Paul Garrigan - Dead Drunk: Saving myself from alcoholism in a Thai monastery

Chapter 1

Riding along on my motorbike, I watched as the Thai countryside awoke around me in the early morning light. I was nearing the end of this journey, and I was ready to embark on the next. After so many failed attempts to escape my addiction, I knew that now I was finally free from alcoholism. I had been a slave to alcohol for most of my life, and I couldnt wait to put this dependence behind me and start my life anew. As I sped further along, getting nearer to home, my mind was awhirl with plans and ideas, memories and remorse, hopes and fears.

The rainy season had just begun and there was plenty of work to do on the land. Groups of workers were gathering on the edge of paddy fields, laughing and starting their long day of labour cheerfully. I rode past these early risers, taking heart in their good humour.

Further on, I passed a number of orange-robed monks on their way back to the temples. They had just finished their morning alms round, and the sight of them filled me with gratitude, as it was their fellow monks who had just helped me break the cycle of self-destruction and despair. It was a privilege to witness these holy men carrying out a tradition that went back over two and a half thousand years.

Motorbikes whizzed by me in the opposite direction ferrying children to school, some carrying as many as five people. Everyone looked so full of life. I overtook motorbikes that looked as though they were about to fall apart, carrying impossibly heavy loads, but these expert riders managed to keep everything on board.

My recently sobered mind felt like it was waking up to the world for the first time in years. I felt as though I had acquired new powers of observation and perception. Colours, sounds and smells were all sharper and more vibrant now. The world seemed like an exciting place to be, full of possibilities. I could now see Thailand in a way that had previously eluded me, and I relished in the glory of that morning. I felt comradeship with every person I passed; we were all in it together, just struggling through life, doing our best. I was no better or worse than anybody else. I took in the wonder of the world all around me, and I felt excited and grateful to be able to witness it all.

I was about to start a new chapter in my life. Things had been bad for years, and I hoped that life would now take me in a new direction. This had to work. The thought of returning to my old way of living frightened me. If that were to happen, I was certain that I would not live for much longer. I had been addicted to alcohol for 20 years but I couldnt face another day of itI would rather die.

My thoughts turned to my girlfriend, Oa; I had promised to return to her a new man. Upon entering the temple, I knew this promise needed to be more than just a pathetic clich, or we would be finished. I couldnt continue to ruin her life as well as my own; she deserved more than that.

It felt like I had been away for much longer than a mere ten days. The wreck of a man who entered Thamkrabok temple was no more. Desperation had given way to hope; self-pity and self-loathing were now replaced with aspiration and an excitement about what the future might hold. As the moment when I would be reunited with Oa drew nearer and nearer, I wondered how she would react to my transformation. Would she even notice the major changes which seemed so obvious to me? I dreaded the thought that she might be suspicious and see it all as being too good to be true. Hadnt I let her down so many times before?

Making my way down the central Thai highway, I had plenty of time for reflection. I wondered what my friends were doing back in Thamkrabok. I guessed the time to be nearly eight oclock, so they would have just finished their morning dose of herbal tea. I could imagine Matts face grimacing as he once again complained that it tasted disgusting. I missed the friends Id made during recovery, and envied their safe temple routine, but that was behind me now. I was moving forward.

My mind returned to thoughts of how things were going to be different this time. My previous attempts at escaping addiction had all failed, and I had always been able to furnish these failures with any number of excusesI wasnt ready at the time, I had forgotten the pain of addiction, it was normal for an addict to relapse, I was too young, life was too difficultthe list was endless. Failure was not an option nowthis was my last chance.

When I first arrived at the temple, a Swiss monk told me to make good use of my time there. As well as detoxifying my body there was other work to be done. One of the most important tasks was to find out why I had ended up in such a desperate state and what direction my life was going to take once I left. The temple routine provided plenty of opportunity for thinking about these things. I began to look back on where I had gone wrong. When had my life first turned down the path of addiction? At first, I thought that maybe it had all started to go wrong in my teens, but on reflection, I realised this wasnt true. The seed had been planted long before that. I began to think that maybe my journey to the temple had begun as far back as my memory could reach.

Chapter 10

I stayed in Glasgow for a year and worked in a trendy city centre pub where I made a few friends. The management were nice to you so long as you did your work. I soon left, however, because they didnt allow me to drink behind the bar. I accepted a large cut in wages to go and work in a run-down pub in a rough area of the city. They didnt care if I drank behind the bar, and that was its only attraction for me.

The bar was situated across the road from a Salvation Army hostel, and most of our customers were homeless. This bar was a particular favourite with people down on their luck because the management allowed any leftover drink to be sold at a reasonable price. Part of my job was to pour any unfinished drinks into a large steel bucket kept behind the bar. This bucket of slops could contain any variety of booze, and few customers could still hold a conversation after a couple of pints of the stuff.

The great thing about the bar was that my drinking habits seemed tame compared to those around me; there was no pretence of social drinking with this crowd. Our biggest seller was Super Lager, the strongest lager you could buy. Merely asking for it in some pubs was enough to get you kicked out. You could shit your pants or go for a piss in the middle of my new place of work and none of the other customers would raise an eyebrow. Drink had ruined these people and I swore that I would never allow myself to end up like them. I had no problem drinking with the customers in the bar if they were buying, but secretly I looked down my nose at them.

It was the Year of Culture in Glasgow, but most of the cultural festivities passed me byI had no interest in anything that didnt involve alcohol. I lived in a cheap bed-sit which I never cleaned. I only went there to sleep. I spent a lot of the time feeling miserable and blaming my depression on the greyness of the cityit was so much easier to blame my surroundings than to consider that the problem might actually stem from me. I decided I needed a change of scenery. There was nothing keeping me in Scotland. A year earlier I had been desperate to move to Glasgow, but now I was even more desperate to leave it.

During my time at the treatment centre in Dublin we had a talk on the typical behaviours of an addict. One of these behaviours was called the geographicalthis is when the drunk or drug addict moves on to a new place every time they mess up in the hope that moving will make things better. Despite knowing of this tendency I didnt associate it with my own behaviour, and felt certain that a change of scenery would fix me.