Alcohol never solved anything. 

It gives the illusion of problems solved; maybe that makes it somewhat necessary when you need to lie to continue living. 

You know. 

But illusions are just shapes in the air. They swirl if you blow. 

I write about alcohol a lot, I think. Sometimes I actually am drinking, because it was too much. Sometimes I write while I'm sober as a glass of water - not because it didn't hurt, like a coal in my heart and acid in my stomach. But because it's the kind of pain that makes me need to write, the way people need to smoke or talk or shake their legs or breathe; the kind of pain that must escape as black on white, or else it will claw out of me, snarling, turn round and eat me whole. Or I sit there and feel pain crawling on my skin until I start thinking of - 

It's always better when I can write, compared to when I can't. No matter how bad it seems, I think if I can write, I will be ok.