January 29 – Alcohol’s Favorite Game
“You ever get so drunk you make plans for the next day you have no intention of keeping?” — Bill Hicks, Comedian
Unmanageability isn’t just about wrecked cars and court dates. For us, it starts to show up in smaller, uglier ways — dodging people because we couldn’t remember what we said the night before, or who we might’ve insulted trying to be funny. We owed money all over town, and not just the big stuff — sometimes it was as small as saying, “Hey, I’ll get the next round,” and then disappearing out the back door before the tab hit.
Our relationships were just as shaky. We burned bridges we didn’t even remember crossing. We were scared of bumping into someone we’d lied to, ghosted, or promised something we never intended on delivering. Toward the end, for some some us, we didn’t even want to go to the store. We’d scan the aisles like we were being hunted, fearing we'd be recognized as the fool in the bar. For some of us, even a text notification would make our stomach drop.
Looking back, it doesn’t seem like we were afraid of people. What we were afraid of was our own truth—and the fact that we weren’t managing life very well. We isolated to avoid the evidence. That’s alcohol’s favorite game: get us alone, keep us afraid, and make sure we keep drinking. The longer we hid, the smaller our world got, until the only thing that felt safe was the thing killing us.
“It’s a lonely deal until you realize it was never the world pushing you away — it was you closing the door from the inside.” — A New Pair of Glasses, Chuck C.
How much of my isolation was really just hiding — and what was I really afraid of?
