I can never think of the Police song Walking in Your Footsteps without thinking of my father. I know it was written with a specific class of "your" in mind, and had to do with the extinction of the entire species. Still I find myself interpreting it as a warning of another, more personal and individual sort.
How odd that a friend recently drew a link between drunkenness (well, specifically DUI) and suicide. I've often observed how certain I am that my father wouldn't have ended his own life if he were sober. I'm convinced he wanted to, and perhaps he even may have had sober moments in which he considered his death plan, but that he wouldn't have actually carried it out without his liquid (whatever is the opposite of) courage. The depressive effects of alcohol distort our thinking in ways we cannot resist when we are too deeply under its influence. So I find myself constantly on guard against alcoholism, primarily because I've seen its destructive effects on so many lives, but in a more specifically practical way: to make sure I don't indulge my tendency toward depression and the terrible decisions I might make in its thrall.
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