Easy On The Drink

I’m good, I’m sound, I’m okay. Nothing much is fazing me. I felt emotionally detached yesterday, when the usual old hallucinations began when walking home from Pathways. I wouldn’t call them frightening hallucinations as such, it’s just the time of the day when I become aware of the spirit world and the presences around me. They’re perfectly natural. It’s nothing like looking at a door and being transfixed by a medley of portals for days on end. It’s nothing like seeing spiders and snakes on the floor of the apartment during a speed comedown, or apparitions made with secret technologies inside your mind. These are entirely legitimate beings from another dimension who have a fingertip upon my life, both good and bad. It’s just that they can be a pain! They make me feel self-conscious and awkward, as if I’m the epicentre of a big zany party, when, in reality, it’s just little old me trudging the sidewalks. They drive me to bed early most nights. I try to sit with my emotions and feelings as long as I possibly can. It’s far easier doing so with an alcoholic beverage in my hand, but recently I’ve stopped drinking at home as it was getting slightly out of control.

I was waking up at 4 or 5 in the morning and starting to consume lagers. By the time it was time to go out at half nine I’d have had four, five or six beers. And guess where I was headed to first, for a sharpish one? You got it, the pub. Few pints, and more beers to sit at home with…you can see where it was ending up most nights – with me being sick in the lav. I’ve swore to myself to stop getting drunk. A few pints in the pub is one thing, but guzzling tinnies in the morning is another. The only spirits I drink is the odd double whiskey now and again, if I feel I need an extra kick to go along with the pints in the pub. But, on the whole, my drinking is down and moderated. It’s early days, but I think I may be onto something clever.

No drugs either. Now that is the main thing. I’d rather down a bottle of brandy than neck a bomb of whizz. I’m surrounded by alcoholics in Pathways, who all attest to the fact that booze is the worst drug out there, but seriously, you should try necking a dollop of whizz the way I do. It’s surely worse than any tipple. It makes me so weak, it’s hard to describe; my bones start creaking at the thought of standing up straight. At least on booze you can think. There’s no thinking on whizz. The mind is like a wiped black canvass. No energy whatsoever. And the overbearing dread that things would be better if one were dead. At least, while drinking, you can have a laugh, singing to yourself. There’s no such joy to be found in amphetamine abuse. There’s nothing to be found but the sweet smell of psychosis.