There is No Rock Bottom

We are desperate to believe that there is something solid and real in the gaping maw beneath us, something besides teeth and oblivion. But there isn’t.

Fall of the Damned into Hell, Hieronymus Bosch, 1490.

Drinking every day, you build a moat around your mind.

I had lost sense of time. Every day was interchangeable. In the depths of my depravity, every day felt like it might be a year, until eventually it was.

Every morning, I would awake to the realization that I had fallen deeper than I had previously thought possible. The itch of that knowledge was insufferable, and I considered anything that might rid me of it to be reasonable. Complete and utter self-destruction seemed like it might do the trick.

Drinking to forget works. It takes dedication and hard work, none of that “I’m worried because I binge drink on the weekends” shit. You have to do it every day. You won’t be any less miserable, but eventually you will have no clue why you are.

Coming out on the other end, I was trying to find out.

“Just a moment of peace, please. A moment to gather my thoughts. If only I could stall my falling, find some plateau, some rock to hold on to. Just for a second.”

I would know what I had to do — I always did. I just couldn’t make the pieces come together, because I was hungover.

And crying. And puking. And falling.