When I was drunk, I sometimes forgot about the things worth fighting for. The further I descended into my dark, alcoholic mental wasteland, the more I lost sight of anything tangible and good. It happened slowly, over the course of many long, shitty months, so I didn't notice. Like boiling a frog, by the time I realized anything was wrong, it was way too late: I was screwed (I've never boiled a frog, not really my kind of snack, but they just swim around all happy-like until they're cooked. Weird, right?).
In a crap mental space to begin with, I started to see everything, EVERYTHING as should'a been, can't have, no point, lost cause, don't deserve to be happy anyway, etc. I woke up one day and realized--drunk or sober--I was depressed practically out of my mind. I had been destroying my life like a narcissistic time bomb from Super Mario Bros. blindly running around and wrecking everything good with almost surprising success. Chasing and detonating madly until all I had left was myself for company and in that state, I was no fun to be around. Seriously, when you really, really hate who you are, who you've become, usually you're the only one left around to hang out with. I was so sad-sick and confused that I couldn't see what was happening, had no idea that I was an alcoholic, and certainly had no idea that I was an asshole. It's sort of funny, I always thought that it was easy to tell if you're an asshole, because assholes are so easy to pick out of a crowd. I have a knack for it, actually. But, especially under cover of alcoholic denial, I was the last to know. My fucked up brain kept me pretty much in the dark about it, which is a little slice of crazy that I never want to see again. With a startling, white clarity of purpose, I knew that everything hurt too much to go on, that drinking made it hurt less and that it never really hurt less, in the end. What I didn't know was how to stop. And no, it really never, ever occurred to me to try and quit drinking. Like I said: crazy.
In a crap mental space to begin with, I started to see everything, EVERYTHING as should'a been, can't have, no point, lost cause, don't deserve to be happy anyway, etc. I woke up one day and realized--drunk or sober--I was depressed practically out of my mind. I had been destroying my life like a narcissistic time bomb from Super Mario Bros. blindly running around and wrecking everything good with almost surprising success. Chasing and detonating madly until all I had left was myself for company and in that state, I was no fun to be around. Seriously, when you really, really hate who you are, who you've become, usually you're the only one left around to hang out with. I was so sad-sick and confused that I couldn't see what was happening, had no idea that I was an alcoholic, and certainly had no idea that I was an asshole. It's sort of funny, I always thought that it was easy to tell if you're an asshole, because assholes are so easy to pick out of a crowd. I have a knack for it, actually. But, especially under cover of alcoholic denial, I was the last to know. My fucked up brain kept me pretty much in the dark about it, which is a little slice of crazy that I never want to see again. With a startling, white clarity of purpose, I knew that everything hurt too much to go on, that drinking made it hurt less and that it never really hurt less, in the end. What I didn't know was how to stop. And no, it really never, ever occurred to me to try and quit drinking. Like I said: crazy.
So when I see my two dogs asleep on the couch (yea, I let 'em sleep on the couch) and the whole fucking world just makes sense, that's when I know I'm doing OK.
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