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The Alcoholic Brain

My thoughts of alcohol are very selective. I still put it on a pedestal. Daydreaming about the warmth in my stomach from those first few sips. The fuzziness in my head so I don’t have to CARE so much about things. The layers of shyness being stripped away and replaced with a new skin of confidence.

What I should be remembering is the pain. The spinning and the slurring and the throwing up. The anger and the screaming and the crying. The disorientation, the broken bones, the mental blackouts.

What I should be remembering is waking up at 5am with my heart beating out of my chest and my anxiety so high I start to believe I’m dying.

I need to remember the shame. The endless apologies for words I don’t remember saying. The way my loved ones looked at me as they realized I’d let them down again. The multiple dangerous situations I put myself in that could so easily have ended up much, much worse.

I need to remember because my brain still tries to tell me I can have one drink. “Just have one! You’ll feel good, and then you can stop.” When everything in my history proves otherwise, that small part of my brain is always whispering “this time will be different…”