Dear Booze

Dear Booze,

I love you, but I HAD to let you go.

You were my best friend for a decade. We did and saw so much together. This relationship once was so light-hearted and fun but soon turned into the darkness. Leaving me empty promises and a cycle I just could not let go of because I couldn’t let you go. You had me at first sip, every single time.

You have caused me much grief in my life, and I can’t have this toxic love affair anymore. I wake up heartbroken with a world of shame and guilt that takes over my soul, leaving me with thoughts and feelings of wanting to die. I don’t understand why when I feel like this after having many nights together. I always come back, and it doesn’t matter how bad you were to me. When will I learn? I need to walk away, I have tried over and over again to change the dynamics of this relationship, but I always come back to this same place. You are beyond intoxicating with a hint of glamour, and I hate that you have this pull on me. Under your influence, I become so mean and a person I don’t recognize.

In many cases I don't remember because your influence has put me into functioning blackouts. Blacking out and you go hand and hand for me. I can’t stop once you have entered my body and I don’t want to. Do you make others feel this way? The relationship we have had has put me into so many harmful, unsafe situations. I have woken up in beds not knowing what the person name was lying next to me, woken up in Hospitals, woken up in jails, driven my car not remembering the next day how I got home, I have tried harming myself under your spell, enjoyed drugs like cocaine and crack because you made it seem like it was ok. You had even made me feel like absolute death when hangovers that lasted for three days because I couldn’t get enough of your love.

Many never said anything about the harm you do because you are EVERYWHERE, TV, cinema, daytime talk shows, magazines, celebrities get paid by you to make you look even more refreshing, you have also made your way into families leaving little girls and boys neglected because you always came first.

Why are you such a hero to others when you do so much harm?!?

We celebrate with you, we mourn with you, and we make you a hobby. You kill, you cause problems, you eventually take people down to the bottom where they have nowhere else to go but up. That's what you did for me. After my final 1,000th rock bottom with you, it was time to let you go.

I was so tired of trying to make this relationship work with you. It wasn’t fun and intoxicating anymore. It was painful, excruciating, exhausting, and you were eventually going to kill me.

I will not entirely blame you because still at the end of the day, I kept choosing to come back to you. It’s time now to choose me.

My universal world stepped in on August 18th, 2012, and that was it. The relationship we had almost cost me it all and two essential souls in my life. I was ready. My being was prepared to live a life without you. There were no more visitations once to twice a week; It was time to cut you off for good. There were no more ways of moderating our love affair, and I learned it was all or nothing but choosing all of you left me with nothing.

Choosing me over you was the best gift I have ever given myself, so thank you for the toxic love affair we once had.

We will never meet again,

Courtney Andersen