Hello. This is a story I wrote down in the aftermath of losing my best friend and kindred spirit to end stage liver disease in 2006. I made the decision to drink for a time after her death, and then quit for good when I was finished with the story and had mourned for a time. I felt that quitting drinking would be a ridiculous endeavor right after the most traumatic loss I had ever experienced. I would end up hospitalized after I did quit for more than a week, needing inpatient detox, and AA- I did 200 meetings in those first 90 days.
Someone once wrote that you can only love something about someone else or hate something about them if it is something you love or hate about yourself. This was especially true of Ardis. She was so much like me, she drove me crazy, and I drove her equally crazy, but we also had more to say to each other than any one else in our lives. It drove everyone else around us crazy. We would never shut up. Even after working together for 8 hours, when you would think we had said everything there was to say for that day, we would yammer on the phone about Chinese food, gardening, music, cats, dogs, and our favorite past time, drinking BEER.
She died on a Thursday morning.
After drinking 550 cans of beer in 44 days, I drove out to her grave, sat on a lawn chair, and lit a Marlboro light from a box, and cracked a 24 ounce can of Budweiser. To see if that taste and buzz would be worth giving up. To see if I could even contemplate giving it up, and trying to imagine life with out those two things, especially the beer. I have been sober since.
I choose LIFE. I go to AA for me AND Ardis, now. Bobby
Thank you to my dear wife Sharon, for typing this story for me. Thank you for staying.
