Depression Like Peaches? Or To Drink or Not To Drink?

The last two months have been almost unbearable, impossible to write. Impossible to breathe, impossible to do anything other than sleep. Just sleep. But even in sleep there is no refuge. I dream of nothing but peaches. Peaches are in season. I smell them, I can taste them, I crave them. Yet I have no energy to get out of the bed, I am afraid to leave the apartment to purchase them. And yet, this is the only thought I have. I want peaches.

I know how to get them. There is a farm near me, that was featured on an episode of Kitchen Nightmares that is famous for it's apples and peaches. I can drive there and get a bucket. And eat peaches at home, dribbling peach juice down my neck, chest, have it on my fingers, in my hair, all over me. I long for this.

What is it about a peach? It is the title a wicked record by the Allman brothers. If you cut one open it looks like a Georgia O'Keefe painting of something that reminds you of a woman's privates, and is done absolutely beautifully. No doubt if a peach tree had been growing in the  Garden of Eden instead of an Apple tree, Eve would have bit that.

What really got me going this depression was the drinking issue. September 26 is my 14th anniversary. I have a little widget on my computer that tells me how many days, and hours, minutes and seconds it's been since my last drink. It's a wonderful little thing that helps ground me and keep me in the moment, and the few times where I did feel like slipping and I couldn't get to a meeting, I would go to the widget, and look in amazement. Today I am sober for exactly 5101 days. See? Amazing. Who wants to destroy that record?

Lying in bed, I dream of Peach Schnapps. Oh, I loved drinking that, as a shot, or in a drink. I would even add it to water and make ice cubes out of it. I want to drink worse than I ever had. And I know, if I get out of the bed, I will get dressed and walk across the street to the liquor store. I won't leave til I have a bottle of Peach Schnapps in my hand. Then it's home, pour a glass on ice, and get comfortably numb.

There is a saying in AA that your last drink will take you back to where you were when you stopped drinking. My last drink had me in a state hospital, tied to a bed for two days on a plastic sheet while I had the DT's and during that time my roommate took the blanket off my bed and tried to hang herself from the exposed pipe coming out of the ceiling.

I don't want to drink, but I can taste it. I can feel it, I can smell it.  I dream of it. It's the only thing I desire, an ice cold glass straight up on the rocks.  Somehow, somehow, I have to get to a meeting, but if I go outside, I will want to go to the liquor store. So I go into the living room bookshelf, grab the Big Book, and take it to bed with me. Read. I find a few AA forums and lurk in a few of them. And make myself a big glass of Peach tea, on ice. It gets me through. A miracle. It was the closest I've been to picking up since my first 30 days.

Miracle indeed. Going to meetings now, twice a week. It's not a lot, but it's all I can handle being in a group of people. It's my old home group. It's a good group, I would say 90 percent of the people in there have less than 1 year sobriety. I do not have a sponsor at the moment. I am looking.  In the end, one year, one day, 14 years, it's all the same. One day at a time.

I still dream of peaches. But now it's the fruit. And yes, I am eating one or two a day while they are in season, along with my beloved peach ice tea.