Forever Christmas
Alcoholism has been described as a slow suicide, but really it's more like Christmas dinner. Indulgent, jubilant, going on forever and ever. A fantasy. Then you have to clean up the mess and endure the relative hell of every other day that isn't Christmas. Until you get more booze. You know you have to stop, but it can be Christmas any time, and even without the pain of alcohol there is so much else that hurts. It would be nice to celebrate, to turn off, to wind down.
It’s 5:55pm and the closest bottle shop closes at 6. Just a few more minutes. You just have to not go and have Christmas Dinner again. You have to be happy without it. You just have to be able to be in pain without it. You have to not think about how miserable you are, how much of your life you’ve lost, how much you’ve hurt other people and yourself. How you’ve fucked up your body so badly to the point that there’s no going back, that it literally can’t be undone, and you’re not even halfway through it, all the things you could have done with more time and health. Thinking about how it wouldn’t be so bad just to have one, but knowing that the second you do it will never be one. How dull and miserable and unbearable everything in life is, how contemptible everything is, when you aren’t drunk. All you have to do is nothing. You have to just not do something, and the worst part is, it won’t change anything. You still are going to die 20 years younger than you should have. Now you get to be miserable and die young. But at least it won’t be 25 years younger. Right now, staring at the clock, watching it tick forward, another 5 years seems like a good deal. You could make it in time if you sped there, maybe ran a red light. They know you, you’re a regular, they would let you in a few minutes late to pick up your usual.
No.
6:01. You sigh, and lean back in your bed. You made it.
All you have to do now is try not to think about the 3 other bottle shops within a 20 minute walk that close at 7, 8 and 10 respectively.
This is every day of the rest of your life.