My relapse years
If there is a choice between changing and not changing, I can assure you the latter is the much easier road. How splendid it feels to revert to form. How cool and lovely and sweet. I believe that most of us, in our gut, know what we need to do in this life: We need to leave that job. We need to leave that relationship. We need to stop smoking, stop stuffing our face with peanut butter and fudge, stop hiding in that closet, whatever that closet happens to be for you. But change is hard, man. Ask Obama. Ask anyone who’s ever tried to change.
What I wish I had known when I was drinking in that ridiculous closet is that change requires failure. It requires screw-ups and a mouthful of grass and shins covered in bruises and I’m sorry, but I don’t know any other way around that. It also requires time and patience, two things I don’t particularly like, because I was raised in the school of epiphany and instant gratification, which is why I loved alcohol, because it was fast, immediate, pummeling.