Destroying friendships

DAVE: I turned into a day drinker, daily. I was going to work under the influence.
INTERVIEWER: Working?
DAVE: Yeah. Working under the influence, that’s if I had a job. I used to black out all the time. I went out drinking with some people who I thought were my friends at the time, and they done me over.
INTERVIEWER: Clearly not friends then.
DAVE: Clearly not friends, but these were long time friends. When I woke up in the hospital, apparently I’d been an arsehole to them too, being all abusive and stuff. One of the nurses goes to me, “Have you considered maybe you’ve got a drinking problem?”
INTERVIEWER: The nurse said that to you?

DAVE: Yeah. I was, “No.” This was just an unfortunate accident. It was just an unfortunate thing if you ended up in the police cells. It must have been a good night, you know? Just real lame stuff like that. That’s just how I thought back then, which is what it is.

Then after that, that’s when I started considering that maybe I’ve got a drinking problem, which then made me aware of the fact that I couldn’t control my drinking, which then led into the three years worst drinking of my life because I was aware, and it just led into the worst drinking of my life.

INTERVIEWER: And then things didn’t get better?
DAVE: No, things got way worse.
INTERVIEWER: Things got worse?
DAVE: Yeah. Destroying friendship and wreaking havoc all over the place with no intentions. But I had people who were really close to me, they were turning around and telling me I had a drinking problem. These were people who drunk just like me. It was like, “You’ve got a serious drinking problem.” So at the time, for them to turn around and say that to me, it must have been pretty bad.

When I look back at that stuff now it seems like this hazy fog way, way back in the distance and sometimes, it may sound a bit weird, but sometimes it feels like a dream. It’s weird.