MAKING POUR DECISIONS WHILE UNDER THE INFLUENCE

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“My partner once told me to go and get something to make her look sexy. So I went out and got drunk”

Lee Azeva-who?

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My life spiralled out of control in 2016. I did what most people do when faced with extreme adversity. I buried my head in the sand and hoped all my problems would go away. As chemists do, I viewed alcohol as a solution.

My dependency on alcohol went on to have a detrimental effect on every aspect of my life.

It is easy to become dependent on alcohol. Serve alcohol at a party, nobody bats an eye, serve laxatives at a party and everybody loses their shit.

I became selfish, depressed and hopeless. During this period I sadly had to attend a friends funeral. The funeral was at 9am, I remember selfishly thinking “they should know I’m not really a mourning person.”

At the time a close friend asked me directly, “is it ignorance or apathy that’s pushing you down this path of self-destruction?” I said, “I don’t know and I don’t really care.” My close friends and family begged me to seek help. But as a modern man, I like my bourbon, like I like my emotions, bottled.

I reluctantly went to see my psychiatrist for my newly acquired whiskey behaviours. Our therapeutic relationship had been on the rocks since she’d fallen off the wagon again. She asked me about my mood. I said, “I have mixed drinks about feelings.”

“If you carry on drinking this much, its liable tequil-ya.” She then laughed raucously at her own joke.

I remember thinking, “what kind of person spends there time laughing at such rubbish jokes?”

She then diagnosed herself with narcissistic alcoholism and says, “actually, second thoughts, I’m far too important to be a narcissist.”

I left at the point she asked me if I wanted one for the road.

With alcoholism, you make pour choices. I would spend all my money on booze. Whenever I was out, all I wanted to do was get home and wine down. I once got into so much debt that I couldn’t even afford my electricity bills. Those were indeed the darkest times of my life.

When you become an alcoholic, you meet people you would not normally meet in everyday life.

I met a man, a recovering alcoholic, but he was now addicted to buying ladders, he used them to get high. Then there was that socially anxious unicyclist, he couldn’t handle bars. I also met an obese, alcoholic transvestite, they just wanted to eat, drink and be Mary, bubbly personality though. And then there was that one time I met a guy who substituted alcohol with brake fluid. I asked him, “what d’ya do that for?” He said, “firstly unlike alcohol, I can stop at any time. And secondly, it doesn’t constantly remind me of alcohol.” “That’s the spirit,” I said.

Alcohol and autocorrect are not a good cocktail. Whenever I was under the influence, I was forever writing things I didn’t Nintendo.

I continued to be in denial, making half-hearted attempts to make changes in my life, but never anything to do with drinking less, I even considered a change of career; I randomly attended an interview for a job as a Mime Artist, unfortunately, I didn’t get it. To be fair, I did turn up drunk and say stuff I shouldn’t have, mime mistake.

I attended Alcoholics Anonymous. That didn’t work either, I just carried on drinking under a different name.

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Alcoholism is a metaphorical hoptical illusion, some say, “a drink a day, keeps the reality at bay,” and time certainly flies when you’re having rum, but, you don’t have to gin and bear it, seek help, if you don’t, at some point the sip will hit the fan. That my friends, is the time to have one for the road, and have a brewed awakening, otherwise known as a reality check.

In dark times, we invariably make mistakes, what’s done is done.

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Nothing else”

Lee Serpa Azeva-who?

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Originally published in Medium publication The Haven, 9th November 2019.