Never to excuse in any way the utter selfishness of those that would drive while drunk and murder the innocent because of such utter selfishness Mel Gibson is demon possessed, and my heart goes out to him because of this possession. Henry Thoreau described New England rum as a demon that first comes in as a friend, but once invited goes on to murder whole families.

Certainly Billy Sunday and the resulting Volstead Act were an aberration in America, but Billy’s sermon on Demon Rum exclaiming “Booze has its place, but its place is in hell!” moved hearts and increased the numbers signing pledges and joining temperance movements. Cooler heads did not prevail in America at the time, the result being a bootleg industry and organized crime having a field day from which our nation never recovered. Good intentions and all that.

But I fear Mel is not going to find an exorcist. An alcoholic I loved put it very well when she told me: “No one can save me but me.”

Being professionally qualified to do so I helped a group found the first drug and alcohol abuse center in Lancaster in 1975. But it took loving and living with an alcoholic to really open my eyes to this affliction. At that, no one really understands an alcoholic but another alcoholic, and as cruel as it is the alcoholic only has one true love, only one true friend, and that is the booze. But no one loving an alcoholic wants to believe this.

A few years ago I lost someone I cared for deeply to alcohol. His name was Nelson, a very intelligent and artistic man with whom I had many profound conversations. By the time I met him he had lost everything to the booze, his family, his job, and he was forced to live with his elderly parents in Kernville. But with their death, he was forced to fend for himself. Things became so bad that when I would visit trash would be everywhere, the refuse from frozen dinners and other things accumulating to the point the place looked like a health hazard. But he would not allow me to get someone to come in and do any housekeeping, the booze made him paranoid about having anyone but me even visit.

I had driven Nelson to doctor’s appointments with the VA in Bakersfield when he could no longer make the trips safely. But in conversation with him I became aware he was holding something from me; such was the closeness of our association I could intuit something amiss.

But it was when he could no longer even make the drive from his place to the liquor store in Kernville that he lost all hope. That morning when he did not call me and I could only get his answering machine I knew he was dead.

Having a number for a neighbor of Nelson I called and asked if they would check on him. In a short time the neighbor called confirming my suspicion. The police were there by the time I was able to drive to the place. Discounting booze being his only “friend,” I was the closest human association to Nelson, so it became my responsibility to wait for the coroner from Bakersfield to arrive, but I couldn’t watch as Nelson’s body was taken from the car in which he had taken his life. Bottles of brandy and beer were in the car and on the ground next to it. But Nelson had been hoarding pills given him at the VA, and these and the booze were the method he chose to end his life.

It was summer, and Nelson had placed a portable radio next to his car tuned to a music station. The car was running with the A/C turned on when the neighbor found him; Nelson had made himself comfortable to the occasion. But it was left to me to make “final arrangements” for many things. The alcoholic never considers the burden they place on others and true to form Nelson had made no arrangements for his passing. What can one consider about such things when whatever demon takes possession of the mind?

Granting in some cases suicide may be a permanent solution to a temporary problem years ago I stopped passing judgment on those that take their own lives. The fact is that whether because of physical or emotional pain life is no longer endurable, when the hopelessness is so consuming death is the only way out is not for anyone to judge. Sam Clemens had reason enough to call death “the only pure and unalloyed gift of God.”

Once I had taken care of the essential things that morning, I came home and was compelled to write an account of Nelson and what had transpired. I gave this account to a friend at the Kern Valley Sun who chose to publish it in full, feeling it would not only be a kind of eulogy for Nelson, but a caution to others.

But booze makes no distinction based on family or friends, on position in life or any amount of wealth or fame, and the wino in the gutter living on the streets is no worse off in their prison of booze than many of great rank. AA has a history of helping alcoholics and they do good work. But while I wish for a happy outcome for Mel Gibson no one can save him but him.