Hi TimeDrain
I remember thinking as you do now - my drinking was unweildy, it was making my life unmanageable, sure, but it also gave it meaning...and I was an artist, an outlaw - why not a doomed one?
It's a pervasive image for a lot of us...living life to the utmost...and some of us follow it right to the end.
My experience? I faced that choice - I almost died...not figuratively, but literally.
I found pretty quickly I now had a new set of priorities - chief among them not dying alone on the floor of my pokey little apartment at 40.
The reality of pushing the envelope did not meet the romance, for me.
I've never regretted that decision to stop drinking.
Looking back I found I really wasn't living life at all, let alone to the utmost.
I was at best existing, propped up by my ever present friend the bottle.
It took me 20 years to be ready...if you ever feel ready, you could do worse than hang out here, like I did.
We get it - we know...and we understand.
D