How much can I write about my alcohol habits before I start repeating myself or just get bored? Guess I'll find out. For the uninducted into this union, like any such organization, there are high dues to pay and scary, imposing leaders that intimidate you. They're all kinda in your head, but very real nonetheless.

There's the loud voices telling you you'll never last the night without us. You'll cave at 2 in the morning and be worse off than if you'd just. Or you'll never write anything worthwhile again. It'll all be lame drivel.

Has it always been? Isn't always? I can no longer tell.

There's the soft voice saying what's the harm, You don't miss work. You're not mean. You're different, but better. Remember how it used to be. All that anger. All that thinking you'd never feel better. Well, here I am and now you do. And it's just a night. When it's dark and you're alone and there's no one else who'll be with you.

And then there's my own voice. And the others are so dominate now that I can't even make out what it's saying anymore. Or if it even cares.

The one thing that comes to mind at this moment is that I remember seeing someone grow much older very quickly. He drank a lot and I can't prove, but would guess the alcohol played a part. And I'm not what you'd call a shallow person. Didn't care how he looked, just how he behaved. And I'm not in the market for attracting any potential mates, but even still, I don't want to grow old fast. Simply because I don't want to advertise to the world that I'm doing something to cause that.

I always figured before the alcohol that pain and sadness and loss were what made you older quicker. And that's probably true. Just all of those things go hand in hand with abuse of drugs and alcohol. If you're happy what need is there to escape yourself. Only trouble is, if you're not, and you choose this, it's not so much an escape as it is a different prison.

I'm only a victim of myself, I know. But even still, I don't feel any less helpless or any less violated than I would if someone else were to blame for what I've become.

This site got a hit for the query "why does an alcoholic feel he does not deserve love" at msn. And I feel compelled to answer that question.

It's the other way around. One becomes an alcoholic because they feel they cannot be loved. And it will love them when no one else can.

The drinking is a symptom of the insecurity. The unlovable part is not the fault of the alcohol, but the inherent problem the user is trying to stifle with it.

Anyone who drink excessively. Anyone who can't do without it, has problems that created this new problem. Alcohol isn't their reason. It's their cure.

It just never delivers on what it's promised.

It suddenly occured to me, what if what's his name (cuz i can't mention his name or even his nickname), didn't leave because his wife was too suspcicious. What if he left because I was a bad influence. He did start to drink and get fucked up more and more as we hung out.

Maybe that's just my ego trying to compensate. Probably.

He was all thrilled at first. He'd say to me, "I can't believe there's someone who likes getting fucked up as much as I do."

And that's what kinda makes me think. Those are some strong words. And If I had three kids I'd stop and think, hey, wait, what am I doing.

And I might not want to hurt the person's feelings by calling them an alcoholic. And since the other out was there, I might just use it instead. No hurt feelings. It was bound to happen. We were loving on borrowed time anyway.

He'd bring beer. We'd drink. We'd laugh. We'd have sex like mindless animals. It was all very good for me. What more could I want. But he already had more and didn't want to lose it.

And I'm glad he didn't.

But I never sought to take anything away from him in the first place. I only wanted to be close to him. Maybe that's all he wanted too.

I guess the only way anyone can ever be close to an alcoholic is to become one. Or almost. Only unlike me (see previous post), he was smart enough to stop himself before it was too late to go back.

There's always been this one person I could never understand. I kinda might've, almost, loved him. And I could never figure out if they knew that why they didn't take advantage. I was offering sex and good times. Little effort required. And yet they hardly wanted any part of it.

I think I started drinking partly to get closer to him. Dumb idea by the way. Only when I started with that I never imagined it'd become such a habit. I guess I was kinda self-righteous that way back when. I saw this alcoholic and I had a desire to understand him. So I entered his world in earnest. And Just assumed I'd never end up like him. That's what I get for being so arrogant.

Not to contradict myself, but in a way, it did bring us closer. For a while anyway. Sad really.

But now, after having spent several years of my life living in a similar way, I realize how it diminishes everything else. It tends to convince you that you don't want or need anything or anyone other than it.

I'm not saying he shoulda wanted me. But he shoulda wanted someone. Or something other than this. And so should I. But what we become eventually becomes us. Once that happens, it's so hard to find your former self again. That is if you're even in there to be found. And it's even harder to believe you'd ever want to be that person again. Better or worse... What it makes of you is comfortable. Familiar. And so much safer than facing what you were.

Who knows. Maybe he's fine now and I'm the only one who never recovered.

So why if all this drinking is getting to me don't I stop? Good question. I can't speak for the reasons of anyone else, but I don't think I want to yet. Maybe not ever. Why save myself now when I'm doing so well with this drowning.

The alcohol it changes me, but only because I want it to. It's not the problem. I am.

It's in the later hours that the realization assumes. You know just what you've done. And what's been done to you. And you wonder if any of it could ever be amended.

You drink because you think it will bring out some truth you can't discover otherwise. But so many beers later you've still nothing to show for your sacrifice. Except a cloudy head and careless fingers.

I want to feel. I want to know. I want to write. But the more I pursue it the less it is within my grasp.

Some nights the words comes easy. Others they don't come at all. Proving once again that I am at their mercy. Not they at mine.

Some nights I drink far too much. And the words they try, but can't understand. Other nights I can't drink nearly enough. Because it's all so very clear. And that's the one thing I can't stand.

Yesterday I was too sober. Tonight I'm much too alcoholic. Perhaps tomorrow will know better what to make of me. Until then, I am what I am.

And what I am is just this. Open bottle. Dry lips sucking on.

Of what is life composed.? Hours? Minutes? Smiles? Tears? Nothing perhaps. When we analyze it deep enough. Just phantoms in our hearts whose shadows would intersect with various sources of light. Creating images where there should be none. Convincing our eyes we saw things where there was nothing.

These nights are composed of few ingredients. Just time and the wasting of it. I drink all those minutes down a bottle at a time until all are gone to me. There's no need to kill time. You need only just consume it. And soon you will be consumed by.

The composition of reality is only a kaleidescope of perception and memory. The composition of truth being 12 ounces shy of oblivion.

The fact of the matter is that alcohol is the only reason I'm still alive. I'm in love with how slowly it kills. And what a silent death it is.

LIfe. Death. Are comprised of so many things. Alcohol is just a small variable in the composition.

I was always dying. Only now they can see it.

What's the difference between a habit and an addiction? None, but for the mercy of apathy. As it coats my world in its ample quicksand.

It's a pale reflection in a dirty mirror. This life is. How I bundle it up and stuff it down inside myself deep enough that it can't make me want to live it. To feel it ever again.

Pain tastes like scotch. Warm on your tongue. Hot going down. Leaves you choking for a new wind.

Ache tastes like wine. Sour as it lashes over your lips. Against your gums. But no feeling as it goes down your throat. Just the pucker in your grin left over.

And numbess or despair. Or both. They taste like beer. Slightly sweetened water full of tiny bubbles that capture all those words I meant to say and take them down to where they can't hurt me anymore.

What's the difference between numbess and despair? Not much. Every day is monotony. Every night lassitude. Life stagnates. I laid down in that bed one night to sleep. Or maybe it was to make love. But neither happened. I just got fucked.

And I've been laying there ever since with a bottle as my friend and only one thought that ever remains after all those other distractions life applies fail once again. That's it's not a bad habit. It's not an addiction. It's just what I am.

In a way, It's what I've always been. Only now it's more obvious. Lost inside myself no matter where I go.

It all tastes like what you want it to when you can't remember any of the real flavors. It always tastes just like hope though you know it's the farthest thing from it.

In my sober, during the day mind, it doesn't make sense to me at all. Why I keep on doing what I'm doing. But night falls, a few tv shows pass and it all makes perfect sense. This is what I've been waiting for since the alarm clock woke me up this morning.

In any life a reason to go on is required. You simply can't live for nothing. There are all kinds of hopes and reasons the mind will fabricate. Because life is self-perpetuating. Somewhere hidden deep in the DNA of every living thing is a gene that triggers the brain to seek out and or configure such reasons. Because life was created to be life. To die eventually, but ultimately, first and foremost to live. Nature designed us that way and we grapple with that responsibility every second our heart ticks away.

Some use god, heaven, religion. Others mates, children, grandchildren. There are those who seek meaning in their careers. And others who find it in art or literature. But reason is not for all. Reason is essentially the last bastion of the hopeless. Life's refugees digging into the mud that coats the grounds of their prisons. Because this is what they know. And what lies outside those walls is uncertain.

Nevertheless, everyday, in most every life, people find or construct their reason to sustain the life inside them that begs them to. The majority obey. Those of us who don't poison it in slow doses. All the while hating how well it carries those wounds. Seeking no reason to convince ourselves we should live. But instead gathering the reasons there are to keep killing ourselves. As slowly as I will.

In every life there is a reason. Even for alcoholics.

But there is no reason in mine.

The term used is functional alcoholic. One who drinks excessively, but not so much that it impedes their work or other required daily functions. The functional drunk waits patiently or impatiently, as the case may be, for responsibility to tuck itself in for the night and only then does the abuse begin.

Back when I used to talk with stereo boy, he said that to me for the first time. We're functional drunks. And even though I'd never heard the term before I immediately knew what it meant.

I'd just finished recanting my tale of the previous night. I'd drunk about a six pack and it was still early in my training. So I'd puked it all back up. Spent a hefty portion of the late evening with my face in the bowl.

Eventually I went to bed. As soon as my stomach stopped trying secede from my abdomen. The alarm went off and its usually time and I woke up, drank my coffee and did my job.

And as soon as I'd finished speaking the last sentence of my story he chuckled a wine derivative giggle and said yea, we're functional drunks. As contented as he was amused.

He'd been living that way much longer than I had. And even though I was there at the starting line of the race he was almost finished running, it never occurred to me then how much wisdom there was in his statement. Or worse yet, how right he was.

I wonder sometimes why everyone doesn't drink, a lot. Isn't everyone miserable? What is there to be happy about? You got married. You had a baby. Well, good for you. Cuz not everyone can do that. Oh, wait they can.

I mean, is that the sum total of the human existence? Couple, mated, raise offspring. That's sad.

Or for those who don't want children. Couple, live unahppily ever after. Ten, twenty, thirty years later, stuck with eachother because now it's too late to find anyone better.

The only other choice, alone. Alone like you're so very different from all those wives, all those husbands, all those lovers. As if they're not just as alone. Who's in denial now?

As if life is every good once your childhood is over. Maybe for a rare few. All the rest, I don't know how or why they do it.

Even if i could perchance learn to love myself, I'd still hate the world. With it's self-righteous mentaility. And escpecially the United States government with it's money grubbing tactics and self-serving agendas.

I hate myself first, The United States second and the rest of the world last. Cause we all suck. We're all useless except to serve ourselves. We're all just leaches sucking like from someone's neck.

I sincerely hope the world goes on after I'm dead. So that it should suffer long and slow lacking everything it once took for granted. I feel sorry for the children, but I reveil in the guilt of the parents who wrought them.

Alcohol will surely destroy my liver, but it won't destroy the plaent.

Alcohol will only keep me sparse company when I'm alone, but it won't care when the gas runs out nor when there's famine.

I don't think I'm wrong. But I don't think the rest of you are right either.

What I'm trying to say is the world sucks. It's full of people. So many people I could do without.

All your morals. All your religion. I'd trade it all away for a few more beers. And be glad you're gone.

And when the world finally eneded I'd laugh when you realized there is no god, no heaven.

Cuz heaven exists right here in this bottle. These untaxed cigarettes. And hell is. Hell is everywhere else.

When your world gets this small it's hard to recover from. I mean, I tried. Really, I did. That was the point of the alcohol. To open the world to me. To open me to it.

But it's long since lost its splendor. Even it, can't save me now.

The sober world is a conundrum, especially when feelings are entered into the equation. There is no solution. Only variables that attack from all sides.

I try to love them. Give them a reason to love me back. But I fail more as each hour passes. Moreso when there's no drug to soften this shell.

I'm not who they think I am. So different from the pliable drunk they know.

I'm bitter and I'm resolute. Certain pain is all they have to give.

So I try to be different. And sometimes I succeed. Tuck away all those fears. Drown then in chemical waves. And we apply ourselves to one another. Temporary tattoos. Hoping skin will remember the better images, but knowing that it won't.

Some didn't want to know me enough. And it hurt. All that lack of interrest. When I was so intent on knowing them. Others still wanted to know me too well. And they did. Sad for them. Sadder for me still, to know they tried, but I couldn't let them.

It's a small world. Always has been. And it's shrinking fast.

It's funny how time moves. The hours seem to gather all at once. Huddle there on the nape of the night waiting for me to do something I never would. It's funny how half a beer seems emptier than none. When that saltwater chagrin coats my lips it feels just like sex used to. When I still had it. Lips wrapped around something hard. Full and ready to pop. Drench my tongue in lives undone.

I guess judged on bell a curve, this is still good compared to what I was. I'm still failing, but everything is. So we're passing because we're all lost.

I don't feel drunk. I never do anymore. By now it'd probably take an entire liquor store. I just feel somber. Like a funeral. All's quiet. All's dark. And there's a body waiting to be put into the ground.

I just feel introspective. But that's not the alcohol. I always do. Only now the target is clearer. The trigger much more eager.

It always tastes so much like hope once did. I tell myself it can't be wrong if it feels this good. I've always told myself that long before this was what I wanted.

Because happiness doesn't fool me anymore. And life was just a series of goodbyes. Each one harder than the last. Until this was the only friend I had.

Or if they tried to be, I was too afraid to know.

Don't I wear it well. This failure. This addiction. Or at least for now.

Don't you love me still, though I can't find it in my heart to believe you do. Don't you know I never could.

But I still attempt to with every last sip.

Don't I? Don't I deserve this?

Got beer?

I know I do.

What better way to deny your alcoholism than by wearing a shirt that makes light of the situation.

Or maybe not so much to deny, but rather to embrace.

Dear alcohol, thank god I found you. I'd have had no life otherwise. Even if it is over now. I still remember how it good tasted. Much like you do now. Sweet and smothering. With a lonesome aftertaste.

Where do I go when alone's not what I need? Further inside myself until nothing else is real?

Some people when they drink get nastier. Sadly, I'm the opposite. I'm friendly and cuddly when I've been drinking. Aloof and antagonistic when I"m sober.

Not because I'm wanting the alcohol. No, I've always been like that. I just didn't always have a cure.

How I got to be so emotionally shipwrecked that alcohol makes me better I don't know. But I know the things I've said and done. The people's I've hurt becuase feeling anything at all made me extremely angry with them.

And I know how easy it is to lay back and nestle into the folds of apathy. As if love were a distant moon and I could just lay back on the moist grass and look up at it. Seeing it more than enough. Not need to know how it feels to touch it.

I haven't love too much. Too many. Just a small handful. And I don't know who among them actuially loved me. It's better that way I suppose.

I just think sometimes that they know the drinking me. The cuddlesome one who's all emotion and fluff. But they don't know. Couddn't ever like that other person. The sober girl who thinks everyone is her enemy. And nothing is real until it hurts.

I try and I always fail to say the words that conjure in my head when confronted by real life. Potential friends. Unmedicated. The valves all shut tight. I push them away. Try to make them hate me. Because that is how I know they should feel.

And later on, a few beers later, I realize I want them. Always have. But they're so sober. And I've hur them. again.

They're always this open. But to them I'm always closed.

There's always an empty bed here. But no one ever sleeps in it.

I stay up pretty late nowadays. Don't start with the drinking til 10pm or later. Orginally I thought if I could wait til later I wouldn't drink as much.

I was wrong.

When I hear myself sober, talking to someone, not business. I'm appalled. Either there's more silence than any life should know or I'm a mean, leave me alone bastard. I don't know why exactly. Except that I've lost them so many times, if i must lose them again I don't want it to hurt.

I often wonder whether I have the capacity to interact nicely with anyone without the aid of alcohol. I seriously doubt it. I have my whole life as evidence.

I can't do it. I want to, but I can't. That's why I drink. Because I want to know them. And this is the only way.

And if they should come to know me in the process I hope they know I did it because I needed to know them.

Trapped inside yourself like I've always been, any exit will do. Even if it only leads further down.
There is love even in my anger. If you look close.

For every bottle that I drain. I empty one for you.

For that happiness that refused to last. For everything we almost were, but never can.

Every night I push it away. Drown it best I can. But every morning I wake up and wonder. How it might be to taste to you again. And if you ever think about. If you ever wonder how that might be.

Too many beers later, I think, we had our chance.

And now it's gone. Forever.

Like a broken record I wait for. But nothing changes.

It's the kind of thing that turns a girl into a woman. Even if no one notices. She does. The greyer skies. The emptier bed. The longer nights that gather as she contemplates how she came to be where she is.

If paths are chosen, some are chosen in secret. Part of your mind rebelling against. All that you are. All that you should've been.

That small taste of escape leads to exile. You can never return to that person you were before. Before other things mattered besides forgetting.

Or if I must remember, not having to care.

It changes me, but I can't change it.

And I want it to change me back, but it doesn't.

The alcohol isn't to remedy how. It's to erase.

I always knew when I was a kid I'd grow up to be an alcoholic. No one believed me then.

I didn't aspire to it. It wasn't a goal. I just knew my mind couldn't go on its own gasoline for too long. Evetutally that tank would run dry and I'd have to find an alternative power source. And that I'd never accept the standards (lithium, prozac, paxil, zoloft).

I had always hoped I'd never live this long where it would matter. I had high expectations. That I'd gather the courage and the wits required to end one's life quietly without much ado.

Turns out what was missing from that scenario all along was alcohol. Had I had booze with me that night at the hotel I coulda cut all the way through those wrists. Or failing that, choked on my own vomit.

But I didn't have it then. And here I am. I have it now. But what to do. So much older. So many more obligations. And ramifications if. Wait for this so-called poison to prove itself? I should've picked a harder drug. Cause this one kills much too slowly.

You know what I hate the most. The empty boxes. 12 bottles gone. Sometimes I throw them out empty. As they came into this world so shall they leave it. Because when I think about it they were, in fact, empty from the beginning. Or at least devoid of whatever it is I continually seek to find in them.

Sometimes I stuff them full with other trash before I throw them in the dumpster. Now there's an appropriate metaphor. Only problem is, no matter how much trash you get rid of, more inevitably develops.

The clang of the bottles as I move the cases is so loud. From car to house. Closet to fridge. The theme song of my addiction.

Only it's not so much an addiction as it is a symptom. All this hating life has spawned many rashes. This is just one of them.

I know I could stop if I wanted to do so. A few sleepness nights is nothing I'm unfamiliar with. I used to do it on purpose. But I don't want to stop. Because self-destruction is so much more appealing than simply being destroyed.

Sometimes I think back to before I started drinking. And honestly, I was more miserable without the alcohol. That's not to say I'm happy now, but It's tolerable. I guess the discontent can come and I can shrug it off.

Drinking every night can't be a good thing. If nothing else, it costs money. And the expense naturally rises as your tolerance does. You can call on all your will power to suppress it, but short of stopping altogether, it's hard to regulate.

But I think about other forms of medication; antidepressants and that lot. And and wonder how they're any better. If instead I were to take a zoloft everyday how would that be different?

In a way I think that would be worse. Those kinds of medicines are designed to eliminate both highs and lows. They even people out. I don't think I'd like that. I'd rather be an alcoholic poet.

I'd rather feel bad than feel nothing.

It sucks being so into the beer, but right now, I don't know that there's any other medicine that could serve my needs better.

I'd rather be happy being sober, for the most part. But then again, who among us really is?

Sadly, I'm closer to content now than I was before I started drinking.

Life is too lonely. Too fraught with pain to manage without some substance or another. Just because it's prescribed by a doctor doesn't make it any less of a crutch.

I try not to abuse it. Sometimes I succeed. Many others I fail.

But for all that it releases from inside me, it's easy to believe it's more angel than it is demon.

Or if not angel, friend at least.

And I really need some of them.

When you drink every night you never really recover. It's subtle, but life is a permanent hangover. There's no headache. No pounding, except in your chest as you worry and wonder if or when it will end. But there's a cloud that follows you. Your life is coated in it. That grey, dismal atmosphere pervades. No sunlight can find its way through.

My biggest problem is that I've never wanted to live. And that creates an ideal breeding ground for addiction.

No, really, I've never wanted to live. I've done it out of obligation to family. Because the time I tried to end it and didn't succeed I saw the pain in my mother's face and swore I'd never cause her that kind of pain again.

Course, later on, I'd break that promise and try once more to rid the world of myself. Myself of it. There's nothing more humiliating than trying to kill yourself and failing.

It certainly makes one hesistant to try another time. Especially as you get older. Become an adult. Trying and failing could prove to be a worse punishment than just simply living.

So now I kill myself slowly. Steathily as it were. And no one notices that I'm dying.

And that is how I want it to be.

Pop! Beer numero quatro. That's a good night. Only four. Five is the bad. Four is okay.

Strange how not that long ago it used be three is okay. Four is bad. Strange indeed.

The rules change given the circumstance.

I've been a depressed sorta person all my life. My mother has an essay from when I was in the 1st or 2nd grade about how I liked ice cream because it made me forget my 'troubles'.

I fail to know what troubles I had at the age of 8. Other than being the fat kid who got picked on all the time. But that's all in the past. I'm long since much trimmer. And if I'm being picked on now, I'm unawares.

The point is, was, I've always been kinda down. Not the happy go lucky type. When I was really young, food served as my drug. And it served me well. As I got older, grew into my teens, anger became my sustenance. I was so angry. I hated everyone. Everything. Myself Included.

Then in my mid twenties I couldn't find it in myself to hate anymore. I was tired of hating things. Tired of being angry. And I gave in and just tried liking people again.

Big mistake.

You can like people all you want, doesn't mean they'll return the favor. I found myself wanting to like and be liked by people so much that I was in need of a way to fascilitate that.

Enter beer.

The patron saint of social rejects everywhere.

It let words come out that otherwise never would. It let situations occur that never should've. It opened the gates to the world, but even inside it, still I wasn't a presense. Just an echo of. And everyone I encountered knew that. It was obvious I didn't belong. Was just a tourist on a false courage Visa. Some sympathized and others took advantage.

And me, I got just what I'd asked for. And then some.

And then some more.

Someone asked me recently what the trigger was. Why I started drinking. Why it didn't stop. And I thought about it all day. Sometimes I just sit here with my beers thinking it was chance. An accident. I had a few and as sometimes happens, a molehill really did become a mountain.

but I know now. What it is. I started drinking because of people. Because I wanted to be around people and be able to engage them. I wanted to meet men and have sex with some. And that required being naked and small amount of conversation. Sometimes. I wanted to be like regular people. Who talk and laugh and undress. People who date and go out and have fun. People who answer questions with more than one word.

I started drinking cause it was a bridge to a world I couldn't otherwise find the ability to reach. I started drinking because I wanted to open up to people and make them willing to open up to me.

all my life thoughts and feelings had been reserved only for paper. I don't have a reason. That's just how I am. Not to be spoken. Only to be kept. Like secrets.. And one day I guess that bag of secrets got too heavy and I decided to open the drawstring.

it worked for a while. I socialized and sexed. And did all the things real girls do.

but we all know alcohol or anything of that nature is a false messiah.

I had some great times being the me the world couldn't see without it. Or rather, the me, I hadn't the courage to show otherwise.

but eventually it got too much and I reverted back to my true nature. Only moreso. Instead of releasing me from my cage the drug began to accentuate what lay within me. That fear. That distrust of anything that looks good.

I made some friends. And soon lost them. Maybe it would've happened anyway. Guess I'll never know unless.

triggers are curious like that. Especially when you're not really certain what it is you need to kill.

I still remember sitting at Friday's with restore-a-boy for the first time. I'd had one beer and I didn't want to have anymore. I had to drive myself home. But he convinced me. He said he'd stay and hang with me until I was mostly sober again. And I believed him. Him and his crooked smile.

So we both had another beer and continued chatting. I liked him.

I still do. Even if he didn't have much use for the drunk girl.

He's the only guy I ever spent any real amount of time with as an adult and didn't have sex with.

We literally slept together one night. We both fell asleep on my bed. But no sex. Come to think of it, not even a real kiss. No tongue. Just lips.

He used to say, kissing is extremely intimate. He might still say it. He just doesn't say it to me anymore. Or anything else.

It's not as though I've never been kissed. That and too much more. But I've never been kissed by him. And sometimes I still wonder how it might've tasted.

I can drink until I don't know my own name. But somethings even beer can't erase.

I guess that's why people stop drinking. Because at some point what once was heaven becomes hell.

Trouble is I'm all right with damnation.

Funny thing about alcohol, in the beginning it makes you all open and social. Takes a shy girl and gives her the power to engage and interact with other humans. It makes sex less awkward and unveils the humor in the most mundane of things. In a way, it awoke an innate hope that change is possible. That I didn't always have to be that quiet girl. The life that stood on the edge of the water while everyone else dove in. I guess that's why I liked it so much, so quickly. Because it took everything about me that was always trapped inside and opened the gates. It was a freedom I'd never known. If part of me was the cage and the other part locked inside it. Alcohol was they key that opened the door.

but sadly, it didn't last. It was good for a while. That me inside came out every night to bask in the glow of the moon. And the heat of all the people I could reach. I finally had the combination to that lock. I could come and go as I pleased. Except, eventually my savior turned on its disciple. At some point, I don't recall exactly when, something changed yet again.

Instead of opening that old lock it had created a new prison. And alone was more frequent, more of a necessity than ever.

I only wanted to be with it. No one else. Because only it could love me just how was. And it was all that I had left to love.

Are they counting? Maybe. But I know I am. How many times. Down the stairs and up again. Bottle in hand. Teeth to cap clenching to release what false medicines inside still promising to cure me. LIke a messiah upon a cross. Dying that I mgiht live. Or at least reach some kingdom called heaven where alcoholic poets are relieved of all their vices.

I don't believe in such things. God. Jesus. Heaven. But I understand the neccessity. Especially since.

Hope keeps us alive when we ourselves have no desire left to live.

The question is, should it?

Counting empty bottles til I lose track. Caps in the morning to tally. To tell me have I been good or have I been bad.

I used to save them. glue them together into sculpture. Pyramids and globes. Taking what I'd wasted the night before and in the morning finding something worthwhile in the remnants.

I used to do lots of things I don't anymore. Because the only reason beer tastes so good is that with every sip your life moves a little further out of focus.

And that's all you ever sought. Not to see yourself. Ever again.

During the process of marrying the alcohol I've pushed a lot of other people away. Most notably, ny family. My big, big family of my mother and my brother.

I've pushed them away because I couldn't stand the looks on their faces as I'd cross the living room to the ktichen in search of another beer.

In my mind I'd hear them judging me. Outside I'd hear nothing. Only meet with accusatory looks.

And I could never figure out if they pitied me or if they hated me for what I'd let myself become. Especially after so many years of hating the shit I'm now so in love with.

I'd say it's ironic, but that would be cliche. Every god damn thing in life is ironic.

Especially what we choose to kill ourselves with.

So four beers into the night (at 12:23am) I'm debating whether I should rush chill another. No more cold ones left, the freezer is looking very much like my savior.

I spent the better part of today at blogexplosion. Voted for a lot of blogs and won a lot of credits. Put one of my other blogs up to the challenge twice. And was extremely surprised when i won both times.

It's not arrogance when I say I know i write well, It's been affirmed over and over from various sources. Sometimes it truly is crap, but no one is perfect. All in all, I don't seek to write what people will enjoy, so much as just what feels right. And I always presumed the words I choose. The topics I frequent were more offputting than they were brilliant. That's probably true. Those blogexplosion voters just do it on a whim. I know I've only retained memory of one blog out of the counltess I've visited in the voting process.

But I'm an alcoholic. What's your excuse.

Sad thing is, there are not enough beers in the world. let alone my fridge, to make the concept of every tom, jane and jeremiah blogging any less sickening.

Especially those blogs on religion.

God won't be there when you're drunk. God won't be there when you're sober. The only time god will be there is when you're so desperate that even an alcholoic has more hope.

So I'm an alcoholic. I've known this for a couple years now. I'm self-aware like that. No one had to tell me I was. Or intervene. Or confront. It just became terriblly apparent.

I'm not a raging alcoholic. I don't drink all day and all night. During the day I drink a few pots of coffee and do my job. Don't even want the stuff then. But 8 or 9 pm rolls around and I want some beer. Sometimes I think it'd be better to be the stereotypical drunk who goes nuts and drinks constantly. Because maybe that would somehow motive me to stop. Eh, Probably not.

I drink four to five beers a night before I get sleepy enough and saunter into bed. When I started drinking back in 2001 two beers got me completely wasted. And I didn't even much like the taste.

It started out as a few beers only on weekends. Isn't that how it always starts out.

I remember back in school, in health class, learning about alcohol and cigarettes and other such bad things. Tolerance. I understood the concept. Your body becomes accustomed to the dosage you're giving it and steadily needs more and more of the same toxin to produce the desired result. I guess it's darwinian. The body strengthens itself against the poisons you're feeding it in an unsolicited, effort to preserve itself. Tolerance has to be the cruelest, most evil of all the natural survival mechanisms built into the human body. It takes something good and makes it bad for you. If not for tolerance I would still be happy with just two beers a night. That I could live with. Unfortunately, tolerance is a very real thing. And two beers has gradually become three, then four, now usually five. And it's not something all that easy to tolerate mentally.

I decided to start a new, anonymous blog which will focus on my alcoholism. Why? Why on earth would anyone be fool enough to do that? I had the idea a couple of nights ago. It sounded novel and therapeutic.

I did a search for alcoholic blogs on both standard google and google blog search and came up empty handed, save for recovering alcoholics.

I'm not doing this for the internet or the people on it. I'm doing it for me. Maybe if I write it down. Even if I only write down the questions, maybe later on I'll find in them the answers.

I don't have funny drunken stories. Well, maybe one, but, nah. It's not that funny. I'm not trying to be funny. There are already plenty of funny blogs out there.

I think I'm just laying down some bread crumbs. So later on, when I'm totally lost, I might be able to find my way back.