It Could Be a Cold, Cold Winter Under Those Leaves.

FROM the very earliest days of my drinking I had been an escapist, escaping all reality, responsibilities, shunning all present and future friendship of my fellow human beings, both male and female alike. I had been a loner, to coin a phrase, brazen, self-centered, a cock-o-the-walk individual, who had for the most part of my life lived in a dream world, all of my own, seeing delusions of grandeur through the neck of a bottle. Reality was to me a simple meaningless word, a fear to enable me to kindle the flame of hatred toward my fellow humans. I knew all about everything, yet nothing materialistic. I always played the role of show-off, getting drunk, entertaining with foolish antics, as only an escapist like myself knew how.