Robicheaux (Dave Robicheaux #21)

by James Lee Burke

I’ve always believed that alcoholism and depression are first cousins. This isn’t an excuse. It’s part of the menu. No one who has not experienced clinical or agitated depression, coupled with psychoneurotic anxiety, can appreciate a syndrome that, in an earlier time, was treated with a lobotomy. It’s a motherfucker, no matter what you call it or how you cut it. There’s blood in your sweat; your head feels like a basketball wrapped with barbed wire; you’d eat a razor blade for a half cup of Jack or a handful of reds or a touch of China white. There’s another alternative: the Big Exit, with both barrels propped under the chin, the way Hemingway did it.

How do you handle it when your anger brims over the edge of the pot? You use the shortened version of the Serenity Prayer, which is “Fuck it.”