Originally Posted by
MelindaFlowers 
Wonderful post. I remember my hands would shake a little as I held the liter bottle of Fleischman's vodka in line. I had three different stores on my rotation.
Exactly, except mine was SKOL or Dmitri. And, when in the car, I'd have to use two hands to lift the half pint to my lips and i'd instantly feel relief. I would take one drink and then drive the block back home to have more.
I really like posts like this, even if the OP has disappeared. It helps you relive it in a way that is both light, and at the same time, reflective.
Hmm. At the end, I didn't really care. On my last quit, I participated in threads like this, and I was one of the ones who rotated and was somewhat careful. Then I read posts where people said they didn't care and went to the same place. That was me at the end. I really didn't care if it was 7 am or 10 pm. I went to the closest store and could not be bothered to rotate because that would mean going out of my way and possibly, depending on the time of day, driving drunk and as stupid as I was, I didn't really want to risk that. Small town, cops crawling everywhere with nothing better to do than to pull people over for small offenses. I guess that's good but the drunk in me was careful.
On work days, I kind of rotated because those stores were on the way. I know the people pitied me but they acted so casual and friendly. The whole thing was weird. The CVS lady used to get the bottle tag opener ready for me before I would come up in the early am. The Walgreen's man couldn't really work that thing, so I avoided that store. I learned the hard way when it took me about 15 minutes to get a bottle because he kept trying and had to call someone else up to do it. I was only embarrassed because I was holding up the line before 7. He was obviously a morning shift worker and not used to selling alcohol that early. I've told this story before, but I learned to avoid the places that weren't with my game. One of my stores did not open the liquor aisle on time probably because no one buys that early, but I was too embarrassed to ask her to open it, even though it was selling time. all the hops I jumped to remain in that stupid game. So much time and frustration wasted on idiotic efforts.