Goddamn i could use a beer. But that beer will lead to bad things. I may lose my job if I drink a beer. I'll stop going to school again if I drink a beer. I'll lose everything I've broken my ass to accomplish the last 3 years. Yep May 29th,2007 was the last time i tasted a drop of alcohol, or did a bump of cocaine. Yes it's true, I am an addict/alcoholic. I'll wait for you to get up off the floor.........Most days I don't even really think about it anymore, or at least don't give it a SECOND thought. After all we can't help the FIRST thought we have because it just creeps up out of nowhere, like a sneeze or someone handing out religious literature. But the SECOND thought we have control over, and my second thought has to be "you'll lose everything", for the rest of my life. For those that don't understand addiction, good for you, I hope you never have to. And not because you're life will be ruined, and you'll look like shit, and you'll get down to 125 lbs like I did at the end, but because of the rehab. Don't get me wrong, my outpatient program probably saved my life, along with AA meetings, but there is no group on this planet or any other that is more self-absorbed than recovering addicts, so that plus the fact that I have such a low tolerance for some people's self-righteous bullshit (i.e. religious literature assholes) was not a good combination. 90% of my year in outpatient was spent biting my lip, or clenching my fists, and on more than one occasion I couldn't hold it in anymore and proceeded to berate a fellow addict as if they were trying to get me to join Baby Seal Clubbers of America.
Some people had an idea something was off, but my family certainly didn't (see it's my families fault!) The real me hid in the shadows like a vigilante, but I was also hiding in plain sight. I bar tended for about 5 years, not all of them as bad as others, and I loved being loved. Who doesn't love the bartender?? I drank and bumped, and drank and bumped and had a blast, giving out singles for the jukebox, talking to people all night long, arguing about sports, arguing about politics, drinking and bumping, and then as the clock started to get closer to 330 AM , and it was almost time to start cleaning up and count out, and try to tactfully get those last couple of ghouls out, the loneliness set in. The dark reality that soon it was just going to be me and the jukebox hit like a clap of Texas thunder, and once again I'd wonder why I hadn't learned from last time. Here I am, alone in a dark bar, enough cocaine in my system to make a hippo want to do the Running Man for a week, and I had no one to have coke-chatter with. For those of you who don't know, if you're high enough you'll talk to a parking meter if you have to, because when you're that high you're the smartest person you know, and you speak with a rhythm that would make Shakespeare throw his feathery pen at you in jealousy. But alas, I shall say goodnight till it be morrow motherfuckers! (See it's Shakespears fault!...reaching? yes...but it can't possibly be MY fault) Most nights ended with a cab ride home, morning birds mocking me as I walked in my house, sleep until 4pm, then get up and do it alll over again. 
Once I got clean I realized a couple of things.... 1. I was more than likely the most insecure person in the world. The only way I could possibly be more insecure is if i had a big fluffy white tail attached to my ass...2. I'm not as smart, or as well-spoken as I thought, just ask the parking meter....and 3- 99% of the people who were my "bar friends" I had never once hung out with sober. Would I even be able to stomach them if I wasn't shitfaced? (See it's my bar frien....you get the point) Of course there are probably a million other things I've learned about myself and the world in general in the last 3 years, one of them being that i wasted almost an entire decade of my life that I'll never get back. But I've come to terms with that, and whats done is done. Stay tuned...my boring sober life is only 3 years old, there's much more reflecting, whining, and reminiscing ahead. Lucky you.
I won't go into what lead to me getting clean because it's just not that interesting, but there is no way I would be sitting here spewing my self-righteous bullshit if i hadn't. I would without a doubt be dead or in jail. After I lost job #1 because I just could not meet the outlandish expectation of being there on time at 2 in the afternoon (see it's my job's fault!), like any good alcoholic I started bar tending for a living. Well done sir. Free beer even when I wasn't working, and tax-free cash which went in one hand passed into the other and straight up my nose.....(see it's the drug dealers fault!) And of course like any good addict I dated a girl for a year who may or may not have been more fucked up then I was..(see it was HER fault!) The scariest part of being hooked on drugs and booze isn't so much the terror of not knowing how the ride will end, or finding out what it could have done to you afterwards, it's finding out the hard way just how good of a liar you can really be.
Some people had an idea something was off, but my family certainly didn't (see it's my families fault!) The real me hid in the shadows like a vigilante, but I was also hiding in plain sight. I bar tended for about 5 years, not all of them as bad as others, and I loved being loved. Who doesn't love the bartender?? I drank and bumped, and drank and bumped and had a blast, giving out singles for the jukebox, talking to people all night long, arguing about sports, arguing about politics, drinking and bumping, and then as the clock started to get closer to 330 AM , and it was almost time to start cleaning up and count out, and try to tactfully get those last couple of ghouls out, the loneliness set in. The dark reality that soon it was just going to be me and the jukebox hit like a clap of Texas thunder, and once again I'd wonder why I hadn't learned from last time. Here I am, alone in a dark bar, enough cocaine in my system to make a hippo want to do the Running Man for a week, and I had no one to have coke-chatter with. For those of you who don't know, if you're high enough you'll talk to a parking meter if you have to, because when you're that high you're the smartest person you know, and you speak with a rhythm that would make Shakespeare throw his feathery pen at you in jealousy. But alas, I shall say goodnight till it be morrow motherfuckers! (See it's Shakespears fault!...reaching? yes...but it can't possibly be MY fault) Most nights ended with a cab ride home, morning birds mocking me as I walked in my house, sleep until 4pm, then get up and do it alll over again. 
Once I got clean I realized a couple of things.... 1. I was more than likely the most insecure person in the world. The only way I could possibly be more insecure is if i had a big fluffy white tail attached to my ass...2. I'm not as smart, or as well-spoken as I thought, just ask the parking meter....and 3- 99% of the people who were my "bar friends" I had never once hung out with sober. Would I even be able to stomach them if I wasn't shitfaced? (See it's my bar frien....you get the point) Of course there are probably a million other things I've learned about myself and the world in general in the last 3 years, one of them being that i wasted almost an entire decade of my life that I'll never get back. But I've come to terms with that, and whats done is done. Stay tuned...my boring sober life is only 3 years old, there's much more reflecting, whining, and reminiscing ahead. Lucky you.
VERY VERY VERY proud of you! And I love this post. Thanks for sharing!
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