Salivate: A Short Fiction of Alcoholic Weaning (Actually That Part Is True, Most of It Is Really, but My Parents Are Still Alive, so You Know, It's 100% Fiction for the Foreseeable Future Because They'd Cry if They Knew About It)

Sunday: Day 1/Week 1

I drink every day, have for years. At the age of twenty-nine, it’s my one committed activity. Wine is my thing, or gin and tonic if I go to a nightclub. I can’t just stop. I try to picture myself: one day with alcohol, the next without it forever. The image won’t coalesce. I can’t afford rehab, and Alcoholics Anonymous smacks of group activities, which are beyond me since the great Girl Scouts debacle of my youth. My options are: (1) revel Mardi Gras-style or (2) create a strategy using my own brand of steps to plod toward an alcohol-free existence.

I’m starting today. Sunday is the nominal day of rest, so I’m going to stop drinking on Sundays. When I feel OK with that, I’ll add in Mondays, then Tuesdays, and so on and so forth until I’m clear seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year. Doing Monday next will give me forward momentum. A white lie. I can’t face Friday and Saturday. Christ, I hyperventilate at the thought of a weekend without alcohol. The corked maw of sobriety is frightening enough. I’ll begin with the easiest days and work my way up. ...

Read the rest of this short story here:

http://www.thegreatsmokiesreview.org/2014/stories/salivate/