SweatyHands

This is a short little vide made of a friend of mine who left way too soon. It might be hard to watch for some people, so please use your discretion as to whether you want to watch this. He was a brilliant musician, an amazing chef, a completely untrained but extremely successful horse trainer, a great friend, a wonderful, if horribly unprepared, father, and sadly, one of the many who could never string those days together. He was only 42 in this video, and died four years later. He was an alcoholic, and a recovered heroin addict. Unfortunately, he also had hepatitis C, and was prescribed a medication that mixed with his daily booze intake and severely compromised liver, put him over the edge. He dug all six feet of his own grave, and I don't apologize for his life, but a beautiful man nonetheless. Watch if you want.

https://vimeo.com/30359437

Soberwolf

SoberComposer

Thanks for sharing.

Delilah1

I'm sorry for the loss of your friend. The video was definitely emotional to watch. Was it part of a documentary series?

SweatyHands

I don't know if it was part of a series. I know the documentarian was there to film the New Orleans Jazz Fest, and she decided that Mark was more authentic than what she was filming at the festival. I met mark 28 years ago, when I was 12 and making my first attempt at getting out of my home. He taught me that I couldn't make it on my own of I couldn't make it on my own in my mother's house. He housed and fed me when I was down and out, and tapered me against my will for the first time when I was 15. He punched me unconscious when he saw me shoot heroin when I was about the same age. He was shooting at the time, but told me that he couldn't live knowing that he could have stopped me from throwing away my life. When he was near death, 20 years ago, I went to New Orleans with another friend to drag him back to Cincinnati to rehab. He told me, "I never knew anything until Son House told me that there was always someone worse off. And that was just a record. I had to get down to the Mississippi to see what my people were going through." I have that written down on the back page of a Kerouac novel, and I had him sign it, because I told him that he would be bigger than Kerouac one day. He threatened to kill me when he found out that I was back on the needle. He told me that the dope might kill me, but the needles I was sharing would make me wish the dope killed me sooner. I got clean. I stuck to the bottle, and it was a 25 year long skid into the swamp. I would give just about anything to spend one more day picking with him. Two nights ago, I found a cassette recording of the two of us playing and singing together in my apartment when I was 22. His version of "Lay Some Flowers On My Grave" by Blind Willie Mctell will always haunt me. Because I don't know if I will ever be strong enough to see his grave. When I was in detox four years ago, he wrote me a letter by hand and told me that I had to stay sober, because he knew he wouldn't be alive long enough to tell his story. I know I'm not qualified to tell his story, but I'm not going to let him be known as "just another dead drunk."

SweatyHands

In the video, when he says "I came here because I needed to drink. That was 25 years ago." It tears my guts apart.

firstymer

That is a beautiful and heart-wrenching video.

I am very sorry for your loss. But please don't let your friend's death weaken your resolve. You will best honor his memory by staying on the sober path that you have chosen for yourself. I am sure that is what he would want for you.

My thoughts are with you.

SweatyHands

Thank you for your words firstymer. My sobriety is not in jeopardy over this. He died last year, but I just recently found this video and it got me back to thinking about all of my friends who didn't get the help they needed in time. That's why I'm in school to be a therapist--to help the people who don't think that there is any help for "people like us."

Soberpotamus

Thanks for sharing the video of your friend with us. It was hard to watch. I could see clearly that alcohol had ravaged a talented individual. He seemed like an interesting guy.

Thanks again for sharing him with us.

SweatyHands

It pains me to see how much his guitar playing had deteriorated by then. After I moved out of Cincinnati in 2001, I only saw him one more time. But we kept in touch with letters. He was a writer and a gentleman, so he wrote and typed very eloquent multi-page letters often. I was still drinking for most of the time that he was writing, so I didn't pick up on how fast he was sinking until he sent me a letter when I was in detox four years ago. He told me that he knew that he couldn't face the world sober, and he only had a few years left. He died a little over three years later. I just wish I then had the ability to sit with him and tell him that the world would keep turning, even if he was sober and uncomfortable. But honestly, I never even believed that myself until I hit the dead end of my last relapse.

He used to send me cassettes (remember those kids?) of his playing and singing, and of bands that he was in. I haven't played out in public since I left Ohio in 2001, and he always told me that every day I wasn't on stage was a day that people weren't hearing what they needed to hear me say. I didn't pick up on his decline in writing, but I definitely did in his playing. He quit playing the dobro, because he was too drunk to keep from dropping the slide. I never said anything. I know it wouldn't have made anything different, but at least I would know that I said something.

Also, he was the only person I knew who was a better chef than me and had a higher IQ than me. And he had no interest in using either to get out of the streets. He knew where he felt at home, and he stayed there.

Forward12

A great video. I've watched many similar to this on youtube for motivation. Countless good people that had their lives destroyed by the bottle, and paid the ultimate price for it. It truly is disheartening,..

Dee74

I'm sorry for your loss SH.

D