I hadn’t meant to start drinking so much.
It wasn’t intentional, not some carefully orchestrated act of self-destruction. It wasn’t even the kind of spiraling descent people imagine when they picture someone falling apart—the messy movie version, with slurred shouting and broken bottles and some inevitable intervention staged by well-meaning friends. No, mine was quieter, softer, deceptively harmless at first. It felt like release, like stepping into a current that carried me away from myself. Drinking wasn’t about losing control—it was about feeling lighter for just a little while, about floating above the weight I carried instead of constantly sinking beneath it.
The first night, it was just two glasses of wine while Annemarie and I got ready to go out. She hadn’t pressed me, hadn’t le
