Sober Squiff

The two week hurdle

Well I had a blip.

Lockdown number 5, cancelled gigs and cancellation of our ski holiday got me weak. Extenuating circumstances I told myself.

Felt like proper shit the next day, awful sleep which continued to the next night. Boo.

I suppose I’d best remind myself why I’m doing this considering I’m being visited by my very own black dog and I’ve got to pull myself out of it.

The following is something I wrote right at the beginning and didn’t have the guts to post.

This started with my mother. She was a highly functioning alcoholic which growing up, just seemed normal-ish. Knowing what I know now, she was clearly plagued by depression, stemming from finding her father dead (by suicide) at the age of 21. She didn’t believe in counselling or pills. It became something we continually swept under the carpet as any attempt of an intervention created more havoc than help. One time I asked her “Mum, have you ever had an AFD?” she asked me “what’s that?” I said “ an Alcohol Free Day” without a blink she said “ Sure, I have them all the time, it’s the nights that screw me up”

Mum had a stroke in 2015 and after various suicide attempts was sectioned. She died on 10^th December 2017.

Ben and I were friends from our early teens, regularly causing mischief and havoc at school, at friends houses and on family holidays. We lived together for a short while in 2017. He helped me put my shoes on towalk through the snow to my sisters house on the news of my mothers death. We always promised each other we would be good influences on each other. But going out for “one” always seemed to end in everyone back to ours for our acoustic rendition of No Diggidy!? I was always very aware of Bens demons, we talked openly together a lot. He had been in and out of rehabs and was aware of an imbalance in his brain, for which he was talking medication.

Ben took his own life on the 24^th October 2018 leaving behind a son, a fiancé who will never forgive herself for going to sleep that night, and a devastated family who just cannot understand.

Duane Harris was my best friends-boyfriends-best friend. And for the times that I got to see him on our regular holidays to the beautiful island of Barbados, my best friend. He would cancel his plans and come and collect me, escort me to Oistin’s (or wherever was the hot spot that night) and make sure we were safe and we would dance and laugh like no-one was watching. He always made sure I got dropped home to my door. The last time I saw him he joined me and my family at Mullins and arranged for me to sing with MooTown. They weren’t keen for this tourist girl to come up and use them for karaoke but if Harris promised she was good….. well, what epic memories my family and I will cherish forever.

Duane took his own life on the 1^st June 2021 and leaves behind a devastated family and a huge multicultural community of surfers and skaters.

Day One