Call me a safe bet, I’m betting I’m not…

I haven’t really been drinking again.

Yeah, being poor has something to do with it.

I got a job today though…well, I dunno. We will see how this goes.

But I mostly just kind of don’t like the way I feel when I’m not drinking…which is why lately I have been cutting back and trying to go on day long breaks.

Right now I’m wide awake.

Even took a sleeping pill.

Cleaned the kitchen.

Been listening to old Brand New…

Brand New is really hard to listen to sometimes when I’m not fucked up. I have so many weird and bad and good memories attached…I don’t like being this concious.

I don’t even know if I’m sad.

 

Just memories.

Memories and Dialogue.

 

"You give up and give me a half ass apology to get me to shut up. (yes my dear friend I can read you sometimes very well) I get fed up. Then you pull the card I think bugs me the most. You bend over, and say something like "your right, everyones right, im a piece of shit"  or "I hate my life. Everyone hates me" "i dont care" "i gotta get out of here’ etc, etc, justifying your fuck it attitude. Fuck everyone, fuck your life, whatever. In this case it was along the lines of "everyone says so, your right.

You are my dearest friend. No matter how shitty things get, you make it ok. I dont know how, and I only hope to be that for you as much as you are for me… you’re poetry, dane. you’re every writers dream. Angry but graceful. Resentful but kind. Dark but wise.

Maybe that’s why I find you acceptable.

Maybe."
 

"The thing that I have always hated so much about myself is that I piss people off, ALL the time…and the majority of the time, I never realize why people are even mad at me until it’s too late and they have to spell it out for me…so it makes me feel not only like an asshole, but like a dumb asshole too.

I know you are sick of the poor me bull shit…but, I really just know I am fucking up pretty much all day everyday.

I always zig when I should zag and blah blah blah…
 

…everclear was a bad idea last night, and I am leaving work to go back to bed."

"Its still the hardest thing in the world. Its so god damn lonely in here.

I dont even know what Im talking about anymore. Or if you care to hear it. i dont know what else to write. All I know is I feel like shit and I am alone. In life. I am so fucking lost.

I am lost because I am trying everything and still cant open the right door.

You are lost because you just dont feel like opening doors anymore."

On that note, I am also more hungover than I have ever been…. EVER. It is noon, I am going back to bed."

 

…I know it’s all over now.

I’m really thinking that from February 09 to February 10 was the worst time in my life.

I don’t think it can get worse honestly.

I don’t think it’s all going to be sunshine and roses from here…

but at least that is over right?

 

…so why am I rehashing all of its misery right now?

 

Is this the healing process, or self sabotage?

 

"So I wake up on a new couch…again…and no one is around…again…and I hadn’t showered in a long time, and I am sick of wearing the same clothes over and over again.

The night before my friends gave me another intervention…I got my drink taken away…poured down the drain.

I thanked them…shortly afterwards I got the spins, and I don’t ever spin…

All my friends were worried about me, "one or two weeks of watching you stumble up and down stairs, being the loudest one in the room, passing out in awkward places…waking up and going straight to the bottle…we got it for one or two weeks, we get it, you’re sad…anyone would be…but you’re not a kid anymore, start acting like a man."

…my mom still swears I am smoking crack again.

…I’m not smoking crack again.

But I have lost a lot of weight in the last month…and apparently I am starting to look sallow…my eyes are starting to look sunk in…apparently I look like shit.

I feel like shit…

So they told me they were going to take me to a hospital…

"Why? So you can pay for a bunch of pills I will refuse to take? So I can hear the same thing again that I have been hearing MY ENTIRE LIFE?"

…that was apparently pretty hard to argue with because they didn’t push it.

"How about you just take me to lunch instead?"

So that’s what they did…and we talked, and I told them how sick of all of this I am. I asked them if I could move back in with them, just as a transitional thing.

I was declined.

They asked me how long it had been since I had eaten, I told them the truth, "I don’t remember"

"well you look like shit."

"I know…thanks…"

I got a navajo taco…I took three bites and I was full, they made me eat more.

every time I picked up my glass, the sound of clinking ice could be heard.

"Why are you shaking so bad?"

"Honestly…it’s mid afternoon and I haven’t had so much as a beer…I usually mix a cocktail in the morning. I’m trying to kick it."

"You know that makes you an alcoholic right?"

"I know what I am…""

 

So…

I’m thinking self sabotage.

 

" APRIL 15, 2009

 

Day three in detox, I went outside to smoke, a fenced off area with a few tables, a basketball hoop, and snow…lot’s of snow.

Everything outside is either gray or baige. It’s miserable. I have had cold sweats every night. The shakes every morning.

 

I came here on my own free will, but they treat this place like a prison. I have nothing but time on my hands. The TV barely works so we watch the same VHS movies over and over again.

 

The sleeping quarters have some bunk beds for the people who have their vitals under control, the new comers; mostly drunk and homeless, sleep on sorry excuses for fold out mattresses on the floor. They routinely piss themselves, as a consequence the room has this poignant odor of defeated men.

 

Most of the people here are just using this place for a roof over their head because the shelter a few blocks down is closed until fall. They are brought in by the cops every night, and discharge themselves in the afternoon…only to be brought in again later that night, drunk and disruptive. 

 

When people aren’t trying to sleep away their waking nightmares, they bunch up into groups and either bitch about how horrible their lifes have become, or brag about how fucked up they like to get as if they are striving to become king of the losers. Most of them are at least twice my age and I see my future in their eyes. I hate this place more than I ha

ve ever hated anything in my life.

 

My appetite is back though, and my shakes are slowly subsiding. The first two nights I had some mild hallucinations. I didn’t believe those really occured from alcohol withdrawls.

 

When my mom dropped me off she said I could leave whenever I want. I think she was lying though. I know I can physically leave whenever I want to, but it feels like she has already dowsed the bridge from me to her with gasoline and is just waiting for me to strike the match. She wants me to stay here for two weeks so I can eventually be evaluated and then placed in a halfway house or an out patient program, where we will work on the 12 steps to recovery. I think that’s bullshit. I could be doing the 12 steps at meetings and not have to sleep in a room with 40 other crackheads, junkies, and soiled bums.

 

My dreams are all vivid and scary, and have been including all the people and places I miss. And when I wake up I can’t shake the feeling that those people and places don’t miss me back. My friends are probably relieved to not have me around for a while. 

 

I want to die.

 

If it wasn’t snowing I would discharge myself right now…

 

My mom and Amanda have both written to me, telling me I am doing the right thing…they have no idea. This is hell. And not because I can’t get fucked up…no, this is truly a vision of hell.

 

I want to die.

 

As soon as the weather clears up I am discharging myself. I would do better around people who care and support me, going to AA then I am doing around these souless flesh bags in here. There aren’t any counselors to talk to. No one to talk to but the crackhead who swears there are vampires after him, the tweakers who ramble about nothing incessantly, or the junkies who just bitch and moan about their legs aching. The drunks already have their click because they have all been in and out of here so often, they know eachother well. I am not invited into their group, nor do I want to be.

 

I want to die. I want to leave here and kill myself.

 

I wish I wasn’t so destroyed emotionally. I truly think I am broken beyond the point of repair. And I am so tired…so drained. I am starting to wonder; even if I can get better, do I have the will to fight my demons anymore?"

 

I really make a concerted effort to forget about things like this.

Not drinking is really hard.

My body doesn’t even care.

I don’t even know if my mind cares that I’m not drinking.

But I do…

Almost all of my memories suck and I hate them.

I have spent a lot of years trying to erase them…

when they come back like this it just hurts.