What it was like near the end of my drinking

I didn’t know for sure what my problems were but I wished for the end.  I looked for a jumping off place.  I no longer looked into the night sky and wondered what my purpose was.  Life didn’t mean anything and my life was certainly going nowhere good.  All my so-called friends didn’t want me around any more.  At one point, in a black-out, I’d gone to my best friends house at 1:30 in the morning and pounded on his door till he opened it.  He and his wife and young daughter had been sleeping soundly till my insistant pounding woke them all up.

When he opened the door, I burst into the house, walked straight to the refrigerator and took a quick inventory.  After a few seconds of studying, I slammed the frig. door and walked out.  He caught me in the front yard and told me never to return.

Of course he was suprised when I innocently knocked on his door 2 days later, trying to put together the last 3 days.  He told me the story I just recalled.  I still have absolutely no memory of it.  I just have to take his word it was all true because he had the look of absolute terror in his eyes when he opened the door to see me standing there.  He had been my best friend.

I’d been fired from my job because I had overslept the earlier Monday so I just stayed home and drank.  Those situations didn’t make me an alcoholic but they signaled that I had gone to depths I would have never believed I would go.

I couldn’t imagine life with our without alcohol.  I woke up each day without the courage to battle each day.  I couldn’t muster the energy or strength to face all the things that I needed to face.  Fear seemed to grip me from everywhere.  I thought of all the guys I had gone to school with that had committed suicide but I could not do that.  A few drinks could make all that better so I would hustle up something to drink.  I made sure I had a ready supply for when I woke up so I could start working on old-man fear while I pulled myself together on my quest for the day’s supply.