Sharing
Dan drank some more coffee and cleared his mind as best he could. Whoever Maggie was and her need for hugs got carefully shunted to one side, as did someone called Abi. Dan's own thoughts were more than enough for him at the moment. He had to work out what he was going to say, and what he wasn't going to say. Honesty was the best policy, yes, but not when it meant telling people that you drank because dead people liked to come and tell you all kinds of creepy shit at 3am and during math class and while you were in the mall with your friends.
"I started drinking when I was a freshman. In High School. I don't remember my fifteenth birthday," he began, "and other than a few weeks or months here and there where I tried my damnedest to stay away from the drink, that's how it was until a couple of months after my twenty-eighth birthday. I drank through all of the 1990s. I lost jobs because of my drinking; I'd be fine for a few months, I'd only really drink the night before a day off, but then I'd lose two or three days and there wouldn't be a job to go back to. I woke up in jail more than a few times, too. One time, I had a broken wrist and I still don't know how I managed that. Another time, I wound up staying in jail for a full month, because when I drink, I fight. I lost my driver's license a couple of times, too." He paused there for a moment, and rubbed at his lips as he thought. Talking about drinking, even when it was about the shit parts of it, always made him want a drink.
"I guess the whole argument about alcoholism being a genetic disorder comes into play. My dad was an alcoholic. His dad was an alcoholic. I don't know much else about the rest of my dad's side of things, because my grandad was dead before I was born, and my dad died when I was five. I told myself I was never going to drink because of what I saw my dad going through, and then I was drinking heavily by the age of fourteen. So, yeah... Then there's the argument that I drank because I'm a drunk."
"Whatever the reason, it's not important. I drifted about the East Coast for... shit, seven, eight years? And then I landed in this tiny little town in New Hampshire. No reason why, I just got off the bus and went for a walk. I got talking to this guy about work, and next thing I know, I had a job and a place to stay. Obviously, me being me, I had a bad couple of nights and my new friend found me in the morning with a bottle or three of Thunderbird. I hadn't drank them, but I wanted to, I really really wanted to. That got me sent straight to my new boss, who'd gotten himself a booze divorce fifteen years earlier. He got me to admit that I needed help, that I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. He had me doing 90 meetings in 90 days, and next thing I know, I'm getting chip after chip."
"Now, or back home at least, things are good. I have friends and family. I've had the same job for over twelve years now. I've got a car. Hell, I've even got a savings account. I have my moments, I still need help, but... I'm never going to stop being grateful for what I've got. Or what I had, I guess, but I'll get home some day and they'll be there."