Alcoholism ~ A Life In A Bottle
Just recently I found this 'set-up'
in a doorway on the streets in downtown Cleveland, ~`
Ohio. This is the worth of a man/or
woman for one day, when they are in the 'throws'
of alcoholism. 
I know because I am
an alcoholic. The world is right, and
all is good - for that one day. One
pint of alcohol and a small amount of food;
no matter what the source of the food.
It could be an empty bag of McDonalds from
McDonald's; maybe donated by a kind soul,
purchased by someone who is still able to
get to the McDonald's Restaurant; ~` or
found left over on the streets.
If you've never lived this life, you
would see this arrangement as, simply garbage
in a doorway. You couldn't realize
it's full meaning. I knew that
this was the remnants of one person's
whole world, for one day. On a good
day!
You got a supply your source; and a bite to eat. That would have
been a 'good day' for me at one time.
I know this world because I came very close
to living in this world. I never got
fully to the streets; but I drank from a
bottle very similar to this - I don't
know what it was because it was still in
it's paper bag. It was while I
waited in a service station; before work
in the morning. A man sitting in a
chair in the reception room of the gas station
said to me, "Young lady you look like
you could use a drink." He was
a very disheveled gentleman, in old, worn
out clothing; a bum, in the opinion I'd
have held a few years before. But I
saw him as a man who knew who I was.
Me in my dress, waiting for my car to be
looked at; on my way to work. My car
had stalled out and I was waiting for a service
man to look at it. I must have been
trembling and had on my face, what had become
normal to me; a look of fear; terror... shakes...
wishing for that drink which I would be having
at lunchtime - I was headed for my job at
an office of a university.
The four stages of alcoholism, Alcoholism dot org