I need to talk about alcohol today. The drinking kind. We've all heard it called spirits and people say it like its a cute little pun, but its not a joke. Ive had my run with it. Started around fourteen or fifteen, right in the middle of a childhood that was a trainwreck, and I was looking for anything that made it hurt less. Booze was cheap and it worked for a few hours. Thats how it gets you. It works just long enough to convince you it always will.

It followed me into adulthood. Through my twenties and most of my thirties it was there, sometimes more and sometimes less, but always there. Sobriety came later and I was proud of it and I meant it. Then my 40th birthday rolled around a few weeks ago and I got this bright idea that one night of drinking would be fun. A little celebration. A reward for surviving forty years, which is honestly the dumbest reward I couldve picked. You dont celebrate surviving poison by drinking poison.

I blacked out. I did things I wish I hadnt done and I know damn well I wouldnt have done them sober. I burned things that took years to build. And my body flat out quit on me. I got alcohol poisoning so bad I spent a few days in the hospital with the inside of my throat bleeding from throwing up. That was hell, actual hell, lying there with my own body screaming at me like its telling me something I shouldve listened to twenty five years ago. So I had myself a little sit down, just me and me, and the first thing I said out loud was no more alcohol. Ever. Im too old to be drinking. Too old to be burning bridges. Too old to be putting my own body through that. I quit it all the way and its not allowed in my house now, not even in the back of a cabinet for guests. Guests can drink water.

But here is the part I really need people to hear, because the physical damage and the busted relationships are only half of it. Its the energetic harm. I read energy, thats what I do, and Ive watched what happens to a person when they drink. Before they pick up the bottle their aura is bright and clean and you can see it from across the room. Then they drink and the dark spots start showing up. Little blobs of nothing that dont belong there. Its parasites. Its feeding. There are entities out there hunting for a weak moment to grab on to and alcohol hands them the door and the key. That is why its called a spirit. It was engineered that way, to keep you from reaching your highest potential in every way, including the energy that makes up who you are. Now think about what I already told you. I ended up in the hospital and while I was laid up and my defenses were down, parasites attached to me. A whole damn train of them came in through a hole I opened myself.

Ive spent weeks cleaning house since. My energy, my home, my life, all of it. All because I thought a birthday drink would be fun. I had to learn this the hard way at forty years old and Im telling you right now so maybe you dont have to. Throw the alcohol away. Dont keep it around for a rainy day and dont keep it for friends, because that rainy day will come and that friend will turn into you. Some bridges cant be rebuilt and I know that better than most because I just tore a few down myself.

The fastest way to ruin every good thing youve built is to drink. Not the only way, but its the fastest. It hands you a match for every bridge you got and makes it feel like a good idea.

So where does that leave me now. Sober again, cleaning up a mess I made with my own two hands, and wondering how many other people are one birthday away from finding out what I just found out the hard way.