I couldn’t sleep, so I got back up.
The house was quiet. My wife was upstairs sleeping like a baby. She has always been able to do that—put her head down, close her eyes, and disappear into sleep. Meanwhile, I was downstairs waiting for the gabapentin to kick in.
My back was aching badly from the fusion and decompression surgery. Not the kind of ache you can easily ignore, either. It was deep, persistent, and exhausting.
When will this pain stop?
I have asked myself that question more times than I can count.
It was 10:49 p.m., and I couldn’t get comfortable. I haven’t had eight hours of sleep in a good while. My leg muscles wouldn’t sit still, almost as if they were angry with me for not using them. But what am I supposed to do? I’m recovering from back surgery. No bending. No lifting. No twisting.
My mind understands those restrictions.
My body does not.
Then there were the bottles of alcohol behind me.
I could almost feel them watching me.
“Mickey,” they whispered. “Hey, Mickey. Come on over and have a drink. It’ll relax you. It’ll help you sleep. Just one.”
That is how alcohol talks. It never introduces itself as trouble. It presents itself as relief. It waits until you are hurting, exhausted, frustrated, or alone—and then it tries to sound like an old friend.
But tonight, I wasn’t buying it.
“Fuck off, alcohol,” I said out loud.
The house was quiet enough that my own voice surprised me.
“You are all out of a job. I no longer want you guys sliding around inside my body.”
For years, those bottles acted as though they belonged in my life. They stood behind me like employees waiting for their next shift.
Not anymore.
They have been fired.
I sat there for a while, hurting and restless, trying to figure out what I wanted. Apparently, my late-night brain came up with an unusual compromise: I would pour a shot of honey into the peanut butter jar, dig it back out, and eat it.
It wasn’t elegant. It probably wasn’t even sensible.
But it wasn’t alcohol.
Maybe that was the whole point.
Then, without warning, a wave of tiredness hit me. I lowered my head and placed my hand on the back of it. For a moment, I just stayed there.
Maybe it was the gabapentin finally beginning to work. Maybe my body was surrendering to exhaustion. Or maybe telling alcohol to go to hell had quieted something inside me.
The bottles were still behind me.
The pain was still there.
My legs were still restless, and my wife was still sleeping peacefully upstairs.
Nothing had magically changed.
But I had made it through another conversation with alcohol without letting it have the last word.
At 10:49 p.m., in a quiet house with an aching back, a jar of peanut butter, and a little honey, that felt like a victory.
