two months

Two months since I had a drink. I'm clearer, more level. Most of my old t-shirts and all of my pants fit again. I feel more aware of how I'm feeling and better able to check that needs be. I'm also a thousand times less depressed.

I just read my first Zola, L'Assommoir, which shows the arc of a couple destroyed by drink. The husband gets delirium tremens; the wife dies under a staircase. While both situations struck me as extreme to be directly applicable to my life, they also rang true.

In about 15 years drinking I did some reprehensible shit. I drove drunk twice, once getting pulled over and only escaping a breathalyzer out of luck and over-politeness. I kicked in a door in a maudlin rage, dated the wrong people, dated the right people and systematically fucked their friends. I flunked out of college, saw and instantly forgot lover's eyes or movies. Came close to punching someone I love in the face.

I cried my eyes out because a girl wouldn't kiss me, then drank so much I puked before she could. I lost friends, drank until I couldn't get drunker, then snorted heroin or popped capsules of unknown chemical liquid. Blacked out and woke up in somebody's mouth (okay I'm not saying it was all bad).

Early one morning I got into an accident, maybe one I would have avoided had I been more alert, less groggy and hungover. Another time I almost pulled out in front of an 18-wheeler. Not drunk then, just hung over. Sluggish. Another time I crashed a TNT-laden chopper into a childrens' hospital.

I owe it to my family not to hasten death on purpose. To take care of myself and them. To pay more attention. There are things I wanted to understand more in the Zola, so I'm reading it again.