How It Started
When I was in my early 30s I met a man called Andy. I worked in a rock pub and he used to pop into for a pint after work.
At the time, I had on and off been suffering from depression and anxiety and a lot of other strange "nerves" related things since I was 14
But I never drank excessively, I was more interested in trying to heal myself.
I had never seen anyone as beautiful in my life as Andy. He looked like Kurt Cobain, but he was 6ft tall with broad shoulders, thick hair down to his waist and a blonde beard..beautiful eyes, big and sometimes bright blue, sometimes green or sometimes clear grey. Strangest eyes colour wise. He looked like a viking to me, I think my mouth may have been hanging open.
I was completely mesmerised by him as soon as I saw him and the first thought that popped into my head was "He's back"
That was a wierd thing to think!
He came up to the bar to be served and said "You are perfect"
We started going out together, and after a year he moved in with me and the kids.
He drank a lot, but always in pubs, he would drink after work every night for weeks, have a couple of weeks rest then start again.
When I met him I didn't think he was much of a big drinker, as he would have a pint, take his time then leave.
I learnt later, that to impress me, he didn't want me to see how much he drank and when he left he would go to another pub for the rest of the night and get hammered.
A few months after he moved in, I noticed a change in his drinking, he started to drink at home. By this time I had left the pub, and was working full time in a call centre, I was out of the house from 7 on a morning until 6 in the evening.
I had my sister and mother help with the kids, dropping them to school making their teas etc.
Every night when I finished work he would have wine for me. I don’t think he liked drinking alone. I never drank more than a glass, I wasn’t keen on wine, when I drank I drank lager and I never had drank at home before.
Gradually his drinking got worse, and he was at home all day, because he was a bricklayer and work on the sites got scarce.
In the end he was drinking a litre of whiskey a day. I told him to leave because it wasn’t good for the kids to be seeing him drinking. He never once appeared drunk, never had a hangover. Looking back it was probably because he never stopped drinking long enough to develop a hangover.
Instead of leaving, he said he would stop drinking at home.
He still drank in the pubs. Then one morning he had a job on, kissed me goodbye, said “See you at teatime” ..and disappeared for 3 days.
I tracked down his best mate, and he said last time he saw him, he was heading down to the chapter house of the Hells Angels to have a fight with one of them! So I was worried sick.
Anyway, next day, I got a phone call. He was staying at a friends house, house sitting while they were away. Saying he was depressed and needed to be alone to sort his head out. Said he would be back in a day or two.
I said ok. It was around the time of the anniversary of the death of his brother. His brother had committed suicide when he was 21 and Andy was 19. Andy had missed a call from him the night he died and still thought if he had gotton that call he could have talked his brother out of it.
After his brothers death he had started snorting, then injecting speed. He ended up in jail after a few years, because he did an armed robbery for money for drugs. He got released early for good behaviour. And he had a good record before the drugs..he had been a rock climbing instructor and saved someones life. When he came out of jail, he had started drinking instead of speed.
He came back home after 2 days. Same time the next week, he disappeared again for a few days. Same phone call, depressed blah blah.
I did some digging this time, and found he was living at some womans house. Some woman who was as bad on the drink as he was. The two of them drank day and night.
I was gutted to say the least. I took all his clothes to his parents house, had his car towed away from outside my house and sold his dog.
To be continued…