I wanna drink more alcohol.
I do. Lots more.
I wanna grab at whole bottles of Sailor Jerry and drain em straight down my throat. I wanna wake up with the taste of last night's bourbon, which I then wash it away with a fresh, ice cold beer. I wanna order two gin and tonics for appetizer and take a cloudy, sweet cider as my dessert. I wanna do shots of tequila with you behind the service bar. I wanna sneak swigs of wine at the back of the classroom. I wanna impress you with Amaro and Lillet Blanc and then depress you with warm, supermarket brand vodka and cooking port. I wanna drink more alcohol.
But I can't. I do love the taste of all the forms it comes in and I am not turned off to it by philosophical or religious virtue. But I just can't. My body stops me. Doesn't allow me more than just a few drinks. It's better during the day. Whilst the sun is still up, I seem to be able to trick my gut into allowing a pouring down of a bit more, but at night? Forget about it. Couple of doses and I'm done. Can't take no more. It may be in part a mental barrier, but it really does manifest finally in the physical. At night, I no longer bother to raise my glass after just a couple of drinks, for I know exactly when to expect that inexplicable, forcing desire to spit it back out.
And that's a real pity, for my blues never settles in till after dusk. You can say or do to me what you will and want, but I wont really feel it till darkness falls. I wont take it on till the night. And then I will feel it. To me, twilight is just like that rising taste – the one that starts at the back of your throat and then slews over to the tip of your tongue - that you experience when fear or rejection or loss or confusion or pain or insanity settles in. As the stars begin to take a shine across the sky, that is to me, just like that bile in your mouth. That is the taste of my blues coming on. And there's nothing better to combat that taste, than with the numbing flavour of booze.
All my life, my doctors have prescribed alcohol as the antidote to The Blues. Physicians like Muddy and Robert Johnson and Blind Willie McTell and John Lee Hooker and Lightnin' Hopkins and Mississippi Hurt and Brownie and The Howlin' Wolf and T-Bone and Elmore and B.B and Hank Williams. They are my Doctors. They are my G.P.s and Physiologists and Neurosurgeons and Pharmacologists and Podiatrists and Physiotherapists. You don't need no insurance to go see them, you just – as another M.D., Curtis Mayfield sang – 'get on board'. They all told me that alcohol was gonna cure my Blues. Not permanently, but for a little while it would pass the pain.
And I listened. I took their prescriptions on board. Back in that long, thin apartment, set amongst the hookers back in St Kilda, I took their advice hard. We'd chill bottles of cheap, white tequila down before bed, so we could awake to our own special Morning Dew. Those days were the first time The Blues really took on me and the first time I learned how really to take them on. Dead-on. Take em dead-on. Face em, know em, watch em and, as Dr. Leadbelly told me, sing 'Good Morning Blues' to em. And then drink em down.
And this worked. For a time. I'd drink all day and drink play music all night and somehow earn a buck in-between. Those Blues would always be with me, but they'd fade to a slight din – or more precisely, a blurred haze - over my devil's shoulder. I couldn't escape em, but I did learn a way to share an unmade bed with em.
But then one day, my body decreed 'no more'. We were at my favourite Modern-Asian restaurant just off Fitzroy St. when it happened. I still remember it perfectly. I had been at a Barolo Masterclass all day and had been drinking wine since 9am. I had taken a shine to one of my liquor reps who was sitting besides me all day and we led eachother further astray to a bar for a post-seminar session. After a couple of bottles of Gosset, I realized she wasn't going to risk her upcoming marriage just for the promise of drunken fumbling with one of her work clients and I headed alone back to St Kilda for dinner. The other three in my dining party were already at the table and had the wine list open. This (since closed) venue was famous for remarkably good vintage champagne at remarkably good prices. I still clearly remember ordering an '88 Bollinger RD, simply because the price it was marked at was too low to pass up.
I got through the first glass easy. Real easy. But halfway through the second, I began to realise something was wrong. I tried to ignore the pain at the bottom of my diaphragm and then I tried to fight it. Neither worked. I looked around the table and took a quick decision. I excused myself back out onto the street and wandered round to the little alleyway behind The Prince of Wales Hotel. I don't want to get too graphic, but friends - I was hurting. Bad. I dry wretched at least a dozen time, before I gave up on a releasing whatever that was inside me. I crumpled down onto the curb and sat gazing up at the stars. I was then instantly overcome by a rising clarity.
I knew. I knew clearly at that moment that my days of medicating like my doctors had directed me, were over. I knew I would never be able to drink more than a few doses of alcohol again. I knew that my Blues had won. I knew that I had tried to face em, but they had defeated my temporary obstacle. I knew that in their arena – in the dark of the night – they would always, eventually, be victorious. I knew I had lost my shield.
I went back into the restaurant. The others noticed my state immediately. Questions and concerns were raised and I brushed them away. We tried to finish our dinner, but their focus on me rendered a sweet finish impossible. One of them – the eternal boy, with the golden spikes and endless entertainment industry contacts – finally presented his own solution. One that he had been carrying in his wallet and that was immediately administered in the toilet with nothing more than a credit card and a banknote.
And it worked. Perfectly. Exactly like the alcohol, it numbed both The Blues and the pain in my gut. And I smiled. I smiled at my Blues. For I had once again found a weapon to fight them with. Until, a few years later, this medicine too, became ineffective and somewhat repellent. I wore that one out as well.
But that's a whole other story that I couldn't be bothered writing for you right now.
I just wanna drink.
More.
I just wanna drink these Blues Before Sunrise away. Cause I’ve seen the day, when the Dawn don't rescue me no more and I’m afraid.
