"Functional Alcoholic"

   Dead bodies hung from trees, dragged there by the raging flood waters, caught up in the branches as the waters receded. Parts of human skeletons remained in some foundations of houses swept away among the silt and sand flood's residue.

   Toy soldiers. Dead soldiers: Same thing.

   When I thought of myself as a “functional alcoholic” (and that was for years), I guess I thought that there were two different kinds of alcoholics, those who did function (have a job, a place to live, friends, relationships), like me, and a second kind of alcoholic, who was quite unlike me. I had not been exposed to the knowledge that is behind any 12-step program. I was unaware that there is only one kind of alcoholic and that they are all 100% alcoholic and that if they are functional at present, it is only a matter of time until that progressive, downward spiral jettisons them from whatever functional path that they may have thought that they were on.

    Toy soldiers. Dead soldiers: Same thing.

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 31)