So as long as I don’t need sex, sleep or human contact, not drinking is gonna go fine. As long as my nights are just: couch. Tubes running fluids in and out of my mouth, dick and ass. Endless loop of Mythbusters on Netflix. As long as I can handle days pacing my apartment alone muttering half sentences, snarling in the mirror… sitting down to write but the words move too fast. This, and one hour a night sitting in a church basement. Me and the other weirdos glaring at two big vinyl posters of platitudes. Everything will be fine.
Went to my second meeting last night. Had a date after. Her house. She made burritos. We fucked. She was on top. There is a tapestry hanging over her bed, with an Aztec theme. My mind left. Journeyed in between the threads making up a slope-headed peasant carrying a water jar. I traveled through irregularities in the textured plaster ceiling. They were mountains on Mars, or some snow planet. Does this not feel good to you honey, she asked. Well yeah, it feels good on my penis. But the rest of me– my entire soul feels like you ripped off a scab too soon. There was not newly formed skin underneath but raw bloody twitching flesh. My whole being is made up of raw skinless meat and a cold wind is blowing over it. Except for my dick. My dick feels great.
I left. I felt bad. She brought up Valentine’s Day. She was a good sport about it. I will spend the night of Valentine’s Day in a church basement with weirdos.
The AA people told me it was a good idea to not be around liquor. I left my date and went to the liquor store to buy cigarettes. Imagined AA people spying on me. Watching me walk past the “LOTTERY, ATM” sign and the cutout of a leering Captain Morgan. Sadly shaking their heads. I made a show of walking out not holding a bag. The liquor store had fine deals on all my favorites, as is its wont. But I managed. I bought cigarettes and looked at the covers of old Hustlers. Law and Order Star Nude! Huh, I wonder which one– nah, I better get out of here.
Went home. Before I could fire up Adam Savage and Jamie “Cuntcrusher” Hyneman I got a text from the other girl. The one with the body. I saw you coming out of the liquor store, she said. Ha. I was just buying cigarettes, I promise. She was eating a truck taco by the Goodwill drop box on Sunset. Asked if I wanted to join her. I can’t, I can’t. I can’t join anybody for anything anymore. Either give me some fucking booze or go away and die.
I’m going to a date after this, I told the kind eyed AA woman. But don’t worry. There won’t be any booze. I showed up and the girl had a half empty bottle of wine sitting out and a half full cup poured. I was disappointed it did not come to life and speak to me. You ought to get yourself a sponsor early, the woman said. The guy who took me to my first meeting should be my sponsor. He was perfect. A soothing presence. But it’s too weird to ask. I don’t want to impose. Call me, he said, if you’re feeling squirrelly.
Well fuck, I’m feeling squirrelly. But part of feeling squirrelly is you can’t call people. Ain’t that a bitch. My sponsor is this document I am typing into. White page: I feel motherfucking squirrelly.
Deep breath.
Daytime went OK yesterday. Woke up not hung over. Weird feeling, but good. Long commute. Instead of NPR I listened to music. It was Threefer Thursday. David Bowie was winding down. Next up in just a second, folks, we got some AC/DC coming. FUCK YES I screamed at the instrument panel, and accelerated.
The ads started. I haven’t heard a full string of radio ads in five years. But with AC/DC you don’t want to miss the first riff. How bad can ads be. Skit after skit about Valentine’s Day. Awful actors, awful writers, awful production… people fucking get paid for this shit. I languish in obscurity. Take your valentine to Pachonga Casino and Spa. She will delight in 2800 different slots. Buy your special lady a Hyundai at Glendale Auto Mall. Pay only 279 a month. Take out an auto loan for your fucking girlfriend, a failed weatherman was telling me. Has no one ever seen Judge Judy.
Fifteen more ads. Finally the guitar kicks in. DUH NUH NUH– fuck yeah! It’s Highway to Hell, my personal soundtrack for daily living. No Brian Johnson era Adam Sandler soundtrack shit. This was Bon Scott, the realest of the real. Fuck yeah, I told the speedometer. Right then I hit that mountain pass on the 10 East. Lost all reception out of L.A. Had to switch to Inland Empire NPR. A journalist talking to two other journalists. They discuss how other journalists discuss Gay Rights in Russia. Gay journalist says: Western journalists don’t discuss Gay Rights in Russia enough. Ivy League woman who owned multiple horses in her youth says: well Larry, the reality on the ground in Sochi is more nuanced .
If I’d been hung over I’d have broken something in the car when Highway to Hell cut out. But I listened patiently. Did you know you can buy an NPR membership for your pet, a jovial man told me. You’ll receive a stylish pet bandana. I did not daydream about lining up every person who had purchased an NPR membership for their pet. Their stylish bandana-clad pets with them. Taking a Vietnam era napalm thrower to the group. Highway to Hell plays loud enough to mask their screams. This is what it felt like to not be hung over. The day was OK. Then the night. Like someone slowly peeled back my entire skin and hosed me down with ice water. And again today.
Deep breath. Jerk off. Everything will be fine.
delicioustacos 
Ah, those chirpy, hammily acted radio ads from local SoCal merchants. Nothing lends itself to thoughts of axe murder quite so well as these, as they come out of the front speakers, the actors’ voices like railroad nails of frozen piss passing straight out of the dash through your forehead bone and resonating through your sinus cavities.
Delicious Tacos, I’m extremely sorry that you’re having to undergo the demented tortures of a 12 Step program. Forewarning: You will meet people who will bore you to tears. Wear an unobtrusive mouthpiece during meets, in order to prevent damaging teeth-grinding.
Also, right now an enormous horse-injection sized syringe of “Upbeatness and Positivity” is waving a gleaming steel point the size of a goddamned knitting needle at your eyeball, and the giant thumb of “Believe in Yourself” is ready to drive the plunger home.
It’s best to see all this as a good thing. Especially when you begin screaming repeatedly like a character from a “Saw” franchise flick.
Message to Atlanta Man
Read this, Atlanta Man. Hey, I live in Decatur, Georgia. So, I hang out here and enjoy the writing of DT, or as he is also known, Reemberto “El Elegante” Castillo de Reggaeton.
And as you might have guessed, I am a generally misanthropic person, but in a way that causes fits of obnoxiousness, as opposed to any desire to destroy property, et al. I know next to no one around here, so I’m reaching out due to us possibly having some similar interests. Idiots annoy you? My office’s motto is “We won’t let an Idiot starve; we’ll hire them all.” Guess that also reflects negatively on me, but fuck it. Shit test happy women sucking your life dry in every possible way except the one way you’d actually value? Join the club. I can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a vegan, a lesbian, or a PC douche in this town. You mentioned you lift weights; I’m a member of Core Body Decatur these past 2 years. Look up Brian Chapman; he trained me a few times and he fucking rules.
So, contact me if you’ve ever wished you could projectile-vomit diseased putrid horrifying demon blood into the faces of random, day-to-day people who you wish would leave you alone.
hasta,
Pete
I am in Miami going through my own personal hell of Medical School. I am seven months away from the USMLE Step 1 and my life is collapsing in every area except school. I cannot drink because I have to much shit to do and I am totally isolated. I will be back in Atlanta in August , if you are still around the manosphere hit me up then.
DT I really do not think AA is for you, I want you to succeed but I don’t think AA is the way. I really hope shit goes your way, but only you can make that happen.
Ah…so that’s it. We’re effectively Georgia ex-pats or something.
There’s really only one thing to do if you’re a smart person and find yourself being from Georgia if you weren’t fortunate enough to be born into owning half of it, and that’s get the fuck out of Georgia.
Seems to result in sort of an interesting personality type, too, as DT himself is another of the same sort of ex-pat.
DT, right there, proof you can write interesting misanthropic (amusing) guff whilst sober.
“DUH NUH NUH”? Damn, but I thought it was “Thunderstruck.”
bravo.
i sense a difference, might we say…a nuance.
but your sober writing is still good.
don’t worry, zoning out during sex helps you not cum too fast.
I personally like naming the U.S. presidents starting from Washington, and nut around Van Buren.
look forward to reading your gayass novel.
That pet bandanna ad makes me want to gag the announcer with a pet bandanna. Switch to KPCC.
What’s up with all the Georgians? I grew up an hour north of Atlanta but I’ve been in LA for three years.
Hey, DT, maybe you don’t need to hear this, but it helps to jack off more. Life takes on something of a nails-on-chalkboard quality when you’re at this point, and other forms of excess always helped me get to the other side. I would jack off over and over throughout the day until there was nothing but a puff of dust coming out of my dick, and sometimes I’d order a large supreme pizza and eat every goddamn bite inside of thirty minutes.
It works. You just have to be careful you don’t substitute one binge for another long term.
You’ve got to have something to fall back on because people can’t help but say stupid shit. It’s probably a big reason you started drinking in the first place.
The stupidest thing I’ve heard this week: A whore in TJ (not being insulting, she was an actual get-paid-directly-in-cash-for-sex chick) didn’t want me to touch her vulva. I was dumbfounded, of course, and made the mistake of asking for an explanation.
She said although my hands were visibly clean, I’d been handling money and as a result she might get an infection.
I sent her away rather than hear any more. To my way of thinking, you can be a whore in Tijuana, or you can be a germophobe, but you can’t be both. Something has to give.
i will end up in cali to visit friends. i plan on having a beer with you. wait. ok not a beer, a couple tacos.
Faggot
Stoooooop. Yer gonna make me cry.
Congrats. Your writing style is still solid and you’re more likable recently. Enough said.
You can do it. I have been sober for awhile now-since 1998. I was really messed up and couldn’t stop. Keep going to those meetings and don’t give in to the cravings.
Dtacos – hang in there, man. It will get better.
(PS – I think your writing is better when you’re sober).
It is weird asking someone to sponsor you; it’s like asking a middle-aged recovering addict to the prom. I got lucky in that Ive known my sponsor since grade school. It helps when your new if you go with people you know, makes it less alienating. But it’s no big deal. Good luck
W-w-w-welcome b-b-back to the Diane R-r-rehm Sh-show.
I’m glad I took most of the year off so I could have all this to read 😀