Keeping On Without You

I stared back at them, dumbfounded from the words that had just come out of Matt Nicholls’ moth. My mouth was slightly ajar and my fingers went limp as I sat on the couch, the rest of the band surrounding me.

Tom was here, too, sitting off in a corner, still a part of the group but not quite as equally connected.

He was only here to make sure I didn’t do anything irrational like completely blow up at the four guys I trusted most. It would surely happen if I misunderstood what they were trying to say.

And I completely misunderstood what Nicholls had just said.

“You fucking what?”

He looked at me tentatively before tossing his gaze to the floor, apparently not knowing what to say from his false starts at trying to say something. We all sat in silence again for a moment before Jona stepped in to say something. I was sick of listening even after only hearing it once. I didn’t want to hear how many other ways they could put this to me.

“Look, we just think it’d be best if you took some time off, alright? It’s time you should get some help, ‘cause we all know you need it mate,” he said, looking into my eyes and suddenly I felt a hatred for my best friends.

“So what, now all of you know? All of you know what a fuckin’ mess I’ve become, that I’m alone now and I don’t give two shits about being an alcoholic?!” I erupted, mass emotion flowing out of me in the form of anger. “Tom told you, didn’t he? Didn’t you, Tom?! ‘Cause I haven’t said anythin’ to anyone else yet!”

Everyone sat back in their seats, scared of what I would do next. I wasn’t even quite sure what the move would be yet.

“Oliver, we’ve all noticed,” Lee put in quietly.

Liars. No one’s noticed. Tom told them.

They didn’t notice when it started happening a year ago, and they certainly didn’t make out like they noticed in January when I was hitting rock bottom.

“If you’ve all ‘noticed’ then,” I spat, adding air-quotes for dramatic effect, “then why didn’t you tell me I get help earlier? Last year when it started? Or during the Euro tour when it had never been any worse?”

They just looked at me. I glared at my brother, betrayer of my secret that I had become more than protective of since it started developing, caring for it and keeping it out of the light for a year now. And now it was out there, seen by all and disapproved of, causing disappointment and now resulting in my expulsion from the band. Or, as they called it, ‘time off.’ Time off meant that I wouldn’t be coming back until I got help and could actually function as a member of the band.

I just looked at Tom, disgust rising inside of me as I couldn’t believe he had done that to me.

“They had to know, Oliver!” he caved, tossing his hands into the air in defeat. “You’ve been home for a week already, and I’m the only one you’ve told, er, I was the only one who knew. And I was going to let you tell everyone else on your own, but I’m not so sure you ever would have. Mum and dad don’t even know yet, but they will soon if you keep up like you ‘ave been. Oliver, you’re not so good at keeping this quiet when you’re drunk all the time or passed out in the kitchen with empty bottles layin’ with you.”

I just sighed, hanging my head. My hands were shaking now.

“So I can’t take longer than a week to fuckin’ collect myself after my girlfriend dies? I can’t sit here and grieve for longer than a week without my own fuckin’ brother outing me to everyone? I told you I wasn’t ready yet, Tom!”

“Oli,” Kean’s deep voice made my head snap up as I looked at him. “Even if you weren’t… addicted, it would still be best for you to take time off. You just lost the girl you talked about endlessly for months. And we’re here for you, you have to know that. Try to tell us you’ll be happy playin’ now when you’ve gone through all this.”

The only thing I could do was nod. I couldn’t form an appropriate response to anything they had said. Kean was right. Even if I wasn’t an alcoholic I’d need time off. I’d lost half of my life, and regaining it wasn’t an option. The only option was to accept how empty I felt and move on.

They told me I couldn’t use alcohol anymore as a means of feeling complete. I had to agree because it didn’t make me feel complete. It only made me forget how empty I was. The alcohol made it worse every time, just a reminder when I woke back up into reality that yes, I was alone now, and yes, my past mistakes are what helped aid my shitty present.

I wanted to believe that I could do it on my own without it, but it was getting hard to believe every hour that I wanted to just take a drink, I couldn’t, because they were watching my every move.

After more choruses of “We’re all here for you, mate” rang through my ears, they stood up one by one and made their way out. It was still sinking in that my band had decided to kick out their vocalist. It was hard to take in, I admit. That kind of news doesn’t come along very often, especially to yourself. The only thing I knew was that I just seemed to be losing more and more as the days went on.

Tom was still here though, not saying a word as he watched me, sitting in his chair in the corner.

“I know you’re mad at me, and I wish you weren’t,” he said softly, looking at the floor while I stared at my hands. “But they really do care about you, and we all think that this’ll be best for you. You can get some help and stay around here while they figure out what to do. I haven’t told mum or dad yet. You can do that on your own. But for God’s sake I hope you do it soon. You can’t see that even if you’re beside yourself and in pain, you’re hurtin’ everyone else, too. And we’re here for you.”

He left me too, shutting the door quietly.

I was alone again.

And I was sick of being drunk. I was sick of running to the liquor cabinet every time Tom left after babysitting me. He could have stayed here with me all the time and never left, just to make sure that I didn’t drink. But he knew I could make my own decisions, that watching over me could only help for so long. And it did only help for so long.

I had to decide what I wanted to do with myself. I had to decide whether I wanted to attempt recovery from alcoholism, and recovery from the loss of my other half. I wanted both.

But I wanted it to come fast, and I wanted it to come easy.

The first thing I knew I had to do was plan where I wanted to begin recovery. I slowly stood up to find my laptop, where I had been hiding out with it in my bedroom for the past week. It sat on my bed, and I laid down, curling into the sheets and the comforter that alarmingly didn’t offer much comfort these days.

I opened up the browser and did a search of alcohol rehabilitation centers close to Sheffield. Numerous results popped up for rehabs all over the UK, and now I was set on narrowing it down. I had to decide where I wanted to stay for however many weeks it would take to get me back on track. Part of me was scared I would never be able to leave and come home after checking in, because I just knew that maybe I couldn’t beat this. Maybe I had grown so addicted and dependent that I couldn’t give it up.

Maybe why I drank these past few days, sitting in the kitchen where I would pass out, was because it did remind me of Addie now. It reminded me of why I loved drinking on tour, so I could forget about her. And now that her strength to keep me from doing it was gone, my will to stop was gone, too.

Everything disappeared when she did.

But it looked like the Alcohol Rehab Centre of South Yorkshire was where I’d be taking a visit soon. A long visit.

Telling my parents of what I had been going through honestly scared the shit out of me. I would put it off for as long as I could just so I could think of a better way to tell them that wouldn’t break their hearts as much. Either way I knew severe disappointment and resentment would flood my way. It would be natural. No parent would willingly accept their child’s alcoholism. And I was just scared of seeing their reaction. Witnessing what it would be like to watch their hearts break, to watch them realize how much of a failure their son had become, due to his own weaknesses.

The only thing I had to hope was that if the guys were going to be there for me as many times as they had reassured me, they better be there. I would need all the support I could get to march myself into rehab and check in. More so, I would need the support to stay there.

And I just hoped that I could come out a better person. I hoped that I could learn how to never treat anyone as poorly as I had treated Addie in the last months of her life, of my life with her, of my life as I knew it. I wanted to learn that I couldn’t ignore people because I loved them too much to call, too much to deal with how hard it was to be away from her. And it just made me sound crazy because of the fact that I missed her, yet I didn’t call her. A walking contradiction is what many could label me.

I wanted to make sure that I would never ruin anyone else’s life ever again. I wanted to stop ruining my own life and get on with it, move on to better things that could make me happy again.

Then and there I made a promise to myself that if I completed rehab - fixed myself - I would visit Addie. I would fly all the way to Springfield, to find where she was buried. And I would give her the apology she deserved. I had already written what I should have said, but if I could complete what I needed to do, I would go there and show her what I had become.

Even if she was “with me” all the time, I felt like I had to go there to really prove my point.

I would fix myself someday.

And it all started with checking in.