I was going to drink tonight. I got as far as the beer aisle at the grocery store. Then I wasn't going to drink. Then I was. Finally I bought some Cap'n Crunch and milk and left. I know this sounds like a victory, but the problem is that I'll probably have to fight the exact same battle tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. How can finite resolve ever hope to defeat infinite temptation?
My Inflated Sense of Self
you think you're in the movies
and everything's so deep
{The Cars, "You Might Think"}
The last time I drank, it was all very dramatic. I was four beers into it on a Thursday night. I'd played a few missions of my video game, and I just got so sick of the whole thing. My drinking ritual gives me a modicum of fleeting pleasure, yet it becomes it's own kind of rat race so quickly. I usually don't hold my cleaning up ritual until the weekend, but I just chucked everything into the trash: the rest of my beer, the empty bottles, my cigarettes, my makeshift ashtray and even my lighter and bottle opener. I took a shower (I hadn't bathed in days), and before I went to bed, all traces of my vices were out of the apartment.
In a movie, that would signal the final victory. The conquering of my alcoholism as I embark on a better life. End of story. Fade to black. My major malfunction is that I honestly, deeply believe that that is how life works. That everything neatly ties together into a logical, satisfying conclusion. This is the root of my addiction to repeatedly falling low and rising up again, my lottery superstition and my mooning over contrived ideals of love. Perhaps it's all just my psychological strategy for dealing with the true nature of existence - an abject chaos constantly battering against the fragile shelters of safety, stability and fulfillment that we construct for ourselves.
