Way back in 1987 (22 March, to be exact), I remember watching a made-for-television movie with my mother, starring one of my favorite contemporary actresses of all time, Cheryl Ladd. (What? She played Kris Munroe on “Charlie’s Angels” and “Grace Kelly“; of course I would love her!) Directed by David Anspaugh, the film, entitled “Deadly Care,” depicted the “true story about a nurse’s descent into the nightmarish world of substance abuse [that] endangers her life and the lives of her patients.” Clearly, I thought Cheryl Ladd gave a marvelous (if depressing) performance. But one line in particular became stuck in my mind, and has rather curiously been stuck there ever since.

The scene comes near the end of the film, when Ladd’s character’s dependency on alcohol and prescription drugs is at its peak, and she is trying to catch a flight at an airport. As the airline ticket agent is ticketing her, the nurse pleads desperately, “Please can you put me in first class?” The ticket agent attempts to make some excuse, when the nurse interrupts her by saying angrily through clenched teeth, “I have no more cash on me and I need the free alcohol in first class if you do not want me to go into DTs mid-flight in front of everyone.” The ticket agent gave the nurse a withering, pathetic glance, and booked her into first class.

“Mother,” I said thoughtfully.

“Mmmm?” she inquired absentmindedly from the opposite divan.

“What are ‘DTs’?”

“‘Delirium tremens,’” she defined the initials, vaguely wrinkling her nose in distaste. “Rather unpleasant symptoms of withdrawal from chronic alcohol dependency. Tremulousness, insomnia, nausea, hallucinations. Your father’s father used to get them all the time.” She paused, remembering. “Not a pleasant sight.”

“Ew!” I said ineloquently, also wrinkling my own nose.

It was 1987.

And I was nearly fourteen years old.

My own love affair with alcohol would begin five years later, with the first fifth of Dewar’s I would buy at Anthony’s Liquors, in Bronxville, New York, my very first day at Sarah Lawrence College.

I would not experience my first episode of DTs until many years later, twenty, to be exact, when I was 34 years old.

Back in March, I wrote this entry, in which I vaguely and almost in passing reference a 24-hour period of violent illness.

Once the illness had passed, I discussed my symptoms on two phone calls, one with The Painter, and one with my little sister. “Atherton?” the former asked hesitantly, “how much have you been drinking, lately, exactly? Because that sounds like alcohol withdrawal to me.” Twenty minutes later, the latter, sounding worried and distressed, exclaimed, “Hon, do you think that might have been DTs?!”

As I had access to no research tools of my own at the time to follow up on their worries, I eventually fully regained the ability to stand up without throwing up, and tried to forget about it (making sure to be A Good Boy with the cocktail consumption for the next two weeks, “just in case”).

This past week, I was so not A Good Boy with the cocktail consumption. Between social drinking over the weekend and emotional drinking that began Monday when I was informed that the professional position I had “conditionally” been offered was being rescinded due to a “miscommunication” between The Bank and my most recent employer, I was probably in some manner of deep intoxication from around Friday afternoon until yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon.

And that was when, not ten weeks following the previous incident, it happened again. But this time it was a thousand times worse. Oh, sure, there was the prone and seizure-like quaking on the bed, the nausea every hour like clockwork, the heavy sweating, the extreme and debilitating anxiety, the inability to sleep. However, this time I saw enormous tarantulas on my bed and slept on my floor for an hour until they “went away.” I heard a loud knock at my door at five in the morning, only to peek out in fear upon an empty hallway.

It was not a happy time. And this time it lasted far over 24-hours.

When, again, I could finally stand up without throwing up, and finally regained at least some control of my quaking hands, I made it to my laptop and ran a Google search for “delirium tremens.”

Withdrawal: When a chronic alcoholic suddenly stops drinking, withdrawal of alcohol leads to a syndrome of increased excitability of the central nervous system (called delirium tremens, or “DTs.”) Symptoms begin six to eight hours after abstinence, and are most pronounced 24-72 hours after abstinence. They include body shaking (tremulousness), insomnia, agitation, confusion, hearing voices or seeing images that are not really there (such as crawling bugs), seizures, rapid heart beat, profuse sweating, high blood pressure, and fever. Alcohol-related seizures are reported in approximately 15 percent of alcoholics, and the chance of having seizures, as well as the severity of the seizures, increases with the number of withdrawal incidences. In structural imaging, it was found that alcoholics that had had seizures showed shrinkage on both sides of the brain behind the frontal lobe.
—From The Encyclopedia of Nursing & Allied Health’s entry regarding Alcoholic Paralysis.

“Delirium tremens” were not the only words in that entry that, well, to put it bluntly, scared the shit out of me, in a way that I have never been scared before. Words like “atrophy,” “degeneration,” “dementia,” “myoglobinuria,” “myopathy,” “neuropathy,” “Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome”: all words and phrases that struck more fear into me than any of the worst shaking I experienced late last night, because they all lead to a consistent, permanent degeneration of the central nervous system.

And that is something I cannot continue to do to my body. Not when I have adopted serious new dietary and workout habits that would only be negated by continuing to sustain my alcoholic habit. Since anyone who knows me even slightly will assure one that the word “moderation” does not exist in my vernacular when it comes to alcohol, I have decided to quit today. I have explored quitting before, usually in a very casual manner, but have never succeeded because, well, frankly I have never before been so shaken to the core by experiences and information as I have recently. So I am not recording this for any accolades, congratulations, or anything else. I am recording it to keep my fear fresh, to hold the information close, and to strengthen my resolve to succeed these time.

And also to remind myself that I will never become the person who begs for the free alcohol in first class in order not to break into DTs mid-flight.

---

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• delerium tremens. or how i decided to draw a bunch of pink elephants
• Seizures associated with alcohol intake