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I am a half Greek half German musician and electrician, playing metal music in various bands for years now. I am proud of my achievements and feel as if nothing can stop me. But in my youth, I was a depressed alcoholic and the only thing I felt for myself was a great shame.
I moved from Germany to Greece with my Greek mother when I was little, after my German father abandoned her. He had refused to recognise me as his son, and left her no choice other than to return home to her own mother and stepfather, who were rich landowners who were ashamed of their daughter for having fallen in love with a German. Memories of the Second World War were fresh in their minds and the very mention of Germany could anger them. I was eight then and unable to speak the language, so it was impossible to make myself likable to them or make any friends. One of my first memories was the neighborhood kids shouting “one, two, three, fucking Germany!” at me and running away. Another memory was my grandmother giving me an apple in front of her laughing friends and saying “do you like it, hungry bastard, eh?”
When I was ten, my grandmother died and only my mother’s stepfather remained, sharing the house with us. He was lazy and didn’t go to his fields at all, he had hired people to work them while he spent his whole day at the bar, drinking either coffee or alcohol. His favorite one was whiskey. My first time drinking was with him. My mother was too afraid of him to protest. He was not violent, but something in the way he looked at us unsettled her. One night she came to my room and told me that she would be sleeping there with me from then on. I didn’t understand. I thought she must be afraid of ghosts, as she often spoke to me about them. My mother and I slept in the same bed until I was fifteen years old and too tall to fit in the same single bed.
Then one night he came home drunk very late. My mother was in the kitchen, praying to Virgin Mary to banish the evil spirits she believed were after her. It was summer and she was dressed in a thin nightgown. Her stepfather went inside the kitchen and told her dirty things, approaching menacingly, wanting to touch her. She called for me. “Chris!!!!! CHRIS!!!” I woke up and ran downstairs to her. She didn’t tell me then what happened, only went past me to her room and locked herself inside. I was left alone with him, and he looked drunk and out of his mind. So I poured each of us a glass, hoping that this would be sufficient to put him to sleep. We ended up drinking until morning. Then he went to bed and I went to school, after I checked that my mother was all right. When I returned, the police were there and he was gathering his things. That was the last I saw of him and also the beginning of our poverty.
When I was seventeen, my depression hit new lows. I was going to school and working with my mother at the same time, cleaning stairs. I didn’t earn much but I spent almost all of my money buying Jack Daniel’s whiskey and all of my free time drinking it while listening to metal music. I was known as the crazy woman’s son, as my mother’s schizophrenia had become apparent by then, and I was excluded from all social events. It felt extremely lonely. The only people who wanted to drink with me were the other four local metalheads. When I was drunk I felt a kind of false joy and confidence. I imagined myself like Superman, and I could ignore everyone. All those mean, gossiping people. Day by day, my desire to drink grew stronger.
At the age of twenty five I had already started to think that maybe being drunk all the time was ruining my life. My mother’s condition had worsened, and she required more attention than I could provide. She sometimes had hallucinations, thinking that her dead mother was still inside our house, wanting to take her to hell with her. She was aggressive to strangers and anyone she thought was against her, refusing any help, such as a maid. I was also in a relationship with a partner who didn’t understand me at all, and neither had she any patience with me. I thought then that maybe she only wanted me for the money, because I had a very good job with a high salary, which enabled me to buy more and more alcohol. On top of that, I had to go to the army for a year, as it was and still is compulsory in my country.
When I entered the army, I saw it as a good opportunity for me to quit. The officer in charge, a proud straight edge man, strictly forbade any drinking. He knew an alcoholic when he saw him and used to tell me that if he caught me, the punishment would be severe. I idolized him, he was everything I wanted to be. Brave, direct, strict, but with a human side to him. After a month I quit and remained sober for eleven months, the remainder of my serving time. I relapsed when I was released from service and all it took was a single can of beer.
From that night to when I finally quit for good, 15 years passed. I had unsuccessfully tried to quit drinking four different times. My mother had turned into a being like the ghosts she was so afraid of. Her hair had turned white, her personal hygiene neglected and she was wandering in the streets collecting trash, refusing any financial help from me or anyone else. She didn’t have electricity in the house anymore and she didn’t even let me in there, believing that my moving out after the army was an act of betrayal. And I was powerless to help her, so I pushed the thoughts of her in the back of my mind and continued to drink, until the day I hit bottom.
It was a day almost like any other. I had gone home after work, showered, drank a beer and prepared to go to my band rehearsal. We had them thrice a week, one day in a studio in a nearby city and the other two days in a friend’s garage which he had converted into a studio. That day I had to go to my friend’s house. I bought two bottles of whiskey to bring to them as a present, as I often did. On the way to the house, I met my mother. She saw the bottles in the plastic bag I was holding and became furious. She compared me to her stepfather. That angered me very much too, but as usual, I swallowed my anger and continued on my way. When I arrived at the house, a party was already under way. My friend’s new girlfriend was there and apparently she had brought some friends as well. That angered me even more, as we had agreed that we wouldn’t invite any people until after any rehearsal. I was also somewhat jealous because I hadn’t had any girlfriend in years, since I had a low sex drive and trouble expressing any emotion.
I sat around the table with my bandmates and the girls and we all drank a lot. The girls, who were from another town, kept asking questions, trying to pry me open. I drank more and more and more, didn’t care what was in front of me, if ash had fallen in my glass, or if it was plain water in there. The main thing I wanted was for the anger to go away. Then I blacked out. I, to this day, can’t remember a thing, as if my brain couldn’t register what happened. I don’t remember how I got home, I just opened my eyes and I was there the next day, and the small apartment reeked of vomit, my tv and table was broken and a torn curtain was on the floor, which I had obviously used as a towel to wipe the vomit. The hangover was unusually bad and I felt uneasy, like I was being threatened by something.
When I went out, my neighbors all looked at me with disdain and fear, as if I had done a monstrous deed. Nobody answered when I said good morning. I went to work, where thankfully nobody behaved in a different way than usual towards me. Then, in the afternoon, after I ate some hot soup, I went to meet my bandmates. They told me the ugly truth and I realized that I had created very big problems for the only people I loved. I had lost them. What had I done? In my drunk state I had almost killed our band drummer, who was also my best friend. He had only joked harmlessly about some band photos my hair looked messy in, and I had grabbed a knife from the kitchen and threatened him with it. Then they kicked me out of the band, and of the house too, one of them secretly following me from a distance to ensure my safety. I had gone home, screaming like a demon and kicking trash cans, and when neighbors came out to help me, I was aggressive towards them as well. The police were called but nobody dared to ask for my arrest, so it was finally with the intervention of a burly hunter who lived on the first floor, that I calmed down. He immobilized me and held me firmly and told me reassuring things until I stopped struggling and then he took me home and left me there.
That day I said, “no more drinking for me. I’m done with alcohol”. I battled alone for a week, but the withdrawal was too much to handle. Headaches, stomachaches, bone pain, nightmares, weakness, feelings of shame and an insane, vibrating nervousness. I couldn’t go to work. I even struggled to do simple tasks, such as stand up and walk to the kitchen to get a glass of water. I had to sit in order to urinate. Soon I realized that I needed help from a doctor, I was unable to care for myself. I called an ambulance to take me to the hospital, where after they ensured I was not in any immediate danger they referred me to a local psychiatrist. She was a very kind and understanding woman who knew some parts of my story, as everybody knew about my mother who wandered as a mad woman. She didn’t charge me anything and prescribed me medicine to help me. I took it for nine months and it enabled me to stand up on my legs again. Unfortunately the damage my body sustained from alcohol was irreparable. After fourteen years I am still unable to function sexually, I have a very short attention span and such drowsiness that I drink an great ammount of coffee every day to be able to function. But in the end, I managed to quit for good. I put my mother in a care home and repaired my relationships with the more forgiving of the people I had wronged. A couple of years ago I met an old friend who attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and he asked me to accompany him to a meeting to tell my story, which I did, hoping it would help somebody. Whenever I can offer any help for someone to quit, I do it with great pleasure and with all my heart.
I’m Chris, I’ve been sober for fourteen years and this is my story, translated to English by Anna, also an ex alcoholic. I hope it proves helpful to someone in this difficult journey towards sobriety.
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