Surrounded

   I'll never be anything except a fall down, can't stop drunk. I felt that, believed that, accepted that, lived that. And now I must claim ownership of my realities, predicted easily though the observations of Gene and Ted at that time, yet rejected then adamantly by me.

   Resentment and denial, my real best friends.
　　

(Vatchi):  Jim's memory of his past is so fragmented, distorted. Underneath it all he knew that he was alcoholic, but just didn't know, couldn't know, how bad it would really get.
   Until his roller coaster crashed.


from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Chapter 17)