You were hard to kick.
The culprit behind my mistakes, my losses, my over-exerted confidence. Initially my friend, I came to the drink as my comfort. You, the addiction, came second. Becoming prevalent in most forms: through taste or smell. A delicious desire, a sinful activity, an addiction encased in a bottle I stared at every day from across the table.
I wanted a sip of that alcohol. The quivering of my hands motivated the feeling of you in the back of my mind. As the addict, you told me to take a swig, you assured me that it would bring a comfort I could not seek from another soul. That that bottle, across the table, was my only salvation from a reality that could not be handled without.
But then I remembered that, as the addiction, you made me ill. You brought me throbbing pain that surfaced when the euphoria was over. When the buzz of warmth from the bottle's contents was no more, left only now with the coldness of the nauseating aftermath.
And for that, I deprived myself of you. Purposefully, determinedly. With much difficulty and violent attempts to scratch and claw at this sudden deprivation. Rock-bottom was imminent without you, but once there, it left only upwards. And I survived. I survived this reality without your input. The reality you tried to cushion me from in a haze of dizziness and contusion.
Sobriety had never seemed so sweet when the worst was over. The worst being a gaunt, skull-like face and a fragile, underfed frame. Drinking tea as opposed to drinking wine, or tasting the whiskey on the lips of a lover still made me miss the euphoria sometimes, but those impulsive thoughts were quick to subside when I realised how much stronger I could be without you.
Without the taste on my tongue or the odorous notes in my nostrils.
