Bruce Anderson

The surprising joy of involuntary sobriety 

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I have just finished a sojourn with a curious twist. Readers of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain will remember Hans Castorp, who set off to visit a cousin confined to a sanatorium in the Alps. Nothing went according to plan. The cousin fell into a sharp decline and died. Castorp himself was diagnosed as suffering from a lung ailment and spent the next seven years in the sanitorium. This ended only with a social, political and cultural upheaval, followed by a -conflagration.

St Thomas’ Hospital is hardly the Alps. But I spent five weeks there, having expected a three-day sentence. A surgeon told me that it was one of the most complicated wrist fractures he had ever seen. That may have brought him some consolation. It was not ideal to spend Christmas and new year in an invalid bed. Friends were telling stories about proposed banquets, plans to deplete cellars, as well as cases of wine travelling from Berry Bros and the Wine Society. Then some of those who would have been my hosts started to apologise: ‘This must be awful for you – we must not make you envious.’ Oddly enough, it was surprisingly easy to resist the lure of envy. I spent five weeks drinking vicariously. I would have thought that this was impossible and would have inflicted profound psychological damage. Not so. I was astonishingly relaxed about the whole procedure.

Friends were telling stories about proposed banquets and plans to deplete cellars

It is always interesting to learn something about oneself. Anyone who enjoys drinking must occasionally wonder about their relationship with alcohol. I was delighted to learn that there was no physical dependence. I had no difficulty sleeping. I remember a conversation once with Patrick Trevor-Roper. He was a distinguished eye surgeon and an altogether delightful fellow, somewhat more socially accessible, as it were, than his brother, Hugh the historian.

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