Sobriety is when your ever-loving Jesus Freak of a sister comes over on a Saturday Morning around 10 a.m. when she knows you are on your first and most precious "hang-over beer," quietly cleaning up the mess from the party before and the stereo is softly playing something bluesy. You have lost control of your apartment to an 18 year old punk and his friends, which outnumber yours seeing how they have no home of their own and have turned your place into their own hangout. All fun and zero responsability for them. At first you thought it would save money, but it has cost you alot of sanity.
These are the thoughts that went through my mind that one Saturday morning in 1987 as I was cleaning the mess up. My asshole room-mate even commented as he walked out the door on his way to work about how the place looks like a wreck. Since he was going to work, he somehow felt absolved of any responsability for the goddamn mess. Not too long after this, my front door opens and my neice and nephew run into the living room and gang tackle me knocking the beer out of my hand. "I'll take care of this Uncle Bob," she says sweetly as she poured the beer down the sink.
"Well I can see that you are doing very well with yourself these days," my sister said while wading through the empty beer cans. "I'll be back around 4 or 5 to pick them up."
It was'nt until after the mess was cleaned up that I realized there was no trace of my room-mate in my part of the house. He kept all his stuff in his room, where I respected his privacy. My stuff on the otherhand, was out in the open for everyone to use and abuse. It was then, in front of my neice and nephew that I had what alchoholics refer to as a moment of clarity. To get away from it all, I moved away from my own apartment. I moved into an apartment of a single mom that I knew, picked her kid up from daycare and watched her every day after work until her mom came home around midnite. This chick was a 90 mile an hour bitch on wheels so this does'nt end on a romantic note if that's what you were hoping. It was all just a part of life's little lessons. I did stop drinking so much, and cut out pot altogether. I had resolved that I would no longer put myself in those positions where people take advantage of me.
