Wasted by Brian O'Connell Read Free Book Online Page B

Living the type of life I did, you become increasingly isolated and there are few avenues left open
to you. I thought about moving abroad (most problem drinkers do at some point), toyed with the idea of returning to college and finally tried to resurrect my media career.
    An editor in Clare took a chance on me and gave me a few days a week working in a local newspaper. It would be a chance to wipe the slate clean, get away from Cork for a bit and have a regular
income.
    I was to start in Ennis on a Monday morning. Because relations with my family had broken down, I planned to leave Cork on Sunday afternoon and stay in a B&B in Ennis.
A few media friends and a girl I was seeing at the time suggested meeting in the HI-B bar in Cork for a few last jars and a toast to new beginnings. The HI-B is a curious spot, with the eccentric
owner Brian O’Donnell at the helm, barring everyone from coffee drinkers to mobile phone owners. (I once heard him shout ‘SPACE INVADERS’ at a couple who had been sitting on the
only couch in the pub and nursing one drink for two hours.) It had a core group of daytime professional drinkers, and was a perfect oasis in the middle of an afternoon.
    My plan was to have two drinks and make an afternoon bus, which would have me in Ennis for early evening, leaving plenty of time to get accommodation for the week sorted. Two drinks became three
and the crowd got bigger and the bus time got later and later. I was now intent on making the last bus, at 7.25 p.m., which would have me in Ennis for half ten or thereabouts. By 8 p.m. I was still
ordering drinks and had been drinking steadily for five hours. Not exactly ideal preparation for your first morning in a new job. At 9 p.m. I said my goodbyes, convinced my female companion to come
with me, walked out the door and hailed a taxi on Patrick Street in Cork.
    ‘Where we off to, lads?’ the driver asked.
    ‘Ennis, please,’ I said, ‘or Power’s Pub in Clarecastle if we make last orders.’
    The job lasted a matter of days, and I was back in Cork, drinking with the same media colleagues who a week earlier had toasted my departure. It was farcical. My living situation at this time
was still chaotic. I had left a house where I was sharing in order to rent a place on my own, but a month or so in I arrived home to find the locks had been changed. I was already several weeks
behind on the rent, and the letting agency decided to take action. After that, I stayed in different locations, mostly spare rooms, and kept whatever possessions I had held onto under the stairs of
a friend’s house. I used to change clothes and freshen up in public toilets, generally art galleries or theatres, washing my hair in the sink and giving under my arms a wipe with toilet soap
and paper. When staff began to recognise me, I made up a story about the plumbing at home being on the blink. I did this for a few weeks, especially if I was in the middle of a bender and felt
rough. Warped needs must.
    ——
    One day, my parents, with whom relations had been strained for several months, called and told me they wanted to see me. I met them at St Finbarr’s Hospital in Cork,
where the rest of my family had arranged for a treatment counsellor to help them confront my drinking. I sat there, silent, as they expressed their concerns. None of them knew me any more. My
brothers and sisters had no real relationship with me. They wanted to know if I was willing to do something about it. Would I go back on my own the following week and provide a urine sample? I
probably would have tried anything at that stage. I had become ‘sick and tired of being sick and tired’, as the manual says, and I wanted out. After the consultation, my family headed
for Clare and I went on a two-day pub crawl, ending up getting barred from my local late-night bar and crying my eyes out on a side street as dawn broke. As an 11-year-old child, watching JR Ewing
in ‘Dallas’ reach for a crystal