Addiction

Posts about addiction.

Ok, Cut The Comedy*

Tchad

After this past Spring I decided that I was going to have the Summer off.
But like a late night infommercial: THAT ISN’T ALL! THERE’S MORE!

See, I have had a full-time job since 14 legally and a little before that in reality.  I have (had at this point) never had a Summer off.  Never. Add to that that my best friend died and you get a really good recipe for needing to forgo responsibility for a while.

So this was going to be not only my Summer vacation, but I was going to spend most of it in a bottle.  Yes, that’s right. I am an adult and have no work for three months, so… A Summer of near-constant drinking regardless of the time of day seemed like a GREAT idea. I had never done that.  I had always been too busy and had too many responsibilities.

So I tried.  Believe me, I tried.  My friend Carrie called it a “forgotten Summer” when I told her what I planned to do.  The thing is (and this is why I don’t drink in my regular life as a rule) I have such a high tolerance that I have never blacked out or forgotten anything because of booze.  I may may terrible decisions, I may overreact to things, the hangovers may be unbelievable, but I remember every second of it.

So I have been walking around with beer in styrofoam cups  (don’t worry, I don’t drive) drinking publicly for three months, feeling like I have been getting away with something and then drinking Cabernet or Burgundy from 4 p.m on and settling in with a nice Port before bed.

And now it needs to come to an end.  Luckily I am actually looking forward to it.  But it can’t go on.

After all, We aren’t in Wisconsin, dear.

*My mother’s catchphrase when we were supposed to go to bed and wanted to stay up and play and act like idiots.

The Champagne of Beers Tastes Like Child Abuse to Me

Tchad

I think I made my Uncle Roger mad.

He is the beer expert in the family and I asked him what made Miller High Life beer taste so specific.  There is this kind of astringent peak-i-ness to it that I can taste and smell from a mile away.

My Uncle Gary (his brother) used to drink it all the time.  He was not a very nice person and was pretty hard on me and my brothers in the name of “manly fun”. This included being picked up by the ears, being thrown around, and any number of other fun things… all while surrounded by the distinct bouquet of MHL.

So I asked Uncle Roger what made the flavor so different so that when I am talking about Miller High Life beer I can say “oh, it is the yeasts” instead of “it tastes like child abuse”. In my mind, the smell of child abuse isn’t whiskey and cigarettes or leather or rope.  It isn’t duct tape or the basement closet with its mold and slightly damp air… it is MHL.

Roger said that it probably IS the yeasts.  He did not comment on the child abuse.

 

At some point everyone should learn this balance:

Tchad

It is something I’ve never been able to master.  This need to do and be (whatever) balanced with the need to care for others and make things right.  I am either running around trying to fix things, being the martyr that no one asked me to be or I am working on my projects for months on end.  Alone.

It is hard being a Secular Mother Theresa and/or a Spiritual Howard Roark.  I don’t advise it.

I found out this afternoon that a very good friend of mine is in the hospital (again) and will probably not make it through.  He is 61. This is the same friend I nursed from the beginning to end of his last hospitalization four+ years ago.

I couldn’t do it then, but did.  It almost killed me, but I did it.  I ended his extended hospitalization and rehabilitation for 4-6 months and dropped everything.  I almost lost everything as well.

When he started drinking again it made me sever ties.  I couldn’t cope.

And now this.  Some part of me, the younger more maternal part, says that I could have stopped this.  It tells me that just giving enough will fix things.  But I think emotional energy works like scientific energy:  It cannot be created or destroyed – it just changes form.

The last time it drained everything I had emotionally, financially, and physically.  I am still feeling the effects all these years later.  And yet I sit here thinking, thinking, thinking.

He never changed his condo admittance papers, so off I go tonight to find his will and business papers for his sister.  I am the only one allowed in the building unattended without a power of attorney.

It reminds me of a story of a distant cousin…

He worked out West for a widow as a ranch hand.  This would have been 30+ years ago.
She was a hopeless alcoholic, and as such was too much for him to deal with.  He tried, but it got to a point where he just had to go.

As he was leaving, she said: “You may have lost your loyalty, but I WON’T lose mine!”

He thought “sure, whatever” and cut out.

Fast forward 10 years.  He gets a notice.  He finds out that she has died and left him everything.  Every single thing.

Not that I am interested in my friend Greg’s things but there is some part of me that wants some kind of grand movie ending like that.  Some part of me that wants to show off how, even though he never stopped drinking, never straightened out his act, never did any of the things I thought he would when he essentially got a second shot at life…  that… I don’t know.  Validation? Vindication? Admiration?  What?

Then the hyper-rational side of me kicks in.  It has been my dominant side for the past few years.  It tells me that this has all (all of it!) been a lot of effort invested in someone to whom I am not related and with whom I don’t have  a romantic connection.  A LOT OF EFFORT.

Sigh.

So I’ll go to his condo after class tonight and find the appropriate papers.  I’ll think about where I want to go from here.  I haven’t been there in two years, so it will be hard to do it, but I will.