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thoughts of guilt and worry.
    I can’t imagine dealing with my guilt and worry without theanaesthetic of alcohol—the guilt and worry that haunt me when I’m conscious and aware. Sober.
    Maybe another day, I can deal with it. Maybe tomorrow I can deal with it. Maybe after the weekend. Right now I just need a break.
    It is ingrained in me now that once I take a drink, I will get the break, will get the relief. Yes, I know—intellectually—that the relief is brief and that the consequences can be awful, but I no longer have any defences. I’m looking for the perfect out from my situation, and even though I know sobriety is the perfect out, it seems like an absurd concept. Can’t get sober till I feel I’m ready to face the guilt and worry; can’t face the guilt and worry when I’m sober.
    I have to wonder, too, if in seeking this ultimate break I’m trying to subconsciously annihilate myself—if this is some manifestation of
Todestrieb
, a death wish. I wonder if my addiction is a strongly expressed death wish, nothing more, nothing less.
    I don’t consciously think of dying when I’m drinking. In fact, the desire that I imagine drives my drinking is the desire to live, to live loudly and freely, without any care. I want to jump, want to run, want to want!
    But then there’s the parallel, perhaps less conscious desire, which is to numb myself to the world. To deal with the world tomorrow.
    Living is difficult. Dying is difficult. Being dead is not difficult. And what else is a blackout if not death?
    Because of blackouts there are entire days when I try to avoid my boyfriend out of fear that he’ll ask me about something from the night before.
    The truth is, I don’t remember the night before. Most of the time I remember only how I got there; there’s some kind of a beginning—me drinking on the metal staircase outside—and then there’s nothing for a long time, and then I’m in bed, waking up.
    Sometimes there are painful, tender places on my body that I feel right away on waking, clues under the disguise of bruises. But I don’t get to know the whole story despite the clues. The best I have are some guesses, like, I must’ve tried to prevent some serious fall judging by the way my shoulder feels.
    We make love often, my boyfriend and I, because I want to distract him, to stop him from talking. We usually make love in the morning, but possibly not just in the morning because sometimes he’ll say something or do something—like he’ll tug on my hair—that will also seem to be a clue as to what happened the night before. Maybe something intimate, sweet, or something very, very filthy, but I wouldn’t know.
    Despite my avoiding him, my boyfriend is starting to ask questions too. The lovemaking is not enough to distract him. He asks about the tender, bruised places on my body, the way I smell, why I was so out of it—again—the night before when we had some friends over. Why I smoked an entire pack of cigarettes.
    I think I know he knows and he probably knows I think I know he knows. But we still haven’t really talked about it—about the fact that my drinking is starting to get out of control.
    I’m not that bad. I need help. There’s nothing wrong.
    The doublethink is exhausting enough for me, I’m sure it’s taking its toll on my boyfriend as well. But we never talk about it.
    There are times too when I suspect my boyfriend wants to talk about it. But instead he is not talking to me at all, and that scares me too because I need him on my side—he’s all I’ve got on my side.
    At the same time, I’m grateful for his silence—it asks no questions and therefore there are no answers to give. So I don’t ask him why he’s quiet. I don’t want him to answer. I don’t think he wants toanswer. We both pretend his silences are a new part of his personality.
    The new parts of my personality are when I no longer mind that he still goes out a lot.
    Since he’s a new parent just like me, his