Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes

I used to drink wildly and continuously, like I would never get a chance to drink again. As is always the case, keeping this up for years resulted in plenty of wreckage: a lot of chaos, some extremely hurt and confused people around me, a couple of very stupid experiences in which I could easily have died, a lot of pointless pain and disappointment. Watching things fall apart around me and being unable to stop drinking was crushing for my spirit. It’s an awful feeling, like being a prisoner in your own head, or being cursed by the kind of vengeful Olympian god who likes to make people push boulders up hills forever or get their livers pecked out every day by giant eagles. The days became repetitive, a grinding recitation of the same story: excruciating hangover and a churning empty gut, waves of terror and shame as I explored the brutal memories slowly coming back and the horrible gaps where they didn’t, a hopeless resolution to stay dry for the day, the treacherous voice telling me I would drink anyway, the inevitable drink in the early afternoon, the mounting urgency of the thirst, the tall boy, the six-pack, the 40, the trip to the bar. I withdrew into myself, coming to identify with my addiction and serve it, filled with self-loathing, shutting parts of myself away in order to feel less pain, living in a strobing alternation of fear and oblivion.