New Year--2009

the new year is here

batten down the hatches, please

we're in for a ride

Just a little "Haiku Madness!" to start the day. I hope all three of you readers had a happy and safe celebration. Here's hoping you didn't get shit-faced and proceed to piss off the bartenders and then the bouncers thus leading to being unceremoniously jacked out the back door into the alleyway whereupon you skidded on a rotten avacado peel and smashed headfirst into a convenient collection of metal trashcans. (I say "convenient" only because they were there to break your fall.) I hope that didn't happen. It didn't happen here, and that's a good thing.

I really hope that, for me, 2009 is a better year than 2008. I started 2008 on a roll and ended it in a skid. A downward spiral-type skid, truth be told. A few life-altering occurences called 2008 their home: I fell in love, fell back into the bottle, witnessed my father's illness truly take hold and then kill him two months before his 69th birthday and two days before the historic election, and I nearly lost my well-paying job and held onto it only by the skins of my teeth (whatever the hell those are).

I didn't drink on New Year's Eve and it really wasn't all that hard to remain abstinent. The medication that I take helps, sure, of course, but everyone knows that if one does not take the medication, one doesn't reap the benefits. I took it and so I didn't drink. Meagan and I went with her friend to a bowling alley and rented a lane for a few hours, 9 to 12. There was drinking all around me, of course, and to say that it didn't affect me at all would be a lie. I was getting a little bitter, not being able to drink, but then I "played the tape through," as they say, and I realized that, though the night would not perhaps be filled with easy grins and hilarity, it too would not be filled with staggering bar bills and for-crap bowling (though I bowled horribly, anyway) and the night would not be filled with inane comments and the night would be less likely to be shotgunned with embarrassment...oh, and I would not have to drive home with white knuckles, damned sure that every shadowy shape was a police prowler. (Is it just me or does anyone else see cop cars as almost insectile? Kinda like they're wasps or aggressive bumblebees, zipping along the highways and byways, intent upon skewering the unwatchful with their needlelike stingaz?) No, it'd be--and it was--a safe night. And fun, too. So there's that.

I have beer down in the basement. I have had it there for about a month-and-a-half, now. There is about a six-pack of Guinness Draught sitting alongside the dryer. It's probably skunked, now, and I have taken an Antabuse, but I think/know that I need to get rid of it. Skunked or not, given the opportunity, I'll drink it. I should have gotten rid of it weeks ago. I am thisclose to losing my job (when all the hoops are jumped through and all the meetings are attended I'll be going back...but I feel like I am getting the runaround a bit--maybe it's just the holiday schedule that delays everything). Anyway, what I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted by my tangential mind, was that I have to pop the tops on those bad boys and introduce the contents to the washtub drain. I'm off to do that right now. Consider it, if you will, "real time blogging."

Back in a bit.

Four minutes later. I'm back. This may sound funny--but it's not--but I got a little misty around the eyes when I popped the tops on the Guinnesses and poured them the fuck down the drain. It is just liquid, sure, but of course it is much more than that. It is the loss of freedom that I was pouring down the drain. Freedom to drink, freedom to come home after a long day at work (if and when I ever get back) and kick back and suck down a cold one. Freedom to self-medicate and to "check out" of reality for a bit, here and there. But, hey, whom am I kidding? The freedom comes from pouring the brew down the drain. The freedom to work, the freedom to live happily, the freedom to avoid consistently shooting myself in the foot. The freedom to experience life as it truly is, the freedom to see it actually, both good and bad, with the blinders cast aside.

There is definitely a mourning process through which one has to navigate his or her way when one is kicking addictive substances to the curb. Though the substance has brought a heaping smelly shitload of pain and misery, it too has brought fun times and fond memories and tranquil life-is-good moments.

The sharp stout smell of the Guinnesses curled comfortably within my nostrils as soon as I cracked the tops. It smelled soooooo good. What crossed my mind? Why, I wanted it, of course. It was me and myself and I--and no one else. Who'd know? I'd know. I know this, too: start with a six-pack, progress to a twelve-er, mix in a few 40s, slabberdash some hard liquor into the mix. Get tested at work and fail the random test. Get canned. Begin life anew. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat until you're living in a crack apartment in Detroit and scrounging the streets for bottles to return for their deposits. Too dark a picture? Maybe it is...but maybe it's not. That's the problem with this shit: I never know where it's going to take me. I know, though, that if I maintain true to my straight-and-narrow, I give myself a fighting chance to live this life successfully. If I give in to my craven wants and desires, I for all intents and purposes slice through my own Achilles tendons and leave myself crawling through the shit and the slop and the beetles and spiders of Life. Not too pretty a picture? You're absolutely right. And I ask, Who the fuck wants that?

So...on this, the second day of January, 2009, at 11:30 in the morning, I'm going to end this pretty depressing post (lol) and step carefully into the shower and then I am going to dress in my Suspended From Work Casual and then I am going to drive the mile-and-a-half down the road and go to a meeting. My sponsor should be there and I'll reacquaint myself with him (I haven't called him in a few days.). Not necessarily fun, but necessarily necessary.

One last thing: My grandma turns 91 today. Though she has slipped considerably, both mentally and physically, during the last few years, she still my Granny and I love her enormously. If you could, wish little ole Eldora Belle a happy birthday, eh?

Peace ow, peace ouch, but mainly peace in.