Getting In Some Whiskey Practice

It hadn't been a bad day. I wasn't, as an old dead hippie once put it, divebombing the lower emotions. I was doing just fine, considering everything. A little drunk already, maybe, and it was later than usual for me, but that was it.

The first sip hit my chest and burned, and I felt the whiskey face crawl across my mug. Then it passed, and I tipped the glass back again, draining it, knowing immediately why I started avoiding the whiskey in the first place?namely, I like it too damn much. In fact?I think I must've said this before?the whiskey remains my one true addiction, and that's why I try to steer clear of it.

Goddamn, that's good, I almost said aloud.

I poured myself another shot.

Time was, when I had the time and the stamina?both so much depleted now?I'd crack a new bottle at 11 a.m. and set to it. I wouldn't do much of anything else. Just sit at the kitchen table, smoke, drink and pour until the bottle was empty or I had passed out. Next morning, same thing.

I know cigarettes are considered an addiction, but they've never done quite the same thing to me. I don't smoke three or four packs a day (just one). If I want a smoke, I have it. Then I don't worry about it for a while. My head or throat starts hurting, I stop. With the Turkey, though, everything stays smooth (at least inside my head?I can't say what those around me might think)?until the lights go out.

One other little side effect?and I know I've talked about this one before?when I'm on the whiskey is my tendency to call people on the telephone. People I haven't spoken to in years. People who never want to hear from me again. People who've forgotten who I am and whom I never really wanted to talk to in the first place.

I forget what I say to these people when I get them on the phone?I may weep, or call them names?all I know is that I never, ever hear from any of these people again.

Which I guess is a relief.

There was no big announcement or hoopla when I quit the whiskey. I just stopped, is all. Didn't tell anybody about it, even. I mean, at the bars I'd just get beer instead. Beer's cheaper. As a result of not telling people, though, come every Christmas or birthday or whatever, the bottles would pile up. I wasn't about to throw them away?that would be sacrilege. So I put one on my kitchen table to hang my hat from at night, kept one at work in the event of emergency and stacked all the others up on the shelf above the sink, next to the cat food, where they collected dust. Had I been one of those 12-steppers, they would've been the worst temptation in the world. But for me, strangely, they proved no temptation at all. Which may explain why it didn't seem like a big deal when I drunkenly pulled one down and opened it again.

This time, though, instead of going nuts and calling strangers, I only called Morgan, telling her, only as a side note, that I'd broken my fast. And what's more, it didn't get out of hand. I poured three shots, downed them, then put the bottle back on the shelf and went to bed, my mouth feeling like I'd just given it a nice dousing with Listerine?all fresh and tingly.

Still, though, the question remained?why had I done it in the first place? And why was I able to stop?

I'd finished a book recently, maybe that had something to do with it. Doubt it, though. More likely scenario, I'd guess, is that I just growed up some these past few years, and realized that I no longer had to prove anything to anyone that way.

It wasn't until maybe 10 days later I discovered that I'd soon have good reason to turn back to the whiskey. Maybe, subconsciously, I was just getting into practice.