About ten years ago, I ran across an alcohol ad that read, “if you
are too tired to go out tonight, imagine how you’ll feel when you are 73,”
accompanied, of course, by a pretty girl bending over a pool table. Given that
I had not drank or used other drugs for around 20 years at that time, my
thoughts ran more to comparing how I felt at 63, to how I felt at 23, with the
latter coming up short. Way short.
At 23, I woke up sick and tired and stayed sick and tired all day,
until I suddenly flipped over to “wired,” in the late afternoon. Morning
promises to get right home after work and go to bed were quickly adapted to
meet the changing circumstances and became, “after a few beers.”
Like “old Pop Fox” in “The Dear John Letter Lounge”
(Walker, J. J.), I repeatedly modified that promise to “after I finish this beer,” until Willie sang “turn out
the lights, “The Party’s Over’…”
One would think that after the first thousand times I woke up sick, sad and
sorry, I might detect a faint suggestion of a pattern, but that isn’t the way
an addiction works.
Towards the end of my quarter-century of self-inflicted misery, I
was starting to see a pattern emerging dimly from the fog. I recall climbing
into the passenger seat on a beautiful August workday morning and informing my
driver that I didn’t know whether I needed my head examined or my butt kicked.
Unfortunately, it had become a little late for insights alone to rescue me from
myself. That isn’t the way an addiction works.
(See the first Hockey Stick Graph post
for details on how the self-inflicted misery lifted.)
I finally gave up on repeated efforts to “quit drinking on my own”
and volunteered for inpatient treatment. I was “sick and tired of being sick
and tired,” yet afraid my life was about to lose all its “color,” like an
old-time black and white movie. If I couldn’t drink, "how could I enjoy live
music, play pool, meet new people…?”
It turned out I could do all three quite
well, thank you, although shooting pool went by the wayside, crowded out by new
pursuits, like a real “college try” and…well, see the
upcoming Hockey Stick Graph II for what happened after I got my mojo back from
the pawn shop. Once I emerged from the fog enveloping “The Little Land”
(Limeliters), I was amazed, even overwhelmed, by all the choices available. You
can’t “live large,” in “The Little Land.”
The choice is yours. If you want to feel like an out-of-shape 73-year-old
tomorrow, go out and live it up with your false friend(s) tonight. If you want
to feel terrific, like this 73-year-old, stay tuned for more
posts.
I remember I used to feel so bad in the morning after a night of drinking. I look back now and wonder why anyone would put themselves through so much pain. Alcoholism is the only disease that tells you you don't have a disease.
ReplyDeleteSlick is a liar and a very believable one, because he is in our brain, reading our playbook and modifying his approach to meet our thoughts and feelings at that time. I totally despise even the slightest illness, yet I believed lines like, “just a couple and then get home early tonight.” I did that thousands of time and never questioned that “this time I mean it!” More on why that is pretty soon. I hope.
ReplyDeletePete, your latest RFR was so inspiring. I just returned from a cruise and my first thought on boarding the ship was "wow, we are the youngest people on board (66 and 70)". This may or may not have been true, but I probably was the first person in bed at night while the rest of the "old" people danced the night away and partied till the early morning hours. They were a far more rowdier crowd than I've witnessed on other ships where the majority of passengers were in their twenties and thirties. Their exhilaration and just having a damn good time was more contagious than any old zika virus. And....no signs of hangovers or bleary eyes in the mornings at breakfast.
ReplyDeleteWell done!