“Wisdom comes by disillusionment.” -George Santayana

_{Photograph by Rakicevic Nenad}

“My drinking began unceremoniously when my new (college) roommate asked if I wanted a drink. I had had little drinking experience to know what to do, while drinking the better part of a fifth of vodka or gin. I just recall clear liquid containing alcohol. My faint recollection was wrestling with my new roommate, obtaining a noticeable flesh wound in the bridge of my nose. Which left to this day, a telltale scar. With that badge of debacle, you can imagine what stories I made up to explain the first thing someone saw when they met me. Maybe fraternities wouldn’t judge me if I explained I was drunk, as that turned out to be a common occurrence in fraternities.

The morning after I hurt all over, even my hair, from a hangover. From the bout. I was terriblly sick when I rode my bicycle to the church for Sunday Catholic mass, clinging to the last vestige of hope. You’d think I wouldn’t ever try drinking like that again anytime soon, but I did. As it turned out, over and over, repeatedly, and got sicker and sicker. Had I known what I know now, I would have recognized I was an alcoholic from the start, putting family history, genetic makeup, initial black out drinking, fighting, malignant hangovers, and many, many regrets.

My hopeless gloom continued as I meandered around campus, searching for my God who was dead. I was spiritually lifeless, and emotionally helpless. So, I turned to the study of philosophy, to understand why I felt lost as I did. To unearth what happened to my God or did a God, or I, ever really exist. These were my questions I never contemplated before, nor knew existed. Why would I ever doubt I existed, or whether I was mind or matter, being or nothingness, an idea or forms? My introductory philosophy course focused on Plato, as most philosophy courses do, and did not ask many questions about God, not religious based. Still, I discovered questions about reality, if it existed, as well as knowledge, if we could know anything, and what was matter, if it even mattered.”

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Bohunk’s Redemption, my recovery memoir, is now available to purchase on ebook and paperback on Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can even read a free instant preview of the first couple of chapters: here!