I had been chain smoking for 3 straight days. My lungs were killing me. The only time I didn't have a cigarette in my mouth was when I was sleeping. Even then I had an unlit one in my hand so I could light it up upon waking with minimal effort. I had been smoking 4 packs a day. $2.60x4= $10.40 a day. I had blown $31.20 in 3 days. I should have been using that money on something to sustain my life, such as food, as opposed something that would kill me. This was nothing compared to the alcohol. I was drinking a fifth and a half of Jack a day. My daily diet had been reduced to Jack, cigarettes, and poorly constructed grilled cheese sandwiches. But this is how one reacts. At least that's what I had kept telling myself.

Every morning, 3 drags into my first cigarette, I'd vomit. Then I'd finish the cigarette and vomit again. This was how I spent the first half-hour of my day. Then it was a shower. Usually I even smoked in there. I got used to being cut off from the outside world. My only ventures to the exterior were to Sheetz and the liquor store. Sheetz is a wonderful store. Within it's walls; it contained everything needed to live a minimal existence. That's what I was hoping on. People had called, they had stopped by, but I didn't answer anything. My answering machine light perpetually blinked and was up to roughly 32 messages. I hadn't checked a single one. My mother, brother, father, friends. I had dropped off the face of the earth, hidden behind a deadbolt and a cloud of Turkish tobacco smoke. I didn't care. But this is how one goes about these things.

Consumption of alcohol is a peculiar thing. I drank all day. The first day was Jack and coke, the second Jack and water. By the third day I had moved on to drinking straight from the bottle. I drank all day everyday, yet I don't remember pissing in the last two. It dehydrates the body. The more you drink, the less liquid your body actually contained. Fact #2: You can actually drink yourself sober. I had repeatedly done this. Your body somehow compensates for the alcohol that you consume. Your liver works overtime. Your body begins to convince itself that this is normal. Everything is fine. That's when you throw back 3 straight shots to bring it back into reality, the shock of which causes you to vomit, while smoking a cigarette. But this is how people handle tragedy.

I was sleeping for roughly 3 or 4 hours a night. This is not healthy, but nothing I was doing was remotely close to healthy, so it fit my plan perfectly. My nights were filled on a couch in front of a TV. My vision filled with the sights of the History Channel, reruns of 1970s television on Nick at Nite, and hours of the Home Shopping Network. HSN (they're hip lingo) is a marvel of society. It takes the culture of the United States and nutshells it. Twenty-four continuous hours of capitalism. People putting themselves in debt for little gadgets, tie racks, cubic zirconium jewelry, and little ceramic figurines of Children at play individually numbered and certified for authenticity ( collect them all!). This is what I've been reduced to. But this is how people console themselves.

When I wasn't sitting in front of the magic box of plastic, wires, glass, and cathode tube, I was writing. There were pieces of notebook paper everywhere. Some with poems, some with stories, some with eight words of gibberish, some with insane little drawings done in an alcoholic haze. All had brown whiskey stains, tears and little cigarette burns from lack of attention. Nothing made sense. It was all about death, suicide, drugs, human nature, atrocities of nature. It was the ramblings of an alcoholic lunatic. But this is how people escape reality.

My retreat was normal, sane, how people would act in this situation. Or at least that's what I kept telling myself. I was cashing in all the chips I had earned in the over twenty years I had been alive. Everything had come crashing down, right on top of me. And this was the societal norm. This is what I was telling myself before I choked to death on my own vomit, too apathetic and drunk to sit up. But this is how one reacts, right?



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