How We Met part 3

Tony was in the ICU for nine days. He nearly died. He was unconscious for the first six of those nine days. He hallucinated for some of them. He had to be on medicine strong enough to put down a horse in order to keep him from having another seizure.

When he was admitted to the hospital, I knew that I would be at risk of having a seizure if I wasn't careful. I asked his mother if she would buy me one more bottle of vodka - the last bottle. I told her that I'd wean myself off while Tony was in the hospital, and I gave her my word I'd never drink again. I had no idea how to do that, given how powerless I'd always been over the stuff, but it's what I promised, and I had every intention of keeping my word.

During those nine days, Shallie doled out a daily allowance of vodka for me. I drank less each day. She tried to keep a smile on her face and be supportive, knowing how hard it was, what I was doing.

I went to the hospital every morning when I woke up, and I sat with Tony in his room all day long, waiting, just waiting for him to come out of his unconscious state. I would go to the bathroom in the hospital if I needed a shot of vodka, but I had to drink less each day than I had the day before. Drastically less. It was hard, and I had the shakes almost the whole time. I was sick. I was glad no one talked to me, that everyone left me alone. I went home at night for supper. After that, I would head out to the garage with Shallie. It was the first time I'd spent time with her. Her smile and encouraging words got me through that week. It was one of the hardest weeks of my life.

One day, while I was driving Shallie home from the hospital, my body started locking up and shaking. I knew I wasn't far from having a seizure then, and I stopped the car and switched places with Shallie. I grabbed for my bottle and took a swig. It was only seconds before I felt my body start to relax. I had pushed it too far that time. I needed to be more careful. But I saved it. I was ok.

It felt completely awful staying in Tony's house without him. I wasn't truly welcome there, but I didn't have anywhere else to go. As I focused on this, I thought over and over that I'd prove myself to Tony's mom. I would keep my promise. I would stay sober, and I would keep Tony sober too. I didn't know how, but I'd have to find a way to keep him sober. If I didn't, he'd die.


Finally, he pulled through, and he remembered everything. He felt fragile, broken, weak. He could barely walk, even with the use of a walker. It took him weeks to recover from that nine day stay in the ICU. He told me that first day, after trying to walk from one end of the ICU to the other, how dismayed he was. He had played basketball every day of his life, and here he was with a walker, and STILL barely able to walk. "What have I done to myself?" he wondered.

It was then that he agreed that he'd give up drinking with me. I told him I had stopped, and that I would be sober with him.

It was then that we truly met, but after what we had been through together, our bond was tight. We weren't letting go.

Tony and I have been together ever since. We have a six year old daughter. And we haven't drank one drop. Not one relapse, not one single slip. Our connection was kismet. And it saved us both.