The Sober Drunk

The sober drunk He woke up early, had fallen asleep when drunk now, he was sober trembling hands and blurred vision full of self-loathing; what happened once, he had been a little boy in the Vatican and bathed in Fonte Aguiar that’s what his mother said, and knew it was not true, but enough for him to expect to succeed. Walking to work, he had an unimportant snack bar in town he stopped at a butcher and bought sliced ham to make sandwiches also stopped at a shop and bought several bottles of beer to get the courage needed to confront young people, buying French fries and soft drinks. Now that it was winter, not many people had money came, and he was faced with long hours of tediousness yet, he was secretly glad no one came. Since his wife left him, worst of all had taken the dog also, living at her father’s farm, he had no one to look after drinking had become a problem, sometimes he closed early so he could go to the pub and drink hours away. He had been a seaman with a college degree, a good job and had read hundreds of books, some of them good, his favourite writers were Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway He also read supermarket books on “how to win friends and be a success.” This was his problem, he didn’t know how to get along with people without a drink in his hands. One day, after buying sliced ham, but no beer, he rang the people he had rented the snack bar to, told them he quit, and went to an AA meeting. At the meeting, he took the issue of what many middle-class people said those who endlessly spoke of suffering, telling stories of how drunk they had been and done, which in his mind was not very much to go on about. Friendly people they were, but one got the sense that the down and out were not made welcome. Since he was not drinking, his hands still tremored went to see a doctor who said he had diabetes and wrote out a note to buy tablets; apparently, according to the medic had had this condition for many years, a toll on his heart which was not in great shape either. he lives now, a quit in Portugal and happily drinks red wine in the evening, he says to himself. “I’m not an alcoholic.”