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Floating On The Darkness

He had tried to take my mother away from me, to leave me all alone. How different everything would have been without her. Suddenly it seemed as if she had always been with me, even when I was by myself, like that long cord that keeps astronauts from floating off into oblivion when they leave the spaceship.

Goodbye, Johnnie Walker

Until recently, I hadn’t gone to bed sober in twenty-five years. I was a drunk when I first met my wife of twenty-three years, and I have been one ever since. I have been a pretty good drunk, as drunks go, without the usual DWIs, abusive behavior, or too dear a price paid for being too honest after my seventh or tenth drink.

Two Rides

Wind from passing trucks rocked the car hard. He opened the door and got in without speaking, wedged the bag and blankets under his feet. The smell rolled across to me, far worse than I’d imagined: creosote, vomit, rot.

The Road Out Of Acorn Lake

You can’t find Mr. Right. You won’t meet a guy with enough criminal swagger in him to make your skin dance, and enough farmer in him to let you sleep through the night. You have to pick one and learn to ignore your ache for the other.

Confessions Of A Lifelong Therapy Addict

Thrown into a new environment by a disorienting job relocation, I found myself among people who were, mysteriously for this health-conscious age, smoking. Equally mysteriously, I began to join them, at first not inhaling at all, but then, before I knew it, escalating to two fully inhaled packs a day.

Virus

We hold our support-group meetings in a room with Oriental carpets and deep green easy chairs. I arrive a few minutes early to set out chips, cookies, a foil tray full of fried-chicken dinners, and a liter bottle of Coke. Food is a big draw. One by one, they drift in.

Sunbeams

He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person.

Arthur Miller

Eric, Recovering Wino

The jail, the acid, being alone — it all starts to get to me. I feel ashamed, no good. I shit in the toilet; I fish out the turd; I take my spoon and eat a piece of the turd. I drink a spoonful of urine. I break the windowpanes with my elbows, cutting myself in the process. I try to cut off the fingers of my left hand, but succeed only in producing a deep gash across them. The blood floods out in big bright red drops. The air fills with the smell of my blood. I write my name on the wall with it. Thick gobs cling to my gray cell wall. I’m trying to think of a way to cut myself deeper when the guards come and haul me to the hospital.

Sunbeams

Today in America — and every day in America — seventy-six million Valium will be swallowed. In addition, some thirty million people will glue themselves to soap operas on television. It would seem that our culture is not well adapted to deal with pain.

Matthew Fox

Sources Of Nourishment

All week long at my job I’ve been telling people to eat. I’m supposed to be counseling them about HIV, talking about condoms and the needle-exchange program, but instead I find my eyes drawn to the hollows of their collarbones, to the sticks of their wrists and elbows, and I ask them when they last ate.