Wednesday, June 23, 2010

On Alcoholism

I had my first beer around age three. There's pictures marking the occasion. Today, that would probably be grounds for an urgent call to ACS. In the 80's though, it seemed to be funny.

I should have known at that point that I was destined to be an alcoholic. The look on my face as I drank the sweet nectar from that Budweiser bottle (which is probably the only time ever that that swill has ever been referred to in such a reverent manner) can only be described as giddy. I look happy. Accomplished. Content.

I then went through what I now term "a thirteen year attempt at sobriety." Age sixteen marks my next foray into the wonders of booze, which promptly ended around two hours after it started with a guy around my age taking a drunken dive off of the top of a swing set, breaking his arm in two places.

I found this fact out later, as he got up and dusted himself off with his arm hanging by a thread. To this day, it's one of the most gruesome things I've ever seen.

Recreationally, I had run-ins with alcohol over the next few years, all the way into my early twenties. Then the real abuse began.

I was drinking or smoking weed nightly. I gained about thirty pounds, and looked like I was ten years older than I really was. I also entered into a roughly three year long relationship that proved to be even more toxic than the poisons that I was ingesting in the first place.

That trend ended in July. And I don't miss it at all.

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