The Road to Gin Lane

Hammy brought in the work for us waiting artists as he perfected his piss artist act elsewhere, but if he got back to the studio later than 4pm we would see trouble brewing as he would forget the brief, deadlines and dispatch orders due to blackout. A blank dispatch order was as welcome as a rubiks cube and ten times harder to decipher. My folks did not drink much, the same bottle from Christmas was still on the sideboard at Easter, and so this was my first hand experience of dealing with an alkie. I was told on my first day by the Studio Manager, don’t fill his cup up because he will spill it. Mugs were not in use much then, so a china cup and saucer was Hammy’s take on denial. With his morning shakes it rattled like a window in the wind each time he tried to connect the cup to the saucer. 

Each day I was so nervous " wanting to get it right " I had no confidence, I squinted and blinked at the same time AND I had GINGER HAIR. I shook as much as hammys cup with anxiety. The shame of it all. 

I knew that the reason the afternoon coffee would not be drunk straight away was because of shouting in Hammys office " I CAN’T REMEMBER " Hammy repeated over and over again as the frustrated studio manager demanded Hammy to spill the beans on what the client had asked for. The client was Rolex Watches and Hammy was in permanent blackout but the old soaks he knew in Soho’s afternoon drinking clubs provided the work for over 30 staff. No one ever mentioned " alcoholism " once, such was the level of shame around the word in 1963.Years later in 1988, in my own recovery from alcoholism, I worked alongside a famous retail graphic designer who could not function after 2pm because of chronic alcoholism and I was poached by the directors to work with him to keep him in check. The hammy nightmare repeated itself but I got paid handsomely this time and he knew that ONE word, just one resentful word at me and I was out of the door. He knew where his bread was buttered as no one could work with him but like many drunk creatives his work was genius and made millions for the clients. 

My personal codependency in the workplace started rearing at age 16 with thinking people expected perfection from me and I sought approval through what I produced. This is an aspect of codependent behavior and 20 years later I would need treatment for workaholicism. At 17 I knew I didn’t fit in and dreaded the Christmas " do" when they would expect me to bring a girlfriend, I paniced, made excuses but I was too young to find a " beard " even though I had no idea what my sexuality consisted of then. At 17 I made up stories of a girlfriend who was ill or away – it was all very Janis Ian. I never liked myself until I saw Robert Redford’s freckles in THE WAY WE WERE in the mid 70′s but by then I was a fully-fledged alkie myself with unfortunately the brain and confidence of a teenager, not an adult. Alcohol saved me from the shadows and I took centre stage, eventually souring with booze, as Sebastian did in Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. Charles said " The problem is that Sebastian drinks to capture the joy of the moment but the real problem is that he has winter in his heart ". My winters were siberian.

Some 26 years later I have not touched a drop of the sauce but I have touched and inspected the journey from the freckled 16 year old to the present day. Whether you have an addiction yourself thats obvious ( like booze ) or one that’s invisible ( codependency, gambling, sex, food, net etc ) or even one you are nurturing – it’s wise to check out who you attract and your own journey from low confidence. What cover-ups do you use to confuse? If alcohol dominated your early family life then seek help in understanding the impact on your own adulthood and interdependent relationships.

Since its MONDAY and we are living in binge-britain with tinnies as cheap as chips, today’s imaginative task is to focus on the impact of alcohol in your own life ( if not this past weekend ) Enjoy but don’t take the road to GIN LANE.