A Lonely Road to Nowhere

By Ned Wicker

So in the end, what does it amount to anyway? When we were children, being the class clown was entertaining because it broke up the monotony of the day and everyone knew you got extra points for irritating the teacher.

In our young adult years, people loved the life of the party guy, who wore lampshades and told funny stories. As we get older, we know the guy who is always buying a round, whose “Give everybody a drink” is a signal of success or accomplishment. But it all gets old.

The story is repeated thousands of times. The place doesn’t matter. The details of the story are not as important as the pattern of the tale.

“Johnny” just liked to have a good time and do as he pleased. He liked his motorcycle and he liked his beer. He liked playing tricks on people, you know, the kind of practical jokes that aren’t really funny, but not serious enough to cause anyone to become angry. He thought they were funny. He was not a man of accomplishment, mainly because he never held a job long enough to advance in the ranks or cultivate any kind of professional interests. For his entire adult lifetime, he had no goals, no ambitions and life itself had no meaning other than a succession of seemingly unconnected experiences.

Not long ago, a friend found him passed out in his bedroom. He lived in a communal setting, as several men shared a rented house. There was also a woman named Dixie living there and the guys thought of her in terms of somebody to clean the place and pick up after them. Johnny, who had started taking shots of whiskey with his beer about four years ago, had been declining in his battle with alcoholism. For over three years, his taste for whiskey with a beer chaser became an excessive, everyday ritual.

There had been some attempt at getting him into treatment, but with limited resources and no particular desire to stop drinking, Johnny gave his treatment opportunities a cursory nod, then went back to his business. It was actually Dixie who found him that day and she tried to help.

“They (the men) weren’t going to do anything but just let him lay there,” she said. “I tried to wake him up, but he didn’t want to wake up, so I called 911.”

Johnny spent the next 21 days in the intensive care unit, mostly non-responsive. His body had shut down, necessitating the medical team to intubate him and give him medication to help him detox. He would wake up briefly from time-to-time, but never was completely with it.

Dixie, who was in recovery herself, camped out at the hospital during his stay and tried to advocate for his care. Johnny had a sister, who had medical power of attorney, but she was several states away and only communicated by phone. Most of the time Johnny’s sister was hard to reach, so Dixie tried to fill the void. She had her own issues and would sometimes act inappropriately with staff.

Johnny was diagnosed with severe, advanced cirrhosis of the liver. The toxic effect of the alcohol had ravaged his body, and even with a concerted effort, there was nothing the doctor and staff could do for him. They arranged for him to be transferred to hospice, where he died after two days. Dixie stayed with him and explained, “There’s nobody who cares about him and nobody to help him over the bridge. I guess that’s what I’m supposed to do.”

In simple terms, Johnny literally drank himself to death. Alcoholism is an ugly way to die. No medical intervention in Johnny’s case was going to reverse the damage that had been done through repeated abuse of alcohol, over a prolonged period of time. Johnny’s body was shipped to his sister for burial. Dixie informed the hospital staff of his passing.

“Somebody’s got to care for people,” she said. “He didn’t have anybody, nobody cared. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be.”

Johnny was 59 years old.

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