The Reals on Alcohol

Little did you know that that first sip of beer in the park with your friends, that first piss warm, golden yellow, liquid pacifier, wouldnt be your last. Not by a long shot.
By 16 you had already created yourself an ever so impressing drinking habit, by 20 you still ran with it even though your friends had slowed down. But interests not backgrounds unite, so you found new buddies who shared your hobby.
You're a father, you're a working man, you're happy. Yeah, you truly are. You don't have a problem.

Your wife left you after being promised once too many that you would quit and found, just as always, that you hadn't. She left you after you had forced yourself to drink through an antabus cure. You really had put an effort to it. Swallowed the pills that would make you vomit if you drank. And then kept on drinking by the toilett or somewhere else where you could puke and then keep on drinking. Wow, your such a party animal.
You didn't beat her. What a good guy you are. You really did love your kids and tried to be there for them, but sometimes daddy needed a nap. And who wouldnt be tired after a hard days work? You worked on, you took whatever jobs necessary to give your kids a bearable life. You worked nights until your body couldn't take it any more, the pain didn't go away. But theres a cure for that. You just couldn't sleep more than two hours a night. Let me lay you down and keep you out. You stopped caring about the rest of the world beyond those that you had a sincere bond to. Isolating yourself. Insulating yourself from pain.

When yet another wife left you, when you suddenly where all alone with me, you found yourself in that empty house. You had fucked up your body from working nights, your mind was a mix of thoughts and memories jotted down in a small journalist-pad in your pocket. All those dreams you had so many years ago - How long ago? - where now just shards, chrystallized hopes, lying on the floor next to a smashed beer bottle. I have to leave this house. You only need me. To keep you warm. To keep you cozy. To make you reminisce instead of remember. The darkness of the woods outside the windows at night seems to beckon me in. Sit here in the kitchen, Im here, take a smoke, have a glass. You don't have to think about the job you don't have anymore. Your children who don't visit as often. Your friends who now remain only as names in a phonebook you don't use any more. My fathers revolver hidden in the linnen closet in the upstairs bedroom, oil black, sleek, night-time end, the utter punctuation. Lets talk you and I, look into me longingly and forget all those pains. Salvation is only another glass away.

He loved me, he truly did. I don't know why. Maybe his mothers frail senses and fathers stern attitude made him need an outlet. Maybe a broken heart. Maybe a sense of longing for something more than just a piss poor life in the backwaters of society. I don't know. Whatever it was I was here for him. I was the virgin whore - the one for whom no other love exists but who would be anything he wanted. I was the inspiration - the dreams scetches and notes all slanted, bent and crooked - unread. I was stagnation, the merciful angel who slept next to him, beckoning him back to dream. I was there when the world had forsaken him.

A sleek click, a well oiled drum rotating into place for a final time like a divine wheel of fortune. Brass redemption, lead salvation. An alchemical solution in the form of a physical object to the alchemical solution to the real world problem.
Hard steel barrel against a soft temple. Cold against warm. Howling autumn winds outside the kitchen window asking you to join them out there in the darkness of the woods. All those dreams, those memories, hidden within that fleshly dome barrating you with guilt of what could, what might, have been. You don't cry. The time has passed for tears. You know all those you love who had loved you once may miss you but you need an outlet. Something to pacify your mind.

Do it.

The birds awoke in the middle of the night and left the branches on which they perched, fleeing the sudden noise from the little house on the hill. A host of bewildered black angels ascending from the dark treeline.


Alcohol
In Sweden one of the most loved drugs there is. While cigarettes is considered passé for most, alcohol have received a renaissance as the continental and worldy drug. Even healthy in moderate doses.
Over half of all motor accidents are caused by it. The great majority of all violent crimes, beatings, murders, rapes and robberies, either victim, offender or both are drunk. Over half of all recorded suicide attempts began with drink. Even the longest journey start with a small step.
The number of alcoholics are dim since many pass as "normal" in day to day situations. Then they pass out in abnormality in the comfort of their homes. The number of broken marriages, relationships and busted childhoods is unknown.

The standing explanation for alcoholism in modern day Sweden is an individual one. People who drink too much have themselves to blame. Its their weakness and problem so there is no reason to spoil everyone elses good time.

Alcoholism is also more destructive amongst those of us who don't have the means to hide it. Who cannot lounge away the backwash of last nights binge. And everyone wants a piece of that misery. The alcohol industry is made up of two branches: the one for those who enjoy the finer things in life, fine wines, exclusive beers and interesting drink mixes. And one for those of us who just dont care what shape the toxin has. Explorer vodka, extra-strong beer, bag-in-box low cost wines for the mommies, shelf tumbling extra-sized whisky for the daddies and candy flavoured Xider for the kids.

But its ok since everyone is so damn funny when their drunk. We laugh at the mishaps we had when we where drunk. Everyone chuckles and retells all the fun, dumb things they have done while drunk. Its the perfect excuse! "I was drunk". "Ooooh well then hahaha"
Isn't it hilarious?