Right before my last
relapse, after having just gotten out of the hospital for an operation for
stomach hernias, I played Doctor with my prescribed pain medications. I took
more than the prescribed dosage because I wanted quick relief. I was in pain.
Then I didn’t wait long enough for the next prescribed dosage time. Before you
know it, I was immobile on the sidewalk, crazed and an ambulance was summoned by
a passing stranger (apparently)) and back to the hospital I went, having been
just released a few short hours earlier.
If it takes eight pills
to kill you, I would feel safe taking six, and then two hours later I might start wondering
if it would be safe to take another one or two. Never was it a case of wanting to
commit suicide. I just wanted to get as high as safely possible.
After the first drink,
there is no other.
(Sotto):
Vatchi? He still sounds a little like
he wants to be somewhere where he’s not. Not a lion seeking his prey, or a
vegetarian stalking wild asparagus. Ha! That’s a good one! I think he’s still
looking to get high. Or at least
romanticizing his phantoms.
I know I can never drink
again. Countless times, after varying amounts and degrees of sobriety, I have
tried. The alcoholic insanity always comes back and always takes over, whether
after one drink or twenty.
Smoking marijuana, perhaps,
when it finally becomes legal? I really don't know. I just fear that other drugs
might retrigger my alcoholism. I don't think I can do any drug 'socially'
now.
"Just for Today," as I've
heard in Narcotics Anonymous, "just for today, I will not pick up."
Being so level-headed no
longer gives me a sense of self-contempt as it once did, early on in my
sobriety. Staying sober makes living sober and being sober, not only tolerable,
but desirable.
It had taken me nearly
sixty years to say "I'm okay," and mean it and know what that means. That might
never have happened were I not an alcoholic. Who knows? All I know is... I'm
okay, "Just for Today."
from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Chapter 41)
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