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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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Sep 16, 2015 - 10:16pm PT
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I remember bribing a Circle K guy 100 bucks to sell me a pint of vodka at 2:15 in the morning. But those hours waiting for someplace to open at 6am...trying to pay with hands shaking so badly I could not hold or open my wallet...good lord.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Sep 16, 2015 - 11:24pm PT
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Weeg that gave me goosebumps.
Print on Brother 8^D
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Norwegian
Trad climber
dancin on the tip of god's middle finger
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Sep 19, 2015 - 06:36am PT
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the subtle rumblings
of my addiction rise
just before the sun;
certain songs,
[Click to View YouTube Video]
especially herald my yearnings,
and i sincerely
want to just go sit
by the lapping
lake shore and
f*#k around while
watching the sun
climb the far
side of the mountain.
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Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, California
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Sep 19, 2015 - 06:39am PT
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Yes.
This is true, my friend.
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
ne'er–do–well
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Sep 20, 2015 - 09:11pm PT
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I don't drink anymore - but then again, I don't drink any less.
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thebravecowboy
climber
The Good Places
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Sep 20, 2015 - 09:11pm PT
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^amen, slurrrrrp
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Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, California
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Sep 21, 2015 - 12:08am PT
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Transitioning Sober
Adjusting to mainstream society after being sober for a bit and being surrounded by 'normal' friends, family, and work can be a difficult time. There are triggers to drink and use too numerous to mention and my own experience is a good example of this. Luckily my path was through AA and volunteering for service with them in several capacities, the most difficult of which was volunteering to go into AA mtgs at Folsom and Mule Creek state prisons as a guest or guest speaker about once a month for eight years through AA's hospitals and institutions program (H&I). It completely opened my eyes and drove home the severe implications of what a single moment of bad judgement or relapse could mean for an alcoholic or addict. I discovered through conversations with inmates that a person didn't always have to become a hardened criminal to wind up sentenced to hard time in a penal institution. Three Strikes legislation has made it possible for multiple drug dealing or possession convictions to get one sentenced to a year or more, along with multiple DUI and/or DUI manslaughter convictions as well.
At a regular AA meeting on the outside one time I met and heard the story of a woman who volunteered go to meetings in woman's institutions on a regular basis. She told the story of how H&I service had literally saved her life. She was a young government employee and career woman with a husband and two small children, she had a problem with alcohol, but didn't believe she was an alcoholic. One night after work she was driving home alone drunk in a blackout when she ran over and killed a small child. She was arrested and convicted on manslaughter charges and was sentenced to two years in a woman's correctional facility, but she was sent to a state hospital to serve out her sentence after being diagnosed with severe depression. During that time her husband divorced her, he took custody of her two children, and she attempted suicide twice by cutting her wrists because she could not live with the guilt of having taken the innocent life of a child and the pain of losing her family over it because of her mistake.
She talked about how she began going to AA in the institution and learning about the H&I program. She began attending AA meetings regularly on the outside after her release, and after a short period sober she got a security clearance through H&I, and began attending the different prison and institution meetings. She attested to the fact that without volunteering in this way she would not have been able to come to terms with the terrible guilt she had learned to live with. Fortunately after several years sober she found a new job in a civil service position and was able to get shared custody and be with her children again.
I don't think I have ever heard a more poignant example of how a seemingly ordinary person could so quickly find themselves on the wrong side of everything and lose all hope of ever living a normal life. What would be a gradual decline for many alcoholics and addicts was a sudden and violent upheaval for her, the likes of which might have spelled her undoing. It really hit home with me. I realized that after so many years sober i was still only one drink away from being a drunk again, I was also one drink away from losing anything and everything that was dear to me. The taste of liquor in my mind had been replaced with the idea that it tasted of death, if not instantaneous, then gradually by degrees until I would lose health, family, sanity, and any modicum of self respect I had gained back after so many years sober.
The triggers to drink are still there for me; I recognize them but do allow them to affect my behavior drastically, I do not peruse the liquor isle or think romantically about the certain high of a drink or a drug, I do not linger at social gatherings where drinking friends are imbibing beyond my requisite polite stay and I always make my farewells certainly well before the obnoxious drunken stage of some participants. I do not try to prop up, rescue, or bail out drunk friends or try to preach to those who have no interest in getting sober.
These are things that work for me and I am able to negotiate delicate family situations with more tact than in years past by getting out of the way. I will buy liquor as a gift for friends or family members on special occasions but do not imbibe. It holds no attraction for me. I do not recommend this for any newly sober person in recovery, it is a sure trap that will get most nubes and some old timers drunk again. I do not drink near beer, Odouls, or virgin mixed drinks, and always snif test my sparkling cider (substitute for champaign) at any formal toast before I drink it. I drank and used alcoholically and addictively for twenty years before I got sober.
I have been clean and sober continuously for twenty seven years since. I don't do meetings regularly any more because I don't feel comfortable anymore in them, but I did do regular AA mtgs for twenty years because I definitely did need them. Though I seldom lose my temper I sometimes do, or say or write or post something insensitive from time to time. If I catch myself or it is pointed out to me I try to own up to it. I make the occasional social faux pau from time to time, but this is not about me. It's about sobriety and living sober, and trying to let anyone know who is trying to come to grips with it that there are techniques that work for some, but not for others. I'd say it's a lot like climbing in that respect, and it's a transition, like going from offwidth to lie backing, then to stemming, and finally coming off as you slap the dyno on the lip, and hopefully stick to pull the mantle. I'm not pulling mantles anymore, but I'm still sticking with sobriety. I hope that if you want it and need it but are having any doubts, you can stick with it too.
-bushman
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
I'm James Brown, Bi-atch!
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Sep 21, 2015 - 12:17am PT
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spoke at a speaker meeting last friday, first time, 60 people, everything was cool until i got to the part about being hungover at Sambo's and hurling on a grill full of food that the replacement cook unknowingly sent out, for some reason that was a turn off, what a mushroom cloud o puke,
so i followed that with the time the CHP threw me up against the wall so hard at the Stockton jail that i crapped my pants and had to wonder around in the freezing cold for two days until the wrecking yard opened so i could get my car back, that cab probably still stinks, took the skin off my legs, real fun times, get the car back and pick up a 12 pack and start out looking for another DUI,
then the CHP outside yuba city clocking me at 120 on 99, i get out of car and run, cop knocks me down with his open door, too old to chase me, then the billy club to the shoulder and face plant, wake up in hospital, yank tubes and run but cop hand cuffs me to gurney,
then there was the face plant crash and DUI on my bicycle, stanford hospital, los altos cop writing ticket as i wake up with stitches, made the san jose merc the next morning,
Pedaling While Pickled,
on 3....everything is beautiful...in it's own way...
got a new boss, new group of friends, 2 meetings a day,
lose the steps 1 at a time, quit going to meetings, get complacent,
get struck by lightening, next time out always worse, never better,
i don't have to quit forever, just 10 more years maybe, 17 hours at a time because i can sleep now,
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Sep 21, 2015 - 03:15am PT
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I work with a guy who thought he could have the ocasional drink. he is back to drinking every day.
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Norwegian
Trad climber
dancin on the tip of god's middle finger
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Sep 21, 2015 - 06:06am PT
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i got ten years lower case,
self-imposed. actually
my celestial wife gently,
uh, encouraged me with
lazer beams from her heart,
but on my own i promised
my daughters a 10-year dry run,
then after that i cop,
and bade the whole lot farewell,
anna will be 21 and maki 19,
and to hell i'll travel, alone.
in the next ten, sober years
my empire will expand,
my liver will idle,
my brain will fire on time and time again,
and i'll leave my two youths
with some commodities.
then after that,
after that first round of beer
with my twenty-something daughter,
after 10 years sober,
i'm to get on my bike
and pedal north. up the
pacific coast. thru
California, then Oregon,
Canada, and i'll stop in
Alaska in late fall,
put down a deposit on
a small cabin and
lite a fire,
put my aching feet up,
stock up on some reading
and winter over
while drinking heavily.
mostly in my private digs,
i'll drink alone.
with my heart bouncing off the floor
though occasionally i'll
drink in the pub,
where i can polish my
social knob hopefully
against something other
than the floor,
and her eyes, though
they'll be yellow with
jaundice and gaunt
with too much sorrow,
i will find in her gaze
the blue truths of
her yesterdays, pre-alcoholism
and we'll make
drunken, bad-breath mostly
limp love in my dusty
disease crib and in the morning
we'll have greasy eggs and
frozen hash-browns as
her boob rests on her knee
and my tongue is dry and
caked with hate
and we'll both wonder
of the days when we used
to shine in the sand
like micah and i'll
remember my prouder ascents
and she, her perky breasts
and me my happy heart,
now all sold to
blanketing the ache.
ahh, my future looks bright.
then one day my two loving daughters
will show up at my cabin door,
and they'll be strong and
beautiful and full of the life
they made holding a cup full
of the life i sold them,
my youngest will be an alcoholic
and my oldest sweet though extremely selfish
and we'll together find
the edge of whatever town and
walk down a muddy path together,
ruining shoes and
mining memories
not even trying to
find the love that binds us
because it'll always
be everywhere,
easily accessible
on the tip of our
tongue and in
the core of our heart.
"dad. your 55. you
always told us that you'd
die when you're 56."
"you speak the truth, Annapurna."
"i know, dad. we want to take
you to Norway, and ride the
train for a month. because
you never did, you ol' son-of-a-bitch."
"that sounds lovely. can jessica come?"
"sure dad, if it makes you happy. mom'll
be there for 10 days. she and carson
plan to meet us."
"capital. that'll be just capital."
thanks.
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Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, California
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Sep 21, 2015 - 01:46pm PT
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Charles Bukowski Is Dead at 73; Poet Whose Subject Was Excess
By WILLIAM GRIMES
Published: March 11, 1994
Charles Bukowski, a poet, novelist and screenwriter whose heavy drinking and hard living were brought to the screen in the 1987 film "Barfly," died on Wednesday in San Pedro Peninsula Hospital in Los Angeles. He was 73 and lived in San Pedro, the Los Angeles port neighborhood.
The cause was leukemia, said Harvey Klinger, the agent for Black Sparrow Press, Mr. Bukowski's publisher.
Mr. Bukowski was a bard of the barroom and the brothel, a direct descendant of the Romantic visionaries who worshiped at the altar of personal excess, violence and madness. In works like "Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail," "Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an Eight-Story Window," "Legs, Hips and Behind" and "Ham on Rye," he acted as a tour guide to the nightmare of his own personality, writing in tough, direct language. Indeed, the title of one of his best-known works, "Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness," can be taken as the author's guide to living. Born in Germany
Mr. Bukowski was born in Andernach, Germany, and was brought to the United States at the age of 2. He once said in a magazine interview that he began drinking at 13 to dull the pain of being beaten continually by his father. After attending Los Angeles City College from 1939 to 1941, he moved to New York City to become a writer. Over the years, he supported himself by working as a dishwasher, truck driver, mailman, parking-lot attendant, elevator operator and Red Cross orderly. He once hung posters in the New York City subways.
In 1946, as the rejection slips piled up, Mr. Bukowski set out on a decadelong period devoted to drink and travel. In 1956, near death, he returned to writing. His poems were first published in Los Angeles newspapers like Open City and The Los Angeles Free Press and in little magazines. "Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail," his first poetry collection, was published in 1959, and over the years at least 40 more books followed, all of them rooted in the experiences of a loner and outcast with a keen eye for the absurd.
In novels and short-story collections like "Notes of a Dirty Old Man" (1969), "Post Office" (1971), "Factotum" (1975) and "Ham on Rye" (1982), Mr. Bukowski relied on an alter ego named Henry Chinaski, a down-and-out writer with a fierce dedication to women, drink, gambling and failure.
Mr. Bukowski wrote the screenplay for Barbet Schroeder's "Barfly," in which Mickey Rourke portrayed the poet in his younger days. His experiences as a screenwriter led to the novel "Hollywood" (1989).
Just before his death, Mr. Bukowski completed "Pulp," a mystery novel that will be published in the summer. An anthology of his work, "Run With the Hunted," was published in 1993.
He is survived by his second wife, Linda Lee, and a daughter, Marina, of Bellevue, Wash.
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Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, California
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Sep 21, 2015 - 01:55pm PT
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Are You Drinking?
washed-up, on shore, the old yellow notebook
out again
I write from the bed
as I did last
year.
will see the doctor,
Monday.
"yes, doctor, weak legs, vertigo, head-
aches and my back
hurts."
"are you drinking?" he will ask.
"are you getting your
exercise, your
vitamins?"
I think that I am just ill
with life, the same stale yet
fluctuating
factors.
even at the track
I watch the horses run by
and it seems
meaningless.
I leave early after buying tickets on the
remaining races.
"taking off?" asks the motel
clerk.
"yes, it's boring,"
I tell him.
"If you think it's boring
out there," he tells me, "you oughta be
back here."
so here I am
propped up against my pillows
again
just an old guy
just an old writer
with a yellow
notebook.
something is
walking across the
floor
toward
me.
oh, it's just
my cat
this
time
-by Charles Bukowski
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
ne'er–do–well
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Sep 21, 2015 - 10:02pm PT
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Thanks Sprock.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Sep 21, 2015 - 10:38pm PT
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spoke at a speaker meeting last friday, first time, 60 people,
Hope it went as good for you as it did for Bubbles in "The Wire"!
Maybe you haven't seen it? Best show on TV ever. ImO. It helps me to watch other addicts to know whence I came. Having now the ability to decide where I'm going is the glory :)
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
I'm James Brown, Bi-atch!
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Sep 23, 2015 - 02:05am PT
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ever feel like this
"Any drinker knows how the process works: the first day you get drunk is okay, the morning after means a big head but so you can kill that easy with a few more drinks and a meal, but if you pass up the meal and go on to another night's drunk, and wake up to keep the toot going, and continue on to the fourth day, there'll come one day when the drinks wont take effect because you're chemically overloaded and you'll have to sleep it off but cant sleep any more because it was alcohol itself that made you sleep those last five nights, so delirium sets in -- Sleeplessness, sweat, trembling, a groaning feeling of weakness where your arms are numb and useless, nightmares, (nightmares of death)... well, there's more of that up later.
But anybody who's never had delirium tremens even in their early stages may not understand that it's not so much a physical pain but a mental anguish indescribable to those ignorant people who don't drink and accuse drinkers of irresponsibility -- The mental anguish is so intense that you feel you have betrayed your very birth, […] , you feel a guilt so deep you identify yourself with the devil and God seems far away abandoning you to your sick silliness -- You feel sick in the greatest sense of the word, breathing without believing in it, sicksicksick, your soul groans, you look at your helpless hands as tho they were on fire and you cant move to help, you look at the world with dead eyes, there's on your face an expression of incalculable repining like a constipated angel on a cloud,
In fact it's actually a cancerous look you throw on the world, through browngray wool fuds over your eyes Your tongue is white and
disgusting, your teeth are stained, your hair seems to have dried out overnight, there are huge mucks in the corners of your eyes, greases on your nose, froth at the sides of your mouth: in short that very disgusting and well known hideousness everybody knows who's walked past a city street drunk in the Boweries of the world... But there's no joy at all,
people say "Oh well he's drunk and happy let him sleep it off The poor drunkard is crying... He's crying for his mother and father and great brother and great friend, he's crying for help
He tries to pull himself together by moving one shoe nearer to his foot
and he cant even do that properly, he'll drop the shoe, or knock something over, he'll do something invariably that'll start him crying again
He'll want to bury his face in his hands and moan for mercy and he knows there is none Not only because he doesn't
deserve it but there's no such thing anyway
Because he looks up at the blue sky and there's nothing there but empty space making a big face at him He looks at the world, it's
sticking its tongue out at him and once that mask is removed it's looking at him with hollow big red eyes like his own eyes
He may see the earth move but there's no significance of any particular kind to attach to that
One little unexpected noise behind him will make him snarl in rage
He'll pull and tug at his poor stained shirt
He feels like rubbing his face into something that isn't. His socks are thick tired moisty slimes The beard on his cheeks itches the running sweats and annoys the tortured mouth There's a twisted feeling of no
more, never again, agh... What was beautiful and clean
yesterday has irrationally and unaccountably changed into a big dreary crock of sh#t The hairs on his fingers stare
at him like tomb hairs The shirt and trousers have become
glued to his person as tho he was to be drunk forever. The ache of remorse sinks in as tho somebody was pushing it in from above
The pretty white clouds in the sky hurt his eyes only
The only thing to do is turn over and lie face down and weep
The mouth is so blasted there's not even a chance to gnash the teeth
There's not even strength to tear the hair.
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Norwegian
Trad climber
dancin on the tip of god's middle finger
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Sep 23, 2015 - 02:23am PT
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god not that bad, for me sprock.
i do have a crush on
tragedy, though.
i take joy in dragging myself
back from near-demise, time and again,
but this habit gets in
the way of my fathering obligations.
so i've put the brakes on
my soul-slide and i'm just
keen for a bit idling here
in golden la-la land thowing
stars at heaven and
laughing when heaven ducks.
yea i got business for the 10 next years,
raising my daughters properly;
and then after that i shall continue
with a renewed vigor and vengeance
the attack on my not-so-innocent
soul.
thanks for the graphic
mind shot, though.
somedays us drunks are
a nice red bow atop chaos,
other days, though
we're god's turgid vomit
pooling in the sump pit
of eternity's dungeon.
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Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, California
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Sep 23, 2015 - 03:58am PT
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A Whistling in the Dark
Happy wife
Happy life
So many lists a gathering dust
Honey dos
Honey don'ts
Holidays that get put on hold
Work until you're growing old
As I now go under the knife
Happy life
Happy I
Once
I visited my old man
When gramps he worked for Uncle Sam
Disdain he had once for Japan
Now turned to love
So pure
So right
And my heart goes out to him
Tonight
She married me when we were young
Young her and I
So wild and free
But slave to our humanity
We touched tongues and other things
My wife sees all the best in me
What I can't say
She says
For me
With that you can only guess
But I confess her vanity
Really confuses me
And I speak her tongue
Occasionally
So kinders and their kinders
Try to please
As I once tried
They do so much more than me
But I supply
A wealth of stern hypocrisy
Transparent to I
Best not for all the world
To see
So see
Happy pain
There's no rain
There's no rain that we can see
No sudden revelations
Only misdirected incantations
Blathering on so endlessly
From the political box of my tv
It strikes me odd
They cannot see their futile words
So many follow easily
So few think independently
That some of us
Can see
I see
Happy challenge
I once ran up the mountain trail
Or toiled with loads
That made me smell
And followed giants without fail
Up granite spires
O'er precipices shear and bold
It made me strong as I grew old
My hands were gnarled just like the elm
Of trees I wielded at my helm
Like mountain men of days of old
I swam up steam and broke the mold
And stood up to transgressors who
Would tear me down
As some would do
They might have thought I would lie down
They walked away
I stood my ground
But not without giving up
That pound
Of flesh
Up hill I roll
With dogs as I grow old
Each and every one
A friend to me
They've taught me every day what they
Could give of themselves so endlessly
I walk with them as they point out to me
Look at all there is to see
But they like I are mortal
Life is rare even here
As if the illusion of abundance
Outweighs
Our vision
Yellow grass
White hair
Wrinkles here and wrinkles there
Stop and stare the mirrors they are everywhere
And I can't say for certain when
Things got so bad or good back then
I'm only as old as I'll ever be
And only as young as I am
So I relish
It
As I go under the knife
Happy pain
Happy strife
As clear as clear as things can be
At two am so sleeplessly
I write down what it means to me
To breathe the air
And wonderingly what comes to me
As time is near for me to sleep
Wanting not that my words should slip
Beneath the waves so soon
Reflecting in this
Happiness
A whistling goes our breathe
Happy
This
As soon do I
Go under the knife
I mustn't forget to buy
A birthday gift and card
Happy wife
Happy life
-bushman
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Sep 23, 2015 - 04:37am PT
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Past due
Over the long haul drinking will kill every thing you love to do.
If the sweetest revenge is living well,
The saddest existence is one that rotates around a bottle
In a moment of . . .
So many ways to frame it but
It was just plain arrogant stupidity that led me on a very hot day to say
Yes
Yes to a Root beer float.
What could it hurt a shot over the top of the vanilla bean of Jim Beam?
Or the the Wild Turkey 101? Is that dusty one Dant? That always left a dent
No it's the Dickell Reserve !
That will do nicely!
Sure
No don't stop. . .
Yes I'll have another. . .
Hey can I have a side car of the Dant . . ?
er...I mean Dickell with that?
I would venture to guess it has been twenty years since I've been such a mess.
Of course this is a public thing where kids and juvenile adults are getting hammered.
The high sugar content and booze worked to sit me down.
But nothing that I did stopped the spins and sweats from coming on.
I knew where this was heading !
I headed for the head
then thinking of the stench to follow
I headed out of doors
Drunk
About to puke
but not yet
first I needed to find the most humiliating place and pose.
. A black Cadillac
in the middle of the parking lot of a catering hall
seemed like
the perfect public leaning post
so I struck the pose by its front bumper.
Waves of wedding cake, shrimp scampi and the rest of the surf a turf gushed out,
Projectile vomit,
Finished? I stood up a little straighter and the waves came forth again and did not stop till froth and a bit of pInk started to show.
Fully nackered
Feeling weak kneed and falling over
I walked away from the shin-dig,
My drinking days are over.
I am an alcoholic. . .
And do not drink anymore.
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Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, California
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Sep 23, 2015 - 04:59am PT
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The drunk team pressed on
Seas of booze they swam and staggering to shore
Heaved and emptied guts to sand
Until they heaved no more
Of those that rose and stumbled forth
They raised a trembling hand
With fingers pointed towards the north
And uttered rank with rancid breath
Go drunk team
Yeah nausea
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