The wonderful organisation Alcoholic Anonymous has always championed the Twelve Steps process as a genuine pathway to recovery for alcoholics.
As a bloated, highly unhealthy numbskull diagnosed as a functioning alcoholic in 2006, I skipped the first twelve steps and set my sights on an ambitious, highly unlikely to achieve ‘thirteenth step’ to recovery. Run the Melbourne Marathon within a year.
I had my last drink at a hotel in Perth watching a blues band and celebrating my younger brother’s forty first birthday in late October 2007. I was purposely violently ill that night and it signalled the end of booze and smokes forever.
The main impetus for quitting came a month prior when I attended a funeral for our childhood mate Brett in Fremantle. Brett had taken his life and his brother Glen, a premiership team mate of mine in Brisbane and close friend, rang me in Melbourne with the news.
The funeral had some light moments because Brett was one of the funniest, kindest people you could ever meet. Unfortunately he must have had a dark secret and this was exacerbated by alcohol.
I was in my eighth year working for a global booze company and slowly but surely the industry alone had become all encompassing. They were a great company and I don’t blame them at all for the predicament I found myself in.
I had always been susceptible to addiction of anything. Some of us are just born with a weakness in the brain’s prefrontal cortex and addiction is a very real disease.
When I joined the army at seventeen, drinking and smoking were a cultural staple and a pot (middy) cost forty cents and twenty cents on pay nights. A $5 note was all you needed and you always left with change. It was hog heaven.
The only thing that stopped me drinking all the time was football. I was a footy nerd and extremely serious about my preparation. That would end after a game when the “you deserve this” mentality would kick in and I would head toward oblivion again.
Coupled with an addictive personality was my undiagnosed bi-polar disorder which added to the confusion throughout my twenties. It was a toxic mix but by the time of Brett’s funeral I was forty four and in control of the bi-polar. I just needed to clamp the booze.
I’d always wanted to run the marathon post footy but I didn’t expect to be doing it at forty five and woefully unfit.
It had been eight years since I had attempted anything like significant excursion. My cholesterol was red flagging and I was thirty kilos overweight.
My relationship with my former wife was deteriorating and my kids were not getting the Dad they needed. My drinking was no longer a binge. It was every night and excessive.
There wasn’t much science to the next eleven months training. I could only grab every available opportunity to get miles into my legs, no matter what distance. My job was very time consuming and involved a lot of travel so it was preventing any progress I felt.
I started to shed the cobwebs around March 2008 and ran a solo half marathon in Melbourne. Then in May 2008 my work friend Gretchen and I ran the Great Ocean Road Half Marathon which is a bit longer at 23km.
We finished around 2 hours 20 mins and sat exhausted having a drink. At around 2 hours 40 mins the first marathon runner, a Kenyan, came bursting through the tape. I think their distance was 45km from Lorne. Insane.
Then twenty minutes later came the first woman, accompanied by Ballarat legend Steve Monaghetti. Monnas wore his typical broad grin and as he finished he spotted a mate in the crowd and exhaulted, “Gday Terry!” as though he’d just walked from the carpark to the finish line.
Gretchen and I were stunned at this level of athleticism and looked at each other knowing that in five months we would need to double the distance we had just completed. It seemed a bridge too far in that moment.
A week before the Melbourne Marathon, I wanted to run 30km as a final preparation. The family home was on Phillip Island and I was there on weekends. I picked a beautiful return run off the beaten track that included running along spectacular cliffs near Pyramid Rocks.
Unfortunately on the way back the endorphins took over and suddenly I was channelling Steve Monaghetti. I decided to cancel the planned 30km route and ran an extra 6km back to the cliffs.
By the time I got home it was dark. I’d been away for over three hours and my legs and back were in agony. The only positive was that I had convinced myself that I only needed another 6km and I was a marathoner! Piece of piss.
On the day of the marathon I was walking with Gretchen who lived near the Botanical Gardens and I needed a “number 2’s”. At this point it gets a little ugly but it happened and therefore it’s in context…sorry.
There are these green metal public toilets on the Yarra and the toilet paper is the old wax style which may as well be an old plastic shopping bag. Whilst doing my business, there were desperate marathoners banging on the door so my usual meticulous bathroom routine was rushed and incomplete.
2km into the marathon I need another “number 2”. This time I spotted another green toilet about 200m from where I was on St Kilda Rd.
I rushed down there, got comfortable but I was soon accosted by another rabid crowd of runners banging on the door. More unsatisfactory attention to the vital areas and I was back in the race, only this time I was running with what felt like a bird’s nest attached to my bottom. Only 40km to go.
The marathon takes you around Albert Park Lake and to Port Melbourne where you turn left and head along Beach Rd to Hampton which is the 27km mark and the point where you turn to head back to ‘The G’.
It was twenty eight degrees that day and I know interstaters would say that’s nothing, but the one thing you don’t want in Melbourne is a northerly breeze to add to any heat.
There was a forty knot northerly blowing that day so when you turned left at Beach Rd, the breeze was behind you and pretty much unnoticeable.
That false sense of security took me all the way to Hampton and as soon as I turned to head back I knew this wasn’t going to be pretty.
Gretchen’s now husband John was at the St Kilda Junction on his bike with his daughter Bella urging me on. I ripped into him with a barrage of expletives, desperate to release some of my pain. He laughed his head off. 5km to go.
As I approached ‘The G’ I looked behind me and there weren’t many runners left. I could even see officials picking up witches hats. The pressure was on.
I saw Dennis Lillee’s statue and in a delirious moment thought that Dennis was where we entered the arena.
It wasn’t to be. An official blocked us and told us to run in a semi-circle and go under the stadium and enter ‘The G’ from the tunnel. All up another 800m. I gave him a spray as well and he also laughed.
Finishing at ‘The G’ is exciting but frankly I couldn’t have cared less if it was Timbuktu, I just wanted the pain to end. Thankfully it did.
What they don’t tell you is that the agony isn’t over. You need to get home. I headed toward South Yarra and thankfully John and Gretchen turned up. Gretchen gave me her flat key while she went to St Kilda for her recovery.
I stood under a cold shower for twenty minutes before heading to Phillip Island to reflect.
My time for the marathon?, almost five hours twenty eight minutes. Depending on how you look at it, it could be a failure or a success.
The time is terrible but there were some mitigating circumstances behind that, eg being obese with a poor preparation, but the real purpose was to honour Brett whose name I had written on my wrist and to set a good example for my kids.
It will be nineteen years this year since my last drink and dart. My work mates and friends have been so supporting over the years. I can now drink a zero alcohol beer comfortably without some maniacal craving for the real thing.
I liken the marathon as a form of corporal punishment. Alcoholics often live with enormous regret and a desire to hurt themselves. For that reason alone, the marathon is a damn fine 13th step option.
