Alcohol Made Me the Rubberband Man

I drank because I thought good would come from it: an end, at least temporarily, to my depression. It worked. Drinking came with benefits, but of course, there was a steep price to pay for the good feeling.

With euphoria came blackouts, injuries, car wrecks, arrests, shakes, upset stomach... You know the morning-afters as well as I do. Every time I drank I thought I could stop before the benefits turned into bad stuff. It seldom worked that way. If two drinks could make me feel this good, four will make me feel twice as good.

I highlighted lots of texts when I read The Pursuit of Happiness by David G. Myers. For example:

"Even in the short run, emotions seem attached to elastic bands that snap us back from highs or lows. For many pleasures we pay a price, and for much suffering we receive a reward. For the pleasure or euphoria of  drug high, we pay the price of craving and increased depression when the drug wears off. For suffering through hard exercise, we afterward enjoy the dividend of a pleasing glow." (https://davidmyers.org/books/the-pursuit-of-happiness)

A footnote: "Pleasing glow? Dr. Myers apparently never ran a marathon.