"Pompeii in Motion"

    Losing things because of my drinking and then drinking more to get over the loss. Then drinking to forget drinking over those losses. I wallowed in the pain, then. Am I wallowing in the memory of the pain, now?

   The last time I was in Philadelphia's train station I was plastered almost beyond recognition. But then, unexpectedly, I was recognized by Trent, who spotted me in my complete and utter drunken state and instantly fled as if leaving the scene of an accident. When I'm drinking I seem to only know how low I've sunk through the observations of others' words or looks. My disease blinds me to the progression of my own disease. The drunken language of my disease constructs a progressively inelegant Tower of Babel. Even a rat would tire of the alcoholic maze and haze in which I lived.

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 26)