How to Drink Yourself to a Bleeding Arse

Disclaimer: Some of you might remember this column from a few years back when we still lived at Viceland. When we moved to VICE.com, though, it disappeared, so now we've dug it up. Enjoy.

Hey, you rapidly decaying protoplasmic sacks of calcium and shit, my name is Dr Mona Moore. Obviously, that is not my real name, but I am a real doctor. Don't feel bad for me, though, because it means I will always have a job, an apartment ten times bigger than yours and the right to tell you what to do simply because I will always know better. Enjoy my column!

BOLLOCKS TO THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH - HOW TO DRINK YOURSELF TO A BLEEDING ARSE

I had my worst experience in A&E ever this week. I had to extract wads of bloody tissue from a homeless man’s anus after he plugged it to stop himself shitting on the streets. Every few minutes I made an excuse such as – I need more gloves – and ran to wretch with a gasp of fresh air.

I can smell true alcoholics before I see them. I’m not talking about your amateur weekend binge-drinkers; tequila-in-the eye, snorting-vodka, the 'striving for oblivion' contingent, or the middle-aged women who down three bottles of red wine a night after they put their kids to bed because they have no joy in their lives. This is the 'I want to pickle my brain, bleed from my arse and lose any sense of coherent reality forever' group. They’re the really stinky fuckers. Like arse-wad man.

He’d drunk so much he had scoured the inside of his stomach raw with ulcers, which were bleeding out so quickly it ran straight through the 6.5m of his gut, mixed with shit and leaked all over the street. His brain was so marinated in sweet dark rum that he was blissfully unaware of his own wretchedness. To be fair to him, he was a little embarrassed, which is why he had shoved toilet paper up his arse – a gesture of politeness not to leak in public.

Just when I thought this experience couldn’t get any worse, he starts telling me what a 'pretty little thing' I am. I ignore this. It can’t be happening. It can’t be possible that while I have my hands up his bum pulling out shitty rags from his anal cavity he could be chatting me up. Then three of his friends came in half way through and in all seriousness he shooed them away hissing, 'guys, fuck off, I think I’m in with the doctor.' I wanted to vomit on his blistered bare bottom.

To alchies like this, their stay in hospital is only an inconvenient break in their quest for deeper and more putrid inebriation. I have caught patients drinking the hospital hand-sanitiser because it has at least 60 percent alcohol content and is handedly positioned within arms reach at the bottom of every patient's bed. Some are kind enough to just squirt it in their mouth while others remove the lid and drink straight from the bottle.

There are clever ones who drink yummy blue deicer because the only way to save them is by putting them on an alcohol drip. It cuts out that annoying middleman – the mouth. It’s an irony I’m sure that is not lost on their livers. I found one mid-twenties alcoholic tired of the waiting room with a dribble of green Toilet Duck down his stubbly chin. He tried to deny it like a naughty kid who just ate all the cookies.

Once I stabilised the bum-leak, I admitted him so he wasn’t my problem anymore and finished my shift. On my way out I passed a doubly incontinent nappy-wearing racist in a wheelchair ranting about the Chinese. After a shift like this I needed a stiff drink and fast.

Previously: What Not to Do For an Erection