I didn’t meet her in a bar but the bar was our place of choice whenever we went out. There was this particular one in my neighborhood. They played good music all week and the ambiance was great all weekend. On Monday, they played Jazz. On Tuesday, they played highlife. On Wednesday, it was hi-hop. On Thursday they did karaoke and from Friday to Sunday, they did a live band. The first time I went there with her, was a Thursday, Karaoke night. A lady walked to our table and asked, “Would you like to sing?” I said no and she said, “Yes. I would like to sing.” I looked at her bewildered. I asked, “You? Sing? I mean sing in front of all these people?” She said, “Just watch me.” The lady took her details and the song she would like to sing and left. 

The Karaoke started. A lot of great singers passed through and a lot of bad ones also walked through. The beautiful thing was, they were all appreciated. The lady came back. She said, “After this one, you’re next.” Adelaide took my drink from my hand and drank the whole thing at a go. She gulped it with no stress. I asked her, “Do you drink?” She answered, “Now it has become very necessary. If I don’t drink, I can’t stand in front of these people and perform.”

I was surprised because I’d taken her to a lot of bars and she requested non-alcoholic drinks. She didn’t complain about my excessive drinking but she didn’t take part in it. She didn’t do anything from the beginning to also suggest that she was a drinker. That was the reason why I was surprised she could gulp down the cocktail of hard liquor in my hand. She went to the stage, took the mic and she dazzled. I was looking at her throughout the performance without a blink. I couldn’t believe she was the same girl I’d been dating for a couple of months. She dropped the mic, got her ovation, and came to sit next to me. I asked, “Do you see me?” She said, “Take me home before I embarrass us.”

So that bar became our place of choice. Whenever we talked about going out, it was that bar we had in mind. We could go from Monday to Sunday, drinking throughout the days. From that night she gulped dawn my cocktail, she never stopped drinking with me. Whenever we went to the bar and I asked her what she would like to drink, she would say something like, “Just knock me down.” I knew what that meant. I would tell the bar attendant to mix our favorite for us. The whole night, we’ll sit at the bar and drink the night away. Her stamina surprised me. We could go shot for shot until both of us couldn’t find our way home. 

We drank our dating years away as though it was the only thing we could do. Lovers ask questions. We didn’t ask any questions. Lovers study each other. We had no time to study each other. Lovers talk about the future together. We were too drunk to think about the future. I remember waking up one early morning and suggesting to her, “Why don’t we get married. It looks like we are a perfect match. Africa with its Madagascar. Two beans in a pod. What could each other do without the other?” I was recovering from a hangover when I said that but she was deeply seated in her hangover. She didn’t say anything. She got up, took some aspirin, went to the fridge for a bottle of water, and gulped the aspirin down. With water in her mouth, she asked, “When?” I said, “Whenever we can be ready.”

A year later, we were married. The only conversation we had before marriage was about alcohol—how we were going to manage the intake and live responsibly as expected from a married couple. She said, “Don’t worry. Growth has a way of making people sober. We’ll figure it out when we get there. On our wedding day when the pastor said, “Now, you may kiss the bride,” I drew closer and felt the punchy smell of our favorite cocktail. I shook my head but I kissed her anyway. 

I said, “I hope the pastor didn’t smell your breath.” She said, “He wasn’t the one who kissed me so he couldn’t.”

We got married, moved in together and I decided to be the man who steers the affairs of the marriage. I toned down on drinking. We didn’t pass by that bar again because we agreed the bar wasn’t good for us. We agreed not to bring any alcohol home and agreed not to drink in the absence of each other. We knew we had to stop but it wasn’t going to take a single day to stop something you’ve done for so many years. We changed from hard to mild liquor in the bottle, like beer. She didn’t like beer. She said she didn’t like the scent so she drank something else. 

She missed her period for days and we had it checked. The results confirmed our suspicion. She was two months pregnant. I knelt in front of her and said, “Adelaide, this is serious. We can’t continue drinking now that a baby is in there. Promise me that yesterday’s own was your last.” She said, “I know. I’m even feeling bad that I drank while pregnant. It’s never going to happen again. This is the growth I spoke to you about.” I could rest easy, knowing that she wasn’t going to do it again but I was sleeping with one eye open just in case. 

When the baby was four months old, I caught her drinking. She said she couldn’t sleep at night and it was due to stress. The only way she could sleep was to drink something. She apologized and I forgave her. I asked her to see the doctor the following day and she did. She still couldn’t sleep at night but I did my best to keep her company, talking to her though my eyes were heavy. We stayed awake until I saw her sleeping before I slept.  When the pregnancy was almost six months old I caught her drinking. She couldn’t sleep as usual. In the middle of the night, I saw her getting up. She walked sneakily to the hall so I followed. I got there and she was opening a bottle of rum. “How did this get here?” She didn’t answer. I snatched it from her, poured the whole thing into the sink, and threw the bottle away.

From there she came from work drunk. Nothing I said made sense. I even reported her to her parents. They called her in and poured advice and deliverance on her. She came back home and did worse. One evening she came home so drunk she could barely stand on her feet. Had it not been for the timely support I gave her, she would have fallen on her face. We had a huge argument. She wasn’t making sense so I waited until she was sober, then we continued the argument. She screamed at me and I screamed back. “Do you know what it means to be pregnant? Do you know the pain I go through while you lay sleeping at night? Why can’t I drink when I’m the one dying?” 

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After the fight, the baby didn’t kick for three days. She was almost in her ninth month. We were both worried. I prayed to God asking for another chance for the baby. She heard me praying and she joined. At dawn, she held my hand to her stomach and said, “Do you hear it. He’s kicking? He’s alive.” I got up and sat on the bed. I said, “Promise me you won’t drink again. You’re very close to delivery. Promise me.” She said, “I was scared too. I’ve learned my lesson. No more drinking.”

A couple of weeks later, she gave birth. 

I was scared of what I was going to see but surprisingly, our baby was bouncing. He was so healthy and big the nurses were surprised that she could push all out without CS. It did something to my heart to see both of them well and healthy. According to my watch, my wife had been sober for over three good weeks. I told her, ”You have to remain sober for one more week and you’ll be all cleared. You won’t drink again especially when you are breastfeeding. 

Our baby is only four months old but five times I’d caught my wife drinking. Once she was drinking from a feeding bottle. She said it was water but looking at her watery eyes, I didn’t believe it was water. I snatched it and smell it. It was exactly what I suspected it was. Her excuse was still the same; “I can’t sleep at night. Do you know the pain I go through as a nursing mother? You won’t understand because all you do in the night is sleep.”

She’s a good woman allowing her life to waste away. I’ve suggested counseling. She brushed it aside. I found myself in a Whatsapp group of Alcohol addicts that helped me a lot to win over my own addiction. I added her and she took herself out.  She said she was ok and she’ll stop when the pain and the sleeplessness stops. Our child’s health is in danger but she doesn’t mind. Is there anything I could do to help her out? She knows I’m sharing this story so I’m going to read the comments with her. Kindly give us your best shot!   

–Debrah 

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