Alcohol & Drugs: Destroyers of Lives

Drugs and alcohol may have ruined my life.  As I've mentioned here before, there certainly were problems before I became acquainted with drugs and alcohol, but they have definitely taken a toll on my life. 

Considering the first time I got drunk, I should have stopped right then and there.  I had never gotten drunk before.  My mother was at her night job, so I was alone in the house.  I was a high school student at the time.  I knew nothing about alcohol.  I started with a drinking glass full to the brim with blackberry brandy: straight and warm.  I drank it down.  Then I got to work on a quart of vodka: also straight and warm.  I almost finished it, and I probably would have, but I stopped because my mother returned.  I could have drank myself to death.  I vomited in my sleep that night.  I could have choked to death on it; many people have died that way.
Usually, when people first drink alcohol, they don't like the taste of it.  If we only followed our instincts and stopped right after that first sip, which is the smart thing to do. 
Even when I was a drinker, I thought liquor stores were evil places, and they are.  They supply the alcoholic with what he or she needs to kill themselves. 
I used to smoke weed.  I've wasted so much money on it.  After many wasted years, I finally quit smoking it.  But, thanks to Facebook, I reconnected with an old college friend (the guy I wrote about in the "Frenemy" post), and, he, being a bad influence, got me back to smoking it again.  Even a moment of clarity didn't get me to stop when I should have.  I was watching a movie that I ultimately didn't like much called Old Joy.  However, I took something very important away from it.  The movie involved 2 friends hanging out in the woods.  One of them smoked weed, and the other one didn't.  Even though I was smoking at the time, I thought it was pathetic that one of them needed to get his little pipe out and smoke over and over again while the other guy didn't.  I don't want to be the guy that needs it; I want to be the guy who doesn't need it. 
Smoking weed made me cough violently plenty of times, which hurts.  When we cough as a result of smoking, it's the body's way of saying it doesn't like smoke, that it's not good.  Smoke blackened my lungs.  Being high is fine, but not coming down from it, which, of course, is inevitable.  Then you need more.  More and more and more: it's never enough.  It's a big trap.  And it contributed to my depression.  I was depressed coming down from it, and depressed the day after smoking: sometimes 2 days after.  In college, the only semester I got good grades in is the one before I smoked weed for the first time.  After that, they went down and stayed there. 
People who drink risk getting a DWI.  If a sober person gets into a fight with someone who's drunk, who do you think the police are going to believe?
People who smoke weed put themselves in a weak position.  My new neighbors smoke it.  They opened the hall window, probably because they're paranoid and worried about getting caught.  I closed the window.  I have nothing to worry about.  I'm free, because I'm living a clean life.
If you're reading this, I care about you to some degree, because writers want people to read their writing.  Don't drink or do drugs.  They have ruined countless lives.  Life is hard enough without sabotaging yourself, which is I believe is what we do when we abuse alcohol and drugs.
I've been sober since 7/31/16 and clean longer than that.     

Holy Hell!

Lucinda

Today is the worse of two bad days in a row.  Yesterday, I realized that I lost my cell phone Saturday night.  Then I went for a walk and got bit by a dog.  It was ridiculous.  I was walking past a dog grooming shop.  To my left, I saw two dogs.  One was being walked by a woman, the other by a young girl.  The young girl let go of the leash, the woman yelled, and the dog approached me.  She was a cute small dog, and I love animals, so I was kind of like "hi."  Then the dog sunk her teeth into my right leg.  Holy crap!  I was shocked.  I started running down the street with the dog chasing me.
Unbelievably, the woman yelled to me, "Don't worry; she doesn't bite."
"She already did!" I yelled while running away from the biter.  It, again, was ridiculous.  The woman was trying to get the dog on the loose, Bella, while holding on to the leash of the other dog.  Bella had broken my skin in 4 places, and now I have at least 1 bruise there. 
She kept yelling, "Bella!" but it didn't seem to do any good.
Meanwhile, I became concerned.  This dog was off the leash right next to a busy street.  I was worried that she would get hit by a car.  So I ran into a parking lot: hoping she would follow me.  She did.  I was a little shocked, I was angry, and I decided I'd had enough, so I continued my walk.  Then I started to think about things like rabies.  If an animal, that's infected with rabies, bites you, it can kill you.  So I walked back toward the woman.  She was still yelling Bella's name, and she was still on the loose.  I yelled to her, "Does she have her shots?!"
"Yes" she answered.
So I walked on.  I got to my destination, turned around, and walked toward home again.  I don't have health insurance, but I have been to a free clinic around here.  They will treat you, but they ask for a $10 donation.  I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to die.  I got the idea to go into the groomer's and see if that woman was there.  If she was, I would ask her for money.  Why should I have to pay to make sure I'm not gonna die from rabies?  I went in there, but I did not see her.  By the way, she didn't even apologize to me.  I did think to write down the phone number of the groomer's, which was on a sign in front of the shop.  When I got home, the first order of business was to call the groomer's and ask if they make sure the dogs have their shots before grooming them.  The nice woman on the end of the phone insisted that they do.  She pretty much put my mind at ease.
Today, I went to pick up my cell phone from where I lost it.  On the way back, my car overheated and started belching smoke.  Then it did what it never did before; it failed to get me to my destination.  I didn't have my AAA card on me, so I walked home (from the highway).  It took me 40 minutes to get home.  I was at home, on the phone with AAA, when someone rang my buzzer.  My first instinct was to ignore it.  Then I thought, what if it has something to do with my car?  Sure enough, a NY state trooper was at the door.  He asked if my car broke down.  I said yes, and that I'm trying to deal with it.  Then he let me know it had already been towed.  It turned out to be $150.  It would have cost nothing, or a little more than nothing, if AAA had towed it.  I called a nearby garage and told them what happened.  The mechanic on the phone seemed to think it might be an expensive problem.  I asked the towing company to tow it to this garage.  This has been a pretty difficult 2-day period.