1986: My Happy Life in Provence

Chapter 119: The tortuous plan to quit drinking

Those medicines work great.

Ronan recovered from his illness in two days.

Although it was a minor illness, it served as a wake-up call to Ronan - he needed to take care of his health.

In fact, Ronan's lifestyle is quite healthy. He goes to bed early and gets up early, and eats a balanced diet. The only thing wrong is that he drinks too much.

Ronan decided to quit drinking for a while to allow his body to fully recover to its best condition.

After that, Ronan was no longer seen in the old tavern, and the wine in the house was replaced with water.

Louis and his group finally ended their trip to Cannes and returned to Lourmarin. The first thing they did when they got home was to eat and drink.

These Provencal people seem to be drinking machines; as long as there is wine, they will never stop.

Meeting Ronan, whom I hadn't seen for a long time, of course I had to have a couple of drinks with him, talk about interesting things in Cannes, and tease him that not going with me was definitely the biggest mistake of his life.

But these beautiful ideas ran into problems at the first step.

There was water in Ronan's cup.

"Vieri is old enough to drink, but you are drinking water?" Louis complained in dissatisfaction.

Ronan shrugged his shoulders.

"I was sick a while ago and need to recuperate."

Louis immediately became nervous:

"Is it serious?"

If Ronan was seriously ill, Zoe in Aix would have to be informed.

Otherwise my daughter will be angry when she comes back.

Ronan's expression turned serious:
"It's serious. The ambulance is here."

"My God, what's wrong?" Louis' eyebrows were twisted into eight shapes.

Vieri passed by and said lightly:
"My throat is inflamed."

Louis' heart fell heavily to the ground, and he asked Ronan speechlessly;

"Is a sore throat a serious illness?"

Ronan took a sip of water:

"Of course, I couldn't eat anything during those days and was extremely weak."

Alan heard the entire conversation between Louis and Ronan:

"The weakness is due to not drinking. Drinking a little will give me strength immediately."

As he spoke, he replaced Ronan's water glass with a wine glass:

"If you don't believe me, why don't you try?"

Ronan pushed the glass away:
"No, no, I'm quitting drinking."

Freddy heard the noise and came over with his hips twisted:
"Ronan, do you know what it means for a man not to drink in Provence?"

Ronan knew Freddy would not be able to say anything good, so he stood up and left:

"I won't drink it no matter what it means. Don't try to irritate me."

Before the meal officially started, he no longer joined the other men, but sat quietly in the corner, playing with the others, just like Zoe did at every party.

"Ronan looks like he's serious," Louis said, shaking the wine glass in his hand.

"But we've already lost Carl, and now we're missing Ronan. What's the point of drinking with only three of us?" Freddy said, holding the bottle of wine.

Carl tapped his cane:
"I just can't drink too much. I'm not dying. What are you talking about?"

Alan waved at Carl:

"Okay, okay, who hasn't cried out to quit drinking a few times? Especially after seeing a doctor."

Carl touched his cane and said:
"Indeed, those doctors are always 'alarmist'."

Provence has good air, a comfortable climate, fresh fruits and vegetables everywhere, and the oil is the best local olive oil. Life is stress-free and the villagers do not have many health problems.

But there is one disease that is very common in Provence: liver disease, because the area is full of alcoholics.

No matter which local hospital you go to in Provence or what disease you see, the doctor will include "quit drinking" in the diagnostic recommendations.

So what alcoholics hate most is going to the hospital. When doctors hear about their horrific drinking history, they will describe them as people who don’t have much time left.

Freddy sat down angrily and drank his wine:
"So I don't like going to the hospital, and I won't go to the hospital for alcohol."

"Ronan!" Louis suddenly shouted at Ronan, "Forget about that damn doctor!"

Ronan shuddered noticeably when he heard the word 'doctor'.

Carl shook his head:
"They left Ronan with a serious psychological trauma."

The alcohol rehabilitation program went much more smoothly than expected.

Whenever Ronan said that he was sick and saw a doctor, the other party would understand his decision to quit drinking and express their disgust for doctors and hospitals, even the outspoken Theo and Pierre were no exception.

There was no temptation around him, and no one encouraged him to drink. Ronan even considered whether he could change his temporary abstinence from alcohol to lifelong abstinence.

Because he found a very good shield - the hospital.

Ronan has not been to any of the hospitals in Provence, but he believes they are the safest places for people recovering from alcoholism.

Life was pretty good without alcohol, and without having to go to the old tavern, Ronan had more time to enjoy life.

That day he drove to Bonny to meet Mr. Jacques. The day before, Jacques called him and said that he had obtained a bottle of vinegar from China and wanted to know the usage scenarios of this Chinese ingredient.

After Ronan demonstrated several cooking methods to Mr. Jacques, he returned to the parking lot at the foot of the mountain and found five flyers pressed under the wipers.

In France in 1986, leaflets were a very popular means of propaganda, especially in the Luberon Mountains.

The residents here have no habit of reading magazines, and less than half of them subscribe to newspapers. If advertisers want to penetrate this area, the first choice is to distribute flyers.

Every time Ronan parks his car outside for more than half an hour, he will find advertisements inserted in the car.

The information above is also weird.

For example, which restaurant is about to open, which bakery will have a discount, a singing competition will be held in a certain place and the first prize is a brand new washing machine, a bowling competition is recruiting sponsors, sales clerks are being recruited, and drivers are urgently needed. Of course, these contents only account for a small half.

The other half reads:
A lady named Eve invites you to attend her grand masquerade ball and claims that she will "guarantee your satisfaction"; Miss Lucy is 28 years old and looks forward to spending a romantic night with you; Ms. Scarlett can meet all your requests over the phone, etc.

Most of these flyers are made in bright colors to attract the attention of car owners.

And today, all the things pressed under Ronan's wipers are of these brightly colored things.

Ronan didn't have the habit of checking these flyers and would usually just throw them away.

But one of the flyers was as brightly colored as blood.

Ronan couldn't help but wonder, what kind of passionate slogan would that be?

He took a closer look and found that this was not a pornographic advertisement, but a "blood request letter".

It said that a 4-year-old girl was in critical condition and urgently needed a large amount of blood to save her life.

Ronan drove to the blood donation address - the village government of Kabre Village - without any hesitation.

Kabre Village is a very small place with only about a hundred villagers, but there were more than a dozen cars parked in front of the village government, obviously all of them were people who came to donate blood after seeing the flyers.

However, after Ronan entered, he found that there were not so many people inside. There were only a few beds placed alone in the hall, and some scattered medical equipment. It was obviously a temporary "small hospital".

And Ronan actually saw his nightmare here - the doctor and the nurse.

"Is the child here?" Ronan asked the busy little nurse.

The nurse said without even looking up:

"Yes, her condition is not convenient for transfer."

"I'm here to donate blood," Ronan continued to tell her.

She pointed at the female doctor who had traumatized Ronan:
"Go there first and get your blood tested."

Ronan went over to line up, and there was a dark-skinned old man in front of him.

"Does it hurt?" he asked the doctor.

The stern doctor said nothing but ruthlessly stabbed the needle into his middle finger.

The old man screamed and got the answer.

The doctor transferred a few drops of blood into a purple test tube, added a drop of liquid, and shook it vigorously up and down.

After a while, she looked away from the test tube and looked at the old man:

"How did you get here?"

The old man put his middle finger into his mouth and sucked it:
"I walked here."

The female doctor's eyes revealed a strange expression, and she said harshly:
"It's a miracle you made it this far."

"What do you mean?" asked the old man.

"You are drunk. Your blood can be poured out and sealed directly in the wine bottle." The female doctor said sternly.

"Impossible!" the old man retorted, "I only drank a little bit of wine at breakfast. What's that?"

The female doctor didn't waste time on him and asked him to go to the next room to drink some coffee and come back for another test in a few hours.

The old man was obviously not satisfied with this suggestion and left cursing.

Ronan sat down nervously, giving up the idea of 'reminiscing' with the doctor.

At the same time, be thankful that quitting drinking makes sense.

Otherwise his blood should have gone directly into the bottle of pink wine.

The blood test went smoothly, and nothing went wrong except that the doctor's movements were still rude.

But Ronan had some concerns:
"I was sick a few days ago and took a lot of medicine. I don't know if it will have any effect. I remember their names-"

Ronan was halfway through his words when the female doctor pushed him aside and signaled the next person to sit down:

"I remember you, your ass is worth a lot, those drugs have been metabolized."

The eyes of the people in the queue behind moved back and forth between Ronan and the doctor, as if they had already imagined a passionate story in their minds that could make their blood boil.

Ronan was taken to the bed and a bag of blood-red liquid was removed.

The nurse pointed to the room where the drunk old man went:

"Go there and eat something, replenish yourself and then leave."

Ronan obediently went to the room, and when he pushed the door, he mistakenly thought he had entered the old Lourmarin tavern, which was full of people chatting with glasses of wine.

No wait!

Wine glass?

A male volunteer stuffed a piece of chocolate and a glass of wine into Ronan's hand and pointed to the long table in the corner:
“There are also sandwiches and cookies there, you can help yourself.”

Ronan stops him before he leaves:
“Can I swap the wine for coffee?”

The male volunteer frowned and said:
"Four cups of coffee were not refilled as quickly as one cup of wine. This is a hospital, not a cafe. Can you not be so picky?"

He pointed around impatiently:

"Go find a random place to drink, and make sure you are not feeling unwell before leaving."

Ronan held the red wine glass bitterly and joined the 'social' gatherings around him.

His alcohol rehabilitation program had to end in a makeshift hospital in Provence.

　Thanks to [Nancheng Old Times] for the reward, and also thanks to the friends who voted for the monthly ticket and recommendation ticket. Thank you for your support~
　　
　
(End of this chapter)