siamcat

I imagine it would be happier.

Gross. :p

For the first time in awhile today I didn't have any cravings, I didn't see any shadows. What I'm left with is guilt. Why am I always guilty and how do I get rid of it? Inevitably the guilt, and the fear of future guiltiness leads me back to drinking. I've done horrible stupid things to wonderful beautiful people and the fear of doing them again encapsulates me and holds me away from that outside world. Maybe it's only part of the equation, it's difficult to decipher now, I've become such a mess that I cannot read my own codes, I've forgotten all my own passwords, I have no access to my roots any longer...

New York City, 2007, I'm working in the city, staying at the Essex House, an old friend who I grew up with doing theater, haven't seen her in years, comes up from the lower east side to meet for (guess what?) a drink. I don't know why this is permissible in my mind as I've spent the previous year grappling for the first time with admitted alcoholism, with varied success but with a greater self knowledge now, I KNEW it was a bad idea, I KNEW it was a bad idea, I KNEW IT WAS A BAD FRIGGIN IDEA?!!?!! Since moving back east for this job I had been cheating in my sobriety...

Three things happen to me always when I go back, even just to visit. #1 I start swearing every other word, it's contagious... #2 I start losing my R's in mimic... #3 I start incorporating alcohol into my meals...

It starts off well enough, a third friend that was supposed to meet us feigned a headache and gracefully bowed out (after we called her when she didn't show up), we make fun of her, knowing that she's an upper west side snob and just couldn't stomach coming ALL the way to touristy midtown on the subway. A beer. A Burger. Some catching up... What I'm guessing was about four beers in some Romanian guy starts talking to us, nice enough guy, interesting conversation about I forget what, everything's fine, I step out to smoke...

Outside there's a bongo bum singing blues and his friend. I start talking to them as I'm inclined to do, 'specially when on my way to drunk, give em both a smoke and go back in...

Romanian guy now sitting next to friend, fine, I suggest a shot and a toast... Third shot round responsibly declined by friend and Romanian guy... three or four more beers in my by this time... starting to feel that slide, like all traction has been lost on a slope made of wet rubber, I'm destructive, I'm in this for the goal, I imagine I've always loved (let's call her) jasmine, this Romanian guy's trying to pick her up... I go out to smoke...

Bums drinking whiskey in a bag, I joke about the Yankees, they tell me I shouldn't wear a Red Sox hat in the city at night, easy prey... I jokingserious direct their eyes through the window, telling them that the Romanian guy is trying to pick up my girl and what they think I should do about it... obvious drunken bum responses given 'fight fight fight!', ... but it is in jest on my part... one of my vices, funking with people when I drink...

Go back in, thinly veiled funking with Romanian guy... I think I'm so slick when I drink but how horribly obvious must I have been?... eventually convincing both for one last shot together in return for my implicit agreement that it's getting late and this is the last... Remember vaguity... walking Jasmine outside, insisting on buying her a taxi, ... suggesting that she can stay in my hotel room... did I try to pick her up? This girl I watched play anne frank as I sat in the light booth with her mother calling cues?... what else did I say?... how big of a fool did I make of me?...

Somehow, being LITERALLY across the street from my hotel I took a taxi home that night. Maybe I rode the taxi with her? But I don't think so. I remember walking forever and ever around New York. I must have somehow simply gone the wrong way, somehow, being DIRECTLY across the street from my hotel. Eventually I must have realized that I was lost and, though I know Manhattan fairly well could not get an accurate reading on the GRIDLIKE street concoction they got going on there... I must have gotten into a taxi just for the simplicity of saying two words and having them take me there.... I remember pulling out my wallet... I had three hundred dollars when I met with jasmine... I have nothing in my wallet now... all of that money couldn't have gone at the bar though I did buy drinks for three people for four hours and probably gave a twenty to each of the bar bums.... I remember the taxi guy furious, and getting out and stumbling... black.

I wake up somehow four hours later, work, jesus, thank god i am so recently and deeply drunk that there is no hangover until the day is almost done, I cut off early anyhow... I have a text from jasmine, she wonders if i got home ok.. apparently called her during lost wanderings... I text back breif... 'Y got home sry abt lst ngt'... no reply. I don't expect I'll ever see or hear from her again.

I'm hoping that writing some of these out will help me little by little deal with the guilt. This was hardly one of my worst, but it was the last time I got drunk with real consequences. I lost a friend, albeit one I'd only talked to a few times since high school, it was someone I grew up with and respected and was close to her parents and have mutual friends with. It was someone who, if I was a normal person, I might have been very interested in keeping in touch with again, maybe working with her on some of her projects which she alluded to before we met up, another in a long series of old theater friends trying to get me back in the arts... but drinking acted like an atomic bomb on this situation. It completely obliterated any possibility of anything that may have existed in just a few hours. It takes so little time to ruin years of memories and long standing friendships. It takes so little, almost nothing. I hate this. I hate all of this. This guilt, this regret, and this one of the more benign episodes, not involving police or bodily fluids or self harm or sex or injury.

How can I forgive myself for any of this? I'm supposed to look at myself and say 'I forgive you siamcat, you have a 'disease' and it's not your fault, you're trying to get better now so all this is ok'. It's NOT OK! It's NOT OK that I've RUINED things and HURT people and GIVEN UP possibility and STUNTED my growth on EVERY PERCEIVABLE LEVEL EVER!!!!

Crap,... I don't know.