GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1083: FOUR YEARS

My first author photo.

Whenever I talk with a friend I haven't heard from in a while, as I did recently, they inevitably say something along the lines of how they thought for sure my drinking was going to kill me. There are a lot of people out there surprised by the fact that I'm still alive. I am one of those people. As of today it's been four years since my last drink.

It's been four looooooooong years. I thought maybe I'd still drink for special occasions, like my birthday and Christmas and so on. In fact, I lied my ass off so I could get out of detox and get something to drink in time for my birthday. I planned to buy a fifth of Wild Turkey 101, but when I went to the liquor store, I drove right past without stopping. I still have no idea why. All the same, that special occasions plan would have failed. That was my SOP for maybe a year back in the early 2010s, and I strained to find ways to qualify stuff as a "special occasion."

I miss the whole thing. I miss hanging out in bars and bullshitting with my fellow drinkers. I miss the fucked up adventures boozing used to bring. I even miss hangovers, the price to pay for greatness.

Who knows? Maybe I'll take it up again. There are a few things that might force my hand, like losing my bad foot or getting fired. Or maybe I'll live to one hundred and figure, fuck it. What's the worst that could happen?

Probably not, though.

I beat my alcoholism without AA, and that makes me proud. I think of all the court ordered AA people get stuck with and think, that sounds like a First Amendment violation. AA claims to be a non-religious organization, but they're lying. It pleases me that I beat this without the industry standard. All I needed to do was beat the physical addiction. The rest of it was a breeze.

I'm not condemning AA. It didn't work for me because Step Two sounds like a great excuse to blame my problems on something other than myself. Make no mistake, I am to blame for going down this path. But they do help people, so if you need help, give them a try. Or you can do what I did and go to RCA (Recovery Centers of America). From what I understand, they have locations across the country. I personally went to the one in St. Charles, which is pretty nice. It costs, yes, but if you have medical coverage, you'll be OK.

There is an added benefit to writing about this stuff here, and that's you lovely fuckers. I typically don't give a fuck what people in general think of me, but for some reason I do in this case. I think of all the people who congratulate me, and I realize I'd let them down if I started boozing it up again. That disappointment is one of the things that prevents me from drinking on shitty days, so thank you.

Have I done anniversary posts every year? I'm too lazy to check, but I suspect I have. Maybe I'll do one for five years, but after that? I won't bring it up again until the 10 year anniversary.

Unless I've been killed in a horrific car accident. I probably won't post if that happens.

Anyway, goodnight fuckers.

For many years I had that author photo on my business card, too. A friend of mine said, "You have a picture of you drinking on your business card?" I nodded, proud, and said, "Of course." Bliss in ignorance? No, bliss in stupidity.

Special thanks to Alicia and Chris Stamps, who always remember my anniversary.

BLACK WEDNESDAY (BELATED)

[NOTE: I wrote this last night and thought I'd posted it. However, I was also high when I wrote this, and by the time I realized I hadn't posted it, I was in bed with my ankle brace off. I wasn't going to put it back on to go out to my laptop in the living room. Hence the "belated" part of the title.]

 It's been three years and one hundred and thirty-four days since my last drink. Black Wednesday is traditionally the drunkest day of the year in America, but even at the deepest depths of my alcoholic depravity, I never went out for Black Wednesday. I got shitfaced at home. Leave the DUIs to the social drinkers who over-imbibed that night. It's like vampires on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. They stay home on Halloween night.

This used to be my favorite weekend of the year because at all my office jobs I usually got a four day weekend, which I always dedicated to drunken debauchery of all sorts. Then I'd have a handle of Wild Turkey 101 (it was Thanksgiving, after all) the next day, and I'd have a collection of booze for when that was gone. I usually had Jameson as back up, and then a couple of handles of really cheap shit for when that ran out. I'd return to work the following Monday hung the fuck over (or possibly still a little drunk).

I really do miss those days, but even if I was still drinking now, I'd no longer get to celebrate like I used to. My current job is closed on Thanksgiving, which is always on a Thursday, a day I usually have off. No, I don't get a different day off. We're open on Black Friday (and for the first time ever, we have a Black Friday sale, so . . . yay . . .), and I work on Saturdays, so my four day weekend would be impossible now.

This will also be my first Thanksgiving completely alone. Now that my brother and I have gone our separate ways, and I'm all the way out in the middle of nowhere, there's no likelihood of seeing anyone else. I'm pretty happy to spend time on my own. I like my own company very much. But on a holiday? And it's likely to be the same for Christmas and New Year's. I guess we'll put my resistance to loneliness to the test.

I still have a tiny bottle of WT101. Empty, of course. I suppose I'll give it a sniff tomorrow to remind me of the good ol' days.

Happy Thanksgiving. Don't get any DUIs tonight. And if you love your mental health, stay home on Black Friday. Don't worship at the feet of unrestrained corporate greed. Unless you have to work, in which case you have my condolences.

Almost said goodnight, fuckers. But really, why would I say something so silly and rude?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1014: GOOD RIDDANCE TO THE CAGE

 

And hello to the cast.

I woke up at 3:30 am this morning to get the fucking cage removed from my bad foot. When I was in preop I was advised that I would have a cast on, but I'd be able to walk short distances. No more walker. However, when I woke up after the operation, they told me that I can't walk anywhere, and I can only put my foot down to balance myself. I still need the fucking walker.

That pisses me off to no end, but at least I'm no longer in agony anytime my bad foot so much as twitches. It's also good to know that if I start to fall over, I can put my bad foot down and not get sent to another galaxy with the shock of pain. And hey, look at that bandage on my toe! The surgeon removed a couple of giant scabs while she got rid of the cage. I got those scabs because . . .

OK, I lived in a friend's basement in Joliet for a while, but the floor down there was hardwood, and I had an air mattress. So I had to roll out of bed every day and climb up the walker, and I couldn't do that without fucking up my toes, which were sticking out of the cage. So yeah, those scabs had been there for quite some time. (I should also mention that once, after rolling out of the air mattress, I noticed that the floor had bent back my big toenail. Good thing I couldn't feel that. I must have done something similar this morning because the same toenail was bent back. I didn't notice until I got to the hospital.)

I'm in a much better mood today, but I'm still kinda fucked in regards to being able to move around. I have a bit more freedom now, but not much more. I was hoping I'd be able to unpack all these boxes and get my study ready for work. With these restrictions, though, it might be a long time before that becomes a reality. I'll do what I can, but that's not going to be much.

I was also hoping to get my microwave from storage. It's pretty far back, and I have to move a lot of stuff to get to it, so that might not happen for another month, either. Holy shit, I really need to get back to work to earn at least two weeks of wages, or I'm going to have some financial issues, too.

I think I'm going to have to go back to work with the walker. Fuck. I was hoping not to do that.

But last night's GF had the desired effect. I did not stop off at the place down the street for a bottle. At least the docs gave me some fentanyl as they rolled me into the recovery room. That was a nice little treat on my way out of surgery.

I haven't felt any pain yet, so I hope that part is over. Not having metal rods going through my leg has improved morale around here, but it's good to know that I still have my laudanum just in case.

It'll be good to sleep in tomorrow. Goodnight, fuckers.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1013: MY CALENDAR IS STILL PACKED AWAY

 

Yesterday I found my motivational bottle of whiskey. There's maybe a quarter-inch of booze in there, and I'm guaranteed not to drink it because the original cork broke, and there are hundreds of pieces floating in the bottle. But I do like to take a sniff from the neck every once in a while. Sometimes it smells glorious, but most times it grosses me out, the desired effect.

It's been three years and a handful of days since my last drink. I don't know how many days because my calendar is still packed away. However, I made an ugly discovery this morning while refilling my bottle of liquid Vicodin from the cannister CVS gave me. I usually get a little red flask of the stuff, but for some reason I got the cannister this time. I read the label and found, much to my horror, that there is alcohol in this.

So technically I haven't had a drink since the last time I took my medicine.

I'm supposed to take 15 mL every four hours. That is the equivalent of a sip of decent beer at 6.7% ABV.

After some agonizing I decided that it doesn't count against my years and days. #1: I had no idea that there was alcohol in this. #2: It's not like I'm drinking this stuff to get wasted. Sure, the pain gets to be a bit much sometimes, so I'll take 30 mL, but it's not recreational. I'm using this as directed, as a painkiller.

Yes, I can hear myself. I used to drink to kill the pain of a terrible constant months-long headache, and that was how I became an alcoholic.

It gets worse. The temptation to drink in this new home is exceptionally strong. I've almost gotten myself convinced that I can just have a couple of drinks to unwind each night. Right now I have edibles to unwind. My new home is a nonsmoking place. You can't even smoke on the property. So I've stopped smoking weed, but the edibles aren't kicking in like they used to.

Yes, I can still hear myself. I'm looking for an excuse to get fucked up. I'm writing this to convince myself to *not* do that.

Because the rest of me is very much onboard with getting fucked up, but as I write this I can feel myself coming to my senses. Yet: "Hey, man, you don't have *any* days because you fucked up. You took the liquid Vicodin. So give up. Go get some bourbon. There's a place just down the street. It's a college town! There's a place just down *every* street! Let's go, dude!"

The other day I stopped in a Casey's to use the bathroom, and I had to crutch (I'm on a walker, not a crutch, but "walker" my way doesn't sound right) my way past the liquor section. I scowled at Evan Williams, but Larceny? Whoo-boy. I loved Larceny. If I wasn't in dire straits of a piss, I would have stopped and considered. Considering might have lead to something else.

The one thing that stops me flat is the cage on my leg. I can't tell you how many times I've almost fallen over on the walker dead sober. I have stopped myself from eating it each and every time. But if I was drunk . . .

It doesn't matter. The cage is coming off tomorrow. I won't have that to stop me soon. But I will still be in a cast. Maybe that will help.

Speaking of which, I've been advised that it's possible the cage *won't* come off tomorrow. My surgeon asked me to get a CT scan today (last minute) because she's afraid two of my bones haven't fused together. If they haven't, she said she won't take the cage off.

THE CAGE MUST COME OFF. I'm at the very end of my wits on this. I can't have this cage on me anymore. The longer it's on, the higher the risk of a bone infection and a subsequent amputation. But that's not what's eating me. I NEED TO WALK AGAIN. I can't keep crutching around on walkers and actual crutches (I use one for stairs). No matter how much of my liquid Vicodin I take, I'm still in pain, especially when I'm on stairs. I can't take it anymore. I literally can't.

Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow, and the surgeon will tell me that the CT scan showed the bones didn't fuse, so the cage isn't coming off. Or I'll go under, and when I wake up the cage will still be there. The cast is supposed to be a walking cast, so I've decided that if I can't walk around tomorrow on my feet, sans cage, I am going to get a bottle of Wild Turkey 101, and I'm going to drink myself into oblivion.

I know that sounds crazy, but have you ever spent approximately three months with a cage around one of your feet? One that keeps several metal rods going through your flesh and bone in place? So that you're in constant pain that whole time?

We're going to find out about a lot of things tomorrow. Things have been going my way lately. I can only assume this will go my way, too. So here's to hoping I walk out of the hospital on two feet tomorrow, and that I'm carrying my folded up walker under one arm. Wish me luck.

I really hope the cage comes off for many, many reasons, but one of the big ones for me is, I'll finally be able to change my boxers. I've been wearing the same pair since the cage was installed. The ones I'm wearing are pretty rank by this point. I spray them with air freshener every day. But hey! No pee stains or skidmarks! 

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1002: 3 YEARS

 It's been three years since my last drink. Not bad for a guy who, if he put in the effort, could down a handle a night. More often than not he left an inch at the bottom for hair-of-the-dog purposes, because a sober moment was not a good thing for me back then. I thought I'd been sober during the days, but I was wrong about that. The booze still lived in me from the prodigious amount of drinking committed during the previous night.

The last drink I had was from my whiskey barrel. It was high proof. And it was great. It didn't get me drunk as I was hoping because by that point booze couldn't get me drunk. My body, sure, but not my mind. That's where I needed it.

I firmly believed that would be my last drink, and so far it has been, but while I was at detox, beating the physical addiction, I decided I couldn't wait to get out and drink just in time for my birthday. I moved the heavens and got out in the correct timeframe. And for some reason I didn't stop at Williams Liquor that day, as I'd been planning for at least a week. I just drove past.

So it's been ever since. I don't think about alcohol often, but when I do it's pretty heavy. The addiction is still lurking inside me somewhere, looking for an excuse, but I've been able to keep on top of it. All the same, there are a few times a month when I think, Goddam! I could sure use a drink! And maybe someday I'll give in to that urge, but it's not going to be anytime soon.

Three fucking years. I'm sure a lot of people I knew in my drinking days would find that unthinkable. Hell, my friends now probably think that. A lot of them were around for Booze Bruni. Whoo-boy. The folks over at the Corner Cottage probably think I'm dead. I'd have said the same of the guy at York Liquors, but that place just went out of business. It just occurred to me, writing this now, that the only way that guy would give up his shop was if he was dead. Did he die? I hope not. He was a friendly guy.

The weird thing is, I almost missed my anniversary. I've been drowned in shit and bad luck and horrors and hell for so long that if I hadn't checked my calendar, I would have forgotten it. The only reason I checked my calendar was because something good happened today.

All right, enough celebration. Time to make it to three years and a day.

I'm going to bed early. As you can imagine, I did not get much sleep last night. I hope to fuck I don't get sick tomorrow morning. 

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #978: 2 YEARS AND 262 DAYS

 It has been two years and 262 days since my last drink. Recently I almost fucked my streak, so maybe moving into the hotel isn't changing me. Maybe the Becoming had already taken me over by that point.

Because a week before I left home for the last time, I decided when I woke up that I was going to drink that day. I was going to visit Gramps and Grandma (and my great-grandma, but I never met her in life, so I don't know her all that well) on that Thursday. Longtime readers know I take an airplane bottle of Jim Beam for Gramps, as that was his favorite drink. When I was still boozing it up, I brought an airplane bottle for me, too.

Except this time I was so frazzled by my entire life being upended that I thought, why not get one for myself this time? The idea blossomed from there when I realized that if I had that drink, I might as well get drunk, so I'd better get a fifth of Wild Turkey 101 for good measure. I smiled, knowing that I would finally find peace again.

I got out of bed, and I almost hummed thinking about the booze I was going to get that day. I'd been going insane getting my things ready for Public Storage, at least the stuff I couldn't bring with me to the hotel. And then I opened the shutters in my room, surprised to see that it had snowed overnight.

Fuck. I can't visit Gramps and Grandma in the snow. So much for that idea.

The only reason I didn't drink that day was because it snowed. Only then did I realize what I'd decided to do, and about then I knew that I had to recognize the fact that I was going crazy, or something like that could very well happen again. I had to be wary. The addiction often speaks sensibly, which makes it easy for you to say fuck it. Let's get hammered.

I fought it off that day, but booze constantly assails me at the hotel. Do you think I like going downstairs and outside to smoke some weed? Do you know what would be easier? Get a bottle, fill a glass and relax. No journeys or hassles needed. And what the hell? I got my usual sickness without the booze, anyway. It's not like it's going to make me ill like that again.

I know that if I spend enough time in this hotel room, I'm going to drink again. I'm a little surprised I haven't yet. Whenever I stayed in a hotel room in the past, it was because I intended to be so drunk I couldn't drive home. I feel like I should have a drink within arms' reach at all times. That's what worked for me in the past.

The plan is to be here a month (and to enjoy my short commute to work while I have the chance). I think I can hold out that long. But if I'm here longer, that could become a problem. But I do have a couple of prospects right now. I just need one of them to work out, and I'll be certain that I won't drink.

Reasonably certain. I am, after all, still an addict.

Wish me luck.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #960: 2 YEARS, 195 DAYS

 It has been 2 years and 195 days since my last drink. A few people have started to notice that I don't say "I've been sober for . . ." That is by design. I'm an alcoholic, not a weedoholic. I have problems with booze, not cannabis.

But this "sober" thing came up, I don't know, maybe a year ago? I forget what the association of ideas was that led me to this particular thought, as I promptly forgot the thought almost as soon as I had it. But last night, as I waited for sleep to take me, my brain spoke up and reminded me of it for some odd reason. Possibly to plague me. My brain is very good at plaguing and vexing me. Thankfully it's good at positive stuff, too.

I realized that I've never had a sexual encounter as an adult while sober. Every instance has been while I was blind stinking drunk. I've had a few sober sexual experiences from when I was underage, but that can't possibly count. I don't recall who said it, but every time you remember something, you're actually remembering the last time you remembered that thing, not the thing itself. As such, it turns into a game of inner telephone. I think there might be some truth to it. I imagine sober sex would be vastly different between the 13 year old boy I was and the 46 year old man I am now.

The last time I had sex was late 2020. I like to think it was in December, but it was probably in October, possibly earlier than that. I was pretty drunk. The last sexual encounter wasn't long after that. It's pretty pathetic, actually. We were in the shower together, cleaning each other before getting dirty again, but I was drunk and 70 lbs. heavier than I am now. My chest felt weird, and I felt like I was out of breath. She helped me sit on the closed toilet seat so I could catch my breath. By the time I felt normal again, the mood had passed.

My sex drive had been dropping, anyway. It was at its lowest just before I went to detox in July 2022. Since quitting the booze it's picked up again, but, and here the author of Dong of Frankenstein and 6669: Demon Porn must make a confession, sex has never been something I've been very interested in. I don't pursue it. Sometimes it pursues me, and I give in to it. It feels great and then makes me insatiably crave it for about two weeks before I'm back to normal. I'm sure there's a werewolf metaphor in there somewhere.

But now I wonder, what must it be like? To have sex with someone without any foreign chemicals in my body? I'm childish at nature, so would I be able to take it seriously? I've never been good at talking dirty, so I'm almost certain I'd take it too far. And I'm lazy and like to be ridden. Probably not popular idea.

As a young boy I had encounters with two young girls and I had sex with another. I was still, legally, 13 at the time, but I was just about to turn 14. The experience was very enjoyable but also traumatic for a while afterward. I caught the clap. That was enough to make me swear off of sex for a long time afterward. I didn't come back to it until years later. Every once in a while I would develop an attraction for someone, but I'd shove it down until I didn't feel it anymore. I didn't want to risk possibly finding myself in a position to have sex again.

I'm sure I'll find out some day about the sober sex. Unless I die in my sleep tonight.

Laugh if you will, but how creepy would it be if I did? It's not urban legend material, but I'm sure I'd make a Buzzfeed list somewhere.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #951: 2025 DOES NOT BODE WELL

 For the past few days I've been getting ready to take this mantle up again, and I thought I'd jump right into politics before January 20 comes along, but fuck that. Because big picture? That's terrible for everyone, even the unsuspecting MAGAs. Besides, small picture (but fucking huge for me) is what I'm looking at this year.

I can't imagine I'll end 2025 with two feet. Gotta be honest, today I had a bad feeling about The Foot. A lot of drainage came out of it today, and it is super swollen. I could not get my shoe on this morning. I had to go back to the medical shoe with the velcro strips. Often times today I thought maybe I should just go to the ER. But if these are going to be my last days with the foot, I want to get the most out of them. I also want to start planning to fuck over the corporations who are going to swarm me when I no longer have money because my second prediction for the year is I'll be out of a job. First and foremost is jailbreaking my car so the dealer can't brick it from afar. The plan is to also . . . I'm a little crazy right now, so I'll hold off on that.

(I did message my podiatrist. He asked me if there was any redness, and there isn't. He doesn't seem worried, but now I'm thinking about how cold I was on Friday. That is also a sign of infection.)

There are a few things that are probably going to come up this year on my Reasons to Start Drinking Again list, but those two are the big ones. So to top it all off I'm probably going to drink again this year. My life has been a constant downward spiral, but I may be reaching the end. It angers me that I won't get to beat Mom's high score of 53, much less Dad's 59.

I hope this is just the paranoia speaking, but last night I thought about all the things I wanted to do with the new year, about all the life changes I would incrementally make over time. I have a little notebook half-filled with my ideas and how to implement them. But whenever I start making big plans for myself, the universe shoves the Fickle Dick of Fate right up my ass. It's been probing me all day, but I hope it doesn't make me drink during the first full week of the year.

I thought maybe I should go to the ER anyway tonight, but I have a plan of action. I see Wound Care on Thursday, but I have some antibiotics (they accidentally gave me two packs, and I'm not going to just return one) in case I have an infection, and I have tons of ice to kill the swelling. It went down a little today, but maybe by my appointment, I'll have fixed this. Or they'll highly suggest I go to the ER, so I might want to pay a bag on Thursday . . .

The really fucked up part of this is, I started looking forward to losing my foot so I could drink again. That, my fine fuckers, is the very definition of addiction. I killed that horrible thought as soon as I detected it, but I can't deny it was there.

I'm hoping tomorrow's better. And hey, this was mighty depressing. You should check out the new issue of The Cocaine! Bros.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #925: THE HORRORS PERSIST

 Printers Row: Please don't make me get sick before I go. Authorcon IV: Please don't make me get sick before I go (or even while I'm there). Last Wednesday: Shit, I think I picked up a cold from the con. Friday: OH FUCK IT'S MY SICKNESS NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

After about seven hours of puking my guts out every 15 minutes and constant pain, I decided to admit defeat and finally go to the ER, where they went through the usual rounds. They haven't hospitalized me for this illness for a while, so I didn't expect them to keep me overnight. But after they sent me for a CT scan (the first of two) the ER doc came back and said, rather cheerfully, "Your scan looks great! Except you tore a hole in your esophagus from puking too hard!"

Well shit. Thanks for that. They thought air was getting through the hole, but no water. They decided to admit me. No food. No water. I can't even let water get close to my mouth. I was hungry, and my tongue scratched like sandpaper across the roof of my mouth. My throat ached, begging for anything. I'd have taken a hot load from John Holmes himself if that was all that was available. My only comfort was morphine, and they were not stingy with it.

(They took mercy on me and got me a cup of water with a sponge to swab my mouth. I couldn't drink it, though.)

But as they were asking the usual questions, and the nurses were fretting about me as they always do, they asked about my leg brace. I then found myself explaining that I have a hole in my foot from stepping on broken glass a couple of months ago. I got it all out, and my podiatrist x-rayed me to confirm that. But now they were worried about it again. They sent me for an MRI, and wouldn't you know it? There wasn't any broken glass, but there *was* a lot wrong with my foot. They didn't scan the heel or ankle, so I still have to do that to learn the final verdict, but they told me about how I've been walking on bone shards for who knows how long? Also, one of my toes died. The bone near the base is just about detached, and I know when that happened. I started working out again, but while doing leg exercises, I heard a pop in that foot. I can't feel anything there, so I took it very seriously and quit working my legs. Now it would seem that lifting weights is also out. I must keep as much pressure off my foot as possible for the rest of my life. I shouldn't even be walking on it, apparently.

The hole itself is doing all right, though. Not great, but not as bad as the rest of my foot. My podiatrist made it sound like I might be losing my foot this week. He's already taken two of my toes (on my other foot, so if I lose the bad one I'll be down to three toes). I know he's hungry for the rest of them. (I wrote a story about the first amputation. I have yet to collect "Welcome to Middle-Age NOW GIVE ME YOUR TOE!", but you can read it here if you wish.)

He had a vacation coming up, so he left me in the hands of his colleague. She looked at the MRI and then at my bad foot and determined that nothing could be determined at this time. But she said it looked stable, and that the other MRI would be needed, but this isn't an emergency situation. It will be somewhere down the line (hopefully three days after the time of my death; wish in one hand . . .), but for now she saw no reason to keep me for the foot. That made me optimistic for the first time in this whole ordeal.

This morning they had me swallow a bunch of barium and took x-rays of it moving through my body. There is no air leak anymore, thank fuck, but I can't have anything solid to eat until next Monday. Clear liquids only in all that time. That sucks, as I am still very hungry, but that first clear liquid "meal" was fucking great. Drinking water again felt great, and I've been instructed to drink a lot of it so the barium doesn't come back and haunt me.

They let me go earlier tonight with a list of doctors to set up appointments with and all of my meds changed from pills to liquids. Shockingly enough I've been given LIQUID FUCKING OPIOIDS. That is what I'll be taking shortly.

The cause of the illness was alcohol. After ignoring medical advice for a decade, I finally quit drinking. I went a year without suffering from this sickness, but it started again in January this year. The docs think it's something called cannabis hyperemesis syndrome. Cannabis builds up in your body and must be purged or I'll get sick. It's a little convenient that they're trying to take another drug away from me, but I've been assured I don't have to quit. I just can't ingest weed in any form, flower, edible or even the excellent infused ginger ale I had with me in St. Louis, every day. They've recommended once a week.

For a while there I was pretty sure that my streak was about to end. It's been two years and ninety-two days since my last drink. That was probably my best streak ever, even when I was on the Sobriety Clock during the Tabard Inn days. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm certain I'll drink again. My job is to make sure that day gets put so far off into the future that I might die before it comes. In the hospital I knew that whatever they advised about my foot, I'd ignore it for as long as I possibly could. Then, the day before the amputation, I'd load up on a month's work of whiskey for when I got home after. I'm sure my tolerance has gone remarkably down, and my liver and pancreas are probably in the best shape of my life since I was in college.

We'll have to see how everything goes. For the record, when this year started out I weighed 265. Not my heaviest. That was 306 (and I still managed to get lucky, so not altogether bad). The lowest I've weighed as an adult was in college at 205. My weight is now at 206.

For now I've suffered enough. I'm going to try out this opioid because despite what I told the docs before I left tonight, I still *do* have pain. I lied because I wanted to get the hell out of there. On the pain scale, I'd say I'm at a seven right now. Technically you need to be eight before they give you opioids. All the same, it will be great to get a good night's sleep tonight. This has gone on long enough, so I won't repeat myself on the horrors of trying to sleep in a hospital. For now, goodnight ye kind fuckers, ye.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #871: 2 YEARS AND 1 DAY

My first author photo. Of course I'm drinking.

 The leap year threw off my two-year anniversary of not drinking, so this is the actual date of the day I went to detox two years ago. Yeah, I know, my birthday is still on the same date even though I lived through X amount of leap years. I was also inside my mom for nine months, and you know what many people in this country believe about when life begins. Unless it fucks with doing taxes, so capitalism does, indeed, trump religion here.

But even if you don't want to count yesterday, you have to admit I made it to two years today. So that's the end of that discussion.

When I first showed up at detox I thought I was going into withdrawals, but it turned out I was still drunk from the night before. That makes me wonder how many times, over the years, I've gone to my various jobs still drunk, just not knowing it. Good thing no one thought to test me.

I was dismayed to learn that I would have a roommate, at least for the first half of my stay, but it turned out that he was a pretty good guy. I fell out of touch with him. I hope he's doing OK. I know when we did IOP together he fell off the wagon a couple of times. He was kind to me when I had no idea how he was keeping himself together. He'd only arrived 30 minutes before me.

I wasn't a great fan of communal living. What I really wanted was time alone, but that was pretty hard to come by. I don't recall how many people lived in that space. Maybe fifteen? When I first arrived the plan was to stay for three months, and I didn't really want to do that, not with so many people always being around. I don't mind saying I was hurting pretty bad. Not just the withdrawal. There was that, but there was also Ativan to keep me from seizing up. I mean the swift change in my life. I was living with just my brother (Grandma had just passed, what, a couple of weeks before?), and all of a sudden I found myself in the midst of this crowd? Changing one of the most powerful parts of my life? I didn't feel confused or even weird. I felt fucked up. Just fucked up. I hadn't even thought about the food they'd serve. I'm pretty particular about what I eat, and I knew they'd be serving shit I wouldn't like.

I will say this. Being in detox was a lot better than the psych ward. The only thing the psych ward had up on detox was the food. Psych ward food wasn't great, but it was good. Detox food was downright awful. At the very least I didn't have to ask permission to go to the bathroom. That was nice.

The only comfort I found was in writing. It would turn out to be a story I started while still in the throes of booze but finished on the other side of detox. If you want to read it, it was published in The Rainforest Strikes Back. I also found solace in Julian by Gore Vidal. When I was waiting for the driver to pick me up I had the wherewithal to grab the nearest Vidal book I had. If I have to go to institutions every once in a while, it might be a good idea to bring Vidal with me.

The only other thing I enjoyed while I was there was the environment outside. Yeah, it was hot as fuck, but it was beautiful out there. We were supposed to walk back from the cafeteria to our living quarters together, but I regularly fell behind so I could admire the beauty of the land around me. One of the therapists saw me, and I explained what I was doing.

"You're the only one I've ever seen who does that," she said.

To be fair, the people I was staying with had their minds occupied elsewhere. Everyone was there to dedicate themselves to being sober. Not me. I was there to put drinking behind me. Except . . .

I don't think I've told this part before. I may have mentioned it to a couple of friends, but I don't think I did.

This was near the end of my time in detox. I'd beaten the physical addiction. But I wanted a drink badly. Maybe even needed a drink. So I decided I was going to get the hell out of there specifically to drink the instant I got home. Not putting it off until my birthday, like I told everyone.

I worked as diligently as I possibly could. I canceled the three months, explaining that I felt pretty good now, pretty confident. I wasn't. Those were flat-out lies. After signing a mega-shit-ton of paperwork they finally packed up my things (the stuff they didn't allow me to have) and got someone to drive me back home. This driver went a different way, a longer way, which irritated me to no end. I could practically taste the bourbon I was going to get as a gift to myself. Congratulations! You made it through detox!

Dammit, why is he taking the scenic route? I need to get home so I can get in my car, go to Williams Liquors and get a bottle for myself. And I wasn't going to cheap out on myself, either. I was gonna get me some Wild Turkey 101. Maybe a handle!

I finally got home and dragged my shit inside. My brother, who expected to be living alone for three months, was surprised to see me. I got up to my room and knew I had to take a shower first. Detox showers suck. They're better than psych ward showers, but not by much. I needed to take my first shower as a free man IMMEDIATELY.

Then I got dressed and grabbed my car keys. Out to the car. I was hungry for anything that wasn't detox food, so I stopped at McDonald's, a couple of blocks from my actual destination. And then, as I approached Williams Liquors, I . . . just drove past. I still have no idea why I did that, but the urge to drink was suddenly gone.

Don't get me wrong. I miss booze. A lot. But the urge to drink only happens every once in a while, and it's easy to fight.

So. How did I make it to two years? When so many alcoholics fail within the first week? And not being in AA? There are very few people in the world who think that an alcoholic can get away from the drink without AA. Everyone I was in IOP with was in AA, or at the very least they attended meetings. The therapist in charge of IOP is one of the few people who understood me when I said I only have a problem with booze. I'm OK with other drugs. And then even she said that it's a difficult row to hoe without AA.

But I can't stand AA. I know it helps others, and that's a good thing. But it is NOT FOR ME. I'm fine with Step One. Every alcoholic really does need to start there with admitting that you have a problem. I did that on Facebook, called friends and told them about it, had in person conversations, you name it. The one thing I most definitely did not do is proceed to Step Two, which is the problem for me.

If you're an alcoholic reading this, AA is probably a good idea, especially if you're not an atheist like me. It's a good place to start, and who knows? If you don't have a god, you might find one there. The first AA meeting I went to where I actually talked to people, they wanted me to take that second step. If you don't know, you have to acknowledge a greater power than you and that you have to place your trust in that power, that the power will get you to stop drinking. All you have to do is ask. All of them, each and every one of them, says it doesn't even have to be a god. It could be a doorknob. It could be a paperweight. And because a friend of mine had dragged me into the meeting, one of them said that I could even choose her as my higher power.

Incidentally, I told her about that on the drive home. Even she, an addict herself, said that was a bad idea.

I'm not such a staggeringly big asshole in that I don't believe there is a greater power than me. There are plenty of greater powers. My go-to example is the ocean. The ocean is a greater power than me. Unfortunately it has nothing to do with my drinking, so fuck the ocean. It's not going to help me. None of the greater powers is even sentient, so how could it know anything? Much less a method of getting me to stop drinking?

I am, however, kind of an asshole, so I suggested that I use myself as the greater power. Everyone said that was a bad idea. Really? Everyone?

If the ocean isn't going to give a shit about me drinking, and I'm not going to pray to a god about it, then the ONLY thing to do is put it all on me. And it's not really that hard. All you have to do is keep telling yourself NO. And you know how I feel about that word.

So I don't know how I do it. Probably not willpower alone. There *is* a reason I had to go to detox, after all. But here's what I think.

Even though I didn't drink on that very first day out of detox, I made a promise to myself. One day I absolutely will drink again. It will happen. Because I came up with a list of things that could get me to drink again. Some of them happened, and I didn't start drinking. A lot of these are not very likely to even happen, but I'm sure eventually one of them will knock me off the wagon.

The key is to make sure that day is as far as possible into the future. And if I die before that day comes? I win.

If you're an alcoholic looking for help, don't listen to me, even if you're an atheist, too. What I'm doing is very unusual and off the beaten path. It seems to be working for me, but addiction is fucking crazy. There seems to be very few hard and fast rules in overcoming such an addiction. AA isn't the worst place you could start. Hell, you might even get something out of it. A lot of alcoholics do. Just in case, here's the link to their website.

As one friend on Facebook said, while congratulating me on two years free from booze, good work. Now I gotta do it again.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #866: I'M STILL HERE?

 When I was a child I thought I would live forever. And then my best friend died, and Mom explained death to me in a way that perhaps no parent should. "When you die, you go in the ground and get eaten by the worms."

And look at me now.

After that I've never felt very long for the world. During high school I got it into my head that I was going to die at 48. I changed my mind and lowered it to 46. And there it remained for a few years. Around the time I started drinking and exploring a more social side of my life I realized that if I continued in the same fashion I would live to 40, and that's it. People would ask me what I would do if I somehow lived to 41. I advised them glibly that I would kill myself at 1:59 am on July 25, 2018. My reasoning? I was born at 2 am on the dot. I didn't mean it, but I said it as seriously as I could so whoever asked me *had* to wonder if I was telling the truth.

It was a different world.

And suddenly, magically, I turned 41. As of this writing I have less than a month before my 46th birthday. That will put me within seven years of the age Mom was when she died. I felt that I could beat that score. I believe I said that during the GF I wrote last Monday.

So when I found myself in the ER, waiting for my room in the hospital to be ready, thinking I might have a tumor in my small intestine, things got a little grim for me. I felt like it really was the end, and I wasn't going to beat Mom's record. And yes, I did come up with a story idea, but that's not all I did as I rested in the darkness, morphine calming the screaming bastard in my lower back.

I thought about all the people who needed me to be around, and I thought about ways to tell them that I wouldn't be there. I felt especially bad for the brother who lives with me. He can't afford to keep living here without me. I thought about things I wanted to tell my loved ones before the end.

But it wasn't all doom and gloom in that room (ah jeez, someone call Dr. Seuss). I wondered, what if it's nothing? Or what if it's something that can be easily dealt with? What if this isn't the end?

I couldn't just keep doing business as usual, that's for sure. I don't know how the rest of you view me, but my life is fairly pathetic. It's pretty much work, then tasks around the house, then hang out watching movies and shows while getting high and waiting for bedtime. Get reading and writing in whenever I can. I used to have a rich social life. It's dried up for a variety of reasons, but one of them is that people think that since I'm no longer drinking, I no longer want to hang out. It's wrong, but here's the thought process: "Hey, all we do is drink at bars. He probably doesn't even want to see a liquor bottle. Let's not invite him for his own good." I can and have spent time in bars without drinking. Without even being tempted to drink. It's actually kind of fun because I was usually the drunkest person in the room. It's fun to see other people get fucked up.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about tonight. Because once you've had a brush with death you can't let the status quo take over again. So I thought about ways to improve my life.

I want to quit caffeine again, but more to the point, I have to stop drinking energy drinks. One positive side effect of not drinking booze is a nearly endless reservoir of energy. I'm bursting with it throughout the day. I used to be able to sit quietly and still. Now I fidget. I try to burn it off by rocking out to music whenever I drive, but it's not enough. The only time I'm tired is when I wake up in the morning. That's when I feel I need the energy drinks, so that's when I drink them. I have to stop that.

I also want to quit Caffeine Free Diet Coke. I'm only down to one or two cans a day, but that might still be too much. It's the most healthy of the soft drinks, but it's still pretty unhealthy. My idea is to spend my days drinking nothing but water. The problem is, when I do that my heartburn returns for some reason. I'll just have to battle it with Tums, I guess. I'm not getting rid of soft drinks all together. I think I'll let myself have them if I'm at a restaurant or at a friend's place for dinner, etc.

But the biggest thing I want to do is get back to working out. I can't work out my entire body. I'll have to cut anything having to do with my legs. Maybe my back, too, although from what I understand there are a few moves I can do with my back that won't impact where I have constant pain. And that pain shouldn't be a problem after Friday, when I'm getting another spinal injection. At least for a while.

Now that I don't have a bed I have the room to work out again. Oh yeah, my bed. After 30 years of service it finally fell apart on me. I flipped and rotated the mattress a lot. Hell, I rotated the box springs, too. Until finally it had to be tossed. I sleep on an air mattress that's honestly more comfortable than that bed was near the end. That bed had lumps and divots. There was only one comfortable place to sleep on it, and that was pretty sweet while it lasted.

Shit. I'll bet my bad back is because of that fucking bed.

The only drawback is, the air mattress runs low around 4 am, which wakes me up. If I'm lucky I can keep my eyes closed and reinflate it and then go back to sleep. I can also do it if I keep only one eye shut. But if both eyes open? The chances drop significantly.

My aunt says she'll buy me a bed for my birthday. I'm going to talk with her about it this week. Heh. I remember when I was trying to get out of the hospital, I sat on the couch looking at the bed. I was begging to get out of here, where I had an actual bed, to go back to my air mattress at home? I guess so.

I also plan to walk more at the forest preserves I frequent. See? I have such wonderful ideas to improve the quality of my life, but whenever I do that? Something horrible happens to me.

Naturally, with my head full of these ideas, I got a call from my GI doctor's office today. He wants to see me ASAP. So much so that he's coming in on a day he usually doesn't. That can't possibly be good news. When I talked to the hospital GI doc she said that she hadn't watched the whole video the camera pill recorded. She said she glanced through key parts of it. Maybe my GI doctor took a closer look? Maybe he found something?

So maybe I should hold off on this stuff for now, at least until after I see him. I've said before, technically this cancer scare isn't over. There's still some stuff to investigate. They scanned my whole body except my head, so maybe that's where the tumor is?

I know it's kind of pointless worrying about it now. Think of this as me whistling past the graveyard. I'll keep you updated on everything.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #849: ONE YEAR AND 321 DAYS

 It has been a year and 321 days since my last drink. Looks like I might actually make two years!

But drinking is a bit of a phantom limb for me, and as I've lost two toes, I'm more familiar with the concept than most. I think the pain comes from my toe stumps remembering what it was like to be separated from their toes, not that I have ghost toes that are in pain.

I miss drinking a lot. Well, I miss, a lot, the act of drinking, and I miss the act of drinking a lot. I have no drive to drink. I don't sweat when I think about it. I'm long past the physical addiction. I'm pretty sure I'm never going to drink again, but defeating the urge is an every day thing. Whenever a character in a movie or on a show I'm watching takes a drink, I wish I could, too. When I'm doing something that I used to drink while doing? Oh yeah. Like when I was packing up my things before I went to detox. Now I realize that the boxes are too big and too heavy. I knew a moving company would be able to figure it out, but that might not be happening, so I find myself in this situation where I'm repacking everything into smaller boxes for portability by someone who doesn't move boxes for a living. I've been doing this every day off I've had for a couple of weeks, and I really, really miss being able to drink while I worked.

I also used to edit my books while drinking. Drinking and writing did not mix for me, but drinking and editing worked out pretty well. Eye Cutter is the first full length book I've edited without booze. It felt weird this time around, but I don't think there was much of a difference.

Before I went to detox I looked at alcoholics who had gone decades without a drink, and I'd think, OK. You got it figured out. You're probably not an alcoholic anymore. Now that I have a better understanding, it's kind of crazy to think if I had that much time under my belt, that I'd still be thinking about doing shots. Or sipping scotch with a cigar. Or even having some beer while doing work around the house.

Weird, but seemingly true.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #795: ONE YEAR AND ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY-THREE DAYS

 It's been one year and one hundred and ninety-three days since my last drink. You know me. In that time I have consumed a lot of books and movies and TV shows and such, and while I noticed this before, kinda-sorta, I didn't really recognize it for what it was until recently.

Fiction, no matter the medium, is full of people struggling against themselves, but I want to look at recovering alcoholics in particular. I've found myself watching characters relapse and feeling the anguish they should be feeling.

But it didn't really come home to me until I watched the episode of Succession where, after a heated battle with his father, Kendall goes to a bar and orders a drink. He hems and haws a little before drinking it, and the whole time I was thinking, don't do it, man. It's not worth it. Kendall's kind of a dick, so to have me saying something like that means something.

No matter who it is, I always feel bad when someone struggling with their own addiction succumbs to it. It's kind of weird for me because I don't really struggle with my alcoholism. Every alcoholic I've ever known struggles every day. I don't. I could walk into a liquor store and walk back out without buying anything. I could go to a party or a bar and not consume anything with alcohol in it. It's easy. Sure, some days I think about booze more than I should, but I can promise you that if you put a glass of Wild Turkey 101 on the rocks in front of me, I wouldn't drink it. I think I'd be terrified to drink it.

I've said it before, there are certain things that, if they happened, I would go get drunk. But those things are so bad that getting drunk wouldn't matter. For example, if I was diagnosed with a terminal illness, boozing it up won't matter.

But I don't like saying this is easy because it's almost never easy for anyone. I don't want to be the guy someone listens to and they go, hey, he says it's easy. It probably is. I'm not going to put too much effort into this. I don't want to be the reason someone else didn't take this kind of thing seriously enough.

When I was still doing my meetings, the subject of at-least-you're-here-now came up. The idea is, you're trying to kick the habit, but you fail, and then you come back to the meeting the next day. Which is good, I'm not knocking that. Just because you fuck up one day doesn't mean you fucked up the whole thing. But in that meeting in particular, one of my fellow addicts said that was the last thing he wanted to hear if he ever relapsed. Because he didn't want people to take it easy on him. He wanted someone to shame him so that he'd feel guilt the next time he might find himself on the precipice. Which I totally understand. I think I'd want someone to shame me, too. But more importantly, what if that drink is the one that ends his life? What if, after he takes that first drink, he keeps going and going? Because I'm pretty sure if I took another drink, I wouldn't be able to stop, and that would bring me to my demise.

All right, I've got one more day to get my shit together, and then it's time for surgery again. I stupidly said I'd see everyone next week in Good Morning, Fuckers!, which is not going to happen. Probably. I'll be forbidden to type anything out, so maybe I'll do a mini edition on Sunday, but I'll have everything typed up already so all I have to do is hit send. One way or the other, this is the last GF column until I get cleared by the doc. Be good to each other.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #788: ONE YEAR AND 179 DAYS

 It's been one year and 179 days since my last drink. Booze has been on my mind lately. Not just because I had an exceptionally shitty day today. Believe it or not, work was the highlight of my day, and work was fucking miserable. Especially since it's starting to look like I might not get that change in position. They might not need an additional hand over there, after all.

But I also found a jar of apple moonshine last week. I was pretty sure that I'd gotten to all my booze stashes, but I guess one got past me. I couldn't even open the jar because my hands are all fucked up. Not that I wanted to drink the contents. It looked kind of gross.

But I wanted to clean it out and maybe use the jar for something else. Jars are always good to have. I used to be the guy everyone went to for stuff like opening tight jars. Now I have to ask my brother to do it. Getting old sucks. Needing surgery on your hands sucks, too.

But I was mostly thinking about how, back when I was a full-blown boozer, I never got bug bites except for one time. That one time was because I was sleeping in a room that had a lot of bugs in a tank. One got out and bit my belly. But aside from that one time? Never. I never got so much as a mosquito bite.

I remember a time when I went camping with a bunch of friends, and the mosquito problem was so bad they asked the campground to move us to another site. They were all riddled with bites, but not me. The argument could be made that I was drunk out of my mind, so of course I wouldn't have noticed. But I checked the next day. Nothing.

Everyone else was drinking. Why were they not spared? Because I was the only one who showed up drunk already. I had to take a few drinks to make the long drive bearable. Was that the camping trip when I decided I was the Lord of the Flies? Maybe that was it.

At any rate, since I quit drinking I've been getting bug bites. Mosquitos no longer fear alcohol poisoning from feeding off of me, for example. I got a couple of ant bites during the summer. Etc.

It's weird to think about the problems that come with suddenly not having a blood alcohol content at all times. I miss it. Not the Fleischmann's or the Ten High or even that godawful Canadian shit I got for seven bucks a handle. I miss things like the Glenfiddich. Wild Turkey 101. Booker's. I never did get a taste of the Pappy, and I'd always held out hopes that I would. If someone offered me a glass of that, I don't think I'd be able to say no.

Somehow I have yet to have a relapse. Not sure how that happened. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: when I was at detox, I was already planning to drink more when I got out. Weird. Maybe the key to quitting booze, after you go through the physical addiction, is knowing deep within yourself that you're going to drink again. I know I am. It's just a matter of how long. My job is to make sure there are as many days between now and that time as possible.

If I'm ever diagnosed with an incurable disease, for example. Or if I need my foot amputated. Or if I get fired. Or, I guess, if someone offered me a taste of Pappy Van Winkle.

544 days. So far, so good.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #771: 1 YEAR AND 107 DAYS

 I've heard it for years. "If you really want to lose weight, quit drinking." And I said it time and again: "Drinking keeps me in reasonably trim shape." Note I didn't say "good" shape. Every goddam person I said this to said I was wrong. But guess who was actually wrong.

I weighed 242 pounds the night I had my last drink. Not great, but better than where I'm currently at. Now, a year and 107 days later, I weigh 276 pounds.

I also recall when I started consuming cannabis, trying to break away from booze, that everyone said that it would help me get into shape. I told them all it would make me fat. "Just get the edibles without sugar," I was told. Except people don't realize that the weight doesn't come from eating the fucking edible. It comes from eating EVERY FUCKING THING ELSE because the munchies are, indeed, real.

These days I can stick to one dinner, but that doesn't seem to matter because this weight is here to stay. I can't work out because of my bad leg. And no, I can't work out my upper body because of the pain in my hands. And dieting is out of the question. I've spent a lot of my life doing that, and I'm old enough that if I'm going to eat something, I want to enjoy it.

I'd really hoped the colonoscopy would help thin me out a bit. Considering all the liquid shit that passed out of me? I should have lost at least water weight. Nope, I didn't lose a single pound.

Booze kept me looking good. I'd tell people how much I weighed, and they'd be incredulous because I carry my weight really well. Even when I weighed 306 pounds. And I suppose I should get ready to weigh that much again, if the trend continues.

And I'm pretty sure it will. Getting old sucks. I don't recommend it. As your attorney I advise you to stop aging at 25.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #760: 1 YEAR AND 90 DAYS

 

It has been one year and ninety days since my last drink, and it finally happened. I was wondering when it would happen due to my habits back in those days. It couldn't possibly be that it wouldn't happen. I'd hidden too much booze around my bedroom for there to not be any stashed away. I was starting to think I'd done a good job of getting rid of everything, but yesterday I found this bottle.

And there was still some booze left at the bottom. And it's Wild Turkey 101, my favorite alcoholic drink. Well, the favorite I can afford. My actual favorite is Bookers, but that costs nearly $90 a bottle these days.

So . . . 

I didn't. Because shit's been even more difficult than usual around here. I feel like every fucking day is a struggle, and it's a struggle without victory. Sometimes I lose the battle and have to do it all over again for the sake of the war. Oftentimes it's a Pyrrhic victory. More often than not it's an ongoing fight without any end in sight. And it's wearing me down.

The only times I feel I'm not in a fight for my goddam life is when I'm reading or watching a show or movie. All other times I'm under a constant attack from every fucking problem I've ever had EXCEPT for booze. Until yesterday, I guess.

I don't think I'm going to drink it. If it's going to have any power to make my troubles go away, at least temporarily, then I'm going to need a lot more than that. But I think I'm going to keep it around. You might recall how I agree with Emilio Estevez as Billy the Kid when he said that you have to test yourself every day.

Should be a good test.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #739: 1 YEAR, 47 DAYS

 It's been one year and forty-seven days since my last drink.

Today I decided to visit Gramps and Grandma, so I stopped by Williams Liquors for his usual airplane bottle of Jim Beam. Williams was my go-to liquor store. My second favorite was Corner Cottage on the other side of town, which had the distinction of being on the way home from work. Also, it was open super late on weekends. But Williams was my favorite.

Whenever I get Gramps's airplane bottle I go to Williams mostly because Corner Cottage doesn't always have them. The last twenty times I went there, they didn't. So even though it's on the way to the cemetery and Williams is not, I go to Williams for it.

Every time I've done this since I quit drinking I have only seen new people working there, but today was different. I saw my usual guy there for a change. He went above and beyond to help me. For example, when I broke my foot and couldn't really get around all that well, he would bring my booze out to the car for me. It was usually a handle of Flesichmann's back then, so I'd give him a twenty. He'd already have my change with him when he came out.

He was very surprised to see me. I can only assume he thought I'd died. I wouldn't blame him, either. Things got pretty rough near the end. If I hadn't stopped when I did, I probably would have died. I might not still be around to write GF #739 as I am doing now.

We talked for a bit, and when I told him I'd quit the booze, he didn't seem too surprised. He knew how much I drank back then. He had to. I came in every other day for a handle of cheap whiskey. Well, almost. When I wasn't going there, I was stopping by Corner Cottage.

Which makes me wonder if maybe the guys there think I died, too. Maybe I should stop by some time. They might think they've seen a ghost.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #706: ONE MOTHERFUCKING YEAR (and two days)

In case you missed it on my social media I did, indeed, make it to one motherfucking year without booze. This calls for a celebration! WHO'S FUCKING DRINKING?!?!?!?!

It's motherfucking booze time!

Woo-hooooooooo!!!!

Just kidding. It's apple juice.

See?

I know, I know, it may seem like a cruel joke, but to be fair I did test the waters out earlier this year. I mentioned, I think on Twitter, maybe not Facebook, that for April Fool's I should tell people I'd relapsed. Surprisingly few people objected, and a handful said they would think that was funny, so what the hell.

Here's a weird thing I didn't expect. The instant I put the ice in my Wild Turkey glass I felt this weird sensation. I wouldn't call it pleasure or pain, just weird. I only drink Tang out of my Wild Turkey glasses now, and you don't drink Tang on the rocks. It would dilute the awesomeness that is Tang. But I used to actually drink booze out of these things. On the rocks. And it set off a weird tripwire in me somewhere.

When I went to take the picture of me drinking, my body didn't want to do it. I had to remind my own body that it wasn't actually whiskey. I had to smell it again to confirm it before I actually put the glass to my lips. It was kind of weird sitting there with the rest of that glass by my side, just like I always used to have a glass of whiskey at my side whenever I got out of work. Just looking at it made me feel funky.

Did detox put me through the Ludovico Technique?

NOOOO! NOT BOOKERS!!!!
"Bookers? Eh, can't be helped."

If so, why did they not put everyone through it? Because I know people who were there with me who relapsed.

What if I had poured whiskey in there? Would my body have let me take the drink? I'm starting to wonder. It's possible that I might not even be able to drink anymore. Like, physically. If I tried I think my body would freeze and wouldn't let me.

Perhaps there's comfort in that. I guess if I ever do relapse, then I'll have to force myself to do it. I can't be the only one who thinks that. Any other addicts out there who are sure they'd have to go out of their way to relapse?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #705: 364

 As you can surmise from the title of this column, I am at the 364 day mark of my non-alcohol life. One year ago tomorrow I went to detox and got cleared of my physical booze dependency. It's been surprisingly easy. I have yet to relapse. But let's not get cocky yet. I still have time to go before I make it to my official one year mark. There is still one liquor store in Elmhurst open, and it's there until midnight. So who knows? Maybe I'll lose my shit after I post this and get drunk. I doubt it, but the possibility is still there. I kinda wish 365 was today, as I don't post GFs on weekends. Ah well.

So let's celebrate something else. One year ago tonight I was getting wasted for the last time. I remember I had maybe three fingers worth of whiskey at the bottom of a Flesichmann's handle. I also had the same in a fifth of Wild Turkey 101. Lastly I had my whiskey barrel that was maybe three-quarters full.

Earlier that day I was thinking about maybe putting an end to the madness. I was covered in bruises I no longer recall the cause of. I'd been found wandering the house naked and out of my mind. I'd broken some shit in my bedroom, and I think it was because I fell on top of it all. So yeah, the end was definitely nigh.

Before I ripped into the booze one last time, I thought I was sober. Looking back, I probably wasn't. When I turned myself in to detox, I thought I was sober, but when they asked me to blow I was well above the legal limit to drive. That made me think about all the times I thought I was sober and actually wasn't. How many times did I drive not knowing that I was actually fucked up?

Anyway, while I thought I was sober I called Sonny. I'm pretty sure I mentioned him before. When I was in and out of the hospital with pancreatitis, gastritis, gastroenteritis, kidney failure, etc., they'd send in all these shrinks to try to help me see my own alcoholism, and none of them worked. Then they sent Sonny in. He's possibly the most Italian guy I've ever met outside of my own family who wasn't a parody. And he cursed like a sailor. He didn't take it easy with me. He shot straight, no bullshit. So I called him when I'd had enough, and he scheduled a pickup for me the next day.

Before and after that, I tried calling a few friends looking for some kind of advice, which is odd for me because it's not something I ever do. A couple of my friends actually picked up. One before I started drinking, one after. I ripped through the Fleischmann's and Wild Turkey pretty quickly, and when I was done with all of this, I decided, okay, tomorrow I'm going to detox. Time to get fucked the fuck up RIGHT NOW. Who knows? This will probably be the last time.

A part of me laughed at that. Yeah. Right. I had no illusions about myself. I knew I would drink again, and sure enough, while I was in detox, I started planning on drinking when I got out.

So I settled down and emptied the whiskey barrel, and I drank that for the rest of the night until I was nearly comatose. I do remember taking that last drink, though, and it was pretty fucking good. It hit the spot. I was in just the right mood to sleep. Not too fucked up, not short of being fucked up, being just the right amount of fucked up. I was the Baby Bear of being fucked up on booze.

The next day I looked around for the usual hair of the dog, surprised to find none. I'd planned on having another drink before getting picked up, but I hadn't planned well enough. That was fine. I was sure that by the time I got to detox, I'd still be in good shape. Just in time to give me drugs to keep me from withdrawals and possibly seizures.

But I started getting twitchy. I thought maybe the withdrawals kicked in already. By the time I got to detox, I was certain of it even though I scored pretty high on their breathalyzer. I was shaking pretty bad by the time they made me sign the mountain of paperwork. I was so rough that even after they finally gave me Ativan, all I could do was stay in my bed. I didn't want to do anything else.

And so my booze-free life began. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I was seriously tempted to drink again. I don't know how I didn't. I don't even know why. I made plans to drink on my birthday last year, which would have made it my second day out, I think. Maybe third. I was going to get food and stop off at Williams Liquors and then have myself a solo birthday party.

When I drove to the liquor store I didn't stop. I didn't even look at the place. Like I said, I don't know why. I don't believe in a higher power, and I'm not in AA. I'm not a twelve-stepper. The only step I've taken is the first one, and I don't have interest in any of the others, especially not Step Two. Who knows? Maybe it's because I expect to drink again someday. I have my list of things that could get me to drink, and it's solid. A lot of it's not likely to happen, but some of it? Maybe.

Anyway. 364 days. I was about to toast to another 364 but, well, you know.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #692: 347

Shortly after Gramps died I decided that my new Christmas or New Year ritual would be smoking a cigar and drinking scotch in commemoration of his ritual. On Christmas and/or New Year's Eve, he would sit in the front room, smoke a cigar and drink while looking at the Christmas tree. We haven't put up the tree in many years, and right now there's no place for it, but starting with the last cigar I bought for him, the one he never smoked, I started this ritual a few years back. I don't smoke, so it's a bit odd for me, but I felt it was important for Gramps.

Over the weekend I found the cigar I was supposed to smoke last Christmas, bought before I quit drinking. I had a lot on my mind back then, so it's not surprising that the ritual slipped through the cracks. Today is my 347th day without booze, so when I discovered the cigar I realized that was a ritual I'd never be able to do again. The cigar was on the brink of going stale. The wrapping probably helped it survive this long, but the cigar itself was almost hard as a rock. When I used the cutter on it, it almost fell apart. But I lit it up because if I didn't, then I was going to throw it out, and I hate wasting money.

While I smoked it I thought about how it's a shame that the ritual had to go. I'm not sure how many of you are alcoholics or know any, but the lizard part of the alcoholic's brain never goes away. I've talked to people sober for almost their entire lives, and they still think about drinking sometimes.

So *my* lizard brain said, why not? When Christmas comes around, maybe get a cigar. Get a pint of the Glenlivet. Nothing more than that. If it's just a pint, then you can't have anymore when you're finished with it, right? So things can't get crazy.

"And who knows?" I said to my lizard brain. "Maybe if it goes well, I'll do it all over again on New Year's Eve."

My lizard brain can't understand sarcasm, so it enthusiastically advised me that this would be a great idea.

And I thought about it for a moment. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea, after all. I mean, it was a lack of moderation that got me into this mess, right? Maybe if I exercised moderation, then I wouldn't run into any problems. I thought about a woman in my IOP group from way back when, and she said she met her husband at AA, and he somehow drinks in moderation now. Just one glass of wine every once in a while.

So why couldn't it work for me?

And then I thought about my conduct when I was drinking all the time. Did running out of booze ever stop me from going out to get more? No. In fact, to avoid going out to get more, I always made sure I had plenty of booze in the first place. Just in case, I kept a couple of emergency pint bottles around, and I stashed airplane bottles in various nooks and crannies. I'm kind of surprised I never found any forgotten pints or airplane bottles during my time going through all my shit. I must have drank it all. Good for me. Because if I don't smoke, and I decided to smoke a cigar to avoid throwing it out, would I have poured out such a bottle?

So I guess I'm not doing that. Although don't get me wrong. I have a list of things that could make me drink again. So far I've been lucky. But who knows?  As a wise man once said, "The future's uncertain and the end is always near . . ."

PS: It never occurred to me until this weekend to smoke the cigar using Gramps's old ashtray, so I cleaned it up and used it for the first time since he stopped using it about a year before his death. It was oddly a good feeling.