Hide and Seek

Alcoholism didn't really sneak up on me the way it does with some. It was more like I was a willing participant in a really bent game of hide-and-seek. I'd hide from alcohol, sometimes for years at a time, but it always sought me out--with a vengeance. In college, I seldom drank, but when I did, each episode ended in a blackout. That kept my alcoholism at bay for nearly four years, though I knew then that alcohol was no friend of mine. After college, I hooked up with some old buddies from high school. We weren't close back then, but the fraternity of alcoholism knows few social barriers. I was quickly adopted into the gang at a local tavern. No matter what hour I dropped in at the bar, someone I knew was there. Rough day? Get drunk. Feel lonely? Have some brewskies with the gang and get right over it. It was an incestuous group. We dated within the group almost exclusively, knew every person's secrets, and gossiped endlessly about whoever was absent at the time. It took about a year for that to grow very old and I began to search out a new crowd. Never fear, brother beer followed right behind.