(IF APPLICABLE) SING IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS

And sing it loud and proud: "I am an alcoholic and I can never ever drink an iota of alcohol with even a modicum of responsibility."

It's a mouthful, huh?

I feel like a fucking loser, I really really do. I feel like a bum, sitting here, on Monday, at the computer, pouring out my Sober-soul to the Cyber-world.

I have had enough, though, thank you very much. And, yes, I said that before, nearly two years ago. I entered a treatment center and dried myself out and started feeling better about myself and went almost eighteen months without even touching a glass of the poison...and then I went to Las Vegas with a couple of friends and my resolve weakened like so much dried-out Play-Doh. I drank. Heavily. Rum-and-Cokes and Coors Lights and Guinnesses and margaritas by the pool.

So I got back from Vegas on June 2nd and, since then, alcohol has become a virtually-omnipresent factor in my "life." People might be surprised by how much poison this sack of bone and tissue (and Soul) can handle.

Returning Stage-Left: the same old feelings of shakiness in the mornings and shortness of breath (allergy, anyone?) like they'd been gone only a day or two instead of eighteen months. In fact, they came back stronger. What kind of bullshit is this that, that, after a year-and-a-half of abstinence, the dis-ease returns ever-stronger?! That's just not right; that ain't fair. (Cry me a river, alky.)

So, yeah. Drinking and all that comes with it: dribbling money away, pissing people off, entering heretofore undiscovered shaky-ass ground at work...all that and more, kidz! =o) Whee! Isn't this fun?!

No.

No, it's not fun. It is misery, is what it is.

I have people supporting me. Lord, do I ever. And that is great. My girlfriend is there for me, my family is there for me...hell, even work is there for me. My attendance record in the last few months handcuffed them, basically--they had to have a meeting with me--but, during the meeting with my supervisor and my union representative and the HR lady, they were all unfailingly positive in their regard for me. "We want you here. You do what you need to do, Adam," they said. "You are a good employee and you are a hard worker...but you have to be here. Do what you need to do to get yourself right."

Amidst their stories of their own families' battles with addiction, I told them that I was going to enroll in an IOP--three nights a week for a few hours at a shot--and that I was going to regularly attend meetings of AA and that I was going to the doctor that day to get a 'script for a drug that makes the user fall violently ill should he or she have the audacity to imbibe while upon it.... Basically, I told them that I was going to go after this Beast with both barrels a-blazin'.

Because I have to. I've not a choice. It is do or die. And, no, that is not hyperbole. It's not the job that is the most important thing (though, of course, in this economy...) nor is it the loss of respect and esteem from others (though that sucks), what it is is the loss of me. The loss of Adam. I change when I drink too much and I, like everyone else, don't like the flip-side of the Shiny Happy Adam. The flip-side is dark and moody and beetles crawl across its coutenance, leaving slimy trails.

Icky!

I made the classic mistake of addicts: I forgot. I forgot the pain and misery and the trials and the tribulations. I forgot the shakes and the nausea and the muddled thinking. I forgot the ten-feet-tall and bulletproof cartoon character that I'd become and I forgot that happiness and contentment are not going to be found at the bottom of a beer bottle or a glass of Bacardi-and-Coke.

So, anyway, I'm doing what I have to do.

Do you know how much it absolutely sucks to have had almost eighteen months clean and then, at meetings, saying, "Well, I've been clean for three days, now"?

Let me put it into laymen's terms for you: it's like setting the speed record for driving down to Florida from Michigan, just flying right along, and then having to pull over at a reststop because you have to take a three-month wet smelly shit. By the time you finally reach Orlando, all the lemonade stands are shuttered and the canvas tents are neatly rolled and stored and the gargantuan mouse is solemnly shaking his oversized head at you. And blinking good-bye with his giant white glove.

Fuck you, Mickey. This is for me, not you. I may feel like a worthless bum...but I'm not.

So, anyway, all histrionics aside, if you are the praying type, could you please include me in your prayers? This ain't easy. My first name is Adam and my middle is Christopher and I am buckling in for the fight of a fucking lifetime. Whee.

Peace.