NOT an alcoholic, my mom died about a month ago at 97. Residents in the assisted living facility where she’d spent her last year insisted on holding a memorial service for her. It was attended by about 40 people — everyone recalling how she’d touched their lives with her humor and knowledge. My sister and brother-in-law presented a beautiful slide show of Mom’s life – travels abroad, outings in nature, parenthood, family and friends. Without question, hers was a life well lived. (Mom’s blog is here.)
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Definitely an alcoholic, my dear ex-boyfriend also died two months ago. He collapsed on his 60th birthday from a GI tract hemorrhage and bled to death alone. For some of you, 60 may seem old — but it’s not. I myself am 63, and when I think of all the living my mom packed into the last 37 years of her life, I feel the waste, the loss, the tragedy of an alcoholic death.
I can say “my dear ex” because I loved him — just not the disease that altered his behavior once he relapsed. Alcoholism did to him the same thing it did to me in my 14 years of drinking. At first I was tipsy most nights, then drunk every night, then bumping up Happy Hour earlier and earlier: by the end, noon seemed fine. In the same proportion, my morals declined. I lied. I emotionally cheated on partners. My selfishness grew like a tumor around my heart, blotting out whatever love it could still generate.
So I understand why my ex lied to me. I understand why he cheated, first during work travels and later with a pudgy alcoholic girl who spent nights at his house on the weekends I spent with my young son. I have no doubt that, beneath that tangle of deceit, selfishness, and relentless pursuit of pleasure that dominated his thinking was the sweet, shy man I’d fallen in love with. But for the past 8 years I communicated minimally, texting only at birthdays and New Years, because he was toxic.
Back when we were together, he was always talking about how he couldn’t wait to retire and start doing whatever he wanted to do. But here’s what happened once he actually retired in 2021; he started doing what alcoholism wanted him to do: Drink.
In 2022 when his sisters met him for coffee, they found him rail thin and shaking. His sister called me and brought me onboard along with his daughter for an intervention. He went to detox and treatment for 30 days. He got better. For three months afterwards, he stayed sober.
But then came the insidious insanity of the first drink. At a convenience store where he was buying cigarettes, the person in front of him bought some kind of Budweiser beer & tomato juice combo he’d never tried. He told himself the tomato juice would dilute the beer enough that he’d be okay. (And if THAT doesn’t sound familiar, you should review “More About Alcoholism” p.36.)
So he was off again, no brakes, no meetings, no prayers. When we texted two weeks before his death, he told me he could not find a higher power or a sufficient substitute. He asked if he could call me, but I was, ironically enough, in my AA homegroup meeting, so I said maybe later. That was the last I’d ever hear from him (on this physical plane, at least).
Drinking only beer, albeit high-alcohol Indian Pale Ale, couldn’t hurt him much, he assumed, but he fainted from a ruptured GI blood vessel — a common danger for heavy drinkers — and bled out. When he failed to answer any of our birthday texts, his sister had a sheriff make a wellness call. Whoever removed the body also removed a six-foot square of carpet surrounding it.
It’s so sad!
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| Glacier NP thru-hike | Hawaii | Stuck in tent in rain | Was on his mantlepiece |
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| Sperry Glacier | Summit Mt. Baker | Summit Mt. Whitney | Feather in his cap |
My ex, whom I’ll call G., was born a middle child. When he and his sisters were 8, 11, and 13 respectively, their mother, a warm, loving Irishwoman who fed the family mainly from their garden and domestic goats, suffered a stroke that left her half paralyzed and totally aphasic (i.e. dumb). Their Type-A father merely divvied up among the children all the chores their mother had performed and soon moved the family to town — no mourning allowed, no counseling, no talking about feelings. In fact, G. was certain his father shot his dog the a few days before they moved. “Musta run off” was all he told 12-year-old G when his beloved Cool McCool failed to show up at the school bus stop as he’d always done to walk G home.
G. learned to drink. He found ways to get the the money for it, mainly trapping animals for their pelts, and to keep his pain at bay he stayed drunk throughout his teens. As soon as his mother regained an ability to express herself, she stopped the killing of animals. But his daily drinking and the deep loss that drove it — those she remained powerless to touch.
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| G’s mother before her stroke | G as a boy |
When I met a 43-year-old G in my sober hiking group, One Step at a Time (OSAT), his wife had kicked him out for drinking and his license was suspended after a third DUI. Neither is uncommon for a recovering alcoholic, so I assumed his boozing days lay behind him.
We shared five intense years while he was sober and a few sort of okay ones after his relapse. Most of the high points of my life came during adventures with G., thru-hiking first in Glacier National Park, then along the PCT, especially the John Muir Trail. We rode our bicycles 1,000 miles from Port Townsend to San Francisco. We took a ferry to Alaska so he could bicycle home through the Canadian Rockies.
I loved him despite his being on the autism spectrum. Because he had trouble conversing with others, I felt from him that strange authenticity of those who simply can’t pull off affectation. He was earnest. But that same acute shyness teamed up with his lifelong history of drinking to alienate him from the AA solution, even when he truly wanted it. We need fellowship and service, but he couldn’t connect with a group. Instead he isolated in his rural home, he and his dog Miley.
I know he is finally free now, having at last shed the pain of his childhood. He’s with his sweet mom and his loyal Cool McCool. I miss having both my mother and G. on the planet, but I know my mom, despite her own difficult childhood, enjoyed a long, full life, whereas I mourn the precious decades stolen from my onetime sweetheart.
A Spiritual Evolution 