I was a drinker in my youth, I've written of it previously. Back in the day I drank Scotch mainly. Special occasions however, I opted for Martinis. Back in the day I always stopped at three. I knew somehow, a fourth would render me senseless. I liked the feeling of three. I was happy, chatty and despite the alcohol still coherent enough to not go further.

Some few nights back, my nephew James who now lives with us dug up a full bottle of Gin from my mother's hiding place. Dylan remembered the almost-full bottle of Vermouth we'd bought over the summer when we'd sometimes shake and not stir the odd Martini. Usually of a nighttime these days, the three of us will share a joint and launch into some deep discussion about "existence and the meaning of everything" else pop a movie on and analyse it whilst watching. We had no weed that night so drinks it was.

I rarely drink alcohol these days. I smoke weed for the nerve pain in my back, having weaned myself off the painkillers prescribed. It soothes. I get some few hours of a curious relief, since I am so used to pain I also kinda miss it when it is not there.

We found the shaker and I measured out three drinks. The familiar perfume-like fragrance as always took me to "back in the day". The previous week had been a tough one. We nearly lost my father and lived some hours of sheer panic and helplessness in ER as we watched a team of several doctors, nurses and allied staff surround him trying to stabilise his heart following a heart attack.

The situation was a "damned either way" scenario. After six hours of his heart beating at over 160pbm and various drugs given intravenously to try slow the rhythm, I was called to a conference. The "Boss" doctor laid out the facts: Dad would not last more than a few more hours without intervention. Intervention meant attempting to shock his heart back into its regular irregular rhythm. The procedure involved using anesthetic since the shock to the heart was a very painful experience. My father however cannot be anesthetised due to his failing heart and other medical issues. Any dose of anesthetic can kill him.

I had to make the call: Intervene and potentially lose him, or lose him without intervention if his heart did not revert in the next few hours on its own, aided by a cocktail of meds. I spoke briefly to my brother who has been living in Japan since early January. He agreed we risk shocking his heart. The boys also agreed.

The doctor then suggested they try the minimum dose and hope for the best. The boys mum and I stood outside the curtained-off emergency resus room as a dozen people did whatever needed doing on the other side. We heard the "Stand clear" from a female doctor and then a scream from my father. He was asleep but not so much he didn't feel the shock of the paddles. A few moments of terror followed as they tried to revive him and finally, the tough old man slowly came to. His heart miraculously began slowing down. He survived the procedure.

The damage his heart sustained those hours however, combined with several blocked arteries and the need for a pacemaker that can never be fitted means he is on limited time now. Today, tomorrow, next week... everyone I asked the following days in hospital as he lay attached to tubes and wires just shook their shoulders and gave various versions of "Who knows..."

Given there is nothing that can be done surgically, he was sent home once his heart stabilised. They also stopped his sleeping medication since his breathing was very iffy when asleep; his blood oxygen levels dropping to the mid-seventies. There was no time to wean him off it despite the many years of use, he had to go cold-turkey.

The night before I didn't stop at three martinis, I'd been up all night fighting to keep him in his bed. I lost count of the number of times I had to undress him and tell him to "go back to sleep, it's 1.0am, 2.00am, 4.00am" and so on. He feared going to sleep; he'd had the heart-attack upon waking so there was reason for his fear. He'd slept at the hospital only because he felt secure there.

That's one third of the back story. Another third is my mother's mental situation. Simply, she is losing touch with her sanity; the disease accelerating despite a pack full of meds and a team of doctors, therapists and nurses monitoring her at home every few days. The initial diagnosis of depression and psychosis has devolved into... hell.

Our house is now a nursing home, palliative care facility and insane asylum. Some days, we all feel crazy. Like it is contagious. The weed helps of a nighttime; we get a few hours of "mental relief" from dispensing meds to each parent four times a day, shopping, doctors, irrational screaming and all sorts of weirdness from mum and... me having to do night duty for both now as they are each for different reasons prone to falls. Some nights I have to wake one or more of the boys to help me get dad off the floor, depending on where he's fallen.

The last third is personal. I both mourn the loss of the presence of someone I love deeply and agonise to understand how we got to this weird ending. Did we drift into it? Are we both at fault? What the fuck happened? My mind battles the turmoil of a hundred different thoughts vying to present their case. Some thoughts insist it is my fault, others blame him for the complacency he settled us into. We've tried several times to reconnect but it is just not happening.

So there I was, savouring my first Martini and feeling a very welcome mellowness. What happened next... I was so engrossed in the discussion underway between the boys and me I remember shaking another round and then another. After that, there is a blank. I still have no recall. I woke up to a raging headache, rabid thirst, the need to vomit and... oh no!!!

I only have the boy's version of events. Apparently, I declared sometime after my fifth Martini that I needed to send an email to him I love. I set about composing a few sentences which must have made sense to my senseless brain at the time. Dyls tried to dissuade me but I'd have none of it. James tried too. I am, in hindsight, not convinced they had no hand in its composition given their own drunken state but they are both much heavier than my 44 kilos and they'd eaten and swear it was all my doing. (Unlike most, I tend to starve my shitty feelings.)

This is what the man I love received:

It occurred, in the midst of my drunken sTATE THAT I miss hlu. Aparenly I am prwgnN and yoy are the vusr of my oddspring/. i amit.AWSEMER MEANSBUT WE re utgay . OUR OFFSRING is awrasomer.vI HQV4 MO IDE wT Q

Ever yourass

Yep. The above is what landed in his inbox. My signature "Ever yours" having transformed into...

I have no recall of sending it. Dylan said I was yelling for one of them to "Press the damn send button, I can't bloody find it!" James pressed send after I threatened to disown him.

The next morning, I got a stern lecture from Dylan. He's never seen me drunk. Much like I chose celibacy rather than expose them to a series of "dads", I never smoked weed or drank more than a single drink in front of them till they both became of age.

Fighting nausea and the deepest mortification, I reminded him of his own drunken adventures. "You should have had my back, you ass! How many times have I had to deal with a vomit-festooned bathroom huh?"

He backed off. Apologised. I in turn, tried to compose a convoluted apology to him who received the above abomination. I tried several times. In the end, I wrote a couple of short paragraphs and sent them off.

"There's no coming back from this one mum."

"Shut up!"

James tried to console me. "Maybe he'll see the humour in it, fam."

"Shut up!"

They shut up. My mind kept going however and the rest of the day was spent reflecting. My stupidity mostly.

So here is where I tell you: Know your limit and stick to it. Don't rely on others to curb your stupidity. Don't excuse/justify your behaviour because you are caught in a crappy loopy set of circumstances. Control your bloody mind and don't let it run loose! The aftermath is never pretty and always, always is far worse than what you try escaping from.

I swore not to touch alcohol again till 2030. I figure at that age if I am still hanging around, I may as well drink since there will be little else I can actually enjoy by then. I swore never, ever to go past three Martinis however. I don't see me changing no matter how many years intervene. A writer writes. A drunk writer writes abominations.

Unless you are Ernest Hemingway...

I am not Ernest Hemingway. I am a mum caught between two generations, trying to juggle several roles at once. The role of a drunk... I honestly never expected to juggle that in the mix.

No, I've not heard back from him I love.

A couple of days later... "He respond yet, mum?"

"Nuh."

"Wanna go to the snow?"

"Ye."

Poor Marcus had to stay behind again and assume the role of carer for a few hours. It was bloody freezing up there. We didn't dress warm enough. We didn't think to take gloves along. It did me good though, this annual pilgrimage to Mt Donna Buang; this time with my gorgeous nephew tagging along on his first "adventure" with us. The boys hired toboggans and... watched the youngsters fly past them as they tried scooting their way down the bumpy and oft muddy downhill run on kiddie-sized ones.

Half way down the mountain heading home, we watched horrified as a fire truck rushed past us up the mountain. Eight other emergency vehicles followed, sirens blaring by the time we reached the bottom.

Me: "Fuck. No. Someone's gone over the side, probably..."

James: "Damn. There were a lot of families with young kids up there..."

Dylan: "Let them be safe and unhurt, whoever they are..."

We sang top of our voices on the way back- mostly to forget the discomfort of wet clothes and the thoughts of "It could well have been us". Oddly, both son and nephew listen to sixties and seventies music; something I am grateful for- especially this day, given the long travel time there and back and the ensuing disaster on the mountain.

Earlier, on the way up however...

"I better warn you Jimmy, mum uses these road trips to teach life lessons. We're captives."

"She does?"

"Ye."

"Uhhh?"

"She grills everyone."

"She? She? Hey, I'm here! I can hear you!"

"Here we go..."

"Hey James, tell me-"

(Combined groans.)