The addict is rich

About fifteen years ago I thought it could be a great idea to be a clochard. If you don't know what a 'clochard' is google it. I would take my children to school and sit underneath a tree for the rest of the day with bottles of alcohol (red wine and port for example), a corkscrew and a good book. I would just sit there, sip my wine, enjoy doing nothing till the moment it was time to go back home. Once home the children could eat a slice of bread while they told me about their great day and after that some telly and off to bed.
No work, no housekeeping, time for me instead of all the ungrateful pointless cleaning. Dirt always comes back it's never a minute clean unless you have bad eyes.
The step from drugs to alcohol isn't big and let be honest alcohol comes in all kinds of tastes (indeed prices too) while pills are always dirty, dirty, bitter, expensive and you need a lot of courage, faith and a fat wallet to make them work. No matter how many meds I took, how many were forced upon my throat they didn't do as promised, promised by the doctors. No pill ever cured me. I was addicted enough, smelled like big pharma but it wasn't enough at least if I may believe the doctors. A person needs to have faith a positive attitude and more blah blah was spit out by doctors we all know about today they have hardly any experience, are so not interested in you as a patient and whose only task is to get you drugged with the pills that brings them the biggest bonus. One of my doctors was an alcoholic. I can tell you it's a whole new experience to be in labour with a drunk doctor who falls asleep instead of keeping a medical schooled eye on you and giving some assistance while you bleed like an idiot. Instead of that, I was fortunate with a drunk partner and a drunk doctor and both men needed their sleep. So did I although no one seemed to care about my needs. Some alcohol would have been welcome but with an addict in the house, there are always fights. Fights and empty bottles. Alcoholics have 1001 excuses to drink, to open, finish a bottle. With us, leaking corks or the last bottle of this kind was the excuse. All the bottles with bad corks were always found in my house. My ex had a nose for it. Not for personal hygiene but for leaking corks.

After years of being surrounded by alcoholics with lame excuses, it's easy to feel attracted to an easy lifestyle. A lifestyle of doing nothing, caring for your own business (how to open and empty the next bottle) and letting others deal with the issues of (your) life and be the slave of society. A lazy life is attractive, being free is and that's why so many mothers have a breakdown and start drinking. Life sucks if you are always the one who wipes noses, asses, has to play the nurse, cook, cleaning lady, shrink, the adult while men bring up lame excuses like 'I feel too young for it', 'Men always remain boys' and say 'it was your own free choice' or 'you don't need to do it'.
Indeed women don't need to do it and that's the reason they try to find a way out. Alcohol is a way, disappearing is and so is being gender-neutral. While the older generations were forced into lives they didn't want the new generation to know better which is a relief especially if they remain sane, don't make the bottle their best friend and won't get children. The last thing a confused unhappy person should do is take children. Believe me, I speak out of the experience. Too many children live a shitty life. It makes me sick to see and read how people keep stating childhood is a great time. The best time in your life, a time without worries. Most of these people were raised by drunk, violent parents. Parents who do not give a damn about their children. Parents who didn't take children out of love, because they want to spend time with them but because they couldn't keep their trousers closed. Because that child has to take care of them, work for them. That's what the childhood of most children look like. A home with drunk, violent parents, crying, shouting, raping parents. A home that looks like a dump with hardly anything to eat. Fat, unwashed parents, empty bottles, broken cups, trash everywhere, no one ventilates and the laundry is only done if the child knows how to do it. Let's stop pretending families are close, supportive and parents do a great job. Not in a world where so many men walk out and women are overworked and depressed and would love to hit the road too with or without a few bottles of gin.

I didn't end up underneath that three. I frequently think about it though. I saw my life pass away without doing what looked attractive to me. Sitting underneath the tree is hard. There's dogshit everywhere. I always hated that. Dog owners are too lazy to let their dogs out. They drag the animal up and down the road to school if they take or pick up their children. That dog is a sign of luxury, not the so much wanted man's best friend. It's the companion who smells, leaves his hair everywhere, takes dirt inside, makes noise and costs time and money. It's the useless companion you don't share your Johnny Walker with and his love for you has to do with food, not the person you are.
Sitting underneath a tree surrounded by dogshit isn't what I call a good, relaxing environment and let's be honest being a drunk is what I do for me, not for the neighbours or to entertain the villagers. If you spend a day outside you like to stay at a spot where it's nice, where you sit undisturbed (bottles and books both guarantee that) and can stretch out too without the risk a dog sniffs and poops at you. The other reason why being a clochard is not realized is the fact alcohol is expensive. For the price of one pathetic bottle of 0.75 liters, I can buy food too. Good, healthy food and chocolate. If you are a frequent drinker you know the amount of alcohol you consume to be knocked out (some call it feeling better) needs to increase every day.

If you drink, keep drinking you need to drink more and more. Just 24 bottles of ordinary beer won't do the trick. You are faster in peeing it out than you can consume it. An addict needs to keep drinking to keep the level of alcohol high and drinking is hard if you pee, vomit or have to do both plus without free drinks you have to be rich. I'm not rich that's for sure so it's a lost cause. I cannot afford to buy great bottles of wine (if you do something do it in style), there's do dogshit free tree on the road so the life of a clochard ended before it could even start. The addiction,  little voices are calling me. They are in my head 'Drink me, drink me' as if I am Alice stuck in my own Wonderland although I never took a drink, never been drunk and gave up on all pills without ever hearing them calling me. At home, I think about bottles of red wine dancing in a line. Wine is good for the blood, it disinfects your throat and body, keeps you warm -that is if you drink enough- which is a plus during Winter but once in a shop I never hear bottles calling me and try to find healthy, affordable food like vegetables, meat and milk for my kids because they didn't ask for a smelly mum who cries her eyes off, is depressed and spends her days in bed or underneath a tree surrounded by dogshit. It's not a good example, a way to raise children into the social credit system culture á la China Bill Gates wants us to live in. Us indeed, not him.

While I'm writing this I think I'll add some bottles of wine and more to my grocery list. Before you know alcohol is no longer available. By the way: empty glass bottles make good musical instruments, weapons and a fence that scare intruders away. Therefore being a drunk is a good excuse for addicts to get away with all kinds of misbehaviour and ignoring the rules.

#kittywu #alcohol #freewrite #addiction