Letting go.

　　 Sometimes I really, really have to just let it go. But bad habits make letting go of no longer needed emotions difficult.
　　　 Letting go.　　　 As a child, I saw a chicken get its head chopped off and its body slip out of my Uncle's hand. That chicken ran headless, down a deep slope and into the swimming pool. Blood everywhere.　　　 My Uncle's hand let go. Letting go is hard to do.　
　　 A pool of liquor awaits me.

{Note: Vatchi speaks here [content edited], then Jim continues}:

   A pool of liquor. Bigger than a vat of bathtub gin. This is Prohibition of the most difficult kind. Liquor, not illegal, just deadly. I must prohibit the onslaught of my disease. I must not lose my head or I will lose my body. The bloody, headless chicken running straight down and senselessly twitching straight down into the swimming pool. There is no shallow end. Just a deep end dead end.

    I must learn to let go and to not let go, a balancing act of the sober kind. The voices of my disease call out for me to drink. Alcoholics Anonymous has become my lifeguard. Control and letting go in balance.

    Christ, I really do need help.

 

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Chapter 27)