Day 114 - On the Road

 On the Road

Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

Jeremiah switched drinks with Wesley when Wesley’s attention waned and his eyes closed and his chin drooped downwards. Wesley’s pint glass had been full, and the last thing he needed was to try and ingest another alcoholic beverage. Jeremiah’s pint glass was down to the bottom third and more importantly was a non-alcoholic beer. No one knew that Jeremiah had stopped drinking. He didn’t think it was important to tell them and he didn’t want to answer any invasive questions. It had been almost three months and wanted a way to seem normal while hanging out in bars with his friends.

Wesley’s chin hit his chest and he head bobbed back up; eyes wide open again. He grabbed the beer in front of him and took a big swig. Wesley didn’t notice the difference, just as Jeremiah assumed he wouldn’t. Soon Wesley would want another drink and Jeremiah didn’t have a plan for that one. Perhaps he would go to the bar for Wesley and buy them both something non-alcoholic. Perhaps he would speak up and suggest a glass or two of water. But he recognized the state Wesley was in and knew that there would be no rational debates and no negotiations to be had. Jeremiah been in that state one too many times himself, and knew the common eventual outcomes.

Alcoholic was such a loaded word. One simply couldn’t not accuse a friend of being an alcoholic, especially not during a night out at a bar. It would a terrible place for an intervention. Wesley was a weepy sentimental drunk. Perhaps not an alcoholic, but how close are those lines anyway? Problematic drinking was problematic no matter what label was placed on it. Drinking too much, losing time and memory, behaving it ways you didn’t intend were all red flags and warning signs.

A million years ago Jeremiah had gone to some meetings. He didn’t take it seriously. He thought he had some problems, but didn’t think he had the one big problem. But he spoke sometimes and he listened to others speak and he got inspiration from their stories. He did a few of the steps, but he never finished and he never made it past sixty days before he would tire and move on.

But that was a younger man’s game. Neither he, nor Wesley were young men anymore.

Jeremiah had known angry drunks. Drunks who hurt themselves or others. He knew a drunk who crashed his car and lost his job. He knew a drunk that woke up in strange places with strange women and later had to see doctors about that.

Jeremiah looked at himself in many mirrors and he had seen a reflection that was often far too close to many of the people he knew.

In the past six months, Jeremiah had gone to a doctor, started working out again, and found himself meeting with a therapist. He had been prescribed drugs for poor health and poor mood, and most of them warned not to be mixed with alcohol.

He was trying. He was trying as hard as he could. He didn’t talk about it or tell anyone, but he was making the effort. He knew three months wasn’t impressive to some, but to him, it meant a lot.

Jeremiah wanted to help his friend Wesley, but he didn’t know how. He had watched Wesley weep in public many times, helped carry him back to his apartment, put him to bed before. The night was seemingly shaping up to be another of those types of nights. There were only so many ways to try and trick a person, before they caught on. Even if it was done with the best of intentions, even if you thought you were doing it for their own good, it was still a betrayal on some level. And Wesley was only going to stop if Wesley wanted to. A hard truth to learn.

His friends sometimes took turns with who would look after Wesley at the end of the night. Jeremiah could remember when it was him they were taking care of. A bit of melancholy crossed his night and Jeremiah slipped off to the bar to pay his tab. He needed to get out and walk. He needed some fresh air. He was too close to his own line, barely had answers for himself, he couldn’t be tasked with saving someone else tonight. Wesley left the bar and snuck off into the night, hoping someone else there would do the right thing in his absence.