Mustard Sandwiches

Alcohol, though it unlocked doors of communication to the outside world, would prove to pay it's toll...

I hated alcohol at first. I could not understand how people enjoyed any alcoholic drink. Yet, in order to dismantle the gag reflex of even the the slightest taste, Peach Schnapps paved the way to an alcohol abuse that would prove to awaken my soul to a great darkness.

Like many other stories I've heard, somehow training in alcoholism had some ups, but also some serious downs.

Vomit is one of those downs, like every time. Sometimes an end of the night toilet run, but other times much worse. I remember waking up around 3:30 a.m. one time hearing laughter. Somehow this unique laughter got my attention. Unlike the laughter I had heard most of the night, this laughter was an involuntary, the response of seeing someone in their most humiliated state. I raised my head, saw the four heads all looking down at me, tasted the pool of vomit I was lying in, and within 3 seconds was back out. I woke up again at 8 a.m. in the same place, but the vomit was much colder and crustier. Vomit stories are countless and mostly worthless.

In times of sobriety, when the sun was up, and reality was in my face, there were mustard sandwiches. I worked as a "temp" for $3.35/hr in a factory, had moved out on my own into a party shack. I had no budget plan, except to spend every check on "the party." When it came time to eat, I had figured out that I could survive lunch with one 50 cent bag of chips and dinner with a mustard sandwich. Basically, I would take two slices of white bread, toast them, spread a layer of mustard on one slice, and imagine I had turkey, salami, lettuce, tomato, on the other. Two pieces of toast with mustard and imagination in the middle sent me into the night to explore the greater dreams of my soul, but left me at an all time low for my 5'11'' body of 129 lbs.

I did become desperate and finally sneak into my Mother's house while she was at work to find a full meal. Little did I know, this trip would sober me up to more than just what alcohol was doing to my life. I was beginning to destroy other's lives.

While I was splurging like a "survivor" who just won a meal reward, the phone rang. I thought, perhaps a girl was looking for me and didn't know the party shack's #. I jumped to the phone and answered. Sure enough a lady was on the line asking, "is Mark there?" I said, "Yea, this is Mark!" She said, "I am a physician at the health clinic. A young girl was here today with a disease she contracted, saying her last contact was with you. We need you to come in as soon as possible."