A draft:
With more than a year since I have imbibed a “mood or mind altering substance,” I can truthfully say I am more conscious now than I have ever been in my adult life. Bridled with this clear consciousness is a visceral, and very palpable realization of disappointment.
A clear and focused aperture of the modern condition reveals a very simple reason to drink, and one I indulged enthusiastically for over twelve years. Deliberate chemical drowning of the awareness of the unjust nature of the universe, and the increasing unraveling of the moral constructs of being itself seemed appropriate, if not necessary given such a realization. Resulting in twelve years of intoxication that ultimately caused organ failure and a brush at death’s door. Life on the other side, is not without the same acute awareness, seems fraught with an esoteric existential dread.
A more personal realization, also, is the truth that I must settle for less than expected from life. Having forgone the pleasures of accomplishment in areas so normally attained by most. Little, if no, hope for ever having a family, a wife, or even a woman that could tolerate me. Owning a home, enjoying my career, items seemingly so easily attained by most. Social normalcy a forbidden fruit, only reserved for those who never became aware of the sheer dissonance between the promises of modernity and the sore lacking of the reality.
I still haven’t come to terms with my very painful, and in some sense forced, realization that moral realism is absolute.
Acceptance of disappointment in life is a double edged sword, cutting both ways. You can either resolve to ignore such disillusionment, acting falsely in the face of obvious truth, or let it paralyze you. Knowing now that I spent the majority of that time drinking to mask my dissatisfaction with existence, I wish I were more banal, maybe dumber, than the lot that can stare at life directly and find something worth celebrating.