Confessions of an Alcoholic

By Pat Ritter

Bundy Quicksilver is an alcoholic. He tasted his initial taste of alcohol at 12 years old. Before he knew what alcohol could do to him it was out of control.
At 28 years his wife gave him an ultimatum 'if he didn't do something about his drinking she was leaving and taking the children'.
He promised to never drink again.
This is a story of how he overcome his alcoholism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pat Ritter
• Release date: Dec 25, 2009
• ISBN: 9781452307152

Pat Ritter

Hi Everyone,Let me introduce myself. My name is Pat Ritter. Since 1988 I have been writing and publishing books. In 2009 I decided to publish my books as e-books on this and other websites.Writing and self-publishing became expensive especially the marketing end of the business. I experienced little problems with my first book 'Closing The Gap' however after writing and self-publishing six other books the printing costs out-weighed the cost of production.At this stage of my writing I am converting from writing true life stories to fictional or better known - storytelling and it's difficult I can tell you. I'm giving it my best.Reading is a passion. When I read I try and place myself in the writer's seat and endeavour to work out how they wrote the story. I enjoy reading interesting stories filled with passion, desire with a happy ending.If you have a look at my website www.patritter.com.au all of my books are exhibited plus stories I have written and published.I'm happy to meet you.I'm also proud to be involved in Operation eBook Drop.Pat RitterAuthor/Self Publisher

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Confessions of an Alcoholic

Copyright © Pat Ritter 2004.

Pat Ritter

Author

CHAPTER 1

Bundy is retired and lives on his farm where he sits on the front veranda to ponder his past and think about his future. Only recently he lost the one and only person he has ever loved, his wife Ada who passed away peacefully after losing her battle with cancer.

If Bundy ever again had the desire or temptation to drink alcohol it was now. It wouldn’t take much to lift the glass to his lips and gulp down its contents and taste the same bitter ale which was so common to him, and return him onto that journey of destruction, which he so often travelled.

He remembered the promise he’d made to Ada some twenty-seven years ago ‘HE WOULD NEVER DRINK ALCOHOL AGAIN!’ He must keep to that promise.

Ada and Bundy were married for over thirty-one years. They had two children; daughter Nicole and son Neil. Bundy stopped drinking alcohol when Nicole was three years old and Neil one year old. He was very proud they had never witnessed his drinking.

It was partly what Nicole had said to him on the morning of the thirteenth of January 1977, when he laid on the lounge, which was a catalyst in causing Bundy to take a deep look at him.

Nicole stood in front of him dressed in her pyjamas with her long blonde hair falling down around her face and shoulders. She was like a tigress ready to pounce. Nicole shrugged her shoulders and looked at Bundy with her piecing blue eyes at the same time shook her head from side to side and said, ‘If you come home sober tonight Daddy you might be able to sleep with Mum.’

Those words cut through his heart like a sharp hot knife. On hearing those words from his daughter his memory flashed immediately to when he was Nicole’s age to wonder why he didn’t have the courage or guts to tell the people he loved the same message as Nicole had told him.

It was all part of growing up in those days. This was different. His three-year-old daughter told her father what she felt and saw for herself. His head was in a spin. In his day he would never have had the nerve to speak to his father the way Nicole had spoken to him. In those days it was – children should be seen and not heard.

Bundy had been celebrating the night before with his workmates on passing his examinations. They all celebrated.

He arrived home sometime during the night; he knew it was late because it was dark when he drove his Hillman Minx into the driveway. He was lucky this time to drive his car home; more often than not he had forgotten where he had parked it after leaving the hotel.

Many a time, he’d arrived home somehow to discover the following morning he’d left his car somewhere after he forget where he had parked it the night before. Ada, drove him around town, eventually finding the little blue car, Bundy was so fond of. It was his drinking car. This time he had driven it home, or it may have driven itself home. After a hard night’s drinking Bundy couldn’t remember anything he had done while he was drunk.

One of the many problems he experienced when he was at the pub drinking with his workmates, was they’d drink with him for about an hour, and then decide to go home. Bundy stayed. He’d look at his watch at eight o’clock and say to himself, ‘I’ve got a little while yet before I’ll go home. I may as well have a few more drinks because I’ll get into the same trouble for having one as if I’ve had a dozen’.

Next minute, Bundy heard the barman call out, ‘Last drinks gentlemen’. He’d look at his watch to see it was ten o’clock. He could never remember that last two hours. It was, as if he had had a blackout and couldn’t remember the time going so fast. It was as if time had stood still for two hours. He had no idea of where that last two hours had vanished.

It didn’t matter what time Bundy arrived home, whether it was at mealtime or later, Ada always left his dinner in the oven to keep it warm. He always came home to a hot dinner – a little crunchy from overheating in the oven – never the less a hot meal was always there for him. He was a very lucky person although he didn’t realise it at the time. It wasn’t like this all of the time, only over the past few months he’d been drinking more alcohol and couldn’t stop.

Only two nights before he arrived home early from work after he had a couple of beers at the hotel. When he walked into the kitchen Ada said, ‘Bundy did you remember to get the milk and bread on your way home?’ He’d forgotten.

‘I’ll go in now and get it and take Nicole for a drive.’

Nicole was excited to go with her father; she quickly jumped into the front seat of the car to wait for her Dad to drive them to the shop. Bundy was certain he could drive safely because he’d only had a couple of beers after work before he arrived home.

When they arrived at the shop Bundy purchased the milk and bread. Nicole selected from the lolly counter a lolly wrapped in paper. After gathering the milk and bread they returned to the car for their trip home.

On their journey home Bundy experienced something he didn’t want ever to happen. He had an accident and caused Nicole to fall from the front passenger’s seat onto the floor hitting her head against the firewall on the inside of the car.

Nicole was excited her father bought her a lolly with paper wrapping around it. On their journey home she tried to take the paper from the lolly. When she removed the paper from around the lolly she handed the paper to her father.

He was not thinking about any consequences, and took the lolly paper from Nicole with his right hand, at the same time wound down his driver’s side window. When he was about to throw the lolly paper out of the window, somehow he lost control of the vehicle and caused the car to swerve from one side of the road to the other.

At the same time, Nicole fell from the passenger’s front seat onto the floor of the car striking her head against the firewall of the car. Bundy tried in vane to correct the car but struck a guidepost, and stopped at an abrupt hold, in the table drain beside the roadway.

Nicole didn’t appear to be hurt only shocked at landing on the floor and striking her head. Bundy felt sick. He drove the car out of the table drain and continued home. Nicole told her mother about what had happened when they arrived home. Ada was not happy.

Bundy knew in his own mind what really happened. He was totally irresponsible when Nicole was a passenger in the car and he’d let her down. ‘What if the car overturned causing Nicole serious injury’ he thought. Still the penny never dropped. How long was it going to take before he would wake up to himself?

Only a few nights before his family were invited to attend dinner at Ada’s uncle’s house. By the time he arrived at the house Ada and the children had gone home. Uncle Jim met Bundy at the back door and told him Ada and the children had gone home after having their dinner. Uncle Jim welcomed Bundy to have his dinner with them.

Bundy felt sick and vomited over Uncle Jim’s motorcycle, which was parked near to the back door. Bundy was drunk. He apologised to Uncle Jim who said, ‘you’d better go home Bundy.’ Bundy had no alternative but to leave.

He couldn’t remember what happened the night before. All he could remember was celebrating with his workmates at the pub, on passing his exams. It was only an excuse to have a drink. The only problem, his mates went home to their wives and family after a few drinks. Bundy continued drinking with whoever was at the pub to drink with him. It’s not that he didn’t want to go home, up until this stage he had been drinking alcohol for almost half of his life.

He didn’t know it at the time, but he was completely dependent upon alcohol to cope; and his tolerance level of dependency, had risen to a stage when he needed more alcohol daily to get himself through that day.

His drinking of alcohol had become worse each day. He failed to understand what all of the fuss was about and couldn’t understand or realise, he was hurting the very people who loved and adored him.

He’d grown up in a family which tolerated alcohol where the head of the family drank all they wanted too, without question. Alcohol had control over him. He didn’t have control over alcohol.

He found himself lying on the lounge fully clothed in his work clothes he’d worn from the day before, still wearing his tie and shoes. ‘I must have had a bloody good night last night’ he thought, ‘I can’t remember driving home, I must have been really pissed.’

Slowly he raised his head from one of the lounge’s cushions where he laid it the night before. His mouth dry and tasted as if a bird had built a nest inside of his mouth to breed its young.

Ada was cooking breakfast. After a heavy night of drinking she always cooked greasy bacon with eggs and made certain she had cooked the bacon in fat to make it very greasy.

Bundy staggered to the kitchen table to take his place. When he was about to sit down, the smell of greasy breakfast of freshly cooked bacon slithering its flavour from the frying pan to his nostrils was too much for him to bear. He felt an almighty pain in his stomach, like he wanted to dry retch. He placed his hand up to his mouth at the same time trying to run outside, so as not to vomit inside the house.

When he reached the back yard, he spread his legs wide apart, and bent over enough, not to allow vomit onto his shoes. The pain from his stomach erupted like a volcano, and travelled from his stomach up to his throat, rushing out of his wide opened mouth, onto the ground below. His stomach muscles ached with pain.

It was the contents of his stomach, from last night’s drinking, mixed with a thousand pieces, of what remained in his stomach. He continued to dry retch to rid the poison from his stomach. He called this daily ritual ‘calling for herby’. Herby was a sound Bundy made at the same time he vomited.

He felt his stomach intestines being torn from inside of his stomach. ‘Why have I got to go through this vomiting every morning?’ He thought.

After he rinsed his mouth with water he returned to the kitchen, to try and eat his breakfast. Each morning after a heavy night’s drinking he’d performed this similar ritual. ‘There had to be something better than doing this each morning?’ he thought.

Many times he tried in vane to correct himself. It was an impossible task. Each time he wanted to stop drinking he couldn’t stop - alcohol had total control over him. Bundy didn’t know what to do. He knew this wasn’t the way to live but he couldn’t do anything about it. ALCOHOL HAD TOTAL CONTROL OVER HIM. He couldn’t see the forest for the trees and became completely dependent on alcohol.

During the following couple of moments the events of the morning that followed changed Bundy’s life forever. Ada had had enough – ‘enough was enough’ she exploded into a voice loud enough so to awaken the dead saying, ‘I’ve had enough Bundy. You’re a drunk. I didn’t marry a drunk. I don’t know where you are, when you’re not at home. You never let me know where you are. When you got home last night you were so drunk, I told you not to come to bed and sleep on the lounge. I’ve had enough. If you come home drunk tonight the kids and I are leaving!’

Bundy couldn’t understand why Ada was so upset. His mother never spoke to his father that way after he had a night of drinking. Ada was not his mother - she was his wife.

He remembered to when he was