rexx

a couple years back at a pretty low point in my life, my dearest old friend sent me a letter. we hadn't spoken for months. alcohol ultimately ruined our friendship and turned us into pretty disgusting human beings. we had moved to the beach together to start a new life. the opportunities were endless. we were free of everything, worries, criminal records, credit card debt. just two free spirits in a little shanty on the beach with nothing ahead of us but a clear blue sky a beautiful ocean and the rest of our lives. two months later as the bills were piling up and the lines of coke were sliding down we were screaming at each other every night in drunken rage and stealing to eat. i'm haunted to this day by the mistakes we were making. i remember coming home after each day at work to him passed out on the couch, an empty bottle in hand and beer cans scattered all around. i remember each morning a part of me believed that that day he would get a job. straighten out. but i knew i was wrong. i tried as hard as i could to support us both but my own habits were becoming just as sorry and when the third month came and he swaggered to my room, drunk, to inform me he wouldn't be making his portion of rent, again, we got in the car and left. a part of me wanted to never forgive him. but i did. i still havn't gotten my life back. and i am fully aware that alcohol is the reason. though i have tried to lie to myself many times. i was once a much more carefree person inside than i am now.i have ruined that for myself. but i want it back and i know i can get it. i want my life back. the one i lost in 2006. oh yeah, the letter. we didn't speak for a long time. he left the state and sobered up and started sending me small portions of money to repay the thousands i had used to get us by. all that was in the envelope was a check and a small piece of paper with a quote from dalai lama. i have held onto it over the years and i can't find it now. but something about how good conduct is the way in which life becomes more meaningful. i think that was the first time i stepped back and looked at the way alcohol was affecting my life.


just another day really is what i usually think of january first, but this year i am ready to put the past 365 days far far behind me.

i have decided to make this wretching pain in my gut the last one, for awhile anyways.

alcohol got me nowhere in 2008 except locked up, rammed into a tree, hungover, broke as all hell, and physically injured.

i realized long ago and even wrote here that it does nothing for me anymore. but i just kept on slugging it down.

draining a fifth of whiskey in a matter of hours with no issues is not something i consider a healthy habit for a girl of my size. when sober after long binges i get the shakes and feel panicky until i decide to pollute my system once again.

my bank account is in the single digits and going nowhere fast.

i can lie to myself all i want but i can't fool myself into thinking that it isn't because of alcohol.

i know i'm only twenty one, but my relationship with drinking has been forming for years and years. i remember when it was all fun and games. parties, laughs, good times. carefree. i remember when the blackouts started to come. and when they began to come more frequently. and when i don't even remember large parts of days or even weeks of my life over the past two years.

i remember when my car was spiraling out of control and i saw the tree coming at me last summer i thought my life was over and when i realized i was sitting in a cloud of smoke and shattered glass, alive, i needed to call it quits.

but i didn't.

if anything the habit became more desolate and lonely than ever.

i have repeated the same lies to myself over and over. i don't drink that much. plenty of people drink more than this and more frequently.i'll stop tomorrow. just one more night. and one day i woke up and realized that most people weren't drinking as much as me, or as often. in fact i was surpassing everyone i knew. by a long shot.

but i kept on putting it down.

i'm killing my body slowly and i can feel it more each day.

after one particularly long and heavy binge i recall laying in the hospital in tears clenching my stomach in excrucating pain and being told what terrible state my kidneys were in and telling myself i would stop.

but i didn't.

i remember when i failed my breathalyzer the morning after drinking heavily and knowing that this could land me back in jail and i needed to stop.

but i didn't.

i remember failing it again last weekend and feeling like a drunken loser who can't control my habits and telling myself i would stop.

but i was sitting on a barstool the very next night.





coming home this morning to joleighs set was like a slam dunk over the head.


and it has to be all or nothing.

i don't make new years resolutions because i don't like to make promises i can't keep. and i can't promise the permanance of what i'm saying. but for now i have got to stop. i have considered before seeking help but i think the only help i'll need is the support of my friends.

i have more to offer the people in this world than being the girl who is fun to get drunk with. and i have more to offer myself.

i've "tried" to stop in the past by cutting down but i always end up the same. a hot drunken mess with a jumbled mind and a sick liver constantly permeated with the drink. i can't cut down. i just have to stop.

i WANT to stop.

wow.

i can't believe i'm saying this.

i always feel a twinge of jealousy when i see or hear people who don't drink at all talking about their fun and out enjoying life without alcohol. because in the back of my mind i think i convinced myself that without drinking i wouldn't be fun anymore. and i wished i could be like them.

i have taken the habit far beyond social walls. its lost all of its glory.

the truth is, i have forgotten how to live without it.

i read old journal entries and see how the problem has progressed and how many times i have talked about quitting because alcohol has slowly taken my life away bit by bit, year by year. i have become the friends i always scorned for who they became after sailing over the edge.

i realize i'm stopping too late and in a few weeks when my case manager finds out that i failed another test i'm going to be punished for my mistakes. and i may even wind up back in court and possibly in jail. but i guess i deserve it and will take it with a grain of salt.

i truly appreciate everyone who keeps up with me on here. you guys probably know more about my life than the people who see me in person every day. i tell you alot about myself. and i read alot about you. its like a little family on here and i know you will probably be there to support me with this decision. i hope. internet smilies go a long way.

anyways.

old habits die hard.

here's to the death of it.



"flup, the mans dead in the morning, the brown drear happiness of bars and saloons in the whole world's shuddering void and the nerve-ends being slowly, living deathly cut in the center of the gut, the slow paralysis of fingers, hands -- the spectre and horror of a man once rosy babe now a shivering ghost in cracking surrealist night of cities, forgotten faces, money hurled, food hurled, drinks, drinks, the thousand chewed talks in dimnesses. -- o the joy of the whitecap seaman or ex-seaman wino howling in a third street alley in san francisco beneath the cat's moon and even as th solemn ship the golden gate waters shoves aside, bow-watch lonely whiteshirt able-bodied seaman japan-pointed on the forepeak with his sobering cup of coffee, the pocknosed bum of bottles is ready to crash against narrow walls, invoke his death in nerveless degrees, find his feeble tape of love in the winding stool of lonely gloom saloons -- all illusion"
-jack kerouac-