He didn't know she'd started taking pills.

Sadly, his friends were never as interesting as the television shows he could watch.

One thing about barflies he didn't understand--and he was well on his way to joining their ranks--was their neediness; their need to talk to whoever sat next to them.

He didn't answer his phone or respond to texts. He didn't mind that his family worried. He was fine. He was doing fine.

At some point, all the various people he tried to be canceled each other out and he was left with no one.

He only felt alive while sleeping. All other times he simply fantasized about death. It makes little sense.

When a friend gave him a shoulder to cry on, he felt he was doing them a favor. He allowed them to help for their sake, not his.

She hadn't forgiven him. She probably never would. And still; and still this. At least this.

When you hurt someone deep, part of your punishment is wondering what they are doing when they leave, hurt.

"How can you tell an alcoholic from a 'functional alcoholic?' By how quickly they drink their water." It wasn't a good joke. But it was true.

It was not every night that he reflected on the worthlessness of his achievements and general existence, but it was a good number of them.

One thing he didn't expect was that telling the truth made people feel like idiots. So nobody wins.

He woke suddenly, lucid enough; and attempted to remember how much damage he had done the night before.

The people at sunrise waiting for buses and going for runs and walking dogs always filled him with a weird sense that he was ok.

How many people keep a lie integrated into at least one major part of their lives? A lot he suspected. Hopefully.

There is a particular type of liquor store, he thought, where you really see your people.

He wondered if most people felt this as often as he did, that he definitely wasn't trying as hard as he could.

He moved every so often; often enough so they wouldn't think he needed an ambulance.

"The big bottles!" they said to him when he left the liquor store with two standard sized bottles of whiskey.

"That guy looks like Mitch Hedberg," he thought and then realized he was a guy who knew what Mitch Hedberg looked like.

He had a cool job. Which made it all the worse that he was on a path to get fired; and that he knew he was on that path.

"Well, there's a reason you think drugs are positive for you," he told his stepson. "Drugs think you are great."

It was amazing--or disturbing--how much time he spent erasing the evidence of what he just did.

He liked sports, but it was so odd that people liked sports. It being out of their control and all.

She must if known he got stoned. She must have.

He wore headphones to block out the voices of those less fortunate than he. And the voices that thought he was less fortunate.

He decided to simply approach every woman he found attractive. Probability, he figured, would be on his side.

You don't realize, he said to his 20 year old cousin, that your parents are no more messed up than you will be.

He ran out mid-service to throw up last night.

He didn't have a fear of flying, but he still drank like he did.

She told him he was balding, which felt way worse than when she told him it was over.

"One way to control people is to become their victim," he thought.

He didn't mind being a monster, and that was one of the issues.

Somewhere on the edge of Barstow.

His sister-in-law managed not only to change the relationship with his brother, but erase everything that had come before.

He hoped to finish before he was finished.

He snapped his pen in two, frustrated by his wife's frustration.

He sat at work, stoned out of his mind.