We would sit and share a bottle of wine in front of the TV. We laughed, clinked glasses, and drank until we were stumbling and you barely made it across the street back to your bed. After you would go home I would throw up for hours and fall asleep with my forehead against the cold porcelain of the toilet bowl, yet the next night I would do it again. I was too drunk on you too ever care about what the alcohol did to me.

You would never come around unless I was drinking with you, and when you stopped coming around I kept drinking. I had gotten so used to the high of being near you, that when you left I wanted it back. Alcoholic is an ugly word, but sometimes ugly words are the ones that describe us. I was an alcoholic, and at the time the only person I had felt it right to blame was you.

If you hadn’t come over all those nights for all those months and watched me drink myself into a stupor, then I never would have learned to love the feeling. I didn’t drink because I liked it, I drank because you did. I realize now that the blame was mine and mine alone, but sometimes we don’t want to be responsible for our mistakes.

The last time I saw it you it was ten A.M. and I was drunk. You said hello to me and I could see the pity in your eyes. I still wonder if you felt responsible for creating that monster. I hoped so then, but I don’t now. It was about that time that I decided to get clean. I stopped drinking and started dancing again, and singing. I listened to all my old records and sang along. I still don’t crave a drink.

In the end all I ever wanted, and still want, is our relationship to be bigger than the bottle. I want to laugh with you and taste mint gum on your lips, not vodka. I want to watch TV curled up with you, not a glass of wine. I want you to walk home in a straight line, and I want to fall asleep with my head in my pillow. I want us to be everything we used to be; I just want us to be that way sober.

If I ever see you again I think I’ll tell you everything that I felt for you then, and everything I feel for you now. If you ask if I want to get a drink together I’ll say no, but I’ll buy you dinner anyway. I’ll kiss you like I used to and we’ll tell each other the same old jokes, but this time when we clink glasses, there’ll be water in them, not whiskey. Next time we’re together, we’ll do it right, or we won’t do it at all. I’ve started living my life again, and I want you to be a part of it. A part of it that I can be proud of.