from about a mile away. If you got up close you’d see his face was always red, broken blood vessels all over his nose and cheeks. His eyes would be glazed and watery, and he couldn’t focus on anything, would blink at you slowly, slurring his words and hiccupping.
That’s what an alcoholic looks like, I thought. Not like Grant, who is the yuppiest of yuppies ever, in his Ralph Lauren polo shirt and cashmere sweater, with a great big Rolex on one wrist. There’s no way he’s an alcoholic.
“Wow,” he continues, shaking his head. “I always get exactly what I need to hear when I come to a meeting, and I really needed to hear about turning things over to a Higher Power. My meetings have been dropping off recently, things just got really hard at work…”
Jason leans over to me and whispers, “He’s a huge merchant banker. Huge!” I look at him, and we both exchange impressed glances, as if, how can a huge merchant banker also be an alcoholic, and I really want to just sneak out of here with Jason and gossip with him about it, but I force my attention back to Grant-the-merchant-banker.
“… haven’t been to as many meetings. And every time I do this, because this is not the first time”—everyone laughs in acknowledgment, as if they too do this all the time—“I start to take back my will, and when I take back my will, that’s the beginning of a very slippery slope.”
There is a murmur round the room, and I notice a number of people nodding, and I have absolutely no idea what he is talking about.
“I tried for years to stop drinking. My wife threatened to leave me, I almost lost my job, and every time I thought I could do it myself, because I was a master of the universe; I could do everything myself. The things I tried!” He laughs a little. “I always decided that the best way for me to stop drinking was to go to a health farm. I figured a week of drinking lemon water and broth, massages every day, and I would miraculously come home and be dried out. The first time I went to Grayshott I left on day two to find the nearest pub and hid bottles of vodka under my bed. And still I thought I could do it. I went to Champneys two months later and it was the same story. I’d stagger into the massages, then pass out in the lounge. And this went on for years, but still I thought that it was just about finding the right amount of willpower. My ego was so huge, I thought I was in control of everything. I had a huge house in Regent’s Park, a wife with a wardrobe full of beautiful clothes; my kids went to the best schools, and I couldn’t understand how I could have achieved all of this, this beautiful life, but I couldn’t stop drinking. My ego ran everything, and I had to get humbled to understand I couldn’t do it.” He shakes his head at what looks like an uncomfortable memory, and I sit forward slightly in my chair.
I didn’t like the Higher Power stuff, didn’t understand it, but I’m always up for a good story, and so far this is turning out to be a good story.
“My wife used to issue ultimatums all the time. Sometimes she’d scream at me, other times she’d cry, and most of the time she’d say she would divorce me if I carried on, and I never believed her. And she didn’t know the half of it.” He shook his head, as if in disgust at himself. “I was a terrible husband. I was unfaithful, and with the worst kind of women. I thought nothing of paying for sex. I spent fortunes in the kind of clubs I’m now ashamed to admit I went to. My wife didn’t know, until I gave her a sexually transmitted infection.” He says all this without emotion, while my mouth has practically hit the floor in shock. This handsome, beautifully dressed, rich guy slept with hookers? And admits it? And what’s more, not a single person in the room appears to be shocked. Except me. They’re all nodding their heads as if they too have all slept with hookers and given their partners STDs. I feel like I’m in a parallel universe in which everything is completely and utterly bonkers. I turn my