DEPENDS ON YOU –
Dec. 31, 2024 – “The Shining” (book 1977, film 1980) is about a white-knuckle alcoholic’s descent into his disease and its effects on his mind, career and family. I didn’t learn this until recently. I just thought it was about how scary it is to be married to a writer.
I moved from L.A. to New York City three years ago as a writer and representative of a small literary magazine that I ran out of my downtown apartment with my friend…
As editors we oversaw the publication of seven issues, each culminating in what felt like a truly awesome (biblical sense) response followed by a truly awesome (colloquial sense) party. Each issue wrapped with a toast and a well-earned drink.
“It’s insanity,” they say in AA, “doing the same thing and expecting different results.” Alcoholics have a lot of sayings. They say that alcoholics like to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. They say, “You know what it’s like when you drink. You don’t know what it’s like when you stop.”
But I don’t always know what it’s like when I drink. I’ve lost conversations, birthdays, weddings, a car. Once I drove home so drunk that I parked in someone else’s driveway. In the morning, when I didn’t find my car in its car spot, I assumed it had been stolen and filed a police report.
