WARNING: Wonderland Ahead

Go read Jeremy's post, Cunning. Baffling. Powerful. NOW!

Wow. Powerful, right?!

And, oh, how I relate...

When I came back from skiing, I stayed overnight at my mother-in-law's in Atlanta. I wanted smooth legs for my honey who was to pick me up in Memphis (sorry, TMI!), so while trying to locate my razor which I'd cleverly stowed inside my ski boot bag, I accidentally cut my finger.  Like all flesh wounds, it bled profusely, so I opened the medicine cabinet to search for a BandAid.

Now, you need to know that Mom never takes ANY medication (barring her required thyroid medication, which she takes religiously and ritualistically), but laying on the shelf was a little paper packet that said "for pain as needed..."

It might as well have said "Drink Me" or "Eat Me."

In an audible voice.

I left the packet on the shelf, untouched, but I knew the pills were were there... waiting.

Taking one or two or three (c'mon - who knows how long they've been in there - they probably have lost all their efficacy by now!) would alter my feelings, take me out of my discomfort, numb my anxiety and put me in an altered state of emotion and experience.

They would take me out of the miserable discomfort of being me.

It was almost as if I was being mocked and set up: "You got through the ski trip; here's your reward... come on, it's JUST PILLS, not alcohol, not your drug of choice."

I had to slam the door shut on the temptation and the voice of my addiction, which was telling me just to nab the packet (it would never be missed, after all) and save it "for later."

I had to take a moment and repeat over and over, while staring into the blank whiteness of the washbasin, "I don't do that anymore."

"I don't DO that anymore!"

"I. DON'T. DO. THAT. ANYMORE!!!"

I don't go through people's medicine cabinets looking for pills.

I don't tell myself pills are okay.

I don't pretend that pills won't take me almost immediately back to my first love, alcohol.

Because they will. Inevitably and inexorably.

And if I ever drink again, I will wreck everything.

I'll destroy myself, my life, and those I love.

I will be out on the street and dead in a matter of months, not years.
That's how bad my alcoholism is.

That's the kind of alcoholic and addict I am.

And I am BOTH.

Maybe my drug of choice, my "main" addiction is alcohol, but anything that controls my emotions, alters my state of consciousness, elevates or deflates my mood will be my undoing.

Thanks, Jeremy, for your amazingly candid and timely post.

You're in my heart.

Care for a tart? (durn, I KNEW I was going to do that!)