I just came up on seven months sobriety a week ago. Life is much better these days. The daily embarrassments, acting wild, putting myself in extreme danger of jails, institutions and death and impending doom of daily life as an active alcoholic are now just a memory.
But I would be lying if I said I didn't miss drinking. I miss the bar scene and partying all the time. But the bar scene is so shallow and fake and not to mention dangerous for an alcoholic. I thought I would meet the woman of my dreams at a bar and some rich guy sitting a few stools over would give me a good job. Sometimes, it seemed like these things were in reach in the bar. But that beautiful girl turned out to be heartless golddigger who was just as sick as I was and that rich guy who promised me that good job never followed through on his drunken promise. It was all lights, camera action and it all wasn't real
. I was like a rabbit chasing a carrot on a stick.
The world is open to so many possibilities now that it can be overwhelming to think about, so I rarely do that. Ultimately, the drunk lifestyle is what I know. But my life as an alcoholic was far from glamorous. I was a low-bottom low-functioning drunk. I couldn't even hold down a menial job and never had a career. Drinking was my career. The only reason I wasn't homeless was because my mother enabled me to live and drink at her house for years on end as a grown man. I hustled, thieved and did whatever I could to get alcohol.
I know that I can't have one or a "few" drinks ever. I stopped trying to moderate my drinking years ago. If I were to go back out, things would only get worse. But the carefree drunk lifestyle I knew was just me being a big baby not knowing how to grow up except instead of a bottle of milk, it was a bottle of whatever I could get my hands on.