Ending homelessness

Steve was telling me about the delusional behaviour of the drink dependent person – the alcoholic, as he refers to himself. Not, he was quick to point out, a recovered alcoholic. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. In his view, you can’t risk relaxing and then relapsing. You need to be on constant guard. At various times Steve had convinced himself that he could be a normal drinker. He would venture into his local pub and have a pint, then sit there all night trying not to think about a second pint. Having successfully reached last orders, he’d go home satisfied that his consumption of alcohol was under control.  But on the second night he would be the last to leave the pub having drank steadily all evening. By the end of the week, raging at the bar staff for refusing to serve him, his final ignominious departure was often assisted by the police. By now, out of control, he would buy six-packs of super-strength lager to drink at home. He preferred Tennent’s Super a...

When Jane, Stephen’s support worker rang me to say that Stephen was dying, I thought she meant he might be dead in two months. I said I would visit him the following week. I had last seen him six months earlier. He was slightly drunk at the time and his skin a bit blotchy, yet he was cheerful, with ambitious plans for improving his flat. I was shocked by the news and talked on for a bit, but at the other end of the phone there was one of those jarring silences when you suddenly realise that you have missed the point. ‘No, no, he’s dying now. You need to see him today’. So I cancelled my morning appointment and took the train to West Norwood. As I came off the train I could see the ambulance outside Stephen’s block. Inside the ambulance they were busy making him comfortable on the stretcher bed. A mask was clamped to Stephen’s face and his breathing was accompanied by a sickening rasp. He was a stomach-churning yellow-brown colour, the colour of someone whose liver is damaged beyond...