In Memory of...

Some 13 years ago a burly man of 52 knocked on the door of our then offices in Lija. He smelt of alcohol, but was perfectly coherent. He said he wanted to stop drinking. We normally take  a dim view of people turning up unannounced practically demanding help there and then since it disturbs work with other clients who attend sessions according to schedule. Luckily one of our workers happened to be free and she assessed him, thus starting the process which, within a few days, would lead to his being dried out.

                        
He had decided to seek help practically on impulse when a friend had pointed out that he really should do something about his drinking and, almost to his surprise, he found himself agreeing. It had been previously suggested to him that he was drinking too much, but he had shrugged off all warnings. He himself could never explain what on earth had prompted him to listen to his friend’s advice that day. He often said that had he not found immediate help, he would have walked out probably never to return. Alcoholic thinking being what it is, he may very well have been right.

For the first five years or so, he (and his wife) attended meetings very regularly. He would swagger in - the picture of rude health - often a few minutes late, look at me apologetically, take his seat and listen to the exchanges with rapt attention. His contributions were simple and to the point. He had few vanities one of which was that he loved to mention the prodigious amounts he used to drink and his body's ability to tolerate alcohol.

Those amounts were what did for him. Despite never having touched another drop, the regular liver tests showed a deteriorating state of affairs. Eight years ago, the symptoms appeared. Soon he had to be admitted to hospital, the first of fifty or so admissions. The doctors did their best, but the cirrhosis could not be arrested. The impressively strong-looking man progressively deteriorated until his body became a shadow of its former self. His attendance at meetings became less regular, but often he would underline that there was only one thing to blame for his woes: the alcohol he had consumed. At times, the untypical anger in his voice seemed telling and it made you wonder whether he was seeking some form of catharsis with the repeated declarations about the cause of his predicament. It was almost as if, while warning his peers, he wanted to get his own back by publicly shaming the ethanol which had brought rack and ruin to his once-mighty frame.

Eventually he had to stop coming to meetings altogether.  We kept in touch through the occasional phone-call. But last Christmas, quite unexpectedly, he turned up for our Christmas dinner in a restaurant in Rabat. Perhaps he had made the effort because he felt that there would not be many more opportunities to meet his friends, who greeted him with great pleasure.

Yesterday morning he was laid to rest. Five or six of us were present at the Mass to pay our last respects and comfort his distraught widow. We successfully accomplished the first objective, but failed rather miserably with regard to the second one.

In the evening we remembered him in our meeting; the relatively new members only knew the weak man who seemed to spend more time in hospital than outside it; the older ones clearly recollected the strong, amiable and kind-hearted family man who for years was a regular and who impressed new group-members with his accounts of his drinking – and the success of his efforts to stop when he decided it was time to give it up. We all had our memories of him. Mine was the fact that in hundreds of conversations he never ever called me by my full name; it was always the shorter ‘’Man’’, rather than ‘’Manuel’’. We pondered the unanswerable question of what would have happened had he stopped drinking a year earlier – whether that would have helped his body avoid the development of the cirrhotic liver which led to his premature death.

Inevitably,  the question of the urgency of policies which help reduce the incidence of the sort of drinking associated with addiction came up. Last year, after decades of waiting, the country seemed to be well on the way towards publishing its first National Alcohol Policy – in November 2016 there was a public consultation – but, perhaps because of premature elections the process was halted. The public document showed that the policy envisaged is not quite what one was hoping for – but it was a start.

It’s time to revive the process – and the duty to prod the authorities into breathing life once again in the project befalls the community of those struggling with drinking problems, their families and those who work with them once the official bodies who should be publicly pushing for the formulation of a National Alcohol  Policy are silent on the matter. The establishment of an NGO which, among other things, would help raise consciousness about alcohol problems and bring pressure to bear on the authorities to act and curtail abuse becomes more urgent with each passing day.

Rational national alcohol policies and all, there will be always be unlucky individuals who will pass on in the same way as our friend. But we owe it to him and to the others who have departed before their time because of alcohol-related problems to do what we can to control this use of the substance which, in various ways, is responsible for the deaths of tens of people in Malta every year,  as well as for hundreds of hospitalisations and untold misery for innumerable drinkers, family members and others.

Once he had stopped drinking our friend was all for helping others; had he been with us he would have gladly lent a hand.