When I was drinking, I used to fantasize about a disaster that would shut down the city and trap everyone in their apartments. I often wished for this after falling into bed drunk at 4 a.m., knowing I had to get up for work in three hours. In my disaster fantasy, I was stocked up on alcohol and drugs and would be blissfully ensconced in my apartment for days or weeks while the world collapsed around me. The disaster I thought about most often was an invasion of 50-foot-tall evil lumberjacks who stomped up and down the streets glaring into people’s windows.

When I was drinking, I craved turmoil. Any bad news just confirmed my suspicion that life was crazy and that drinking was the only way to handle it. September 11th was a license to drink myself silly for weeks. I doubt I’m the only one who exploited it that way. I even got some satisfaction out of watching people around me drinking more than usual -- the bars filling up, lines at the liquor store. It was as if people were conceding that I’d been right all along.

There’s something in a drunk that seeks disaster, downfall, heartbreak, best-laid plans going to shit. I needed constant excuses to be doing what I would be doing anyway: drinking. I suspect I even created pain in my own life when current events weren’t doing their part. It’s another way that drinking twisted me and I never realized.

This weekend, with the double whammy of the terror alert and the snowstorm, was probably the closest I’ve come to my old fantasy of being housebound. Needless to say, it wasn’t nearly as fun as I had imagined. I was sober, I was bored, and then I was desolate. I went in to work Tuesday, climbing huge snowdrifts and pissing off co-workers who were pretending like it was impossible to leave their houses. Yes, it was lame, but I couldn’t sit in the apartment one more day.

Routine is my friend now. I like it in my own life and I’d prefer that the world at large stick to one too. Sometimes I worry I’m becoming inflexible. It’s a phase, maybe. Either way, it’s a lesser evil than praying for killer lumberjacks and toasting their arrival.

prev // next