My father's way

                                                              

It was the last place that I envisioned to be. I found it disgusting watching men and women, boys and girls walk out there drunk, useless and aimless. It was not only a place of distraction but a life changer too. Well, it happened that was my honorable father’s favorite spot. He did not keep it to himself but made me a part of it. Maybe it was because I was the only child, it may have been different if I had siblings. Every morning, evening and sometimes afternoons, I will be found at the drinking spot in our neighborhood. My father just could not eat anything without an appetizer. According to him, alcohol was the one thing that boosted his appetite and nothing else. I was surprised my mother bought into that idea that each time food was ready, I will be sent to get some tot of local gin or bitters for my father before he could eat. I did this every day that I wondered what the woman at the bar thought of me. Maybe she thought I was a drunkard too like those in the neighborhood, maybe too not. Well, whatever she thought did not matter. What mattered was the struggle I went through having to smell alcohol like two times every day and seeing how terrible and disgusting alcohol made people. My father also annoyed me a lot. I just did not understand why he could only eat after he took alcohol. But who was I to question what he did?

If you ask me, I cannot tell you because I cannot remember when I also started taking alcohol before I could eat any food. All I can remember is, I did not only buy for my father, but I bought for us. I also started drinking alcohol for appetite. My father’s case was not that bad. He only got a little drunk when he took alcohol before eating. The worst he did was talk and talk about things that none of us found reasonable. When he got tired, he slept it off. My situation was very different and I have not been able to figure out what made me drink so bad since age nineteen. I did not have to get food before I drank. I drank morning, afternoon and evening. When I turned twenty, I joined a group of friends to train and work as masons in the neighborhood. Before that, I always heard the saying that masons liked drinking a lot. Well, I always thought it was just one of those stereotypes but my friends proved me wrong. Each evening after work, we went to about three different spots to drink and drink till we could drink no more. They saw it as a form of relaxation after a hard day’s work. But I seemed to need alcohol instead of just wanting it to eat or relax. I saw how my friends drank and I drank more. I could not stop at just two or three bottles. I couldn’t work any longer because no one wanted to work with a drunkard. The saddest part was, I had no idea what I did, what I said or even how I behaved when I got drunk. Hearing the terrible things I did always had me swearing to stay away from alcohol forever. Then I felt angry, lonely and unacceptable. And the only way I could hide from these feelings was to drink again and again.