I’m on a roll now.
My head was buzzing with memory all day.
We coming to the dropping off point.
After this – it all a spiral down.
*
Stage Three – Abandon
This is the most dangerous of all the stages; when the robust glow of Stage 2 catches fire and moves into conflagration.
I spent most of my adult life in Stage 3 intoxication – so personal details will be sketchy.
Starting off drinking breakfast, I skipped stages 1 & 2 and went straight for the gusto.
A chronic alcoholic can achieve stage 3 quickly – many times without anyone noticing.
The individual may appear the same as a moment before.
Only when it is too late, do the warning signs show themselves.
First thing might tip you off someone crossed the threshold is that they start switching drinks.
Mixing the grape and the grain, we used to say -
going from wine to hard likker and back.
Not limiting theyselves to drinking from their own glass – they will help themselves to any not being held on to.
Cigarettes slip from loose fingers.
Conversation becomes increasingly sarcastic and argumentative.
You suddenly realize that though they looking right at you – a film has formed over their sight.
They are, for all intents and purposes, blind.
*
Stage 3 is a careen out of control.
By this time, booze inundates the personality.
Boundaries are shot to Hell.
The Self drowns.
What come to the surface is all the crazy shit held inside by morals, integrity, honor, faith and fear.
Violence is rampant in stage 3.
Here folks run stoplights – smashing into minivans.
Husbands beat their wives, wives their kids, kids their dog.
I once hit a guy on the nose while in stage 3 just because I felt like it, though not by nature a physically aggressive type.
Phil Spector was there when he shot that poor woman.
*
Stage 3 numbs everything.
You can ball all night but never cum.
Or put your cigarette out on your arm and not feel it.
I knew a guy who tumbled out of a window onto the street. He bounced off the pavement, got up and staggered away.
This lack of sensitivity permeates everything.
Stage 3 has no patience, no sympathy, no understanding, no mercy.
In the first two stages, a body might sober up fast during emergency.
By stage 3, it usually too late.
When William Holden pitched over, falling through that glass coffee table, he bled out.
His stage 3 drunkenness wouldn’t let him get up off the floor to save himself.
*
Though some folks may experience lapses of memory at stage 2, it is in this stage that true blackout occur.
Blackout drunks are wildly scary. Dangerous to themselves and others.
Take it from one who lived among them.
They are functioning zombies.
You can see their bodies but their minds is absent.
What really horrifying is that they are talking, walking and driving around like that.
A chronic 3rd stager will always experience blackout.
That’s part of the appeal. Removes any sense of responsibility.
Stage 3 is chemically induced Absolute Denial.
*
If the addict is adding other drugs to this state – the effect can be murderous insanity.
The only saving grace of stage 3 is that it won’t take too long before the physical system shuts down in shock.
Leading to Stage 4 – Comatose …
-lp(c)09-