Drink
I really want to drink, like really want to drink. I really want to feel the alcohol rush down my throat and I really want to feel the immediacy of relief. I really want the warm buzz to reach the bottom of my feet. I really want to smell that bourbon smell that’s uniquely Jack Daniels. I really want the bitter taste of an IPA and I really want to drink boil makers so I can get drunk just that much faster. I really want to feel the excitement of being drunk but not too drunk. I really want all of these things but the irony lies in the fact that I am an alcoholic and as an alcoholic I can have none of these things because deep down my desire comes from a place much darker, a place where all I think about is a will to die.
When I pass a liquor store the conversation isn’t one that starts with the idea of killing myself but it is one that ends there. I want to drink because I want to die and because I want to die I want to drink. It’s a weird paradox that’s difficult to wrap your head around but it bounces through mine like a super ball. The thoughts are endless and the emotions are toxic. Breathing seems to help some but the desire is so pronounced it makes me feel like a failure, like no matter how hard I try I cannot let go of that desire to drink myself into a suicidal stupor.
On Tuesday, I hit a milestone. I got sixty days. In Alcoholics Anonymous speak this means a birthday and a chip — signifying my success at staying sober. I should feel proud but right now all I really feel is a ceaseless desire to kill myself and by proxy a desire to drink to gain the will to kill myself.
In the Big Book, I am traveling through its pages once again, working each step of the twelve, to somehow find an inner peace with my desire to drink and ultimately my desire to kill myself. Right now I am in the middle of the Chapter titled How it Works. It is a long polemic on the trials of an alcoholic and how their disease forces he or she into an endless cycle of burning their hands on a metaphorical stove. No matter how many times an alcoholic tries to stop he or she continues all the while saying fuck it I do not care how burned my skin gets.
My relationship to drinking is exactly the same. It is not that I will accidentally slip up it is that I will say fuck it and end my life based on the presumption that I want to drink to gain the energy to perform the inevitable deed. It would be the ultimate fuck it. Reacting to life in this manner is not healthy and it is insanely exhausting.
Everyday I wake up and feel a thousand pound weight on my chest. Maybe today will be different but inevitably it is exactly the same. The only thing that seems to change is the minutiae. Little different things that somehow make life bearable and give me some hope. One thing keeping me tethered to the earth is my sense of humor. Laughing at suicide gives it less power. Things are not going well at work. I might as well kill myself. Maybe Saturday. Because I need to make it through the work week. Scheduling suicide is patently absurd and it shows that there is some resistance — like my mind is not fully committed to doing the deed.
Talking with people also helps. It shows me how to reach outside of myself towards another. Of course I really want the conversation to be about me so it takes all my effort to keep it about them. Often times I will tell them explicitly to talk about them. Sometimes this upsets them. You. Erik. Are still controlling the narrative.
Your will is not sincere and by proxy you are still consumed with a desire to make it all about you. This is ironic because depression is a disease that’s all about you. It consumes you. And hearing someone say this makes it even more about you. You are the center of your suffering and the only way to close the suffering is for you to end the suffering. How you end the suffering comes down to the fact whether you want to live or not. Currently all I know is that there is a part of me that wants to live. The voice that is telling me to live is meek and I bristle at the idea of being here.
The first step to being here means taking Anabuse. Anabuse for those of you unfamiliar is a drug that makes you irreparably sick if you drink a dose of alcohol. Admitting to the fact that I have so little control of my drinking that I need to take Anabuse makes me feel like an even bigger piece of shit. It’s like I don’t even have the self discipline to avoid a single drink. This idea agrees amicably with the Step One in Alcoholics Anonymous — Admitting that we are powerless over alcohol. This is my step one. Taking Anabuse to prevent me from drinking so I will not kill myself. The idea sounds appealing but the emotional weight of it makes it feel utterly foreign. So to begin I will say my name is Erik. I take Anabuse. And I am an alcoholic.
