Well, here's the next part of my post-diagnosis, post-surgery entries. I've been thinking lately about something that Jack London said in John Barleycorn - "I am afraid I always was an extremist." I read that book many years ago, when I was trying to stop drinking. My drinking years, which were the middle 18 years of my life, commenced after I started working and had some money in my pocket, and they spiked up whenever I got some time off. Time and opportunity would always equal excess in my world.
And I can't help thinking now that there is a bill to be paid for such behaviour. Some examples: I went drinking one afternoon in a bar called The Tap Room in Aberdeen, Scotland, which sold a fine Orcadian ale called Skullsplitter, and after a few of those it was game on. I woke up a week and a half later on a park bench in Luxembourg City.
Another time I went missing for a fortnight and woke up in a silent, dark room, on my back, wrapped in a white sheet. I thought to myself, "Oho, you've really done it this time." Turns out I was in a hotel room in London, of all places. I had a flash of memory, some geezer with a handlebar moustache wiping the head off a glass of beer in some bar, and Buddy Guy playing in the background. I had a funny feeling I'd been abroad.
Aye, I spent 18 years waiting to be able to drink legally, and another 18 drinking, then 18 more sober. Now I have this diagnosis. I take a leaf out of Raymond Carver's book here - I've had another life beyond the drinking one, so if 3 x 18 is all I get, then that'll have to do. I've had a rare old time when I was younger and able to drink to excess, and I wouldn't change any of it (Unless it was to go even farther in every regard, but I don't think that was humanly possible.) One thing I am kind of convinced of though, is that a day will come when the invoice will come through your letterbox. And one way or another - you'll pay for what you've done.
Tags: freedom, liberty, alcohol, addiction, sobriety, Raymond Carver, Jack London To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!
And I can't help thinking now that there is a bill to be paid for such behaviour. Some examples: I went drinking one afternoon in a bar called The Tap Room in Aberdeen, Scotland, which sold a fine Orcadian ale called Skullsplitter, and after a few of those it was game on. I woke up a week and a half later on a park bench in Luxembourg City.
Another time I went missing for a fortnight and woke up in a silent, dark room, on my back, wrapped in a white sheet. I thought to myself, "Oho, you've really done it this time." Turns out I was in a hotel room in London, of all places. I had a flash of memory, some geezer with a handlebar moustache wiping the head off a glass of beer in some bar, and Buddy Guy playing in the background. I had a funny feeling I'd been abroad.
Aye, I spent 18 years waiting to be able to drink legally, and another 18 drinking, then 18 more sober. Now I have this diagnosis. I take a leaf out of Raymond Carver's book here - I've had another life beyond the drinking one, so if 3 x 18 is all I get, then that'll have to do. I've had a rare old time when I was younger and able to drink to excess, and I wouldn't change any of it (Unless it was to go even farther in every regard, but I don't think that was humanly possible.) One thing I am kind of convinced of though, is that a day will come when the invoice will come through your letterbox. And one way or another - you'll pay for what you've done.
Tags: freedom, liberty, alcohol, addiction, sobriety, Raymond Carver, Jack London To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!
