#acoholic

The beer in front of me today

Got nowhere to run, so pour me another one

I'm taking it all

I'm getting lost

I'm making a fool of myself

With all these

Vices

I really don't know why I'm like this

And I just don't care what the price is

Cuz I need these vices

If it's not drugs it's drinks

If it's not drinks it's things

If it's not things it's people

Places I don't want to be

(Journal Entry - 2/14/2020)

There is a girl in my life, and her name is Astrid. She’s not my girlfriend, and yet she’s probably my soulmate. This is a tough contradiction, and it’s one I struggle with on an almost daily basis. Astrid and I are great together, and we’re not. I wish I could explain it better, but it really defies words. There has never been a person in my life with whom I feel more myself, more understood, more respected, more whole, than I do with Astrid. Yet, we can’t be together. Not now. According to Astrid, not ever. That would be a huge mistake, but I can’t make that decision for her. I am just now getting to the point where I can make decisions for myself, and even that is shaky ground.

What does a person do in a situation like this? I have to focus on today and not look too far into the future. I can do that. I know that we can’t be together right now. So, why is there a problem? I truly want her to be happy. I know that’s the truth. I’m not just saying it. But, ultimately, I want her to be happy with me. And, yet, I’ve never made her happy long-term. I can make her happy for awhile, but then I crush her.

The answer is obvious, but scary. I have got to turn the focus back on to me. I have to work each day to live in a way that I can be proud of the person that I am when I crawl into bed that night. I have to stop thinking that a byproduct of that is that she will be proud of me, too. It has to be about me. I honestly don’t know if she and I will ever be together again in the future. Maybe she is correct, and we won’t be. If that’s the case, I have to be ok with that right now, because I’m doing this for me. No one else. If it’s for her, it still has the chance to fall apart, and that’s not a risk I can take.

Alcohol affects millions of lives, but we were not meant to live in bondage. We have the power to overcome the damage in our own lives from alcoholism, resting in the knowledge of God's love and grace.

I have been wanting to write about alcohol for a while.  It seems so many wonderful people in my life are affected by this one word, either as a victim of someone else’s over-indulgence with alcohol or perhaps even their own.

Alcohol is one of those things that affects generations. Children grow up hating their alcoholic parents, only to become alcoholics themselves. Or perhaps alcoholic parents…