The Inevitable Ugliness of Alcoholism

For The Establishment

The mornings were not always the most severe—but they were the most desperate. I would be fine for a few minutes, as long as I lay perfectly still in my nest on the ground. The moment I went to move, however, the shaking began. It was only visible in my hands, a telltale sign of an alcoholic in withdrawal, but I felt the reverberations throughout my entire body. Maybe that’s why I started sleeping on the ground in the first place. When your whole body chatters like teeth in sub-zero weather, lying prostrate on the floor is as steady as you’re going to feel. (continued)

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Katie MacBride is a freelance journalist, essayist, and co-founder/associate editor of Anxy magazine. Her work has appeared in Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, Vice, Playboy, and Buzzfeed, among other publications. Follow her on Twitter: @msmacb

4 thoughts on “The Inevitable Ugliness of Alcoholism

  1. If your recovery had anything to do with your privaledge, white, middle-class or otherwise, why do people of the upper-class, who have vastly greater means than those of us in the middle, struggle more with recovery than those at the very lowest of the socioeconomic ladder?

    You got sober because you did what it takes to do so. Staying sober costs nothing and does not discriminate based on race or social status. Having sponsored those with stupendous means and those with none, I’d bet on the guy with nothing every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

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    1. Our criminal justice system incarcerates non-whites for the same non violent drug offenses for which white people are sentenced to treatment or given probation. That is a fact. It is also a fact that someone who is sentenced to treatment has a higher chance of recovery than someone sentenced to prison. Of course recovery is possible in either case but it’s a question of the larger systems at work. Attempting to analyze that through anecdotal evidence is insufficient.

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