Bang. Bang.

    "Jean-Paul died of AIDS, but it was alcohol that killed him." That's what his tombstone should read. Like Jean-Paul, I did not know then that life could be lived sober, that there could be life after alcohol, life after the party, life after alcohol killed the party. Addiction makes not using seem like a punishment. Jean-Paul did not live to know the many joys of sobriety. I must not drown in survivor's guilt. I must keep pushing forward.

Evening Meditation:

 

    There was a time, living in Atlantic City, early on, when anytime I heard a gunshot, I would automatically assume that the sound was from a firecracker (remembering the experience of my youth in Bethlehem). Time taught me otherwise. Learning, learning what a gunshot is, what a gunshot sounds like, until one Fourth of July after years in Atlantic City. I mistook the sound of firecrackers for gunshot. Sometimes the only news from Now I have is what’s inside me.

   Bang. Bang.

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 33)