The Bergen Regional Diaries

Bergen Regional Diaries Part 1 - "From seizures to seizing the opportunity"
Author's note: any names and characters aside from the protagonist have been changed to aid in protecting the innocent...also because the author doesn't remember any names or real physical features.

Part I

Suicide, in theory, is purposely killing one's self. Some call it selfish, others find heart and romanticism in how much being themselves must have hurt them--hurt them to the point of ending themselves. They couldn't get out, so they ended the pain on their own.

Suicide, though, has to count in other ways. As an addict, addiction is a way of purposely killing oneself. You're unhappy. You hate your life. You see this one thing as an escape, and of course the escape is full of shit because all it counts for is a slow, painful death. You're ready to die, especially when those withdrawals kick in. Death feels near. One misplaced seizure or one heart attack from your body churning out 143 beats per minute is all it takes.

The best part of all this is that you do this knowing it'll probably kill you. How many alcoholics and drug addicts actually make it out alive from this, whether it be from withdrawals or subsequent liver or heart or brain issues from all the years of indulging?

Even a social drinker knows the risks. At the minimum, most "socially drink" either to fit in or to add an extra hobby to the list of all the things they can do after a long day of work as an adult. It's a way to wind down, a way to be able to socialize with others and take those as "moments" and not have their entire day hit them as a colossal boulder. Even in those cases it is an escape. They may say it's "from life," but most of these types are feeling between "a little tipsy" and "drunk glasses" after only a few drinks. None of them need a drink simply for jitters or so they can continue drinking while keeping their nausea at a minimum.

But suicide is taking it further. So much further that there is literally no class for the type of drinking and lifestyle it takes to reach a type of point. It's not just about drinking more than others. It's about taking your life and in the early stages, going, "I'm not too happy with my job right now, let's drink a bit more to get through it" or seeing your home life, either through loneliness or being burnt out from working and housekeeping and being a father or a mother without prior experience and saying, "screw it, what if I drank a bit more? It's not going to hurt anyone and it'll help me be better in all areas."

You have no fucking clue whatsoever whether you'll survive or how uncomfortable it would be, or whether the withdrawals will be tame enough that you can at least not worry about the fact that you'll probably be calling an ambulance at 5 a.m. because the idea of not being able to thwart the withdrawal symptoms away for four more hours is worse than any pain ever felt in life and fucking goddammit here comes the anxiety, the anxiety that is worse than any shake or jitter or seizure and will legitimately be the thing that causes your suicide if you can just. Get. Out. Of. Bed. And go in the kitchen and get that knife and try to maneuver your ever-so-shaky hands over your wrists and with enough jolt and power to slice right through that artery and do the same on the other wrist even though you've already cut a few important muscles in the wrist that would have been pretty damn useful to help get the other wrist the same as the right wrist, and, let's be honest, as a lefty anyway that's the dominant arm and needs a bit more strength and measurement to get the slashing down perfect, again, another irony to this entire service because the weak arm is already weaker from the first slash, and maybe the other wrist should have been slashed first so it would still be able to cut the other wrist, but thank God, you're just dreaming all this because your withdrawals are not allowing you to leave the bed in the first place so your wrists are safe for now, but at least you did something productive such as plan out part of the suicidal ideation, the best way to kill yourself if the booze and the impending deep withdrawals don't get to you first.

It's appalling at times to see men and women go down this avenue. Many depressed people have stopped in motion to kill themselves cause they can now live their lives drinking and living "in the moment" where suicide is usually not present. Not present in the idea that it was their past that led to depression and it's their alcoholism that made them forget a past ever existed. One of the most fucked up things about addiction is that it will eventually lead to those same feelings. Death. Wanting to die each and every day. Never wanting to wake up. However, now there's a tangible reason. All feelings are justified because you have a drinking problem. Whoopee! Damn those feelings of loneliness and brain chemistry issues, those things nobody can see and laugh when they're brought up in most avenues. Mental health isn't fully established. But alcoholism is. So now you have a problem. It's treatable. Oh, they will treat you for this. Hospitals are legally allowed to keep you in even without insurance because chances are you can die and the hospitals don't want that type of liability over their heads.

Newspaper: "Sunny Bright died via seizure induced by years of drinking."
Family: "He was in the hospital and he didn't have a drink after. What happened?"
Hospital: "He was an alcoholic. There wasn't anything we would do especially if he was going to go out and drink again to which we can see in his file may very well happen."
Family: "So you didn't do your duty of keeping him and making sure he cleared the 72 hours without seizing..."
Newspaper: "Drunk dies while trying to stop drinking. Hospital being investigated."
Hospital: "God dammit."

___________________________________________

The walls are talking to me. They are saying, "Good morning. How are you feeling?"
"Shut the fuck up already," I scream at the wall. "I'm still waiting for the intake."

I open my eyes, and the first object is, in fact, not an object, but a woman who can't be older than 30 in blue scrubs. She is giving me a dastard look, as I slowly come to and realize it was a person speaking to me, not a wall. I apologize to the wall immediately, its eggshell white coat of paint directing the morning sun to my side of the room, the one closest to the door.

"I'm sorry," I finally say to the nurse.
"It's okay, William. How are you feeling?" She begins to put a blood pressure cup around my right arm. "You suffered quite the trauma earlier."
"I was just talking to a wall," I chuckle as she tightens the cup around my bicep. "That's where I'm at right now."
"At least you know this," she adds, "it's better than actually thinking walls could talk."
"Agreed," I shrug as a buzzing noise adds to the mood of a room, one which includes an EKG machine beeping monotonously. "If these walls could really talk, they'll probably tell me to shut the fuck up because I'm dreaming." She smiles. Her smile is the whitest, most beautifulist, most bestest thing I've seen in a good while. Isolating myself wasn't good for my social life or my senses, apparently. I forgot how much I missed the scent and structure of females.
"Okay, so your blood pressure is a bit up there still," she says as she takes the cup off. She puts on, then quickly off. "The doctor should be in shortly to speak to you. We wanted to wait until you were coherent to go over your treatment plan."
"Cool, thanks." The walls are talking to me again. This time, though, it might very well be a wall. Where am I? Why am I waking up in the hospital? Why does my head hurt so much?

"Good morning, Mr. William." An older woman, possibly in her 50's and in a white button-down coat makes eye contact. "I see you had a little bit too much fun yesterday," she laughs. "You were the first person to ever get called to the ER from our detox facility. While heroin addicts just sat there and watched a movie, you're all up there causing a ruckus because you're seizing on the floor."

Wait, what? I heard the words she said, but have little ability to process them. "I--don't understand."

"Oh wait," she looks at the chart. "You don't remember what happened?"
"Something happened?"
"Yes," she puts the chart at the foot of my bed. "You were in the waiting room for the detox outlet and while Mr. Hennegan was taking forms from your last month's pay, you collapsed and seized right in his office."
"Oh shit," I stumble my words. Come to think of it, it does explain what happened to my head. Either that or that asshole and I got into a fight because he saw how bad I was but still wouldn't let me in to the program. He's a douchebag and I wish I had one more shot at him.

"We think you have some short-term memory loss," she adds. "Do you remember anything from yesterday?"
"Yesterday?" Oh god, did I lose another day of my life now?
"Yes, this incident occurred just over twenty-four hours ago. You were conscious all last night--you were talking to an overnight nurse about wrestling, so you were awake for awhile, but your eyes were still glazed over."
I close my eyes. This can't be happening again.
"The good news is," she continues, "being in the hospital for alcohol withdrawals does allow us to save a bed just for you in the program."
"Oh cool," I state. She continues: "but you HAVE to make sure you follow directions and use it to get sober and not just as a vacation from real life."
"That's what I was here for in the first place."
"That's good, and as long as you are willing, we will be there on this journey. Have you ever been in the hospital for alcohol before?"
Only eight times since May. "Yes."
"Have you ever been in a detox program?"
I was in rehab for a month last year, and it included five days of detox where we fought over which DVD to play next most of the time.
"Yes, well, kind of."
"Okay, good. So you kind of get the jist of how this works."
"Yes." My breathing is mostly shallow and incongruent so I can't get much more than that out. "So I'm in the program?"
"Yes, but not right now. We have to wait for a bed to open. To be honest with you," she puts her pen in her hair right outside her right lobe. Not sure why I am focusing on this, "you might not have made it based on the information you provided in the waiting room."
"That's good I think," I mumble. My head is fucking killing me. Did they check to see if I had a concussion?
"It will be, Mr. Dayton. Until that point, we will take care of you and do everything possible to make you comfortable."
"Thank you."
"You're very welcome. Just sit tight, the nurse will be in with some Ativan."
"Awesome, thank you so much."

She leaves and I'm back by myself. This is the weirdest blackout ever. I was talking wrestling with a nurse? Would that make today Tuesday? I feel for my phone. I find it under the small of my back, sweat now protruding all over the screen. I unlock it and find a video of Shane McMahon returning to WWE to fight his father and sister. There are a few messages from friends, but I can't look at the screen longer.

I vomit.

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