"Daily Dose"

Waking up...reluctantly.
First thing in the morning
Wasn't always just to pee.
Doubled over the bath...
Heaving your guts up.
Nothing solid
Just acidic bile.
Retching... even causing
A nose bleed on top.
Always the same day after day.
Something I never questioned
It was the alcoholic way.
On the train to work
I thought I was
A 'normal' commuter
Couldn't have stuck out more
If I was drinking beer from pewter.
Swigging straight
From a fruity alcopop
Pretending it was
Healthy vitamin C
Keeping my alcohol levels on top.
If I was feeling rather bad
It could even be worse than that
Dashing to the pub
In my first tea break
Downing a Guinness
In five minutes flat.
Then came lunch time
Rarely time for food
To interupt my drinking
Would have been rude.
Back on the counter
Then off to for the paper
Picking up the Standard
Before it was free
Accompanied by two
Bottles of Hooch
An off-licence stop for me.
Any opportunity to neck a drink
I really didn't care
What anyone would think.
Poison and stench
Sweating shit out of my pores
I hummed so bad
I could clear library floors.
After work I'd have
A tin on the train
A never ending cycle
Drinking again and again.
Off to a match
Or just down to the ground
For the whole night
Round after lonely round.
In the Football Club bar
Necking my pint
The next one not far.
It might 'only' be a gallon
Or was it ten pints?
I genuinely could not remember
How I got home at night.
Crashing out in bed
Only to wake up in the morning...
Reluctantly.

Dulwich Poet 31st March 2014

(I have no idea how much I used to drink, but I do know that in my 'alcoholic madness' I thought I drank normally! This is about how much I might drink in a fairly average day....Frightening really!)