Last Night Out

Last night was my last time "out" in 12 step lingo. I used and went to 3 bars and really paid attention to how all the settings felt. The first I bar I went to was a place where I am extremely comfortable. Al though it has new owners it is an establishment that has been around since the early 1900's. I know everyone that goes there and in fact it is almost feels like a home. I used to work there back in the day and know every square inch of it. I have slept there read my mail and had sex there. I stayed for 2 beers and watched the Olympics, or tried to, one of the regulars was in an especially chatty mood. He probably has no one else who will listen to his bullshit. I usually don't mind listening to people, I have always been a better listener than a talker. All in all no feeling of camaraderie or good times at the bar.
The second stop was at a second local watering hole that has also been around since the early 1900's. I know the owner and know probably 1 out of every4 people that go there. I talk with the bartender who I know from around town. The Olympics are on and an extremely drunk man keeps saying over and over that he can't believe he is still out past midnight. Apparently he is usually passed out well before midnight. "I am a daytime drinker" he says. As he pin balls out of the bar he is muttering that he hopes to God the grand kids don't get him up too fucking early in the morning. The experience at this establishment is not very rewarding or glowing either.
Next I go to have a couple beers at an establishment that has been around since my early twenties. It is now a hangout for the newly legal and the old timers who leer at them. I don't know anyone there. It is Karaoke night and people are singing pretty good songs, but it feels very empty. I feel like an outsider or someone invisible just observing everything.
Finally before I call it a night, I do what every drinker or user eventually ends up doing: drinking alone. I buy a single beer and go to the school that is nestled deep within my neighborhood. It is a familiar place, not only did I go to school there but I have spent many a night alone parked behind the dumpster in the parking lot with a bottle and the radio. As I knew it would be it was a very lonely experience. Whenever I am there it is easy to imagine I am all alone in the world connected to it only by the radio and my cell phone. I have been texting with my sober buddy over the course of the night to let him know where I am and to get a ride from him if need be.
When i get home I have a little something to eat and take an Ambien and watch some TV until I hear Mom get into the shower.
The evening has been a study in loneliness and alcohol abuse. I didn't get out and get crazy, I never have in terms of drinking or using. I have always been the marathon man ,I don't drink fast or get the craziest but I can always outlast most everyone. I have always waited with baited breath for the morningwhen I get up and I am all jaundiced or can't pee because my kidneys have shut down., By the grace and mystery of God my body has lasted through this abuse and i t has never happened.
My drinking and using is not normal in that I have always known it was self medicating. It was a perverted search for meaning or companionship. I recently read something in a book called " I Don't Want to Talk About it" that had the greatest definition for a problem drinker or user I have ever read. Normal people when they drink or take a drug or perform some act they are starting with a normal baseline of relative well being and the drink or drug or whatever is there to enhance or heighten the experience. When the chemical wears off or the act is done the user returns to that to that baseline. Like drinking champagne at a wedding or party. The abuser starts with no such baseline, so after the chemical wears off they are where they were before and 9 times out of time10 they feel even worse or some negative consequences result. That is my rationalization for drinking and using: I feel like shit with or without it so I might as well do it to get at least a temporary reprieve from the feeling. It almost always never works out that way but I still keep on doing it. THAT is the definition of insanity.
So tonight I am going to usher for "Complet Works of William Shakespeare" at the Baldwin in Royal Oak. There is an AA meeting in Royal Oak very nearby before the show I am going to go to. Going to a meeting in a different neighborhood and at meeting where you will probably know no one is a nervous experience. Never as bad as the very first one you go to. That is alright I need to be out of my comfort zone for this experience.
until next time .
Later Tater.