I had just finished reading
The Liberty Tree Drunk To Sober: A Memoir by Suzanne Harrington. It is the author's brutal and honest story of being a junkie and an alcoholic. It is her journey through the drug parties of East London, meeting Leo at one of these parties, marrying him despite the fact she knows very little about him, loosening the drug habit but getting heavy on the drinking, being self-absorbed and self-centred, having two children all the while having the alcoholism, realising she loves Leo but not in a way a wife or a lover should, getting cancer, separating from the husband, getting sober slowly and getting to know herself better, dealing with the tragedy of Leo's suicide, really getting clear from alcoholism, helping her kids come to term with their father's suicide and finally becoming a truly sober mum to her two kids.
To me personally, the narrator in this memoir is a person who reads a lot, intelligent, strong-willed, impulsive at times, emotionally retarded and an individual who likes to avoid the truth. For most of her adult life she hides her feelings either in drugs or alcohol. She takes drug to the extent she begins to hear voices in her head. Addiction to drugs causes her to have extreme paranoia and she lost her boyfriend Harry because of her liking for substances that provide instant gratification. Substance abuse can muddle up your brain so much that you fail to realise even the most basic fact about yourself, however intelligent you are. For example if you want others to like you, you must first of all like yourself. It is difficult even for you to like yourself, when you are always jittery and screaming your head off and gets into fights when you desperately need your alcohol fix, or you wake up in your own vomit in the morning, having a splitting headache and being unaware that your toddler has been crying for hours beside you, or in your hangover moodiness you say things to your spouse which are so toxic that you know you had no excuse for except that you are cruel and very self-centred.
Addiction is a disease that needs to be addressed just like any other disease. First and foremost the addict himself must realise there is a problem. He or she must desire to get rid of the habit for the good or himself or herself, not because to get someone off his or her back. Suzanne was almost at the brink, almost at the point of no return when she truthfully reaches out for help for herself. While she is recovering from the alcoholism, tragedy strikes in the form of her estranged husband's suicide. It is very brave of her to be able to put all she has been through into this memoir dedicated to her late husband and written in manner like she is talking to her two kids. It has been a long journey and a difficult struggle for her but she did it at last. She frees herself from the shackles of drugs and alcoholism.
