Creekryder

It seems to have been ages since I have last visited here. So much has gone by and I have been oblivious to it.

Do some of you remember the old Lon Chaney movie, "The Wolfman?" I often feel like Lawrence Talbot, the hapless victim of Lycanthropy, as he pleads to his friend to lock him in the room before he becomes the beast at the full moon.

6 p.m. is my "full moon." That is the time the beast stirs deep within and begins its process of devouring me. I feel a part of me cry out for help as the affliction removes my will and consumes the rational being, leaving the shell of a drunk in its place.

I have stepped over the line. I have progressed to a stage in alcoholism that frightens the hell out of me. I make the 3 a.m. promise that this is the last, yet, as the "moon" arises, I find I have become the beast again.

Spare me the remarks of suffering from self-pity; I suffer from much greater ills than that. My post today is meant for the newcomers, the ones who don't know for sure if they have a problem, the ones who down deep feel they can still handle their drinking even though they realize a problem. I write for these. I stand before them with bloodshot eyes, slurring words, and reeking with the stench of alcohol, staggering over to the cache of beer hidden out in the shed where no one knows its there. Does that scare you. I hope so. I hope it scares the living #@%# out of you and allows you to see the path that awaits you if you don't continue with your commitment.

Please don't take this as the ramblings of a madman, though I certainly may be, but as a pleading...a shoulder-shaking to help you commit to your decisions to abstain. I am stone-cold sober as I write to you. But do not follow me, as my fears grow and once again I will plead with a friend to lock the room I am in, for I know the full moon comes again, as it has for years.

Peace,
Padraic