Lust & Wonder

by Augusten Burroughs

How the fuck did I get here? I thought. If I was going to be completely sober for the rest of my life, if I couldn’t even have one drink at the end of a long and brittle day, then the life I lived needed to be a life from which I did not seek escape.

Alcohol did this, too. Whole sections of my life were splashed with liquid from a bottle and were now undecipherable, smeared and forever unreadable. Which I supposed was fine, because the past had been swallowed and digested.

It was a relief to be sober. It was also a burden and a great unfairness.