Chapter Thirteen - ‘Alcoholism and Depressive Descent’
Over the following year, Mary’s depression worsened as did her alcoholic consumption. Never a day passed now when she wouldn’t empty a full bottle of vodka after arriving home from her work at the hospital, plus a small bottle she always carried in her bag to work daily and which she managed to drink during her shift.
Like all alcoholics, Mary soon picked up all the methods that are used to disguise their addiction and to mask their breath. She quickly started to carry a small bottle of mineral water around with her or leave it in her locker. Naturally, the clear plastic container held vodka and not water, but it served the purpose admirably. At strategic times of the day, Mary would absent herself from the general ward to go to the ladies’ toilet and washrooms, and she always proved a willing volunteer to do run any errand for a doctor or ward sister, if it got her off the general ward for five or ten minutes.
Because an alcoholic will drink at times when it’s not acceptable or appropriate, they need to mask the alcohol on their breath to avoid detection whenever they come into close contact with their patients and colleagues. So, they do whatever is necessary to remove the smell of alcohol from their breath. This can entail always carrying chewing gum and strong breath mints or eating pungent smelling food in the Hospital Restaurant at meal times. Anything that seems natural but can cover the smell of alcohol is used.
As Mary’s dependency on alcohol grew, her addiction became harder to conceal. Her daily consumption increased to the extent that it now started to affect her functional duties as a nurse. At first, she was able to cover up the odd mistake here and there and was popular enough with her work colleagues to expect them to cover up for her also. Much allowance and leeway were extended to her in the belief that she was still suffering the aftermath of a bereaved woman whose entire family had been killed in one horrific traffic accident.
Like most respectable alcoholics who have a nice home to live in and who often manage to hold down a good job, Mary soon discovered that she was able to practise both her addiction and profession in tandem for around six months before her colleagues started to suspect that she was drinking on duty.
After a while, Mary would frequently go missing, not turn up to important meetings and arrive late for work, especially when she’d been up half the night drowning her sorrows. There would often be frequent errands to run and explaining absences by saying she was in one place, when in fact she was somewhere else having a sly tipple.
Then there were the many incidents of forgetting, along with frequent mood swings. One-minute Mary might be laughing at some joke told by a work colleague and the next, she would uncharacteristically shout at a patient or resort to threatening outbursts for no apparent reason.
Gradually, the suspicions of her closest working colleagues became more concrete, until eventually, none of them no longer felt comfortable covering for her and staying quiet about her feared condition.
Around eleven months following the family funeral when all the sympathy she could expect to receive had dried up, her drinking problem was pointed out to the hospital management by a whistle-blower and Mary was called into the office to see the Human Resource Worker.
Initially, Mary denied she had a drinking problem and became quite belligerent when the Human Resource Worker decided not to believe her after taking a swig from her water bottle Mary would often be seen carrying around at work.It was put straight to Mary that if she wanted to retain her job she would have to volunteer to receive counselling and would also have to attend a local AA meeting until she’d abstained for a minimum of six months.
While ashamed at having been found out, Mary had little option but to agree to the conditions imposed. Meanwhile, she was ordered to stay off work until the counsellor assigned to her reported she was fit enough to return to normal duties.
Like all alcoholics, Mary soon picked up all the methods that are used to disguise their addiction and to mask their breath. She quickly started to carry a small bottle of mineral water around with her or leave it in her locker. Naturally, the clear plastic container held vodka and not water, but it served the purpose admirably. At strategic times of the day, Mary would absent herself from the general ward to go to the ladies’ toilet and washrooms, and she always proved a willing volunteer to do run any errand for a doctor or ward sister, if it got her off the general ward for five or ten minutes.
Because an alcoholic will drink at times when it’s not acceptable or appropriate, they need to mask the alcohol on their breath to avoid detection whenever they come into close contact with their patients and colleagues. So, they do whatever is necessary to remove the smell of alcohol from their breath. This can entail always carrying chewing gum and strong breath mints or eating pungent smelling food in the Hospital Restaurant at meal times. Anything that seems natural but can cover the smell of alcohol is used.
As Mary’s dependency on alcohol grew, her addiction became harder to conceal. Her daily consumption increased to the extent that it now started to affect her functional duties as a nurse. At first, she was able to cover up the odd mistake here and there and was popular enough with her work colleagues to expect them to cover up for her also. Much allowance and leeway were extended to her in the belief that she was still suffering the aftermath of a bereaved woman whose entire family had been killed in one horrific traffic accident.
Like most respectable alcoholics who have a nice home to live in and who often manage to hold down a good job, Mary soon discovered that she was able to practise both her addiction and profession in tandem for around six months before her colleagues started to suspect that she was drinking on duty.
After a while, Mary would frequently go missing, not turn up to important meetings and arrive late for work, especially when she’d been up half the night drowning her sorrows. There would often be frequent errands to run and explaining absences by saying she was in one place, when in fact she was somewhere else having a sly tipple.
Then there were the many incidents of forgetting, along with frequent mood swings. One-minute Mary might be laughing at some joke told by a work colleague and the next, she would uncharacteristically shout at a patient or resort to threatening outbursts for no apparent reason.
Gradually, the suspicions of her closest working colleagues became more concrete, until eventually, none of them no longer felt comfortable covering for her and staying quiet about her feared condition.
Around eleven months following the family funeral when all the sympathy she could expect to receive had dried up, her drinking problem was pointed out to the hospital management by a whistle-blower and Mary was called into the office to see the Human Resource Worker.
Initially, Mary denied she had a drinking problem and became quite belligerent when the Human Resource Worker decided not to believe her after taking a swig from her water bottle Mary would often be seen carrying around at work.It was put straight to Mary that if she wanted to retain her job she would have to volunteer to receive counselling and would also have to attend a local AA meeting until she’d abstained for a minimum of six months.
While ashamed at having been found out, Mary had little option but to agree to the conditions imposed. Meanwhile, she was ordered to stay off work until the counsellor assigned to her reported she was fit enough to return to normal duties.
~~~~~
A six-month course of twice-weekly counselling sessions followed, along with daily attendance at Alcoholic Anonymous meetings for the first month, before dropping to three times weekly attendance for the next three months, and then a two-month period that witnessed Mary’s attendance at AA meetings a minimum of once a week.
It was during one of her later sessions with the appointed counsellor that Mary was asked to talk about her close relationship with her mother. During these sessions, the counsellor had gradually obtained more of Mary’s trust each time they met in session.
During one session about four months into her course, Mary stated, “Mammy always told me that I was a ‘special’ child, and that she’d known this even before she knew that she was pregnant with me.”
“And what led her to think this, Mary?” the counsellor asked.
Before she realised it, Mary blurted out, “I know it’s hard to believe but it was prophesised that I would be born a special child by a gypsy….and that I would also give birth to seven children, the oldest of whom would be ‘special’ too.”
The counsellor simply smiled and went on to explore another avenue of questioning about Mary’s relationship with her father before he died, as well as establishing how well she got on with her six siblings.
It was during one of her later sessions with the appointed counsellor that Mary was asked to talk about her close relationship with her mother. During these sessions, the counsellor had gradually obtained more of Mary’s trust each time they met in session.
During one session about four months into her course, Mary stated, “Mammy always told me that I was a ‘special’ child, and that she’d known this even before she knew that she was pregnant with me.”
“And what led her to think this, Mary?” the counsellor asked.
Before she realised it, Mary blurted out, “I know it’s hard to believe but it was prophesised that I would be born a special child by a gypsy….and that I would also give birth to seven children, the oldest of whom would be ‘special’ too.”
The counsellor simply smiled and went on to explore another avenue of questioning about Mary’s relationship with her father before he died, as well as establishing how well she got on with her six siblings.
~~~~~
Mary had been attending the AA meetings in Clonmel a couple of months when she began talking to Rory Munt regularly during the mid-evening coffee break.
Rory was aged around thirty and was always well dressed, politely spoken and highly presentable. He had been married for ten years before his alcoholism led to the collapse of his marriage. Exacerbating his drinking habit was corresponding mounting debt he’d built up over a five-year period.
“Luckily, we never had any children,” one night he told Mary, adding, “We tried, but it never happened. We never did find out whether the fault lay with me or my wife, Annie.”
As the months went by, both Mary and Rory’s weekly contact with each other became important towards their continued progress in staying off the drink.
Just as confirmed alcoholics living together often become co-dependent and maintain their addiction because it is often in the interest of the one who can’t stop drinking to encourage the other not to try and stop; so was the reverse initially true in this instance.
Both Mary and Rory were to discover the tremendous pride they each felt when they addressed the AA meeting weekly and after announcing their name and alcoholic status to other group members added, “And I have now abstained from all alcoholic beverages for ..... months!”
Both Mary and Rory had been drinkers for one year and five years respectively, although they had commenced their attendance at the Clonmel AA meetings around the same time. After about three months at the meetings, they were gradually becoming familiar with each other’s company that they both finished their evening off going for a coffee together. Since she’d given up the alcohol, Mary had found a new addiction in her life; a cup of Costa Cappuccino.
Rory was aged around thirty and was always well dressed, politely spoken and highly presentable. He had been married for ten years before his alcoholism led to the collapse of his marriage. Exacerbating his drinking habit was corresponding mounting debt he’d built up over a five-year period.
“Luckily, we never had any children,” one night he told Mary, adding, “We tried, but it never happened. We never did find out whether the fault lay with me or my wife, Annie.”
As the months went by, both Mary and Rory’s weekly contact with each other became important towards their continued progress in staying off the drink.
Just as confirmed alcoholics living together often become co-dependent and maintain their addiction because it is often in the interest of the one who can’t stop drinking to encourage the other not to try and stop; so was the reverse initially true in this instance.
Both Mary and Rory were to discover the tremendous pride they each felt when they addressed the AA meeting weekly and after announcing their name and alcoholic status to other group members added, “And I have now abstained from all alcoholic beverages for ..... months!”
Both Mary and Rory had been drinkers for one year and five years respectively, although they had commenced their attendance at the Clonmel AA meetings around the same time. After about three months at the meetings, they were gradually becoming familiar with each other’s company that they both finished their evening off going for a coffee together. Since she’d given up the alcohol, Mary had found a new addiction in her life; a cup of Costa Cappuccino.
~~~~~
The relationship between Mary and Rory quickly flourished, and before her counselling sessions had ended and she’d been given the ‘all clear’ to return to her nursing duties, their mutual attraction was becoming too strong to ignore any longer and leave unattended.
Seven months into their relationship, one evening when they were in Mary’s flat, their romantic mood and sexual arousal coincided. As Mary carried two coffees across to the sofa, seeing her coyly smile set Rory’s pulse racing. He took the coffees from her hands and after placing them on the side table, kissed her fulsomely.
As the couple embraced, Mary sensed a hardening below his waist line as Rory pressed her down gently onto the carpeted floor. Despite being a virgin, who’d never gone further than heavy petting before, tonight Mary had no intention of stopping any of Rory’s sexual advances he made.
Rory gently slid up her dress and placed his warm hand between her legs. Instead of stopping all advancement up towards the top of her thighs, as she was normally prone to do, on this occasion Mary found herself opening her legs wider to ease his finger passage inside the rim of her knickers.
She found her breast nipples hardening and the thoughts inside her head were the very same thoughts that were occurring in the mind of Rory also. With Rory being the more experienced of the two, and gentle by nature, Mary was content to let him make all the running.
As Rory moved to lower her knickers, she bent her legs into a shape that facilitated his intention and helping him slip them off.
“Oh Rory,” Mary said, as he started to unfasten his trouser belt, “Please ... please be gentle with me; it’s the first time.”
And although her virgin status was a clear surprise to him, it nevertheless seemed to make the journey more excitable and pleasurable for the lead man.
Rory commenced slowly and gently pressed his lower body inside Mary. After three or four minutes of steady movement backwards and forward, he felt Mary bury her finger nails tightly in his back as she scratched them downwards, making tramlines on his skin, sighing louder and louder with each thrust of his loins. Minutes later, Mary screamed in pleasure, “Yes! Oh, yes, Rory. Yes! Yes! Yes!” as she started to feel wetter than she’d ever felt down below outside of a bath.
Within a month after having sex for the very first time with any man, Mary Fanning started to feel alive again. Slowly, the mountain of dense fog that had swamped her and kept her in the dark dungeon of depression ever since she’d lost her entire family in the coach crash, gradually lifted; enabling her for the first time in a year to look ahead once more to a happier horizon.
Rory gave up his rented digs and moved in with Mary. Within two weeks of moving in with Mary, Rory obtained employment at a nearby engineering works. Although the job was merely one that used his manual labour and ability to shove carts filled with bearings from one shed to another eight hours a day, five days a week, it provided him with gainful employment once more and the ability to pay half their joint weekly expenditure. The routine of returning to work was also helpful in maintaining his abstinence from the alcohol.
Mary never said anything about the large compensation she would one day receive. She planned to tell Rory, but only after it seemed they were a permanent item, and after he’d divorced his wife, Annie, and had married her. The fact that the couple had never divorced seemed to lessen the permanency of relationship Mary wanted.
Seven months into their relationship, one evening when they were in Mary’s flat, their romantic mood and sexual arousal coincided. As Mary carried two coffees across to the sofa, seeing her coyly smile set Rory’s pulse racing. He took the coffees from her hands and after placing them on the side table, kissed her fulsomely.
As the couple embraced, Mary sensed a hardening below his waist line as Rory pressed her down gently onto the carpeted floor. Despite being a virgin, who’d never gone further than heavy petting before, tonight Mary had no intention of stopping any of Rory’s sexual advances he made.
Rory gently slid up her dress and placed his warm hand between her legs. Instead of stopping all advancement up towards the top of her thighs, as she was normally prone to do, on this occasion Mary found herself opening her legs wider to ease his finger passage inside the rim of her knickers.
She found her breast nipples hardening and the thoughts inside her head were the very same thoughts that were occurring in the mind of Rory also. With Rory being the more experienced of the two, and gentle by nature, Mary was content to let him make all the running.
As Rory moved to lower her knickers, she bent her legs into a shape that facilitated his intention and helping him slip them off.
“Oh Rory,” Mary said, as he started to unfasten his trouser belt, “Please ... please be gentle with me; it’s the first time.”
And although her virgin status was a clear surprise to him, it nevertheless seemed to make the journey more excitable and pleasurable for the lead man.
Rory commenced slowly and gently pressed his lower body inside Mary. After three or four minutes of steady movement backwards and forward, he felt Mary bury her finger nails tightly in his back as she scratched them downwards, making tramlines on his skin, sighing louder and louder with each thrust of his loins. Minutes later, Mary screamed in pleasure, “Yes! Oh, yes, Rory. Yes! Yes! Yes!” as she started to feel wetter than she’d ever felt down below outside of a bath.
Within a month after having sex for the very first time with any man, Mary Fanning started to feel alive again. Slowly, the mountain of dense fog that had swamped her and kept her in the dark dungeon of depression ever since she’d lost her entire family in the coach crash, gradually lifted; enabling her for the first time in a year to look ahead once more to a happier horizon.
Rory gave up his rented digs and moved in with Mary. Within two weeks of moving in with Mary, Rory obtained employment at a nearby engineering works. Although the job was merely one that used his manual labour and ability to shove carts filled with bearings from one shed to another eight hours a day, five days a week, it provided him with gainful employment once more and the ability to pay half their joint weekly expenditure. The routine of returning to work was also helpful in maintaining his abstinence from the alcohol.
Mary never said anything about the large compensation she would one day receive. She planned to tell Rory, but only after it seemed they were a permanent item, and after he’d divorced his wife, Annie, and had married her. The fact that the couple had never divorced seemed to lessen the permanency of relationship Mary wanted.
