The Program

I think back to my last drunk.
I was at a *******. I didn't get obscenely drunk. I didn't act afool. Actually, I towed the line, I made a great impression, I was the charming, erudite, articulate *** any *** would be proud to call their own.

Later in the evening, I found myself traversing the city streets of a place I didn't know, manically looking for some late night excitement and ultimately, retiring to my hotel exhausted and ready for unfitful sleep.

I don't get many using thoughts these days.
If I'm out and I see people drinking, it's like this subtle undercurrent, and it only really comes to me if I smell it as someone walks nearby. I've never liked the smell of either beer or liquor. If I let myself, I'd probably long for the warm onset of being drunk, but here at the end of this last year of my active addiction, that rarely happened to the extent that I can barely remember it. Normally, or rather, what had become normal, I went straight from sober to blackout drunk.

Something about utterly accepting that I can never drink again. Period.
I don't romanticize or dwell on the feeling of being high or drunk lest I miss it.
I don't think back to the fresh-faced girls I banged except in fleeting.
It's curious, being out places, sober, actually having to interact, rather than peer through the haze of chemical(s) and the distorted sense of self which ultimately manifests.

Now I'm faced with a new dilemma. My new paradigm clashes with the old as I interact with others as they oscillate between drunk/high/sober and the various shades in between.
I find it difficult to interact in that I know who I'm talking to isn't really them. The same way that even when I was dry/not drunk, I was still a sick person.

I don't think much about dating or meeting new people if/when my girlfriend and I split up.
It's this colossal thing to consider that just seems so daunting.
I've been out and girls have flirted with me and given all the signs but I just don't have the tolerance or the appetite to outweigh my irritation with the rigmarole of getting to know someone.

It's bizarre but mostly gone is my pursuit of the variety of a different girl all the time.
We grow tired, we grow more calm. We slow down a half step.
The dark passenger calls to us but it lacks the prior luster, falls on nearly deaf ears.

Last night, it was 1045pm, I hadn't even seen the entire show, but the thought of laying down and watching a movie called to me. Rest, the small voice said and tugged at my feet.

I think to when I've felt at home since getting out of treatment...and it's by and large been at meetings.
Some may say it's a cult, or it's just brainwashing, but I wasn't running my life before anyway.
I was barely able to keep my head above water. I know far more peace than I did for 1* years of my life before now. My life is somewhat manageable and I can go sit somewhere and here things that resonate with me, and meet some or perhaps a few people who not only understand but do not judge.

It's a strange and good thing.