Drinking: A Love Story

got drunk in a paradoxical way that numbs feelings and gives you access to them at the same time,

To a drinker the sensation is real and pure and akin to something spiritual: you seek; in the bottle, you find.

I still don’t know, today, if that hunger originated within the family or if it was something I was simply born with. In the end I don’t suppose it matters. You get your comfort where you can.

I had a fantasy of myself drinking just then, not drinking in the sophisticated, martini-glass sense but in the raging, obliterating sense, drinking to get drunk, drinking in order to yield to that rebellious urge and show everyone in the room just how angry I was, just how out of place I felt, just how self-destructive I could be in response.

I remember being vaguely aware that I drank differently from the way other people did. I can’t remember ever turning down a drink, not even once; it would have been like a puppy turning down a proffered treat. Why not? Sure, I’ll have another. Drinking is fun. It feels good.

Hitting bottom is usually something that happens internally, where no one else can see it.

I can see the rocking now as a first addiction of sorts. It calmed me, took me out of myself, gave me a sense of relief.

the way to the other side of a bad feeling is through it, not around it.

Hated? About my parents? I never made the list, and it took me years to understand why the suggestion made me so deeply uncomfortable: if I hated things about them, did it mean they hated things about me?