!I for intoxication --- agk's diary 26 April 2022 @ 15:33 --- written on Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) via ConnectBot in bed while hair dries, baby thumps around and quacks, and dog growls --- Evy and I went to see Senora May for our wedding anniversary. We brought the baby and our friend's ten year old son. The bridge is still out, They ran a school bus into town from the county highschool. We got to the bleachers set up in the hot sun on courthouse square. She played a song, then--- surprise!---traded places with her husband, Tyler Childers. My brother's a big fan of his. We never seen him perform. Tyler looked hunted, hollow, and mean. We didn't expect that energy, it's not how he sounds on the radio. His energy built as his set went on. The bleachers packed once word got out he was playing. "Keep your nose to the grindstone and out of the pills," Tyler sang. Evy told me he got sober last November or the one before. He drank water between songs. We bought Senora's new record off her merch table after Tyler put down his guitar. We ate bar- b-q sandwiches in the shade of the bank drive thru. I got sober almost fifteen years ago. There are lots of paths out of the destructive hate bliss of addiction. Total abstinence 12-step style isn't the only one. My brother quit meth and gangsterism to be a good dad, but drinks his Guinness. Many paths. Many paths into it, too. When I first got serious about being intoxicated, I already lived mostly alone in an apartment without utilities in an aban- doned 4-story building. My ex-boyfriend Fetus smoked weed and listened to the punk band Crass on his walkman every night. Our relationship was pragmatic. I fell in love with my new bf Mongezi. He was about the best thing in my life. I loved to cook for him, make him Rooibus tea or hot chocolate, sit at his feet, listen to him talk. He had a prosthetic leg due to a landmine and oral opioid/NSAIDs (hydrocodone/paracetamol). He was a binge drinker, and sometimes disappeared for a few days. I never let him in my apartment when he was drunk. I fixed up another in the building for him, with a mattress and access to the bucket toilet. I probably should have kept a jug of water in there, but didn't think to. One time Mongezi was gone, maybe in jail. I was alone and crazy with fear and memory. I got into his pills and beer, smashed empties in the gutted- out side of the building. I felt the skin of my face go numb, unwrapped a scalpel, and opened an incision down my cheek. My suffering changed to detached fascination, then apathy and sleep. I didn't stay high all the time after that, but til almost 15 years ago, it was an option when I felt lonely, hateful, ashamed, bored, hungry, overwhelm- ed, sick, like celebrating, hopeless, paranoid, or crazy with fear and memory again. A year or so after Hurricane Katrina I was fucked up every day and took a lot of money I should probably pay back. Sobered up, I went to meetings every day, and still go sometimes. I got a sponsor, and still have one, even though we don't talk much. I formally worked some steps, but not all of them. I never made direct amends to most people I hurt. But damned if I didn't quit and stay quit, and if I didn't find better things to do with feelings than smash them. And damned if I'm not a pretty good mom. Evy asked what I'm writing. "Tyler and Senora fixing to have a baby," Evy said. Senora's canceling her shows for the next year. It's probably why she got off- stage after just a few songs and sent him to take her place. Might be why Tyler looked haunted. Big changes for them, sleepless nights and joyous days. Babies are good news. Senora and Tyler will be good parents.