Dave looked at the bottle of amber liquid before him and realized he had started to sweat. It had been three months since he last enjoyed the taste. Now he regretted buying it, knowing full well how angry, how sad, Sally would be. But the urges were overwhelming and he picked up the razor blade that lay next to the bottle with trembling fingers, feeling sick with fear.


Dave had been an alcoholic, 'alcohol dependant' they call it these days, for years now, but it was only when he found Sally in tears two Christmases ago packing her suitcase that he finally went to his GP. A short stay in a detox unit - with follow up support - had kept him off whiskey for all of ten days.

It was then that Antabuse was suggested. A daily pill that you take, the caveat being, drink even the tiniest drop of alcohol while taking the medication and you’d become violently ill – could even die.

Sally was keen, Dave less so, but he realised that life as he knew it - marriage, job, kids - was on the line, so he agreed and for months Dave took the tablets without fail, stayed dry. Then his brother was killed in a motorcycle accident.

Did he need alcohol, or was the accident just a good excuse to need it? Dave wasn’t sure, but stopped his medication and restarted the whiskey.

With pressure from Sally he was back on Antabuse within weeks but the spell had been broken, its magic diminished. He’d stopped taking it once and found it easy to stop again.

It was during a tearful discussion with his GP that the possibility of an implant was muted. The medication would be inserted in the flesh beneath the skin under local anaesthetic where it could not be removed. Sally said nothing, but the look in her eyes was all that was needed to give Dave the courage to say yes to the surgery.


A now scarlet razor blade lay on the beige carpet and a tiny part of Dave’s mind, the part that was still sane, wondered what Sally would say about the mess. But as he held the implant in his bloody hand he knew he no longer really cared.