Genghis and Me

Capitulate: To give up (to an enemy) on prearranged conditions; surrender conditionally; stop resisting.


At the start most of us are able to put up some defense against our alcoholism. We are able to live a marginally normal life, at least on the surface. But it's not a fair fight and it always ends the same way for a real alcoholic. We always go under, swallowing water, gasping for air, dying inside.


I was a starving peasant with a pitchfork, all alone in my battle with Genghis Khan and the Mongol Horde. Genghis blew up and swept across Asia and burned and destroyed on a level unparalleled in human history. I got a few Mongols with my pitchfork but they just kept coming and coming. Eventually, my pitchfork broke. The last image you see is me flailing at a sea of heavily armed warriors with part of a stick. And I'm overstating my abilities. My defense wasn't even that good.

The final outcome is predictable for most alcoholics. We fight and fight, and then we throw in the towel. At the end, we don't care any more. We don't care if we get arrested or lose our family or get fired from our jobs. We don't care if we die. We think it would be better if we died. We wish that we would pass out and not wake up ever again.


I was in a tug of war with my alcoholism. I had one end of the rope and my alcoholism had the other. In between was a pit of demon snakes and burning lava and broken glass. Obviously, I didn't want to end up in the pit so I fought back. But I started to get weaker and my opponent never seemed to tire. He just pulled and pulled and never took a fucking break. Eventually I stopped resisting, but I never let go of the rope.

I'm not going back into that pit again.