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The Priests of Bacchus.1997.

I've had many close friends who have irreparably damaged themselves and ruined their lives with alcohol.  My old friend and former business partner Ronnie Potter killed himself with drink. My Swedish friend Olle Goude lost his house, his wife and two children, two more wives, his job as a schoolteacher, and his self-respect - not to mention his health (and eventually his life a month after this was written.)

He telephoned me last night from southern Sweden where he lives.    Now he's a patient in a Swedish Recovery Centre for Alcoholics.  He's desperately unhappy and realises that his abuse of alcohol has ruined his whole life.  He was a well-known artist in Sweden with paintings hanging in the Swedish parliament, schools, banks, government buildings etc.  He's also a very talented pianist who has played in public concerts.  I've tried to help him many times

For fourteen days he stayed in my home, going through the most horrible withdrawal symptoms.  Eventually I drove him and his daughter to catch the boat to Gothenburg in southern Sweden to go home.  His daughter telephoned me a few days later to tell me that as soon as the ship drew away from the quayside, her father hurried down to the bar and started drinking again.

Once in 1992 on another occasion, while he and his daughter Malin were staying with me in England, I took him to the Merseyside Council for the Prevention of Alcoholism in Liverpool to get help and medication, in order to try to break his dreadful addiction.  On another occasion, he came to stay with me here in the village when my wife Sue was still alive. 

 At first, he was fine.   Good conversation, pleasant, amusing company.  Then he kept saying that he was tired and went to his bedroom for a sleep.  After his sleep he would come downstairs again and carry on the conversation etc. quite refreshed.  The periods between talking and sleeping got shorter and shorter however, and eventually he didn't come downstairs at all - but just slept.  When I came home from work one day there was no sign of him.   I went to his bedroom and discovered him flat on his back surrounded by empty vodka bottles.  At the side of his bed on a small table was a small wickerwork basket that we used for keeping sweets.   It was full of stubbed-out cigarettes.  He could easily have set fire to the house!  I telephoned Alcoholics Anonymous.  The told me to take him to hospital.  I drove him at 7pm to Southport Hospital.   They refused to deal with him immediately because they had far more important cases to deal with.  For example, children who had caught their hands in car-doors, accident victims, broken legs etc.  We had to wait until midnight before we got any attention.  In the end, the doctor agreed to admit him to hospital.  The doctor told me to take his passport and money for safekeeping.   I drove home in the rain, tired out and ravenous for food.  I had a quick sandwich and crawled into bed.   At two o'clock in the morning the phone rang - it was the hospital to say that Olle had signed himself out and was sitting in the reception.  They asked me to come and get him.  

Sleepily I drove the ten miles to Southport and entered the hospital entrance.  There was no sign of Olle.   I asked a nurse and she said that she had seen him walking out and seemed to be heading in the direction of the town centre.  I drove my car round and round the dark wet streets of Southport searching for him in vain.   After an hour I gave up and drove home again.   I got back into bed, and unplugged the telephone wire from its socket and fell into an exhausted sleep. 

A short time later I was awakened by the unmistakable sound of a taxi's diesel engine.  I heard the sound of voices and a vehicle door being slammed.   'Hold on - I'll have to get you some money! Olle's voice called loudly.   A ring at the front doorbell followed this.   I put on my dressing gown and padded downstairs.  When I opened the door Olle stood swaying drunkenly on the step.  
"Have you got some money for the taxi man please?"  He said.  Of course, I had his money.   Somehow he'd talked the taxi driver into lending him some money to buy alcohol. 
'Have a nice holiday mate!' shouted the taxi driver as he pulled away and drove off down the road.

Olle said good night and was climbing the stairs. 

"Olle," I said,  "I know that we're old friends from over thirty years, but I feel that you've abused my hospitality.  Please kindly leave my home tomorrow!"

"Aren't you over reacting a bit?" Said Olle slurring his words?

He left the next morning, and we didn't speak to each other for ten months.

We're only here on this ball of earth for a fleeting moment in the midst of eternity.  It's important to savour every moment of it, and not to enter the priesthood of Bacchus.  He embraces his acolytes jealously, incarcerates them behind the folds of his dark impenetrable cloak, so that they become unaware of the passage of time, and one day awake like Rip van Winkle to find that the world has changed and that they're old men, without friends - without life - without hope.

Bacchus - The Greek God of wine.
Rip van Winkle - A character from an American story who awakens after falling asleep for a hundred years..