We drunks love to rationalize.

“I am a drunk, but I don’t do drugs!”

“Sure, I like to knock back a few, but I usually make it to work the next day.”

I used to get the flu a lot. Rationalizing is just another way of lying.

Before I go any further, I am not anti drink. If a person can handle it I hope they enjoy themselves. I will gladly drive then if they over enjoy themselves.

In my drinking days I used every excuse, rationalization, and creative reason I could think of for getting shitfaced. Fact is; if I drink I can not stop drinking.

The most foolish excuses I had to come up with, was explaining where the money went. I could never account, for how I had lost all my spending bills, before sunrise Saturday morning.

It is said, “alcohol is a solvent, it disovles marriages, homes, bank accounts, and lives.”

Once upon a time, drunks were funny. The town drunk on the Mayberry show of my youth. He would stagger into the sheriff’s office and lock himself in a jail cell. Funny stuff. A buffoon and silly character and alcoholic without a doubt.

Because he is non belligerent, quiet and even congenital, he was forgiven his ‘hobby’. But what of his family. Nothing we do is isolated to just ourselves. Mayberry’s drunk had a neglected wife, family, and mortgage. Everything we do effects our circle.

But, we in recovery are not a glum lot. In fact, we do a lot of laughing. Life can seem so absurd, that one cannot help but laugh. Without a sense of humor, I am the town grump.

It is said that all humor comes from a place of pain. I think it is retaking our lives. Reclaiming and owning what is ours. Our right to choose. The pursuit of happiness.

Such are the early morning thoughts of a recovered drunk and insominac.