Three Thousand Stitches Read online

  ‘Sure, I will talk to him about it. I will message you his number if he agrees,’ said my friend.

  ‘Thank you!’

  Within ten minutes, I received his contact details and immediately called him. The man on the other side of the phone sounded like he was around forty years old.

  ‘Aunty!’ said Ramesh, his voice full of warmth. ‘I am happy to know that you want to hear about AA. I will share my journey with you and you can write about it too, if you like. It’ll be worth it even if one person learns from my mistakes.’

  ‘Why don’t you come over for a meal? We can speak leisurely then,’ I suggested.

  Soon, we decided to meet in my house for lunch.

  He was on time and confident in his demeanour. We sat down at the table. There was no need for polite conversation or formalities.

  ‘Tell me about your experience with AA,’ I broached the subject without beating around the bush.

  ‘I’ve read your book titled The Day I Stopped Drinking Milk. But if I had to write one, it would be called The Day I Began Drinking Alcohol.’ He sighed. ‘Let me tell you how it all began.

  ‘I belong to a conservative family. As children, we were expected to be home by sunset and were not allowed even tea or coffee! The only liquids I was allowed were milk, water and teertha (holy water). I was an excellent student and finished my twelfth grade with outstanding marks.

  ‘A few days later, some of my classmates and I decided to celebrate. We went to a restaurant and ordered a round of drinks. I had never tried alcohol before and it was a close friend, a coffee planter’s son from Coorg, who egged me on. “Come on, have a drink! Social drinking is quite acceptable now and it does absolutely no harm. One or two drinks will make you happier than the high you must have got from your top marks! Take this,” he said and handed me a peg of whisky with ice cubes.

  ‘Most of us were first-timers. Though the taste of the drink was slightly bitter, we all drank and felt good and relaxed. For some time, I felt that I was floating on air. The music was good and the world around me seemed beautiful and I had a nice buzz. I liked it.

  ‘The evening turned into night and we ordered dinner. Though I was a foodie then, I didn’t feel like eating anything. Instead, I quietly went to the bar and took a second peg. Everyone at the table clapped, “You were so cautious first, but look at you now!”

  ‘The night ended on a high note and my friend dropped me home in his car. Since it was late, my parents were already asleep, so I used my key to enter the house and crashed on the bed.

  ‘The next morning, I didn’t stir until 7.30 a.m. When I opened my eyes, the sun’s rays were shining brightly through the window.

  ‘It was late. I usually woke up at 6 a.m.

  ‘When my mother saw me, she asked, “Are you unwell?”

  ‘I shook my head, but my head was feeling heavy and I had a slight headache.

  ‘“How was the party?”

  ‘“It was fine.”

  ‘I headed to the bathroom for a shower and felt slightly better. I went about my routine and at the end of the day, I thought about alcohol. I was fascinated by the high it had brought me.

  ‘A few days later, I wanted to drink again and called my friend. He laughed and said, “No problem, man. Let’s have another party.”

  ‘This time, it was only the two of us. My friend taught me about the different kinds of alcohol, the qualities and the prices, as I eagerly awaited my peg. We began meeting regularly and without realizing it, I got addicted to alcohol and began yearning for it every day.

  ‘A month later, I got admission in a college in Mumbai and left home. Now I had complete freedom and there was absolutely no one to control me. I began boozing with different classmates. Somehow, I still managed to get decent grades, despite bunking classes—either due to hangovers or because I had slept late the previous night. I even got a good job that paid me well. Unfortunately for me, it also meant that I began drinking more since I could afford more.

  ‘A few years later, I was transferred to Bengaluru. By then, my parents had built another house on the floor upstairs and I told them that I’d like to stay there. I had an arranged marriage and the girl was very nice. But once my wife began living with me, she learnt of my addiction within a few days. Livid, she fought with my poor parents, thinking that they were aware of my alcoholism and had chosen to hide it from her.

  ‘My mother was horrified! She had had no knowledge of my addiction. The only symptom she was aware of was that I had become short-tempered, but she had innocently attributed it to the stress at my workplace. I had, of course, let her think that way. So along with my wife, I got a sermon every day and it greatly annoyed me. She dragged me to temples and gurus. The more they pushed me, the more upset I became. Through it all, my wife continued to believe in me. “You are intelligent,” she would say. “You can leave this habit. I know you can control your urges.”

  ‘Sometimes her words gave me strength, but I couldn’t let go of alcohol.’

  I was dumbfounded. This could happen to anyone, especially in this day and age. I stopped him. ‘Tell me, how did you find out about AA?’

  ‘Now you must understand my journey, Aunty. Day after day, it became worse and I kept drowning in the problem that I had created. One day, I got a call from my old friend from Coorg. He was visiting Bengaluru with his cousin and invited me to his hotel. I was happy to hear from him and thought that we could have a memorable evening together. When I eventually saw him, I was concerned. The young, handsome boy looked like an old man and a skeleton at that!

  ‘“Shall we order something to drink?” I asked, a few minutes into our meeting.

  ‘“Don’t even mention the word alcohol. It is killing me. For a long time, I refused to get married. My parents tried their best to rescue me from this life, but now I have been diagnosed with liver cirrhosis. I can’t tell you how much I regret the past! I was born into a good family and grew up in a wonderful place like Coorg where I could have done something meaningful. People always plan a holiday there and I already lived in heaven. I should have become high on nature, but instead I became high on alcohol. I don’t have much time left. Don’t waste your life, old friend! Learn from me. A man near his death will always tell you the bare truth. This disease is worse than cancer. People will sympathize with you if you have cancer and there are medicines and surgeries that might give you a chance to get back to your old life. But here I am. This is what rock bottom looks like. People look down on me and judge me, even my parents. I thank God that I am not married or I would have ruined another person’s life too.”

  ‘His words threw me for a loop. How could this have happened to him? This isn’t how life is supposed to turn out for people like us.

  ‘I came home and tossed and turned all night. I couldn’t stop thinking about him or myself. My life was a mess. Sometimes, I would skip work because I had drunk too much the previous day. People who were less smart than me were getting promoted and I was being passed over again and again because I wasn’t considered reliable enough. Meanwhile, my wife and mother were under our relatives’ constant scrutiny because of my condition. It was plain as day—I wasn’t that far off from being in the same boat as my friend. The very idea shook me to the core.

  ‘The next morning, there was a call from my friend’s hotel. It was his cousin. “Your friend passed away last night,” he said. “You were his last visitor.”

  ‘I began trembling with shock and fear. It was the lowest point of my life, and I couldn’t control my body from shivering. When the shivers stopped, I went to the small cupboard containing all the alcohol, took the bottles and threw them in the trash.

  ‘With the help of my family, I learnt about AA and checked in to the alcohol de-addiction camp. It took a few years for me to become sober and I have been this way ever since. I now dedicate my life to helping others who are in a bad place because of alcoholism. I work with them and show them that there is hope. They can get better.’