One drink too many......!

I shake my head and look down at my whisky glass. It’s still half full. I take another sip. I sip my drink, I told myself that the first drink is medicinal, and my second is relaxing and my third one is anesthesia.

The best advice I ever got about drinking was from my late father. “Drinks till you’re mellow.” He used to say, “After that it’s all downhill.” My father, never a big drinker, He’d have a one glass of whisky every night, and that was it. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I’ve seen my dad tipsy.

Of course, I’ve skied booze’s downhill slope more than once. I’ve done the blackout thing. I’ve thrown up on the taxi, I’ve felt cold porcelain on my check while prostrate on the floor of filthy men’s room, in my balcony, in my own bathroom, and you name it. Most of that shit happened before I turn forty.

Now I like to drinks but hate being drunk. I try imbibing to the fine edge of happiness and then stop. Two drinks are my normal limit. I take another sip of my drink.

Lately I’ve been drinking past my limit. That worries me. After years of watching good and bad people suffering from addictions, I come to the conclusion that everybody, and I mean everybody, narcotizes their pain somehow . I don’t care if you think the pain comes from insufficient parenting, frustrated dreams, the human condition, or the wages of Original Sin. Everyone tries to deaden it somehow.

I’ve seen people get addicted to crack and booze, religion and sex, money and power. People can get addicted to shopping and exercise, chocolate and soap operas, surfing the internet, and even throwing up. When happiness and peace are scarce, people will turn to artificial means to shut off the jabbering in their brains. I aren’t free from pain. They suffer from aching joints, bad backs, bruised egos, tattered nerves, and emotional angst.

I look at my reflection in the mirror. A lonely-looking guy stares back at me. I never drank everyday until I become what you see the last few weeks. Doctor says, one or two drinks a day are actually good for you. That maybe true. Maybe I am drinking more because I am older. Maybe I am drinking more because I am a slacker guy watching his life amount to nothing. I am forty seven years old and have nothing. This writing thing is a crapshoot. I am still struggling with the work proposal. If this doesn’t work out, I’ll have nothing going on, nothing to look forward to. That scares the shit out of me.

Friends of mine order another round. They’ve gone from sober to trashed in half an hour. They’re chattering away on their mobile phone. They’ve forgotten I am ever there. That’s okay. They’re young, they like to party. They’ll get annihilated, sleep it off, and go back to work the next day. I’ve always said you can’t diagnose alcoholism in someone until he’s twenty-seven. Before then everyone’s a situational drunk. When you’re in your mid-forties, however, like me, things are very different.

“Can I have another round please.”I say a bit loudly to the barman.

“You going to past your limit tonight.” the barman asks

“Yep”

He makes my drink and slides it toward me. I know breaking my own rules. I want to join them in obliviousness. I feel like there’s a dead zone in my brain keeping me disconnected from the human race. I want to get drunk like my friends.

When people are desperate and lonely, they’ll try to connect with anything. I prop my head up on my elbow and start lapping my fourth drink. I am in a bad place. The bar transforms from a pair of comfortable jeans into straitjacket.

My head swims. The Iceman’s coming. I need anesthesia.

I don’t want to think anymore.

Till then, cheers everyone...