Saturday, April 19, 2014

Build my gallows high, baby.


I began my relationship with alcohol at the tender age of 14 and it’s cogent force has held sway over me ever since. I romanticize it with thoughts corrupted by Kerouac and Hemingway and unquestioning allow it’s presence in my day to day lifestyle. I had the idea to give it up since before I left Michigan. It’s an idea that’s been revolving in my thoughts for awhile now, but oddly enough, I thought it was impractical. My social life is based on it. More personally, the anesthetizing qualities it has gave me the resource to quiet the storm of my mind and given me respite from the crashing waves of wonder, anxiety, introspection, confusion, bafflement and occasional hopelessness that proliferate endlessly in my thinking. But that respite is temporary and those thoughts are often worsened the days after I engage in a session on the drink. I want to get to the core of those thoughts and that's impossible if I continually push them aside with the blank slate of drunkenness. I feel weak and cowardly having to engage in such behavior and to tell the truth, I fucking hate feeling weak. So I’m giving it up. Maybe not forever, but for a prolonged period of time. I haven’t gone longer than a month without getting drunk in over a decade and that’s a trend I feel compelled to break. I want to learn Chinese and start practicing Jiu Jitsu and take up boxing again and become a proficient teacher and explore the unadulterated terrain of my consciousness. Drinking kills my productivity and leaves a dent in my self-confidence and after having spent last night consuming enough gin to kill most people, I’m ready. I’m finally ready to move on from my relationship with alcohol.