Part Four

Crooked Birds

(Never Say Never)

Crooked Birds. That’s what you see. With your head underwater in the daylight, facing the skies. The world outside as squiggly lines. Sparkling noise. And when birds fly across the sky, they appear crooked in the bright blue. 

Crooked birds… The last thing I saw when I was drowning.

The water felt more alive around me than I ever could. I remember, not remembering. Because it was like I had woken from a long sleep or nap in the afternoon. Suddenly I jolted awake by alarm. Not knowing where I was, or what time it could have been.

“Why was I in the water? Had I decided to drown? ”

Something hurt. My back and my knee. My leg burned. The pain came to me slowly, as I became more aware. It was the only thing that would get me out of here. The pain in my leg. 

My head was suddenly up out of the water, and my eyes burned in the air. I wasn’t drowning anymore. I couldn’t see for a moment. But there I was, when the blurry lines became straight, near a place I recognised. 

It was the small dog park near the East River in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I used to come here when I lived in the neighbourhood. It was the place I always used to come to reflect when I felt scared of the city. 

I couldn’t remember how I got here, or why I was in the water. 

Another blackout. One of many in the past few days. 

Had I fallen in? To this day I cannot remember. I only remember waking up. And being sick and scared.  

I could see passers-by, but no one was watching. No one had seen me fall in. Or perhaps they had, and didn’t care. It was New York City, people minded their own business here. 

I remember gasping. And my leg throbbing. I remember crawling in the shallow water up onto the jagged black rocks near the shore. Sore and lost. My shoes slipping over the surface. Soaking wet. 

It was a cool Spring day outside. And when I found a spot to sit on the rock. I sat. 

My leg was bleeding. I could feel it inside my trousers. And there was a warm heartbeat deep inside my spine. A pain was arriving like the next train.

Where had I been? How had I travelled to Brooklyn? What time was it?

I think back to that day. One of many that make me shudder. It was just one of many rock bottoms I would collide with before I could fall no more. Plummeting to my destiny, I suppose. 

I would be lucky to be alive today. That’s why I fear what I might have to tell you may be difficult to swallow.

“What I do know about the path to recovery is that it involves arriving at these horrifying destinations all the time.”

Sometimes the only way to arrive at living, is to first arrive at dying. 

This is rock bottom. In the rooms at Alcoholics Anonymous, you will hear stories from a broad range of voices describing their last drink, their last blackout, the last time they ever hit their all-time low. 

For some, it takes their partner leaving, for others a prison sentence. Few end up nearly killing someone or nearly killing themselves. And tragically, some do.

Whatever it takes, it’s the time when you “know” - a moment of truth when you say: “Enough”

Problem is, you might not be there yet. You might read this looking for an answer - a way to end your dependence on alcohol or drugs. But there’s a good chance that today won’t be that day. For those who make it, there will be an auspicious date that you look back on weeks, months, and years from now: your sobriety milestone. And when you have a day, you might then say to yourself - never again (or perhaps - never say never). 

I can guarantee that if you think you have a drinking or drug problem, by now you have probably hit a good rock bottom or two... or more. 

That’s why you might be reading this. I mean, you won’t have decided to arrive at this point. It just happened. But I can safely tell you right now that you need to be there. Sometimes they call this the ‘gift of desperation. It’s a gift because finally one day – and that could be today – you will be desperate enough to reach out for help.

“The best thing about hitting rock bottom is the clarity. When enough is enough, you really know: you know you never want to go back.”

I say this over and over, that this is something you cannot do alone. And that is great news. Because when you hit rock bottom you feel like there is no one in the world you can turn to. Yes, you have burned almost every bridge. Friends and family don’t trust you anymore. You have told enough lies or cried wolf: ‘I will never drink again, I promise’. 

Will they believe you now if you come crawling back?

When I woke up from my blackout in the East River, having almost drowned, I wish I could say that this was the last day I would ever drink. I said to myself: never again! But it would be another 4 months of heavy drinking for me – and many, many more blackouts - before I got the help I needed. 

And I have to say, I didn’t do it all by myself. Through some miracle beyond the scope of my understanding, my family and friends would be there. They kicked my ass enough to force me to come home to New Zealand and go into rehab. They scraped me off the proverbial pavement several times before I found the rock bottom I was seeking. And for that, I am eternally grateful.

You might be asking: what happened to me after I dragged myself ashore that morning in New York? I found a phone. I called someone. That, someone, picked me up, gave me a pair of shoes and took me to my first AA meeting. I passed out during that meeting in my chair. I remember my sober friend kept tapping me to stop me from snoring. 

A year later I would find out that that sober friend that took me to that meeting that day had died. He was 5 years sober when he finally relapsed - for some reason or another – drank a bottle of bourbon, and drowned in a bathtub alone. He was 26yo.

And that’s what I mean – this thing will kill you if you don’t do something about it. Even those of us who have been sober for years… We never ever say never. 

Because sometimes, never does come. 

And in the skies, you see crooked birds when you’re drowning.