The Night The Bomb Was Dropped

ONCE upon a time, a drink problem for me was having two hands and only one mouth. There were happy memories from my hilarious drinking days – long before alcohol took over and nearly took my life. Such as the night I thought the nuclear bomb had been dropped. And the time I had to flee a pub with a friend – I’d knocked a full pint of beer inside an upright piano just as the pianist was about to play. The night of the ‘nuclear bomb attack’ was part of a pilgrimage I made with a friend and colleague who was a professional photographer. We used to go on regular drinking holidays – whisky drinking tours of Scotland and beer drinking tours of the Norfolk Broads. One of our favourite beers was Adnams. We decided there was no better place to sample it than where it was made – the Sole Bay Brewery in Southwold, Suffolk. Extremely drunk, I staggered into the gents’ lavatory at the pub next door. It was outside and had no roof. Suddenly, everything went blindingly white. The entire sky was lit up in a way I’d never seen before. I thought the Russians had dropped a nuclear bomb on Ipswich. What I hadn’t realised was the nearest lighthouse for ships was in the centre of Southwold – and the giant beam had lit up the sky for miles.

Those were my happy days, of careless, care-free drinking. In those days, alcohol did things for me – took away my worries and gave me confidence. Eventually, alcohol did things to me – made me fearful, anxious and alone. Memories of those happy drinking days kept me in denial for years. In my world, alcoholics lived on benches and slept in doorways. I couldn’t be an alcoholic – I used to have fun. But that fun didn’t last. The end of my drinking saw me alone, divorced, without friends and facing the prospect of unemployment. 

My photographic friend once took a picture of myself and a colleague playing pranks in the office after a trip to the pub. My prankster friend and the man who took the photo might still be alive if they’d found the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. We were all serious drinkers, never in a sociable way. AA not only saved my life; it gave me a new one – far better than the old. Today, I still have that photo. The only other person in the picture died of cancer. I’m the only one connected to it who found AA, and a higher power who has looked after me all those years. I’m the only person related to that photo who is still alive.

ANON