Barry

"Barry, you're nearly sixty, you have to stop drinking."

He had been laying on the sidewalk, empty vodka bottles next to him, his painter's pants soaked with his piss.

""I'm trying."

"There's no time for trying. You have to stop."

He gave me a lopsided grin, and the sparkle in his eye was all I had to see.

"You have no intention of stopping."

"I said I was trying."

I worked with his brother. They were brought up in the same home with the same parents, went to the same schools, had the same friends. They drank together, got in trouble together, got older together. But Greg grew up, Barry stopped growing when he took his first drink. Something grabs hold of an alcoholic, and doesn't let go until that alcoholic lets it.

"Barry, let it go. You still have time. Call your brother, maybe he can help."

He looked at me like I was crazy.

"My brother? He don't have nothin to do with me. Big shot fireman, got all the breaks. I got nothin."

"Nobody gave your brother anything, he worked for it."

"Yup, and I drank my life away," he laughed at that, not a healthy laugh, rather the cynical snicker of a person who thinks the world is not a fair place.

"No, Barry, you're drinking your life away. You still have time. Do you want people to remember Barry the Bum, or Barry the man?"

"I been Barry the Bum so long I forgot who Barry the man is."

He looked down, at the floor of the rescue, the sparkle in his eye extinguished.

Sometimes I hate getting through to them. Sometimes I wish I could just keep my mouth shut, and let them go on in their alcohol fueled haze, living on the streets, begging for money and dying before they got well.

But I can't. One of the most important things keeping an alcoholic sober is helping other alcoholics. Even if that means breaking them.

But a broken man who knows he is broken can start to rebuild. One who doesn't see it doesn't have a chance.

I helped him into the ER. The tech had him stand in the crowded room while she got some sheets and a chock to put on the wheelchair, so that his piss didn't seep in.