The Bloody Doors Off

Tonight’s regrets brought to you by the amygdala, the hippocampus, the cerebellum, and the prefrontal cortex.

I’ve done stupid shit. We all have.

Alcohol abuse runs in the family. My grandmother (on my dad’s side), my father.

Me.

I was in the last year of high school. Nineteen years old. And despite my best efforts, following the Koster footsteps down the hazy, boozy, path.

I kept a bottle in the closet in my bedroom. Once, at a bar and I had no more money for beer, I convinced a poor sod I’d write a piece on him in exchange for a drink. (I was in a co-op program at The Scarborough Mirror at the time. In a drunken stupor, I stumbled across the set of 1980s television show Night Heat and convinced the security guard I was on assignment. Turned out, one of the actors was from Scarborough, which landed me an invitation back to set and a puff piece for the paper. But I digress.)

I hit bottom the 3rd night of a bender after a friend had committed suicide. Barely able to stand, I’d made my way out of a strip club to a McDonald’s for a burger, puked it (and everything else) out in a back alley, and then headed back for another drink.

I quit cold turkey that night. Was sober for over a decade before I even considered the possibility that I had the willpower to try a drink again. Since then, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been inebriated because of alcohol.

But I’ve done stupid shit. Sometimes I think of that poor guy, who just wanted to be heard, and instead had a punk ass kid con him out of three bucks so he could stay drunk. I worry that I’ve treated people badly.

So yeah, that started my shame spiral this evening.

Dovetailed into failed relationships.

My breakdown seven years ago. I was so fucking shaky when I got out. To this day, I think I should’ve stayed locked up an extra week or two. I wasn’t ready.

I think I am now, though.

Despite the utter shit I’ve done, the muck I’ve waded through, I’ve arrived at a good place in my life.

I just don’t wanna fuck it up.

And I wish I knew how to make it up to that guy in the bar.