White knuckle sobriety doesn’t interest me at all.  Why would I ever want to just not drink or use mood altering substances?  I was always searching for a solution to my fear.  Alcohol and drugs were my solution to that pesky problem for a long time and to my mind—worked very well thank you. I definitely liked the effect because they took away the fear for a while.  No matter to me that it didn’t last—that feeling of ease and comfort that came at once with that first drink or hit.  The world was changed; fear did not exist for at least a couple of hours.  I remember saying to friends over and over that I was willing to pay the price for this; I thought the price was merely a hangover; I had no clue of the real price of my indulgence.

When I first discovered drugs and alcohol, it was a way to push the envelope of ordinary existence, to walk on the edge of the razor, to fly above the boobs I saw around me who were living (so I thought) unfulfilled lives by doing what society asked of them.   They said: “But we don’t like the taste”.   My thought at the time was: So what if you don’t like the taste—you’ve got to drink your way past that, I don’t like the taste of gin but two martinis later—it tasted great!  It was the effect I was after and I was willing to pay the price, whatever that might be.

I have come a long way since then, when alcohol and drugs were the solution to every problem. Read More