed.
Today I am going to tell you about a friend of mine called Peter, he is now seventy but I have known him since I was fifteen and he was around seventeen. We were in the same group of youngsters that inhabited a local club, we were the Casino Crowd and we honed our budding social skills by fancying each other and shyly glancing across the big circle of Mods dancing.
We were the post-war generation who had everything to live for and all of us imagined bright futures for ourselves. The majority of the kids up at the Casino came from working class homes and their parents worked hard and had hopes for us. My own background was a little different but when one is young one doesn't really see class as much of an issue, in those days everything had more to do with being a Mod, wearing the right clothes, mohair suits with single or double vents and panstick instead of lipstick and ultimately we were demonstrating our innocent mating rituals by dancing in a circle or a few girls doing their thing around their handbags.
By modern standards it was all rather tame but inordinately scary, because we were, as I say, feeling our social feet. Now, in this group there were movers and shakers who in later years became 'the A team' and others who were 'B teamers'. Most girls wanted to be hairdressers or comptometer operators while boys wanted to be footballers and engineers.
In amongst the group of boys was a bandy legged fellow called Peter, he was handsome (not my type} but he was fun and hung around with his clique of boys talking rubbish and chasing girls. While we all went into deep crush over whoever was our favourite and almost took to our fainting couches if the object of our desire asked us to dance.
I know that the social tensions today are different but remarkably similar on many levels, its all about boys meeting girls and the long term goal remains finding a long term mate. I was not such a creature, my mother was on husband number three by the time I was eleven so I had a very jaundiced view of marriage, I didn't want to replicate either so I remained largely aloof. I had romances with boys but saw none of the ones I knew as potential partners and, in reality, I didn't want one. For me life was always going to be different, I was not interested in discussing babies and the price of tomato sauce and unlike many of my girl friends I didn't fancy marriage at all and certainly didn't see it as a way of escaping from home....I left under my own steam at about five minutes past sixteen and headed out of town.
Back to Pete, he was in the crowd, I didn't know him well but I liked him, he was very handsome and in those days we didn't drink a great deal, though we did drop the odd pill or four if we went off to an 'all nighter'. I never mixed with Pete's cronies much, they were all a couple of years older than me but he seemed to be popular and soon found his lady love and eventually settled down. I left town and did my own thing returning for occasional spells but it wasn't until some years later that I found out what had happened to Pete when I returned from a long stint away and began to see some of the old crowd again. In the meantime Pete had married his childhood sweetheart, she gave him two babies and he went into the world of finance.
As a youngster Pete and his friends had been a bit too 'cocky' for my taste but eventually I was to meet Pete again sixteen years ago and I was aghast at the transformation. I could still see the vestige of his former good looks and his cockiness had been replaced with a rather skewed arrogance which is common in hardened drinkers. Back in the day it was not as extreme but by then Pete was a full blown alcoholic and making terrible decisions. The root is clearly in the liquid lunch regime that was prevalent and drink driving was common back then too. In time liquid lunches began merging into early doors choir practise and lo and behold he had found his drug and we have been fighting his demons for some twenty five years or more.
At this point it is necessary to tell you that I am 'a mender' I hate to see broken animals or humans without trying to sort them out and that is why my heart hurts now, but it is who I am and I've rushed in where angels fear to tread so many times that I now just do it and think to myself there are only two outcomes and the worst one usually prevails.
Pete isn't my first alcoholic, there have been at least four others, but he is the current one, while two of the others have died and the third is still exercising his very healthy thirst to the detriment of his own and the lives of all who are involved with him....as is Pete.
In the beginning his marriage survived because his long suffering wife loved him so much but eventually she had to throw in the towel and the separated. He moved into a flat near me and I would pop round to see him most days to see how he was, we would talk and I would try to convince him that he had a lot to live for and he'd tell me he was drinking orange juice, but when I tasted it the ratio was always in favour of vodka so I never visited after twelve because after that he'd become incoherent. Every so often he'd try to convince me that he hadn't had a drink but like most drunks, he didn't seem to realise that there is a thickening of vocal tone in most of them that is easily detectable when they are talking to someone who knows them well, so the only person he was deluding was himself.
I have no idea how he managed to convince his wife to take him back, but she did and although my heart sank when I found out I hoped, as all bystanders do, that this time he'd sort his act out. In fact, I even renewed their marriage vows with them and we had a wonderful day with some of the old crowd in attendance all crossing their mental fingers when he vowed to be a better man, husband and father. I am sure you can all imagine that it didn't take long before he was drinking again and coupling it with a lot of cigarettes. At times he was almost bloated then he'd be ok for a couple of weeks but we all knew he'd lose his way because it's what Pete does.
He is not a bad man, he is a man who has made countless bad choices and all of us around him have paid a high prices for his inability to handle his own life. Three years ago his wife finally threw the towel in and kicked him out so he returned to a lonely life of cigarettes and booze, seemingly helpless to change his own destiny. I like him a lot and we have had such fun together playing dominoes, sevens and four in a row and he's been alert and I have looked forward to seeing him. But these days I visit because its what I do, but my conscience won't let me walk away and leave him, so I shop for him and generally do what I can.
Of late things have become particularly grim, a year ago a friend of his found him unconscious on the floor and called an ambulance. Pete was oblivious, he was put into intensive care where he was put into an induced coma for about six weeks and we all went to see and hoped that this would be the wake up call that could set him free from his demons. His feet went black, his toe nails fell off and he was barely compos mentis when they revived him but amazingly he rallied and we got him back. Ironically he has the constitution of an rhinoceros which actually works against him because his recovery is relatively easy.
Once released he went to a residential unit and they housed him, although he never got any counselling which amazed me. We visited as usual and he was happy to be fed, medicated and monitored but it couldn't last forever and he went home to his flat and was fine for about ten days when I went in to find him off his face once more.
For the last few months he has been going downhill but this week he really did fall by the wayside, drunk, smoking and now getting passing kids to get him booze and fags because he cannot even walk to the shops himself. He has been falling and recently broke his wrist but has no idea how, his doctor came out and he was sent into hospital for a couple days to have tests and another broken bone was discovered which was nothing to do with the wrist and it has mended now. He came home from hospital and in the meantime I cleaned his flat up and discovered to my horror that he is having bouts of incontinence and is living like a pig. I cried as I cleaned and was horrified that this formerly immaculately turned out and very dapper man had come to this. He hasn't had a shower for at least six months and is generally grimy and unkempt but still he cannot act to save his own life. In the past two days we have sought an intervention with his doctor who advised us to call in social services to provide care for him and find him somewhere sheltered for him.
We, his family and friends who love who he was, are distraught by his decline, he can barely walk and yesterday he drank a bottle of vodka and went off to bed, but he cannot even do that unaided so I found myself helping him into the toilet before he went upstairs and as he couldn't stand I had to get clasp my arms around his chest and hold him up as he pee'd, then I had to yank up his trousers and get him up the stairs by grabbing him by the seat of his pants. He is seventy and I am will be sixty nine next birthday and I'm too tired for all this drama.
I will not apportion blame on his family, they did their best but had to withdraw from him for their own survival, the only person to blame is Pete for exercising poor judgement and mislaying his backbone.
Today I went in as usual, he was drinking from a large tumbler of scotch and chain smoking. He gave me a bogus story about having had the scotch for a couple of years but I know him, he would have drunk it a long time ago if it had been there, he admitted to getting kids up the road to get him cigarettes again and when I asked him to use his vaper while I was there he refused so I left.
This is why my heart hurts today, throughout our lives we have the capacity to hurt ourselves and others. Everything we say or do has the potential to hurt someone either momentarily or for a lifetime. If you throw a pebble in a pond there are ripples, our actions cause reactions but still we break each other's hearts while hell bent on our own bubble existence.
Please search your hearts and make sure that you maintain the appropriate balance in your lives, if you feel that you are endangering yourself STOP!. I know addiction, when I gave up I was up to a hundred cigarettes a day and almost twenty years on I have never had one, but, I will always be a smoker who just isn't smoking.
For me proportion and balance in life are critical and we have the power to change our lives and grow from our own weaknesses. All of us touch others in some way or another, we can change the course of destiny if we stop this ridiculous cult of gods and personality. We are capable enabling people whose lands have been decimated by war and famine to rebuild, we could share the wealth instead of holding on to that which we can't even take with us when we die.
I fear that for my dear friend Pete it is too late, his time was a year ago when they fought valiantly to bring him back from the brink of death, I believe that then was his time for going.
As a youngster Pete and his friends had been a bit too 'cocky' for my taste but eventually I was to meet Pete again sixteen years ago and I was aghast at the transformation. I could still see the vestige of his former good looks and his cockiness had been replaced with a rather skewed arrogance which is common in hardened drinkers. Back in the day it was not as extreme but by then Pete was a full blown alcoholic and making terrible decisions. The root is clearly in the liquid lunch regime that was prevalent and drink driving was common back then too. In time liquid lunches began merging into early doors choir practise and lo and behold he had found his drug and we have been fighting his demons for some twenty five years or more.
At this point it is necessary to tell you that I am 'a mender' I hate to see broken animals or humans without trying to sort them out and that is why my heart hurts now, but it is who I am and I've rushed in where angels fear to tread so many times that I now just do it and think to myself there are only two outcomes and the worst one usually prevails.
Pete isn't my first alcoholic, there have been at least four others, but he is the current one, while two of the others have died and the third is still exercising his very healthy thirst to the detriment of his own and the lives of all who are involved with him....as is Pete.
In the beginning his marriage survived because his long suffering wife loved him so much but eventually she had to throw in the towel and the separated. He moved into a flat near me and I would pop round to see him most days to see how he was, we would talk and I would try to convince him that he had a lot to live for and he'd tell me he was drinking orange juice, but when I tasted it the ratio was always in favour of vodka so I never visited after twelve because after that he'd become incoherent. Every so often he'd try to convince me that he hadn't had a drink but like most drunks, he didn't seem to realise that there is a thickening of vocal tone in most of them that is easily detectable when they are talking to someone who knows them well, so the only person he was deluding was himself.
I have no idea how he managed to convince his wife to take him back, but she did and although my heart sank when I found out I hoped, as all bystanders do, that this time he'd sort his act out. In fact, I even renewed their marriage vows with them and we had a wonderful day with some of the old crowd in attendance all crossing their mental fingers when he vowed to be a better man, husband and father. I am sure you can all imagine that it didn't take long before he was drinking again and coupling it with a lot of cigarettes. At times he was almost bloated then he'd be ok for a couple of weeks but we all knew he'd lose his way because it's what Pete does.
He is not a bad man, he is a man who has made countless bad choices and all of us around him have paid a high prices for his inability to handle his own life. Three years ago his wife finally threw the towel in and kicked him out so he returned to a lonely life of cigarettes and booze, seemingly helpless to change his own destiny. I like him a lot and we have had such fun together playing dominoes, sevens and four in a row and he's been alert and I have looked forward to seeing him. But these days I visit because its what I do, but my conscience won't let me walk away and leave him, so I shop for him and generally do what I can.
Of late things have become particularly grim, a year ago a friend of his found him unconscious on the floor and called an ambulance. Pete was oblivious, he was put into intensive care where he was put into an induced coma for about six weeks and we all went to see and hoped that this would be the wake up call that could set him free from his demons. His feet went black, his toe nails fell off and he was barely compos mentis when they revived him but amazingly he rallied and we got him back. Ironically he has the constitution of an rhinoceros which actually works against him because his recovery is relatively easy.
Once released he went to a residential unit and they housed him, although he never got any counselling which amazed me. We visited as usual and he was happy to be fed, medicated and monitored but it couldn't last forever and he went home to his flat and was fine for about ten days when I went in to find him off his face once more.
For the last few months he has been going downhill but this week he really did fall by the wayside, drunk, smoking and now getting passing kids to get him booze and fags because he cannot even walk to the shops himself. He has been falling and recently broke his wrist but has no idea how, his doctor came out and he was sent into hospital for a couple days to have tests and another broken bone was discovered which was nothing to do with the wrist and it has mended now. He came home from hospital and in the meantime I cleaned his flat up and discovered to my horror that he is having bouts of incontinence and is living like a pig. I cried as I cleaned and was horrified that this formerly immaculately turned out and very dapper man had come to this. He hasn't had a shower for at least six months and is generally grimy and unkempt but still he cannot act to save his own life. In the past two days we have sought an intervention with his doctor who advised us to call in social services to provide care for him and find him somewhere sheltered for him.
We, his family and friends who love who he was, are distraught by his decline, he can barely walk and yesterday he drank a bottle of vodka and went off to bed, but he cannot even do that unaided so I found myself helping him into the toilet before he went upstairs and as he couldn't stand I had to get clasp my arms around his chest and hold him up as he pee'd, then I had to yank up his trousers and get him up the stairs by grabbing him by the seat of his pants. He is seventy and I am will be sixty nine next birthday and I'm too tired for all this drama.
I will not apportion blame on his family, they did their best but had to withdraw from him for their own survival, the only person to blame is Pete for exercising poor judgement and mislaying his backbone.
Today I went in as usual, he was drinking from a large tumbler of scotch and chain smoking. He gave me a bogus story about having had the scotch for a couple of years but I know him, he would have drunk it a long time ago if it had been there, he admitted to getting kids up the road to get him cigarettes again and when I asked him to use his vaper while I was there he refused so I left.
This is why my heart hurts today, throughout our lives we have the capacity to hurt ourselves and others. Everything we say or do has the potential to hurt someone either momentarily or for a lifetime. If you throw a pebble in a pond there are ripples, our actions cause reactions but still we break each other's hearts while hell bent on our own bubble existence.
Please search your hearts and make sure that you maintain the appropriate balance in your lives, if you feel that you are endangering yourself STOP!. I know addiction, when I gave up I was up to a hundred cigarettes a day and almost twenty years on I have never had one, but, I will always be a smoker who just isn't smoking.
For me proportion and balance in life are critical and we have the power to change our lives and grow from our own weaknesses. All of us touch others in some way or another, we can change the course of destiny if we stop this ridiculous cult of gods and personality. We are capable enabling people whose lands have been decimated by war and famine to rebuild, we could share the wealth instead of holding on to that which we can't even take with us when we die.
We could respect the planet upon which we live ...... but I doubt that we will.
Look around your life and the people in it, have you damaged any of them?
Then get out there and mend them and think about them more often.
I fear that for my dear friend Pete it is too late, his time was a year ago when they fought valiantly to bring him back from the brink of death, I believe that then was his time for going.
I expect I will do his funeral, he has asked me to, but what will I say,
Here lies a once handsome man who made terrible choices and mislaid his spine...
... and it was nobody's fault but his own.
