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laneysixx · 2 years ago

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Alcoholic Countdown

It’s 6 a.m. The blinding light pierces through the crack of the curtains, seering the eyes. Yesterday’s half drunk pint lies on the desk yonder, a lonely companion amongst the empty beer cans. I start to count the bubbles in nervous angst, the effervescence bubbles to the surface. Broken dreams realized to be nothing but messy froth once it reaches the surface. I’m clutching my sides in wait for the worst of the comedown. I feel it creeping.

The phone rings at 10 a.m. It’s the Monday morning ritual. A few cans by the bus park with some friends. It sounds unbearable. You see, they say all an alcoholic can think about is the next drink. Right now I can tell you it couldn’t be further from the truth. I have about seven cans left and I don’t feel like touching any of them. Granted, I don’t know if I could keep them down if I tried. It’s been a few hours since my last drink and the guilt is kicking in right now. For no reason whatsoever, it’s like you are bearing the brunt of all man’s sins on your shoulder. I remember things of little meaning that mean so much. I remember blaming my father’s friend for a football I burst when I was young. I remember my toad getting fried to a crisp because I forgot to turn its heating off. Confounded guilt, destruction like a wrecking ball. The pendulum swings and strikes the chest only to leave briefly to come crashing down harder. Like weather erosion it destroys the soul. The battering rain rusts my conscience.

I make my dreaded pilgrimage to the bathroom and as I fall upon my knees in prayer I am partially blinded by glittering stars in my eyes, filling me with disorientation. I hold onto the bathroom toilet tissue rail and bow my head upon the bowl trying to regain my composure. There are three things that can come of this symptom. A migraine, a seizure, or most commonly, nothing at all. I should be glad for the warning signs. Like a volcano my stomach erupts and paints the toilet in bile and takeaway food, an abstract art only a liberal professor could be proud of.

This is when the sweats kick in, a cold shivering slime emerging from my pores. Like a snail’s slime it forms a coat, insulating my innermost worries and forming a breeding ground for them to prosper. Now I begin to ponder the possibilities of a shower. It seems an impossible feat for me right now, but I am almost willing to try anything to rid myself of this feeling. I’ll never drink again, that’s for sure. Maybe a hot shower will open up my pores and I can sweat out the toxins, almost like a sauna. It’s worth the try. I’m not sure if this works but it’s what I’ve convinced myself. I’ve danced this dance a hundred times over and perfected the rhythm. A shower, then sleep. I’ll wake up in a pool of sweat but it will be anxiety and misery that drowns me. Two days later I will wash the sheets- there’s no point in doing so beforehand.

I manage to get a few hours of sleep and sure enough I am bathed in sweat. Now the anxiety begins to kick into overdrive. Bad thoughts come to the forefront of the mind and there’s room for nothing else. Like a sinister snake it slithers through the passages of my mind. Growing like an insidious fungus, it spawns spores of self doubt and splendid isolation. I have seven cans left in the fridge, I wonder if they’d help. My limbs right now are in agony, for what reason I don't know. I feel like I have run a marathon and my body feels like it's eating its own muscle tissue. This irrational anxiety has me sporadic. Any noise of a car parking nearby has me worried, loud noises are making me jump. I look at my phone. Two missed calls. I turn off my phone. I twist and turn in my bed but sleep will come no more. I get up. I put on my clothes. I go downstairs.

Turning the tap, I stared out the window in front of me and for a moment I could have sworn I saw someone sitting on the wall down the road. I glance down to my glass of water.

Back up again and it’s gone. I hope I don't see the demons this time. They don’t always come. Tormented, twisted dreams of demons and reanimated corpses. When they do come, they like to take residence in my room. And they don’t even contribute towards rent. Entering my room after having left it is when I notice the horrid stench of the place, it may as well have been a brewery. Disgusted by the empty cans strewn along the room I decided it would be a good idea to at least clean up a bit. I managed to throw three cans into a black bag before collapsing onto my bed and giving up. I took a sip of water and immediately threw it up. I estimate it will be another three days before I can keep down any food.

It’s now that I notice that my spluttering cough hurts my throat and it begins to swell. From all of the bile I’ve spewed up I seem to have cut my throat somewhere from the inside, and blood has joined my palette of paint on the toilet bowl. In the past this worried me but I’ve grown used to it, it’s more of an annoyance than anything else. My head has gone from feeling cold to a fever, almost flu-like symptoms. My body is hot to the touch. I apply some cream to my eczema. I’m quite sure that is a result of inflamed skin from drinking. Discoid eczema it’s called. That’s just my own hypothesis though, the doctor didn’t suggest as such, he hasn’t a clue what’s going on. It definitely gets worse as I’ve been drinking. My gums hurt from inflammation too. I wonder what damage this could really be doing. There’s not much left to do now other than lay in bed and overthink, smother in my thoughts.

It’s 5 p.m. now and I have awoken in that familiar slime. The bedroom oozes a sickly sweet smell, almost like sour cream. I wake up and I am angry at my family because of the nightmares I had. They are always the same kind of dreams I have after I have been on a bender. Fighting with my family, back in college, or my parents are still together; a weird one.

I suppose psychologically this is about regret, squandered talent. In school you are taught if you do well everything will just slot into place like a jigsaw puzzle. A pack of lies. I see people around me who never so much as picked up a pen doing a lot better than me.

Sometimes I fantasize about going to school. You see, every year they have past pupils come into the school and tell the sixth years how great college is, and try to give them tips. I want to go in there and shatter the glass, destroy that illusion and tell them the truth. More than half of you will never finish college. The class dunce will have a car in two years, perhaps a family in four. Two-thirds of the smartest of you will become alcoholics. The anxiety I have been feeling is still in full swing but it is now joined by another friend. The shakes take precedence now, and it becomes an arduous task to try to write, so I will come back to this later.

I just woke up and I have no idea how long I have been in bed. Minutes, hours, days? All I know is I think I have turned the tide, the worst of the current has abated. But I am not out of the woods yet. I woke up at least a dozen times in the night to a jerky start, a startling jolt upward like a lightning rod. I feel nauseated and hungry, but food won’t come to me now. Maybe if I have a drink or two I will be able to force a little bit of food down me, that usually helps. My legs and arms are still in pain, the muscles feel like they’re about to fall off. The sickly smell dominates the room. I understand now how they say when an alcoholic drinks people can always tell. It isn’t even the smell of the breath that gives you away. It’s got to be the fact that the toxins are so mired in your system, married to the sweat protruding from your pores that you can’t even wash it out. I crack open a can. I don’t even want this drink, it’s just for the shakes, and so that hopefully I can manage a bit of soup later. I bring the glass of beer to my lips. The cold embrace is welcoming, and the froth lingers, perched upon the upper lip. It’s more of the cold familiar feeling that soothes me, I don’t think I am particularly enjoying the taste.

I drink about half the pint and throw the rest away. See, I’m not an alcoholic. An alcoholic wouldn’t do that. Surely.

It’s 6 a.m. The blinding light pierces through the crack of the curtains, seering the eyes. Today I am feeling great. I managed to get some soup into me and have a quick shower. The sheets are in the wash now. Time to get back to productivity, I may even get into writing something more positive today. The anxieties of the previous days seem like a distant memory to me now, inexplicable and irrational. That was another person, it makes little sense. See, for me, it’s the days that you’re doing well that alcohol rears its tempting tendrils. When you’re fooled into thinking you’d enjoy it, you deserve it. Sure, it’s a sunny day out. I’ve now cleaned my room and am going to do a bit of shopping, then I will return to this journal of sorts. I might even read a book today.

I’ve just come back from the shop with a crate of twenty-four cans. But don’t worry. I’m not going to drink them all. What the hell was I thinking before? Of course drinking everyday for extended periods of time will do that to a man. I won’t do it this time. I only bought a large quantity of booze so that I won’t have to go out again this week. But I will ration my money just in case plans change. It’s a security policy. I’ll just have a few cans here and there like everybody else. I might even wait until 2pm this time. No harm in it. I was a fool to go full on like I did before. I don’t have that big of a problem, not full blown anyway. Maybe a spouting one, but I can pull it out like an emerging weed whenever I want, nip it in the bud before it takes over my garden. I was able to pour half a pint down the sink yesterday. An alcoholic wouldn’t do that. It’s not like I drink any hard liquor either, I stick mainly to beers. See, I’m not an alcoholic. An alcoholic couldn’t say that. Surely. I can’t be an alcoholic.

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