A free-association scream (900 or so words of id-driven rage at addiction poured onto the page without editing or re-reading)

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unnamedLarissa’s had another red-letter day/week/month with the same red-letteredness I brought on myself near the end of my drinking. Moving from mid- to end-stage alcoholism is distinguished by increasingly common losses (or throw-aways) and satisfaction with less and less and less in life. The border between the stages may come with the recognition that buying Sam Adams is a waste of money. Natty Daddy gives you what you want without all that taste and craftsmanship. (Or, in my case, Chardonnay is for suckers when Lavoris gets me drunk and gives me minty-fresh vomit. I quickly slid from brand-name mouthwash to Dollar Store generics, but that was less for aesthetic reasons than for its being easier to steal.)

This week, Larissa, who’s just started a new job – she’s charming and smart and pretty, in addition to being a nearing-end-stage alcoholic – wrecked two cars in one day, got her first DWI and has been asked to move out of her home.  Like a child whistling as she walks past that house with the mean dog, Larissa tells me she’s got a plan for pulling things together. As she tells me about it, I taste the same “once-I’ve-jumped-over-the-canyon-and swum-the-Pacific” nonsense that had infected all my end-stage dreams, and I’d never faced the public and practical problems of holding down a job with no public transportation, no car and, oh yeah, no driver’s license.


After losing a second job for drunkenness or its aftermath, I quickly went through my tiny savings. (In the previous sentence, “savings” is a euphemism for “what remained in my checking account after I’d paid my rent and bought cigarettes and booze.”) When my girls got home from school, they had a chance to see the eviction notice on the door of our s-hole apartment in a section of Nashua just north of Dicey and west of Danger. Ah, memories. Feeling like a victim always, I assumed some deus ex machina would appear to rescue me. Didn’t happen. A week later, after the girls had packed up their things and taken them to their mom’s, I had a final night alone, alone except for a box of Chardonnay. I laid on the futon in the dark corner of the back room, cradling the wine except for when I lifted the spout up to my mouth. That box made me feel like a wealthy man indeed.

The next morning, homelessness felt like freedom. No more boss telling me what to do! No more wasting money on rent! Finally, I could drink the way I wanted to – desperately and self-destructively, just as God intended.

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Larissa today is like a woman in a pool of freshly-poured Plaster of Paris. She can still move, although the cake-batter consistency around her presents a challenge. As time goes on, she’ll find life getting slowly but inexorably harder to control as the plaster hardens. The slow-motion thrashing she does will create a space for her inside that solid pool, until she’s as snug as a bug in amber, a bug with a taste for booze and little else.

If she’s like me (and most of the other drunks I’ve known), she’ll begin to think of suicide, or at least an end to her existence, going to sleep at night praying she won’t wake up. Warnings from friends and family will increase.

“If you don’t stop drinking,” they’ll say, “you’re going to die.”

Promises, promises. Promises that never come true.


Six months after our eviction, when I’d found a series of depths below the deep, I realized there was no “bottom” for this drunk to find until my body thumped onto the bottom of a casket. Luckily, instead of continuing to drop, I reached out for help from the VA and a program of recovery. Many (most?) (nearly all?) aren’t that lucky, burrowing deeper and deeper into despair, finding it harder and harder to find lower companions, creating ever-duller red-letter days/weeks/months.

Like Larissa.


Like Larissa, I continued to be charming, if charming means “manipulative and dishonest with no regard for how I affected others.” Like Larissa, I continued to be smart, if smart means “manipulative and dishonest with no regard for how I affected others.” Unlike Larissa, I was never pretty, but I’m afraid alcoholism doesn’t leave much beauty inside or out. In women in their 40s, booze seems to dissolve their looks, first slowly and then completely.


By the end, I was amazed if not amused that it takes as much energy to be a semi-employable drunk with a taste for mouthwash as it did to direct alternative schools, run an improv theater company and be a homeowner. The energy didn’t result in achievement any more, barely resulted in anything, but I kept on needing it, or at least needed the booze that fueled my energy.


Readers know I’m not a God guy at all, not real interested in whether the Big Joker in the Sky is paying attention. Still, I pray 50 or 75 times a day, saying the same prayer over and over and over: “Thank you, God.” For today, I’m going to amend that prayer to “Thank you, God, and please help Larissa find a way to want to find a path to sobriety.”

Those of you who have a chattier relationship with a higher power, please feel free to embroider this message, and insert whatever other names are appropriate for you.


About this Author

Keith Howard

Keith Howard is former Executive Director of Hope for NH Recovery and author of Tiny White Box