Beer. There’s a bin of empty cans outside my back door. A 6 pack ‘once in a while’ became 2 or 3 tall cans 5 or 6 times a week. Didn’t take long for that. The day or two without each week made it okay. It not being whiskey made it okay. Liking beer made it okay. It coming from the grocery store and not the liquor store made it okay. Looking at it in terms of what it’s not made it okay.

I know it doesn’t help but that doesn’t stop me yearning for the numbness and emotional procrastination alcohol provides. If I’m numb there’s no feelings to get angry over. If I’m numb I don’t have to deal with feelings I’m not feeling. If I could solve having feelings/ruminations/flashbacks why wouldn’t I? Pain is weight so lighten the load, right? Is giving up drinking also giving up on not having to feel like this?

I’m not supposed to feel ashamed by it because that’s “stigma” but I do. How do I allow alcohol to have the power over me that it holds? How do I hold my head up knowing that everyone knows I thought I could just drink away what I was too weak and ashamed of to face?

Coffee… the cocktail of alcoholics. Sitting outside, vaping weed over a cup of joe and pondering empty cans and all the feelings from my OT appointment this morning. Today a teenaged jumper visited during the appointment and I once again loaded his mangled and bloodied body into the back of the ambulance and out of public view, soundtracked by the screams of his mother from up above. Inside the ambulance the vacuum of futility once again silenced the resuscitation. It was all for show. He wasn’t coming back. I sometimes wonder how many of the jumpers I have attended to over the years changed their minds as the ground approached and how many stayed convicted.

A penny for one’s thoughts, huh?