If I do not already seem like a walking red flag, one of my all time favorite movies, is Leaving Las Vegas. I have always been somewhat of a romantic, and for addicts/alcoholics this movie has it all. The plot is not anything too crazy, a man played by Nicholas Cage down on his luck, moves into various hotel rooms, his only luggage being a treasure trove of booze. It literally spills out of his suitcases.
After some time he meets an angelic sex worker, he moves into her apartment and they begin to form a bond through the shackles of loneliness and despair. They hit the casinos, paint the town red, at one point Nicolas Cage’s character flips over a table in a drunken stupor. The writer of the book, which essentially served as his own suicide note is the embodiment of the romantic. His sister in an interview said something along these lines, that he wanted to romanticize his melancholic disposition. Sort of a drunken and broken man’s fairly tale. Except he doesn’t turn into a pumpkin at midnight. Instead he wakes up in the middle of the night with the shakes. So bad that he can barely crawl to his refrigerator to gulp up his emergency bottle of vodka. This happens to be my favorite scene in the film. For it is the real breaking in.
At those moments of utter despair, full of horror and disgust, both with myself and my addiction. I cannot help but feel that this is the real me. The one who is removed from all of his defenses. The body is delirious, sweating profusely, wondering if this is it. For some twisted reason, the addict/alcoholic sees some sense of nobility in this unflinching depravity.
At times I still wake up, last night was a prime example, the thirst remains no matter how long the gap between the first and last drink. It has been well over 3 years since my last drink. However, my brain is still consumed with the old. A want, no, a ceaseless craving to embrace oblivion once more.
Obviously these are self-destructive and borderline parasuicidal behaviors. However, the rawness of one’s utter helplessness and dejection, radiate a melancholic and forlorn beauty. Until that despicable thirst is quenched and abated momentarily, be it with alcohol, pills or your favorite poison, there is no hiding. It is an immediacy full of horror an unendurable present. Our lack paradoxically grows in our feeble defiance and want.
The body truly does keep score, delirium tremens may bring forth their own phenomenological experiences. A morbid dance macabre. I have seen it as the ultimate weakness as well as a mirror that reflects my soul’s true essence.
Either way these 2 a.m. shrieks of the banshee within illuminate aspects of the self that evade the most skilled analyst. There is no truly hiding from our own depravity and desperation. No matter how much time has passed. The self endures. I will always long for something to quench this impossible thirst for redemption, meaning and acknowledgement.
Is the first sip of coffee truly that different than a wakeup shot? Sure, it is safer to drive on Dunkin than it is on Vodka (and your liver will thank you). However, both are tools of evasion. Means to sustain our own caricature, late-stage capitalism demands that we play our part well. Otherwise we would not get up out of bed in the morning.
We all toil away, staying busy, sedating ourselves. Hoping to hide from the fragile romantic within. Some are more successful than others. I long for the day I wake up and no longer want to reach for the nearest escape hatch. No Ma'am I am not competent enough to be in an exit row. I always wanted to pull that latch.
All that changes is what is reflected in “Break In Case of Emergency.” All I see is empty glass with a gaunt face staring back. Wondering when it will be whole again?
Serenity is a bitch.
Wow beauty and pain all in one reflection. I sincerely appreciate you writing and sharing. The scene that you painted at the end was so powerful, haunting, and invitational. Perhaps we have to become like the fragments of stain glass to radiate something otherworldly. Thank you again.
Thank you.