Remember When?

     For the last few weeks while driving in my truck, I have had the obsession to drink come back.  Usually it is a fleeting thought, but not these.  And it is pretty scary.  I have been having this brief conversation with myself that a Budweiser would taste so good and that I could handle it.  Surely this time I could drink and not do Cocaine.  Then I have to force my mind into playing that tape out.  It is amazing to me to realize how strong my disease is and how much it wants me out there getting wasted and killing myself.  So in the attempt to remember how bad it was at the end I am going to share the last moments of my drinking on that last day.  This is a day I can never forget.

     I had already made my plans to leave Colorado after my girlfriend called the police on me in a drunken stupor.  I went out seven days later on my last Saturday in Denver, thinking to myself what is the worst thing that could happen?  My girlfriend and I had made up and she admitted that calling the police on me was a horrible mistake and that she was sorry.  We had spent the entire week together and I thought we were in a good place despite me leaving to get sober.  She had friends in town and she went out with them and I went to my bar to see everyone one last time and have a good night and say goodbye.  Next thing I know I have lost my keys and I am at my dealer’s house around 9:00 AM Sunday morning.  My girlfriend is not answering her phone and mine is dying, so I figured I would walk to her place and knock on her window to let me in.  Thinking she was just passed out.  After my arrival at her apartment I figure out she is not home.  So I sat down on the benches in front of her apartment thinking she would come home at some point.  By now my phone is dead and even if it wasn't I was way too intoxicated to call my landlord so I waited.  Well I was right and eventually she arrived and shit went sideways.  She was with a friend who did not like me and they had obviously been up all night as well. Next thing you know my girlfriend and I are arguing.  She was mad for just showing up and I was trying to explain the situation.  All the while her friend was threatening to call the police.  I am begging her to give us a minute and to mind her own business.  We are now drawing attention to ourselves and the argument is getting really loud.  Soon enough a woman on a bike decided to intervene and the friend calls the police.  Still having drugs on me I knew it was time to leave and high tailed it out of there.  I finally was let in my building and I kicked in my door breaking the dead bolt and the insanity ensued and I broke down completely.

      I am shaking now that I have gotten all that out.  This was exactly the personal response I wanted.  That day is tied for the worst day of my life.  And both of them could have been a lot worse.  I need to reread this over and over.  This was my last day of drinking and using.  I am sure it looked like a bad scene to all the people in the neighborhood that could see us.  I had turned into that guy.  I was completely crazy, messing around with a woman that was pissed that her boyfriend had shown up because he was locked out of his house and throw the third nut job in the mix and it is a recipe for disaster.  This is a perfect example of bad decisions on my part all the way around.  I can never forget this.  This is where I will end up if I pick up that first beer.  Right back on the madness railroad headed to an early grave.