Three Hideous Horsemen, At Least

I was at a book study this morning.  A few passages caught my attention . . . 

"As we become subjects of King Alcohol, shivering denizens of his mad realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness settled down.  It thickened, ever becoming blacker.  Some of us sought out sordid places, hoping to find understanding, companionship, and approval.  Momentarily we did - then would come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous Four Horsemen - Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair."

I love the florid writing of our supremely egotistical founder - it reminds me of what I do.  

But first of all, I'm not sure that "bewilderment" is a hideous anything.  I bet the other 3 Horsemen are constantly laughing at Bewilderment:  "Hey, Bewilderment, I'm gonna spread some agony and pain.  What do you have going on: mild frustration?"  Why not have Pestilence or Horror or Agony as the fourth Horseman?  That would get my attention.  If I had to choose between Horror and Bewilderment I have to tell you that I'm going with Bewilderment every time.

Bewilderment?  Really?  I've been a little bewildered already this morning and I don't feel too hideous yet.

"For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship, and colorful imagination. It means release from care, boredom, and worry.  It is joyous intimacy with friends and a feeling that life is good.  But not so with us in those last heavy days of drinking.  The old pleasures were gone.  They were but memories.  Never could we recapture the great moments of the past.  There was an insistent yearning to enjoy life as we once did and a heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control would enable us to do it."

If  I pay attention when we read from the books I hear really great stuff.  All of us are familiar with the despair that bubbles up when we reach that awful, awful, bewildering point when alcohol no longer works.  It's like flicking the light switch and getting no light.  I changed the bulb.  I stuck my finger in the socket and got the shit shocked out of me.  I thought about it for a minute and then tried sticking my finger in the socket again, with predictable results.  I thought for another moment then got a fork - a wet fork - which I stuck in the socket.  This went on for a long time with my only efforts at fixing the situation consisting of various and sundry ways of increasing the flow of electricity to the switch so the shocks got worse and worse, or finding ever more conductive materials to stick in the socket.  I just couldn't believe that alcohol was no longer working.

I was a chemist at the end, a pharmacist.  I was trying new cocktails of drugs and alcohol to see if I could locate a combination of substances that would produce that wonderful feeling of release that I used to get.  A heartbreaking obsession - a new miracle of control.

Never did find it.  Never did.