A random memory, from first or tenth or hundredth day of alcohol rehab:

I am lying in bed, at the alcohol rehab center. It is morning, I think: early morning, that time of the day when the sun is more of a rumor than anything else, a dim and distant whisper of gold fixed somewhere beyond the horizon. It is morning, at the drug rehab center, and I am lying in bed and listening to the blood pulse against my temples and feeling the dust settle against my eyes and all I know is that I Want. To Drink.

I Want To Drink so badly that it’s all I can do to keep from banging my skull against the headboard, there in alcohol rehab at the alcohol treatment center. I Want To Drink so bad that I swear to God it’s like I’ve never wanted anything else in my life…like I have somehow almost become the wanting, there in bed at the alcohol rehab center. I am my urge To Drink now, and if this is alcohol rehab then I don’t know if I can do it, even if I have to, and even if it’s the only way, and even if this, this alcohol rehab at the rehab center, is the last and best and only chance I’ve got.