[You wake up from a night of unrestful sleep, unaware of what day it is. Is it Saturday? Do you have [[therapy |therapist's office]] today? Or is it Friday? You check your bedside clock. If it is Friday, then you're massively behind schedule to get to [[work]] on time. You stand up, and feel the piercing sting behind your eyes. What a lovely start to a day, waking up late and hungover. Could life get any better?]
(set: $luck to (random: 1, 10))
(set: $ffluck to (random: 1, 10))
(set: $finalluck to ($luck + $ffluck)/2)
[The florescents hurt your eyes. You always hated this waiting room, which makes your anxiety that much worse. Especially since you haven't been following your therapist's advice, but they don't need to know that. A lady across the room shoots a look at you, glaring at your face and then your bouncing knee that you didn't notice was making noise. You smile apologetically and contemplate skipping your appointment, but you can't afford the fee. You zone out most of the therapy session, learn nothing, and then [[leave. |shopping center]]]
[You're trying to save money, so you can't stop at all your usual stops today. You don't need to [[pick up your meds |psychiatrist's appointment]], so the pharmacy isn't necessary. You're running low on [[food |walmart]], but you could probably last a few days. You're quite hungry right in the moment, though, and there's [[McDonalds |fast food]] right there. And of course, you can't forget to [[pick up another handle |liquor store]].]
[Work is awful, as usual. Your tardiness is not overlooked by your coworkers, although it seems they feel pity for you, with how dead you look. Your clothes are unironed, the bags under your eyes are heavy, and your back is slouched as you sit and perform your boring desk job for eight hours. You are good at your job, or at least decent, so your boss never threatens to fire you. They just express concern about you quite regularly.]
[You zone out. Eight hours passes in eight minutes, and before you know it, you're at the [[bus stop]], waiting for the bus home.]{
(if: $luck < 5) [You missed the bus. That was the last bus. Now you'll have to [[walk back home]], ruining your mood.]
(else-if: $luck > 5) [You made the bus [[back home]].]
(else:) [You made the bus [[back home]] with barely a second to spare.]
}
[You walk aimlessly through the aisles of Walmart, some random pop song grating at your head. You don't actually know what you want to eat. You end up in the wine aisle, looking at all the options, but then you see the box wine that gave you the worst hangover of your life, and immediately get turned off of it. It was so bad, you told your therapist that the incident has kept you sober since then. It's a lie, but [[they believe it]]. You end up buying a pack of ramen and a box of spaghetti. That should be enough for a few days. You have enough time to go to the liqour store before the bus gets here. Just because you've sworn off wine doesn't mean that you've sworn off whiskey.][You get something different every time to make yourself feel better about your addiction. At least you're not some alcoholic father that drinks the same beer every day. The employees know your face, and since you're here multiple times a week, a few have expressed concern for you, but you brush it off, saying you have a lot of [[parties]]. You don't have [[friends]].][You get the same thing every time, or at least you try to. At least half of the time they don't have what you want, so you drink the rest of your calories for the day.]
{
(if: $ffluck <5 and $luck <5) [Today is one of those days. They ask you for substitutes, but you decline and walk out. You make your regular trip to the [[liquor store]] and get something to last you a week or so. You then miss the bus and have to walk [[home |back home]]. Your liquor cabinet is practically begging to be raided.]
(if: $ffluck <5 and $luck >= 5) [Today is one of those days. They ask you for substitutes, but you decline and walk out. You make your regular trip to the [[liquor store]] and get something to last you a week or so. At least you make the bus just in time. You make it [[home |back home]] and plan on pouring a tall glass.]
(if: $ffluck >=5 and $luck <5) [Today, however, is not one of those days. You get what you want and it's fresh and warm. You sit down to eat it and almost feel okay. The feeling dissipates when you spill ketchup on your shirt. While in the bathroom cleaning it, the realization that the bus is soon spawns in your head, and you have to sprint to the bus stop. You narrowly miss the bus, with your ketchup stain still on your soaked shirt. You don't have the will to walk, so you wait for the next bus home, anxiously awaiting the sweet release of alcohol, the alcohol that is almost gone because with the time you had, you didn't have enough time to stop to pick up another handle.]
(if: $ffluck >=5 and $luck >=5) [Today, however, is not one of those days. You get what you want and it's fresh and warm. You sit down to eat it and almost feel okay. You finish in enough time to stop at the [[liquor store]] and catch the bus [[home |back home]].]]
}["Well, there are a couple of things I could put you on to help you," says the psychiatrist, "as long as you pair it with therapy. The seroquel will help you with your sleep issues, and the fluoxetine should help with your anxiety, as well as boosting your mood. Be careful not to drink with your seroquel, because that increases the risk for respiratory failure in your sleep. How do those sound?"]
[You reply that it's fine, ignoring the fact that you absolutely will not be stopping your [[drinking habits,|liquor store]] especially since you planned on going to the liquor store after this.[The last time you hung out with someone outside of a work-related event was a couple of years ago, and it ended poorly. The drinking had just started to get out of hand, and he was trying to talk sense into you. There was no convincing you, though, and he stormed out, angry. You're filled with immense regret over it, and vowed never to make someone feel like that ever again. And your oh-so-intelligent solution to this problem was to never get close enough to anyone ever again for that to happen.]
[[(Next)|back home]][You crawl into your bed after getting home, still in your day clothes and shoes. You need a nap, and you still feel awful from [[last night's bingeing |spree]]. Of course, two hours later, after you wake up from your nap, you feel well enough to do it again.][You have the method down perfectly. You have a glass with lines denoting 3, 5, and 8 ounces. Nearly every night, you fill it to eight, and wash down your seroquel with it. It burns, but you don't care.]
[Sometimes you wake up fine, sometimes you wake up surrounded by vomit.]
{
(if: $ffluck <5 and $luck <5) [This morning, you end up with the latter. You don't have work today, so it doesn't matter much. By the end of the day, you feel a bit better, so you go to the [[store|walmart]] to pick up some food.]
(if: $ffluck <5 and $luck >= 5) [You wake up feeling like absolute death. You haven't thrown up, but you feel like you will at any moment. You spend the whole day like this, never vomiting once. You would rather be puking up your stomach than like this. This is misery. You can't live like this anymore. You [[have to stop.| the truth]]]
(if: $ffluck >=5 and $luck <5) [You wake up with an earsplitting headache, but it could be worse. This is livble. By the end of the day, you feel a bit better, so you go to the [[store|walmart]] to pick up some food.]
(if: $ffluck >=5 and $luck >=5) [You wake up feeling completely fine. Nothing hurts. The light is bothering you a little bit, but besides that, you feel better than ever. You decide to go to the [[store|walmart]] to pick up something to eat.]
}
}[You're miserable. It's been so long living on autopilot. You've stopped taking your medication. Your boss has been asking if you're okay more and more often. Your work performance is starting to be affected, and you're looking at a termination of your employment. Your parents are getting scared when you take longer and longer to call them back, from a few hours to a few days. At one point, it takes you three weeks to remember to call [[your dad back]]. You can't live like this anymore. Maybe [[therapy]] would work if you actually treated it how you were supposed to.]
["I've been lying to you," you tell your therapist, before spilling out everything that you've been doing over the last who-knows-how-long. Your therapist seems thrilled that you're actually talking for once. You tell them about the drinking, about going off your meds, about your job, about your social life, everything. They listen and offer you resources. For the first time, you actually want to get out of this hole you've dug yourself.]
{
(if: $finalluck < 5) [But change is hard. You find yourself back in the liqour store parking lot. You fight with yourself, trying to resist the urge. You fail. You buy the fanciest tequila you can find, and drive [[home|low luck]], defeated.]
(else-if: $finalluck is 5) [But change is hard. You find yourself at an [[AA meeting|mid luck]], facing a lot of very different people with very similar stories to you. Every meeting, you drive past the liqour store. Sometimes you sit in the parking lot. It takes everything in you not to go inside. You'll sit there for dozens of minutes at a time, and then drive off.]
(else-if: $finalluck > 5) [Change didn't come easy to you, but you've never been so motivated in your life. The honesty lifted a weight off of your chest. You've been opening up to your parents, and you even told your boss what you were struggling with, and they were open and receptive to your struggles. Sometimes you still sit in that liqour store parking lot, but you always have the will to drive away eventually. It'll take time before you lose the urge, but you're getting there.
//The end//]
}
[You down somewhere around ten ounces. You don't know. You don't remember. You wake up, guilty, in pain, and defeated. You don't know if you can keep this up. The temptation was too strong.]
[One day. One day you'll be able to resist the temptation of the bottle. You are motivated, but not motivated enough. You have therapy again in the afternoon, and you plan on making your honesty a habit. Even if you can't resist the temptation, you can at least tell the truth about it. One day, it'll get easier.]
//The end.//[It feels awkward sitting in a room full of people with the same problem as you. It feels even weirder knowing how many of them are actively sober and staying that way. You still mess up sometimes. It's standard for a recovering addict. Your therapist says that they can see the change in you. Your boss says that light's appearing in your eyes. You've been sleeping better, and you're back new medications. It's working this time. Even though it's hard, you're trying.]
//The end.//[It's only two miles to walk, but it feels like twenty when you're withdrawing. You keep tripping over your feet at the part that doesn't have a sidewalk. A jogger runs around you, shooting you a dirty look for being in the way. You don't feel alive enough to even care. When you finally make it home, you collapse on the front steps. It takes you a while to get the will to get back up and [[go inside|back home]]Well, your parties are more like depressive episodes where you turn on your music to the loudest you can without making the neighbors angry, and you drink until you pass out. None of the usual eight-ounce measuring, because it's a party! It's fun! It's reckless! It's stupid! It's depressing, and you know it, but you don't care.
[[(Next)|back home]]["I wish you would just talk to me," your dad sighs over the phone. You don't know how to tell him that you don't even talk to [[your therapist|therapy]] You would think that your decently-paying job and your [[house]] that you own would be enough to appease him, but, unfortunately, he cares.][Your house is pretty nice. From the outside, you would never have guessed it housed an addict. It has two bedrooms and one and a half bathrooms. Why you bought a house with two bedrooms if you never have visitors, you're not sure. Subconsiously, you're holding out hope that one day it could get [[better| the truth]][Your therapy appointment is today, and you're back in the waiting room. The florescents are still agonizing. Your knee is still bouncing, but more intensely this time. Because this is the day. You're going to tell your therapist the truth.]
[[(Next)| the truth]]