Blacking Out? Or Seeing Red?

I stopped drinking alcohol a long time ago. As a matter of fact, I quit smoking eleven years ago this month, and alcohol, soon after. Mine was due to health reasons or I’d still have an occasional beer and shot of tequila. With lemon, not lime. No salt.

It was never a problem getting hold of a bottle of rot gut, like Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill or Ripple, when I wasn’t quite of legal age. When I was old enough, I graduated to better quality stuff.

One thing I never, ever did… I never blacked out. Oh, I might have fallen asleep a few times, but there’s a big difference. Right now, if any of my old friends were to insist they saw me blacked out, I’d get pretty upset, and I’d fire back.

How dare you say that about me when you were so drunk you didn’t even know what you were doing. I mean, get real. Who do you think I was drinking with? Sober witnesses?

When I sat in the courtroom, there were scumbags out to destroy my reputation. There’s always people like that. What do you call them?

“Knechel was snoring in the courtroom again. The deputies had to throw his drunk ass out.”

“People complained about his smell. He reeked of alcohol.”

You know, there were a few idiots who believed what was written about me because those trolls said ‘they were there in the courtroom.’ But maybe they weren’t. It certainly wasn’t the truth.

Until I hardened myself, it hurt. I learned that there were always going to be people who believe only what they want, and I had to put up a wall and ignore them and their incessant badgering. I focused on my writing, and if you disagreed with it, that’s what was worth discussing!