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WORST OF TIMES
Sunday Dec. 6, 2015
Could I make it with booze?
Could I make it without, could I survive, did I want to?
For anyone over twenty-nine, you won’t recall – but you can calculate where you were, recall the status and general state of your life.
I remember today, December 6th.
Twenty-nine years ago.
Like I recall yesterday.
Euphoria days, outnumbered bleak despair days.
Despair days, far bleaker, more frequent. Cold weather, depressing late night walks nursing self-deceptions, rationalizing out of control behavior, struggling to admit there was much more amiss in my life than booze’s grip. More than failing marriage, struggling business, unhealthy personal relationships (and a shortage of healthy ones), more than admitting failure to live up to anything ideal, it was realizing I had nothing in myself to look up to or respect any longer.
Weeks spent planning desperate alternatives were giving way, conceding there were so many reasons life was worth clinging to, like there was no tomorrow.
But would I have a tomorrow?
I don’t recall that 5th or 4th of December, or any other day in that six month hell-like struggle in alcoholic self-destructive rationalization haze. Denial, refusal to recognize and admit my alcoholism, its grip incontrovertible. I spent so much rationalization effort in that stretch of time to self-prove I really wasn’t, to demonstrate I could stop anytime I wanted – for a day, a week, whatever I chose – which proved impossible.
I wrestled with some demons, worked late, ate dinner, walked the dog, came home and poured a drink. And another. Another. Another.
Sleepless night. Indigestion, tossing, turning. Food fight in my belly, or these recollections overtaking capacity for rest?
Mark Kolke
P.S.: checked out new movie Trumbo – maybe I loved it because it’s about writers, maybe because it’s a true story, or maybe just because it’s told in such a brilliant way; or maybe it’s the hypocrisy/hysteria of American politics today that makes it so poignant.
written / published from Calgary, AB
morning walk: 0C/32F, Gusta wanted to walk before coffee was brewed, insistently laying by the door to get my attention, a few clouds, another non-wintry day unfolds …
Reader feedback:
ABOUT ANYONE
… another good one!, SL, Lethbridge, AB
Hey Mark - Thank you so much for the birffday greetings….. what a lovely surprise! Another year but all well and no complaints. Still look forward to reading your daily musings - a bright spot in the day. Cheerio - have a good weekend!, DL, Invermere, BC
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