The betrayal is astonishing. The jaw drops. Are you kidding me?
I have to take twice as much of this stuff to feel anything close to what I felt when I first took it?
And that's not the worst of it. (I'm talking about taking the painkiller I took while downing the tequila sunrises I downed.) The worst of it is that now that I do have to take twice as much, the hangover, or the crash, is far worse. So bad that life looks horrible now.
Life looks frightening. Some satanic guy with a violin bow is dragging his bow across the strings of a stand-up bass violin. No, not a cello, not a cello, not at all.
What is that music that is waking my hungover body up? Isn’t that the theme from The Exorcist?
Why would a human being feel this horrible on this bright (all too bright) morning? The sun coming in through the window is an interrogator's lamp. Why? Because of a little liquid pleasure I borrowed from the future? What's wrong with hitting the future up? Especially when the present is such a crashing bore?
But now, in this hungover sun, why would God have me, or anyone, even a serial killer, feel this way? Is He messing with me?
Well, just this once I need to drink in the morning, even though I know what that makes me. It makes me a cliché. So what. I'll make myself a Bloody Mary with a very healthy celery stalk in it. Time to drink and ponder.
Hey, maybe that celery is getting me off on the right foot. It just might turn this whole thing around, because it’s a definite move toward health.
Despite being mainly water, celery provides a fair amount of dietary fiber! The potential health benefits of celery are starting to cheer me up as I keep drinking and chewing on the stalk. Oh, it's mainly water, I know, but so am I! I start to smile. I bet I look sneaky right now. I grab my book on raw vegetables from the kitchen shelf and see that celery can lower blood pressure, and, wait a minute, reduce the risk of cancer!
Another sip of the drink and my mind turns sick in its thinking. If I never get cancer, I'll never get those painkillers I've heard they give out so freely when they know you're terminal. That's sad. Sad on many levels. Sad that I'm even thinking about this.
* * * * * * * *
Back then, when I was lost inside the vicious circle I describe above, I had no idea what recovery would bring me. I had no hint of the joy and freedom on the other side of recovery, or the LOVE of life, this life, that would be mine.......here is something written by David Ignatow that expresses it for me:
I wished for death often but now that I am at its door I have changed my mind about the world.
It should go on; it is beautiful, even as a dream, filled with water and seed, plants and animals, others like myself, ships and buildings and messages filling the air -- a beauty, if ever I have seen one.
In the next world, should I remember this one, I will praise it above everything.
–David Ignatow