12/3/23
Newsletter #524
The Crack of Dawn
From October 2006 through the summer of 2011, I did little else but drink vodka, go broke, declare bankruptcy, break up with my girlfriend Lisa, get back together with Lisa, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. She and I became a joke among our friends – whom we saw at least once a week at my buddy John’s weekly soiree – as to if we were together or were we off. And Lisa intrepidly kept internet dating, trying to find the right man (who definitely wasn’t me), but often finding any man, then throwing herself at him, then dump me again, then she herself would get dumped and we’d get back together. My heart kept breaking over and over again. Luckily, I was already a full-fledged drunk, so this constant rejection just fed into my unending, overflowing fountain of misery, reassuring me that I had chosen the proper course with alcohol abuse.
As is often the case, the constant use of alcohol began to cause me to fall down, and occasionally black out. I recall opening my eyes in complete darkness and not having the slightest clue where I was. I tried to sit up and my back and ass hurt. Reaching up and moving my hand, I hit something metallic and hollow. “That,” I just knew, “is the dryer. Therefore, I’m on the laundry room floor.” I was becoming Sherlock Holmes.
In rapid succession, like 200-pounds of cinder blocks, I fell on and destroyed three coffee tables. When I purchased the third one, which was constructed of wood, metal and a glass top, several of my friends expressed their trepidation. Not long after buying this table, I awoke in bed, looked down at the sheets, and just like the producer, Jack Woltz, in The Godfather, I noticed blood. Huh? I moved back the sheets and there was more blood all over the place, although thankfully no horse’s head. I then noticed an enormous number of little cuts all over my arms and legs. None of them hurt. Having no idea what might have caused this mess, I entered my living room to find my glass, wood and metal coffee table smashed into a thousand pieces, as though a safe had been dropped on it. I cleaned up the mess, but I had run out of both the will and the money to buy another table. Since the second wooden shelf was still intact, I simply kept using the broken table without the glass top. One day my buddy John suggested, “Why don’t we flip the whole table over?” We did and the wooden bottom looked fine as a tabletop and came out at the correct height, except for the four casters, that were easily removed. This was my coffe table for quite a while.
I went through three standing lamps as well. That lamp in the living room is always the last lamp I turn off before going to bed. For some reason as I turned that one lamp off, when my brain heard the click of the switch, it turned off too, and I’d fall right over like dead weight. It almost seemed fun. Three times I awoke on the floor clutching a mangled lamp. Luckily there is a Salvation Army nearby where I cheaply replaced my annihilated furniture.
Throughout this period, I was checking Craig’s List every day, applying for jobs, and going on interviews. I remember all too well being interviewed at an ABC Warehouse, wearing a button up shirt and a tie, listening to a manager explain everything about refrigerators. Meanwhile, I was using every fiber of my being to stand up straight and not wobble around on my way to falling down. Also, I just have to have stunk of alcohol. Now that I don’t drink, I can smell alcohol on anyone who has been drinking, even a little. Considering that I was wearing a tie, nervous and schvitzing, I’m sure that I smelled like a spilled bottle of vodka.
I stopped paying all of my bills. Thank goodness I had a tolerant, though loudly opinionated, and disappointed, landlord who allowed me slide for three months at a time on the rent. As a note, having the gas shut off is a big deal and costs a lot of money to get it turned back on.
At a point, one by one, all the light bulbs in my house failed. Finally, I didn’t have any working lights in the house. I had a flashlight, and candles. And like every other drunk on the planet, day in and day out, I somehow managed to squirrel away my nickels, dimes and empty beer cans to buy a bottle of the cheapest Mohawk vodka, and the gas station special of two tall boy beers for $3.
I sold every piece of movie paraphernalia I had. Crew jackets for Xena and Hercules, Darkman, which was cool, t-shirts and mugs from Evil Dead 2, anything. And that’s when I started doing horror conventions, where I could make a little bit of money.
This ugly little period didn’t end, it changed.
I spent most of the summer of 2011 in the St. Joseph-Mercy Hospital psychiatric ward. This consisted of three separate stays: one for 11 days, one for 12 days, and one of 13 days. All for acting suicidal.
I guess I’ll explain that later.
Cheerio.
Thanks for sharing!
It breaks my heart to read this. I know you're ok now, but still...Take care Josh.