Today, Of Tomorrow

Alcohol is my default. Drunkeness a refuge for the insecurities and bitterness that dwell in these bones, indeed my very soul. Alcoholics (we rabid, wild flowers), regard intoxication as medicine who crave it as instinctively as breathing. To be born an addict, as there is no choice in this matter, is to be born with a heavy, persistant darkness that one learns quickly can be made bearable through liberal use of alcohol or pills (or both). So fast is this knowledge one is tempted to be overly dramatic with descriptions of angels and divine solutions but truth is more mundane, fact is that self preservation is as much part of the human fabric as any fraility and the minute we boozers get a taste of our 'medicine', addiction sets in. A wretched journey of despair, pain, lies, loathing and filth. A journey not everyone survives. In fact, I would wager more die from addiction than are accounted for because by its nature it is a disease that instills secrecy.

Today, Of Tomorrow 

 All of the horrors are given and known, have been lived through time and time again, yet the temptation of another drink remains. Not small and insignificent, harmless in the background but lurking on every thread of thought, constant in its danger to sobriety. A relentless bloodlust that should I ever lessen my grip on sobriety will ravish my soul with unspeakable terrors, as it has many times before. Sobriety isn't a natural state for me, in years distant I have used my powers of manipulation and deceit to avoid it at any cost. Today I am five years clean but its not game over. It is never game over. There is too high consequence in wanting a drink today. There is never a today. Today in drink becomes tomorrow in drink, and tomorrow after that, on and on it slides into oblivion. Like thousands of other alcoholics, the trickster becomes the tricked. The grain mistress has no equal when it comes to seductive poisons.

 Ode to Zero

 Alas I must refrain from pretty words for fear of getting distracted and this would be fatal with this disease. To put it bluntly: there are those of us where tomorrow must cease to exist. There can be no healing finish line in this race. The minute I allow to trust in tomorrow, is when things get dark. Get grim and bloody. Tomorrow is a new slate, a reset and if I believe in those, I am in danger today. Too many times I have indulged today, believing tomorrow was a new day that wouldn't bring the craving and therefore I would be safe. Alcoholism doesn't do safe. It wants you to trust. It wants to be an old friend. It wants you to put faith in it. And we all fall down.

Like Bones In A Storm

Readers familiar to trese blogs and thoughts will know by now that I am a recovering alcoholic. I spent many years under the cruel whip of addiction, and many years getting sober only to fall again and again under its spell. Its a recurring theme im afraid, as many fellow alcoholics and addicts will agree. In the life, nothing could be rarer than an alcoholic who 'gets it' the first time out. Nobody drinks, quits and suddenly become sober forever more. The moment of clarity does not drop like switching a light on and off (if only were it the case). Five years. This will be my fifth year clean from booze but I can never again believe for one second that its safe to crack open a bottle because if I did these years of sobriety would be for naught. I even hesitate to type this post for fear of stirring a demon to tempt fate and lure me back. The disease is cunning and patient, it can take refuge within any situation, ready to kill sobriety with a crushing blow. Love, pain, worry,loss; these and a hundred more can swiftly end the sober souls reign. I have been there, done it and regretfully wear the scars. We are never truly sober, even as we shy from wine. Strange as it may sound to non addicts, it really is possible to be a drunk without a drink. "Drinking thinking" we called it in rehab. Alcoholism is like a cyst soldered to the soul. A grim shadow. A beast continually searching for a chance to escape and maim. Ten years sober? One kiss from whiskey will cure that. Free from the cruel sting of alcohol withdrawal? Take a drink of ginger grain and the anguish can return like bones in a storm. Today God willing, I am sober but always guarded because like life itself, it can end in a second.