It's lonely being lonely

08/11/2020 5AM

On Wednesday we closed the doors to the pub and all got pissed together. I played drinking games, threw up in the disabled toilet, made stupid bets on a pool game and engaged in a car park penalty shoot-out at three AM. I felt young again, like I was back in University. When I woke up on Thursday evening, I felt my age. I suffered a two day hang over and spent the majority of that time switching from bed to bathroom. Lock-down began. Today, for me still Saturday although it has turned Sunday now and the sun is due in a while, is day four of lock down 2.0. I had to pick up pills so I got up at four, and went out for medicine and whisky. I keep telling myself that I should use the opportunity afforded me by these four weeks paid leave to sober up and clean up my act. I’m still drinking too much and addicted to prescription painkillers. It is 5AM and I am listening to Bob Dylan, drunk and drugged and feeling quite alone. I spent an hour on the phone to my Father and then went out to the street to have a distanced beer with a friend who was having a bad evening. He had cocaine on him and wanted to do a key whist I was there, so I came back indoors to piss whilst he indulged. I didn’t want to be around it. The sound of the snort would trigger me and I’d be half a bag deep by now. I don’t need to add another drug to my list of current problems, as much as I would like to. I am on a full wage for the next four weeks, and we hope that the lock-down will be lifted at the beginning of December. But with the news that Furlough has been extended until March we are mostly expecting to be closed through Christmas. Whilst I’m sure I could spend a week in bed sleeping, shitting, sweating, shaking, crying, pissing, panicking, aching and sobering myself up, I am not sure if I could maintain said sobriety for a several month long lock-down. So I am at an impasse; a crossroads of sorts. I need the drink, and I wake up sweating and shaking if I’ve slept too long and my veins need the juice. If I’m going to get clean -lose the pills lose the booze- then I’m going to have to force myself into a certain level of messy sufferance for at least a week. Whilst I am certain that this is possible (I have suffered through and passed withdrawal several times at this point) I don’t know if it’s worth it. If we really are going to open up in three and a half (give or take) weeks, then I would probably be able to maintain my sobriety; but if we are locked down over Christmas, New Year, and even possibly beyond, then I know in myself that I cannot do it. Not for that long. I cannot be inside, alone and bored for that long and still stay clean. Honestly, it’s really fucking lonely being lonely.

Last time we went into lock-down I kidded myself into believing that I might finally finish the first draft of my novel; but I woke up the first day with severe writers block and it continued on for the three months I was stuck indoors. So I was ultimately unproductive. I spent some time reading, and I spent some time editing the first part of the book I had already done. I even managed to write a short play, which I’m sure will come to nothing. But I was unable to work on the novel at all. Now I’m back indoors at the Governments request and I plan to get sober, get thin and finish the draft. But if I’m realistic I know I’ll likely just get drunker and drunker, and fool myself into believing that I’ve been periodically productive, whilst actually procrastinating further and further.

I have worried a little about my Father since our earlier conversation. He has been alone working from home since March and His Mother died early July. I try to be there to talk to him as much as possible but I’m often too depressed to even look at my phone. I think about what the last lock-down did to me and I struggle to even comprehend how it must be for some people in slightly quieter situations. I am lucky enough to have a support network of close friends, and a job that (when not locked down) allows me to socialize to great lengths. I know I can handle four weeks but if it goes on longer than that I am quite seriously concerned about the long term affect on my mental health. Before all this kicked off I was eight months sober and doing well at work. I was healthier than I had ever been since before entering my twenties and my mental health was on track for a substantial recovery. Whilst I have done my best upon my return to work to come out of the corner feet fast and fists flying, it grows harder and harder to remain strong in the face of continued adversity and isolation.

It is day four into five of lock-down two. I am half a bottle of Walker deep and will soon take a couple of pain pills to help me sleep. I am listening to ‘A Murder Most Foul’ by Bob Dylan, and I am severely depressed. I am not alone in my feeling, and while that comforts me to a small extent it makes the situation ultimately worse. The planets population is suffering, and whilst people die all over the world from the invisible germ, many more suffer alone, from the waning health of their own minds. Sanity, this year, is in trouble- as am I.

I just hope I can pull through.

Be it by the skin of my teeth or a mile ahead, I just hope I can make it. But for now, to bed.

-Walter Laurence; on Lock-down, loneliness, family and addiction.

BONUS CONTENT- Original Poem: The Lonely Bird

Sometimes I get so lonely that I’m jealous of the mating birds on the roof across the street. They seem to be laughing at me.

Sometimes I drink so much I forget where I am in life, then I wake up in the afternoon, alone and realize.

Nobody smiles at you when you pass them in the street anymore, and people don’t seem to care who you are or what’s happening to you. Everything is happening only to them, solely them. All the world’s problems are on their shoulders. They are the hardest done by, the most tired. Their day has been the worst day, and they don’t smile when you pass them in the street anymore. And I get so lonely surrounded by these people, and the mating birds on the roof across the street.

They seem to be laughing at me, so I drink so much I forget where I am in life, and then I wake up alone and realize. Everything is happening only to me.

- Walter Laurence