It produces gross disorders in both thought and emotion and makers sufferers prone to mood swings and depression Yet it
It produces gross disorders in both thought and emotion, and makers sufferers prone to mood swings and depression “Yet it was such a relief to get the diagnosis,” Ed says. “I had thought I was going mad.”The diagnosis gave him new courage He went to his first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous It too was not a straightforward course. “I was off the drink for four years, but then went back on it for three years Then I came off again. It is still a day at a time but I have been sober now since 4 July, American Independence Day, 1995.”It was an independence day for Ed too In his darkest days his kestrels had been no help.
“When I had a bird when I was drinking I felt negligent and felt I had to get rid of it,” he recalls. Though he has had a bird for most of the last three decades he kept giving them away when his drinking was most out of control. “When I was at my worst in drink I couldn’t deal with the bird. There were probably a total of five years when I couldn’t face having a kestrel in the house.” Looking back he now sees that birds and booze were not just incompatible, they were mutually exclusive. The insight prompted him to attempt to analyse why.In part, of course, it’s practical.
His present kestrel, Jude, a two-year-old female, lives on a perch in the living room of his flat. (He doesn’t believe in the standard practice of tethering.) That means he has constantly to keep a window open, winter or summer, and that there are no carpets on the floor. It takes him half an hour a day to clean up her defecation and she has to be fed on day-old hen chicks; neither of which are practices for stomachs made squeamish by drink.”She helps me get out of the house,” he says. “I take her out even when the depression wants to keep me in the room But it’s more than that There’s a stillness and a quietness about the birds.
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