Four years ago today things were not going according to plan! I needed to be making cupcakes for Charlie’s birthday tonight. This wasn’t good. My stomach was rolling and waves of dizziness forced me to sit in the tiled hall by the side door with a greyhound on a 12ft leash. There was no way that I could physically stand in the driveway to wait for him to pee.

My cunning plan was to curl up on the tile floor, trying not to vomit, while the dog did his business. I remember a buzzing sensation coming over me while I watched Ranger pick his way over the snow. It wasn’t a familiar feeling and something told me this was not a good thing. Reality started to slip away a bit - kind of fuzzy and far away. I knew I had to stay conscious because there was a dog on the other end of that line. I rolled over onto my knees, pressed my forehead onto the tile and rocked back and forth. No way was I passing out!

Dragging on the leash I got Ranger into the house, the door closed and sweat started to pour off me. I hadn’t been feeling right all morning. Not my usual “I don’t feel good” - which is code for the horrendous lifecycle of hangovers that happens to the chronic alcoholic. It was an unwell that went deep enough to stop me from starting my day with the usual glass of vodka and a glass of wine so things were far from “normal"!

I had gotten that dog inside and hopefully I had already sorted out the other. I vaguely remembered having started this process with the other Greyhound but with the sweat really dripping off me and my stomach starting to clench it stopped mattering. Just as I hit the sink I started to vomit and in that weird way felt so much better - and so much worse. The sink was full of blood. It was so bright red and against that white ceramic sink it made it even more shocking.  It became one of those Do Over moments. The ones where as they are happening you are realize just how craptastic they are and that the potential ramifications are not going to be good no matter what so all you can this is Please can I have a Do Over? One of those.

In a heart beat retching began again and my mind was filled with thoughts that were simply the very definition of denial….

“OK…I’m going to feel better in a minute. Just throw up, rest a minute and thenI need to make the damn cupcakes!”

“Maybe I won’t have to call Martin. I’m going to feel better in a minute and then it will be a birthday and presents!”

The sweat started to build again and I started to throw up more blood. Some was fresh , some wasn’t and my hope that this might end remained alive. If there was dark blood then maybe this would stop and I wouldn’t have to call my husband. He wouldn’t have to know. This could be like the time I woke up on the kitchen floor not knowing how long I had been there. I had been a train wreck then too.

Earlier in the fall I had walked the kids to school on a beautiful morning and come home to do laundry and write. The path between my study and the box of wine sitting in the fridge was well worn as I meandered back and forth tweaking dialogue or crafting plot points. Somewhere along that path I didn’t make it back to my study because I regained consciousness flat on my stomach in the middle of my kitchen in a puddle of my own urine, feces and vomit. I must have decided that the floor of my kitchen was as far as I could go. That making it to my bathroom was not going to happen so it was all exits no waiting and then I proceeded to  pass out. Attractive. I didn’t call my husband . I just threw away all those clothes, showered, brushed my teeth very well, and walked with the dogs down to get the kids from school.

So looking down into the sink after this second wave of blood I was desperately hoping this was a case of clean up and move on like that occasion. Always under the delusion that all will be well if only I could manage well. What an illusion it is ….. And so very powerful. A new wave was building and this was triggered by me simply shifting my weight as I leaned on the sink. I was getting worse by the minute and my instincts were now screaming for me to get a phone and now I began to wonder if I should even call Martin or just go straight to 911. The decision was taken out of my hands when my 15 year old came home from school and did for me what I could not do for myself - he acted like an adult and called for help from his father.

I continued to be unreasonable.

“I’ll be fine”

“This will pass, it’s nothing serious”

“I need to make cupcakes for Charlie! She’ll be so upset”

The real issue was that I couldn’t drink. I was beginning to withdrawal pretty hard and I wanted a drink - I physically needed a drink. Even though I was bleeding internally, throwing up blood, knew I could bleed out - the need for a drink was so intense - the addiction was telling me to try and do anything to get a drink. What a nightmare! Martin forced me to get into the car because it was quicker then an Ambulance!

When we arrived at the Cleveland Clinic events began to blur. The withdrawal was increasing and my mind was swinging out of control. Physically my blood loss was impacting me at this point in odd ways. I was so physically sick that being taken over the lip of the elevator made me throw up and they give you that tiny little kidney shaped bowl. Who invented that? Then I had to have a nasal/gastric tube to get the blood out of my stomach. Don’t ever let someone do this to you when conscious - seriously just don’t.

By the time I was placed in my room they were waiting to sober me up and get me stable to cauterize the ulcer I had created in my stomach. My daughters birthday had been lost in the mess made by my drinking. Like so many other events in her life - and the lives of our other two children. She didn’t get cupcakes that night. I had four transfusions, treatment for dehydration, management for withdrawal and all the attention that addicts love! ME. ME. ME. As Usual.

I had to tell the doctors the true extent of my drinking - because I didn’t want to have a seizure. I was afraid I would die. At that point it was a box of wine a day plus a quart of vodka. My consumption would grow to in clude another quart before the end 7 months later - on my older sons birthday.

Prior to release from the hospital for the bleeding ulcers the team of doctors came to meet with me - an intervention I guess. They each told me not to drink again, that it was a very bad thing for me. It was the teams belief that I was very close to death. As if this was news to me. They were very caring and very kind - but this is addiction. I said "Yes, I understand". But but death was no more on ther other side of the door right now so I was scared anymore. I drank again as soon as I was able.

Today on the fourth anniversary of that day we are spending our daughters birthday - actually it's on the 29th but what can you do - at her horse show. We will be watching her compete at the farm she trains and we keep our money. We will be there as a family.

And she gets a very goofy cake tonight!!

I’m Elizabeth and I’m an Alcoholic. I have been sober for 3.47 years, or 41.58 months, or 1,266 days, 0o  30, 3077 hours

But really the person who has the most sobriety is the person who got up earlies this morning.