"Drinking and....then....umm...something comes after that...I think..."

By.

Before I begin my report of the short stories by Cheever I would like to say, "VERY REPETITIVE!" Thank you now the report may begin.

One book that I can "connect to" is the book of short stories by Cheever. It isn't really the idea that the stories were set in the 40's that gets me, it's the idea that almost every story revolves around drinking. The whole idea of having servants and being an elevator operator didn't really click with me either. As a matter of fact, I found the book terribly written, very repetitive, and on top of all that very very bland. I can say however that the book had a lot of drinking in it, which I can relate to. I KNOW, I KNOW....this is Cretin-Derham Hall...we shouldn't talk about such things. Well, to hell with that. I'm throwing out all the books and pulling all the stops on this one. I'm gonna be different then everyone and write about something not-so-conforming. Well, this is how it all began.

It all started out when my family really started getting screwed up. It was just too much for me and I needed a way out. They all screamed at each other about this or that and everyone seemed to give me a wicked eye about it all. Like somehow this whole ordeal was my fault. So I did what was the closest thing to an answer I could think of, I started smoking weed. A lot of it, everyday I did it. I would go to school stoned, come home from school stoned, and go to sleep stoned. I WAS ALWAYS HIGH. All of this weed seemed to worsen my condition though, I thought this was going to help me. I was even more confused. I quit doing weed and almost committed suicide, let me tell you...three hours in a smoldering room with a gun to your head can change you. It did.

I didn't kill myself but all my problems were sitting right across the room glaring at me. Not so close anymore but still there. They died down for a while but the effects were still there. I let it go and everything was fine for a while. I was so far behind in school it was unimaginable. I tried to get everything back on track but there would have been a better chance of the Titanic resurfacing and all the people being alive. My grades dropped and my family went for each other s throats again. This time I was totally unprepared.

They went at it and I picked up drinking. I had been watching my mom and dad do it forever so I had no problem picking up a bottle. My Irish background didn't help either because all it told me was that my entire family were/are alcoholics. I drank my life away drinking anything I could get my hands on. It was funny though because the alcohol was harder to get then the weed. I drank my life into an alcoholic haze and laughed at everyone the whole way through. Then I began to notice SLOWLY that the alcohol was my problem. It (the drug or a drug for that matter) had started the whole thing and was just throwing gasoline to the fire. This really pissed me off, the whole notion of something else controlling what and who I was. I threw my fists against my walls to many times to count. Then after the initial rage was over I sat and cried in my dad s lap for two hours. Something that I hadn't done for years made me feel alive again. I wanted to quit.

So I did just that. I concentrated on my life and where it was going and decided it was time to change. I joined Alateen and I feel that that helped me a lot. I am a whole new person now and I feel that everything happens for a reason. The reason for that particular thing was to make me learn. Maybe, it happened so it won't in the future. There are a lot of reasons it might have happened but I don't really know why it did. All I do know is that I will never look at alcohol the same way. For a very long time I'm not going to touch it. It transforms you and I didn't like the thing it made me.