These are selected stories from the book and that have been sent in by visitors. Please email us with your own stories and we will publish them here to benefit the community. Email your stories to shona@safercommunity.org.nz

The Elephant in the living Room - Jen Gilchrist

I never knew my grandmother, Maryanne, she died when I was only 3 weeks old, but I have lived my life in her aura.
Maryanne immigrated with her first husband from Cornwall to Australia in the late 1800’s  and was widowed there and sometime later married my grandfather William Moore, a Dubliner.  Together they came to New Zealand settling finally in Auckland.

Over her life Maryanne gave birth to 13 babes, 10 of whom succumbed to childhood diseases; measles, whooping cough, diphtheria and scarlet fever.  Her first two babes died on the voyage from England to Australia, one only a tiny babe at breast.
Of the remaining three, Leslie drowned in a Hamilton lake at age 17, Beatrice died in suspicious circumstances at 25 and my mother, the youngest and known as the runt of the litter survived to the age of 68.

Grandma was widowed again in 1908 when her spouse was killed in a railway accident, leaving her to survive with 3 children, no income and a huge grief burden.  It seems she lived a life of unrelenting sorrow.  Maryanne was however one feisty woman who became a suffragette and an early member of the labour party throwing her formidable energy into each of these endeavours.
It only became apparent to our family years later that part of the cause of a great deal of Maryanne’s sorrow could be found in her continuous fight for liquor prohibition.  Granddad had been a soak. It was something that was never talked about but just sat in our living room, a great big elephant. 

After granddad’s death, when my mother was only four years old, poverty was the norm for the family.  My mother was farmed out to neighbours while her mother worked, then when she reached school age became her siblings responsibility.  

Hunger was a constant fear and marked my mother for life.   Life was very hard for widows before the introduction of the widow’s benefit and my mother could remember when broken biscuits bought very cheaply were the only food in the house. 

At the age of 8 my mother suffered a severe grumbling appendix and as there was no free medical system then in New Zealand and Grandmama could not afford hospital fees for an operation, my mother was starved, this being the only known treatment apart from surgery.  Left home alone she found some stale old ginger nuts, ate them and was thoroughly beaten for disobedience!
My mother’s childhood hunger followed her for life and when I was a child I would find sweets secreted in drawers through the house, chocolate was her addiction.

My grandmother worked fiercely to support her family.  She earned her living as a land agent and after building two rental properties became a landlady.  Photos of her show a grim faced, small, plump woman all in black with a small black widow’s bonnet with ribbons tied in a bow beneath her determined chin.

Her fight for prohibition continued.  In her mind it was a family’s only defence against alcohol abuse, alcoholism was alive and flourishing in early New Zealand.   It never became law across the whole nation, although a number of areas were ‘dry’.  However, strict drinking hours eventuated bringing into being the infamous 6 o’clock swill. 

My mother Ivy married at 18, against Maryanne’s wishes and of course had chosen an alcoholic.  She eventually left the relationship carrying one suitcase and leading her three year old son by the hand.  Some years later she married a much nicer man, my father but carried with her an enormous fear of alcohol which coloured the atmosphere in our home at times.  If Dad went to the pub after work for even one beer he would “Dine on cold shoulder for a week!”  They did however have a loving 38 year long marriage, and my father grieved terribly after her death.

At seventeen, nursing and living in a nurse’s home, I fell madly in love with a gorgeous re-haired sailor, who was home on leave for eight weeks.  When I asked my mother’s permission to spend my precious, rarely granted weekend off at his parent’s hotel in the country my mother abruptly refused permission.  No explanation was given and she told me I was to have nothing more to do with this young man.  I was desperately hurt and bewildered and asked my father to intervene, but he refused saying it would make no difference, he’d already tried to reason with her without any luck. 

I was heartbroken and resented my mother for ruining my chance at love.  It took fifteen more years for me to fall in love with another man and marry.   My husband was my beloved.   He was a darling of a man - until he served in Vietnam in 1967.  In the years that followed he drowned his sorrows in the bottle and we separated. 

Within months, I nursed my mother through her final weeks of life.  While washing her hair I came across numerous scars in her scalp and she told me about her first husband a vicious drunkard who had attacked her with a gin bottle.  During the attack she lost the baby she was carrying and pulling herself together came up with the strength to leave the marriage. 
The elephant in the living room was starting to speak.

My journey was only just beginning though, my youngest son was a self destructive alcoholic by the age of 33.  Totally worn down by his actions I applied for and was admitted to Hamner Springs Hospital.  This was a changing point in my life.  I learned how not to be co-dependent.  Within months my son underwent treatment and eventually gained recovery. 

Now in my immediate family addiction and its attendant behaviours are openly addressed and life is good.  We have a strong basis on which to live our lives and good supportive friends.

The elephant is no longer in the living room.

Wine and my Inner Pirate Girl – Sandra Forsyth

I discovered my inner pirate girl while living in Dubai. Alcohol sales were restricted to major hotels and only those holding the hard to obtain Liquor Licence issued by the police could attend the few exorbitantly priced liquor outlets. Being a recent resident of Dubai, and a single older woman, my social life was limited. It was considered culturally inappropriate for me to drink alone in the many gorgeous hotels and the prices! With the realisation that despite living in an Islamic country, there were ways to get my wine other than via these restrictive and eye-wateringly expensive channels, I enthusiastically embraced the black market. 

There were two alcohol outlets an hours trek into the desert. The downside was how to make the return journey without having an accident, instant car search, alcohol test, deportation, or being randomly pulled over by the police, with the same result. Gambling with automatic deportation and driving through another Emirate with a total liquor ban, deportation preceded by a few years in jail, was a small price to pay for my nightly wine and off I went. 

On my many wine runs I was never sure whether to wear my gold dangly pirate earrings or my equally blingy (it was Dubai after all) combat trousers. Should I include an overnight bag for my instant holiday courtesy of Sheikh Mo?

The day after the official end of Ramada the Barracuda Outlet resembled a session of the United Nations. Two steps inside the door I had trolley bruises on my legs and a major headache. The tills were smoking – the customers and staff were smoking. Expats wielded their piled high trolleys ramming those who got in their way – the place seethed with aggression. But oh the prices were divine! Embracing this slice of heaven my inner pirate girl dived right – where are you darling Mr Pinot Gris? 

Outside the car park was an overwhelming sea of large four wheel drives, trolleys, people noise and fumes. The 10 dirhams I flashed in the air conjured my good Samaritan and with him at the helm of my trolley, the crowd parted like the Red Sea and my contraband was loaded in no time. My friend sped off in search of his next 10 dirhams, his family in India would eat well that month – we were both economic slaves but for some the bonds are tighter than others. Now to join the expat camel train back to Dubai and hope no one noticed the back of my car was weighted down.

The Emirati gentleman in the brand new gleaming black Mercedes at the Al Hamra Outlet seemed to have it sussed. No unseemly trolley bashing – simply drive to the door, toot for attention and slide the shopping list and cash through the barely opened window. Minutes later the attendant loads the open boot and gratefully accepts his tip. Transaction complete. Imperious behaviour? Yes. An example of Dubai’s attitude to other races? Yes. An example of Dubai’s double-standard relating to alcohol? Yes!

These days buying my wine from Pak’ N Save isn’t half as interesting and my inner pirate girl, while not missing the exorbitant prices of her wine, does sometimes miss those Dubai days. And oh how she misses that Dubai bling!

Love - Annabel Fagan

I returned home one evening latish, about eight o 

“Mum, Mum,” he cried, “Mum!”   

I ran into the bathroom and he stood up and hugged me, dripping wet.   

“Mum,” he said, “my girlfriend’s dumped me.”   

His voice was slurred and I knew at once he was drunk.   I hugged him back, helped him out of the bath and dried him with a large towel.    He was crying by then and saying his girlfriend’s name, Chrissie, over and over again.    I murmured sympathetic words as I helped him into bed.   He fell asleep straight away and I thankfully retired too.  

Half an hour later I heard him being sick and rushed to his room.    After cleaning up he was sick again, then again and I resigned myself to the role of all night bowl holder for my beloved child so he wouldn’t choke to death on his own vomit.   People do, so I’ve heard.

In the morning he was pale but alive.   We both slept a bit then I got up and made some toast with a wee scraping of butter and a cup of tea.   He drank the tea, nibbled the toast and stared at me.   

“Joshi,” I said, “don’t ever get in the bath when you’ve been drinking.    You could have passed out and drowned.”

He nodded, looking very serious and ill.  

“You shouldn’t have touched my wine either. How much did you drink?”

“A bottle,” he answered, "but you drink mum. You do it when you’re upset too, I’ve seen you.   I didn’t know it could make me feel so awful, you never told me.”    

“Well, I’m telling you now,” I said, smoothing his forehead and hoping that this would be a lesson for him never to go on the booze again.

Of course life is not that simple.   But I wish I’d talked to him earlier about the hazards of alcohol, warned him, hadn’t drunk so much in front of him.   As a single mother, I used wine sometimes when I was lonely. He saw me of course.   If I’d changed my ways would it have made any difference?   And what if I’d come home late or not at all….

My son is a fully-grown man now and looks after himself.    He drinks.   But what I don’t know doesn’t hurt me, as the saying goes. 

I still worry.