Today, I saw something that really put a zinger on my psyche.
On my way home from work, I pass one of the bars I used to drink at to the wee hours. The last time I was in there, was probably in early December of last year.
It's a little place, a working mans bar. My boss still goes there almost everyday, and I see his vehicle parked in the lot.
Today, another fellow was standing outside, with a beer and cigarette in his hand. He's probably 60 years old, and is a Vietnam combat vet. I knew him pretty good. He's a little crazy in the head, but a very decent and likeable fellow. A hard drinker for years and years on. He was with a few other guys, looking a a new Harley Davidson motorcycle apparently one of them had just bought.
I saw the old fellow, his face etched with lines and sadness of decades of hard drinking. He didn't seem to have a job, being on Vet's disability, and having a wife that still worked. The fellow, his life, is centered around that bar, and the drink. Maybe he wanted one of those Harleys pretty bad, and that's why he was sad. I used to buy him a lot of beers, because I have a good paying job.
I so badly wanted to stop, and have a talk with him. When I drank with him, beer after beer for hours on end, I could usually bring a smile to his face by relating some story of mine. He didn't drive, having lost his license years ago pretty much permanently due to DUI's.
Another part of me said, "Keep on driving, Neil". Those days, and those friends must now be part of the past. Damn, it hurt to drive on, like leaving a part of myself that I killed by becoming sober.
I would have never befriended the old fellow, unless it had been for late night drinking sprees, where only having 9 or 10 drinks, was just getting started.
I was lucky, in that I never got caught driving while drinking. But my number was coming up, sooner or later, it was going to come up.
So I drove on, went home, and wrote this. Didn't mean to write such a downer, but long-term abstinence is fraught with these things. Sometimes you have to be a little ruthless in the soul. I liked that guy, because he was sad, and drank himself into a stupor so much, like I used to.
The last couple of years, I have been contributing a small sum to the Disabled American Veterans organization each Veterans Day. Money that I spent on buying that guy beers, which I used to do a lot, will now go to supporting those veterans, who didn't come back whole. It's money that goes to support the Veterans Hospitals. So, my old friend, who shall go nameless here, I will contribute in your honor this year.
It's the only way I know how to help him now, as he never expressed a desire to quit or cut down ever.
Be well everyone.
Neil
edit: spelling
On my way home from work, I pass one of the bars I used to drink at to the wee hours. The last time I was in there, was probably in early December of last year.
It's a little place, a working mans bar. My boss still goes there almost everyday, and I see his vehicle parked in the lot.
Today, another fellow was standing outside, with a beer and cigarette in his hand. He's probably 60 years old, and is a Vietnam combat vet. I knew him pretty good. He's a little crazy in the head, but a very decent and likeable fellow. A hard drinker for years and years on. He was with a few other guys, looking a a new Harley Davidson motorcycle apparently one of them had just bought.
I saw the old fellow, his face etched with lines and sadness of decades of hard drinking. He didn't seem to have a job, being on Vet's disability, and having a wife that still worked. The fellow, his life, is centered around that bar, and the drink. Maybe he wanted one of those Harleys pretty bad, and that's why he was sad. I used to buy him a lot of beers, because I have a good paying job.
I so badly wanted to stop, and have a talk with him. When I drank with him, beer after beer for hours on end, I could usually bring a smile to his face by relating some story of mine. He didn't drive, having lost his license years ago pretty much permanently due to DUI's.
Another part of me said, "Keep on driving, Neil". Those days, and those friends must now be part of the past. Damn, it hurt to drive on, like leaving a part of myself that I killed by becoming sober.
I would have never befriended the old fellow, unless it had been for late night drinking sprees, where only having 9 or 10 drinks, was just getting started.
I was lucky, in that I never got caught driving while drinking. But my number was coming up, sooner or later, it was going to come up.
So I drove on, went home, and wrote this. Didn't mean to write such a downer, but long-term abstinence is fraught with these things. Sometimes you have to be a little ruthless in the soul. I liked that guy, because he was sad, and drank himself into a stupor so much, like I used to.
The last couple of years, I have been contributing a small sum to the Disabled American Veterans organization each Veterans Day. Money that I spent on buying that guy beers, which I used to do a lot, will now go to supporting those veterans, who didn't come back whole. It's money that goes to support the Veterans Hospitals. So, my old friend, who shall go nameless here, I will contribute in your honor this year.
It's the only way I know how to help him now, as he never expressed a desire to quit or cut down ever.
Be well everyone.
Neil
edit: spelling
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