Continue Reading Below Advertisement

"Later, dickweeds. I'm gonna go get ripped, like an adult.

That guilt will follow you around until you do something about it. And I'll be straight with you here -- I just had to swallow my pride and start apologizing to people. Even the ones who had all of me they were willing to take for the rest of their lives, who I knew would simply give me the finger and say, "I told you so. Now fuck off. I'd rather spend the day drawing close-up portraits of my dog's asshole than devoting a single minute to remembering the many ways you made my life suck."

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

If there's another way to deal with it, I haven't found it. I'm not sure there is one, because the truth is, it wasn't the alcohol making you do that. That was you. You destroyed those relationships. You were the one calling the shots, drunk or not. You were the one who pissed in the dolphin tank at SeaWorld in front of 200 screaming children. Quitting drinking does not wipe away those old emotional debts you racked up. You did the crime, and you are accountable for it. A celebrity entering rehab does not wipe away the time he vomited a slew of racial slurs on stage. It was not alcohol's fault. Beer did not introduce those thoughts into his brain. He did. And he damn sure owes an apology for it.