CHAPTER SIX

The following is an excerpt from the book Stream of Unconsciousness available on the Amazon and Barnes and Noble websites.

I never drank in the morning or afternoon. That was for homeless people and drunks in seedy bars.

When I began to seriously use alcohol it was typically near or at the end of the night and almost always to come down from an insane amount of coke. I never considered the possibility that I had a drinking problem. It was difficult for me to even formulate the “A” word.

Alcoholics drank all the time, in large quantities. I, on the other hand, only purchased my whisky in tiny little pints. This seemed perfectly normal to me: to pick a different liquor store every day at which purchase a pint of whiskey, “to help me unwind.” I never dreamed of purchasing anything more than a pint since to do so would surely qualify me as an alcoholic. I never stopped to acknowledge the fact that something about my daily purchases must have made me ashamed, otherwise why did I go to all the trouble to pick a different liquor store every day?

I had about ten different liquor stores in my repertoire, and I rotated them with eerie precision. I certainly did not want to give any of the liquor vendors the idea that I was some sort of sloppy alcoholic by purchasing from the same store. It frequently became a nuisance to keep the liquor stores in proper rotation so that I could maintain distance between purchases, and most certainly an annoyance to make the extra drive. Interestingly, I never bought alcohol at the same place I bought my drugs.

And, as for beer, well, for me, beer was just beer. Nothing fancy or too strong. It almost did not qualify as alcohol. It’s just bubbly water that has a wheat-taste to it. Of course I recognized beer contains some alcohol, but it’s nominal, something like five percent. It is legal, socially acceptable and “refreshing.” How could I possibly be an alcoholic if I just have a few beers a night to go with my whiskey, just in case the whiskey doesn’t quite take the edge off?

Before I added beer to my shopping list, I had the dilemma of determining which beer to select. I certainly enjoyed light beer. It appealed to me in that it doesn’t have the calories of a full-bodied beer. I felt very comfortable buying light beer since nobody could possibly think I was an alcoholic. It’s only light beer! The problem, however, was that light beer generally is the wimpiest of all beers in terms of how much “kick” it has. If I was truly in the mood to relax, I might need a little something extra in addition to the light beers to work with the whiskey in order to accomplish my nightly goal of “relaxing.” Malt liquor! That was the answer. A few bottles of Mickey’s Big Mouth would do the trick!

Not only did Mickey’s have a nice kick to it, the design of the bottle suited my needs perfectly. It has about a two-inch diameter opening that enabled me to down the entire bottle in about three seconds — perfect for those times in my closet late at night when I needed a quick pick-me-up.

Along with my daily pint and six-pack, there were quite a few times where I would have to restock the liquor cabinet. Despite my best efforts at estimating what I needed from the liquor store for my nightly consumption, frequently my liquor approximations came up short. It was fairly typical that I would drink my allotted nightly pint of whiskey, two light beers, and two Mickey’s all before 10 pm, leaving me no alternative but to storm the liquor cabinet in the bar downstairs off the kitchen to get a little something to take the edge off and help me sleep.

There was always a ready supply of alcohol in the bar unless I raided it the night before and neglected to restock the following day. There was red and white wine, tequila, brandy, vodka and the occasional bottles of port, sherry and Baileys.

When I had to resort to raiding the liquor cabinet, my choice of drink came down to a matter of convenience. Whatever was the first bottle I reached for became the lucky winner. After all, I wasn’t drinking for taste — down the hatch it went. I was drinking to get drunk, forget my problems and come down a bit from a wicked coke high. It didn’t matter to me that I was mixing different types of alcohol throughout the night and that I was most assuredly guaranteeing myself a hellacious hangover. I needed the alcohol. I needed the sleep which recently had not been coming easily for me. I didn’t care if sleep came in the form of a blackout, pass-out, or semi-conscious nap. I just needed some form of sleep to recover from the damage I had done to my body and block out what a mess my life had become…….