good riddance

I won’t miss 2025. 2025 was a mess.

The beginning of the year was fraught with trouble, fraught with disaster. I remember the plane ride from Chicago to Orlando, the whole time sitting in the seat by the window watching the plaines of the Midwest give way to the swampland of Florida. I had my new copy of Postcards from the Edge beside me and a Seagram’s ginger ale but I couldn’t enjoy either, I just looked out the window while the black hole of my heart pumped away.

I remember the detox period, the way the valium drip made everything feel like a dream. The nurses and techs coming in every once in a while to strip my sheets and put on fresh ones. I’d wander intermittently into the cafeteria, but I can’t recall what I ate. I can’t recall much of that time. I was prescribed antidepressants and Naltrexone.

Eventually, I started attending group therapy sessions, began eating solid foods. I came out of my haze. I began to make new friends. I started to read again. Soon, I was a new person and I was discharged.

It was the summer when I re-emerged into the “real world”, the sober living house on the Boulevard by the train tracks.

Autumn and winter: the new apartment. In between, the parade of new lipsticks. Taking better care of myself.

2025 was an emotional reckoning for me. Kicking the bucket of my alcoholism, getting a sponsor, going to meetings. Not turning recklessly to the bottle whenever something doesn’t go my way as I used to.

I don’t know what this year will bring, I just know last year was I was miserable and I finally decided to do something about it.