Horseshoe Magnet

I really felt the more I drank the prettier and smarter I got. I thought if I did get into an argument, it was because the person I was drinking with could not handle their booze. I believed they were too stupid and would not, or could not, be persuaded to do whatever I thought they should do or to think whatever I thought they should think. The party never started until I got there, and it never ended until I was done. How it ended and with whom was not normally predetermined. If it was, it was always subject to change - with or without my consent. It all seemed so normal. Today it makes me shudder.

When I read, “There is No Way to Get Around Yourself” I am face to face with my illness. I am face to face with how sick I really was. I am once again in touch with the progression of my disease. I am aware of what it was really like and how little I knew about where I was. Yet the reality of my life at that time seemed so normal.

How did it all start? When she is high, she can tell you. When she is straight, her brain only functions in multiples of how many bags, the cost and the availability of funds - sinfully even as she is telling her son she cannot afford at first what he wants, and then eventually what he needs. The first time she calculated some extra money she received into how many bags it would buy, she laughingly thought there might be a problem.