Only yesterday

I wake up and flounder about in bed with my girlfriend for a bit – she actually gets a little horny in spite of everything for a moment, but that’s beside the point. That is definitely beside the point.

What’s Wrong With Jewel, is the point.
And ‘What’s Wrong With Me’, is sidestepped as I step out of bed and grab a bottle of beer – the first of the bottles that has been sitting on the bedside locker for six hours. And I sip and contemplate, and smoke, out the window.
Hands is down there. Not too long before he asks me to go talk to Jewel. I know I love her, but I know what happened.
She claims she doesn’t know what happened.
I slug on a beer.
How come, I reckon, to myself, how come I can drink like fuck and not cause a frickin’ scene? I think it’s because I’m an alcoholic. I love the drug, not the buzz. I like to drink and Jewel likes to buzz. Trouble for her is, is that, she drinks for the buzz (I drink for the drink) and thus, the drink encompasses the buzz, and she becomes drunker than her buzz will allow. I don’t actually like being drunk, so I recede with it. She takes the buzz and holds on to it. She refuses sleep for it. And sooner, but usually later – thirty hours on, she’s drunker than her ‘buzz’ will allow. But in her buzz, with her… buzz, she will try to defy that. But use it. And defiance is her name.

And defiance is the name in the face of even people who just want to be pleasantly drunk… people I’ve invited her out to meet… pleasant, mellow people who don’t need this screaming banshee, defiant in the face of all logic and sensibility in her face, in our face, in the face of the staff.

And how aware am I of my ‘drinking problem’? I’ve got to have a beer in my hand as I get out of bed.
But how unaware is Jewel? Completely and totally, she’s got no recollection, and I know at the time she had no control. No awareness. None.

It’s an issue, since, even I could drink as heavy as her but hold it together. Heavier in fact. And the rest were drunk too. But when she let off screaming at staff and telling the rest of us it wasn’t our business or whatever it was – and glasses smashing on to the floor and refusing bed and frowning on those that needed it; even though it was a small gathering the night before; you’ve got to worry.

I sort of worry more for me. In a way, I worry more for me.
At least she can face a demon or two – her own demons.

I’ve got to face a substance. It’s something I love dearly, like a friend.
It’s something that has trouble associated with it, but has only been kind to me (other than my wallet), but ultimately will cast me beyond help and love…

we’ll see.