Moonshine: A Narrative Fiction

My relationship with drugs first began during my senior year of high school. While most of my peers attended their first parties years earlier, my first was not until I was already 17 years old. I still remember feeling so cool for attending my first party and having my first sip of alcohol. The feeling of being drunk was unlike anything I had ever felt before. I felt liberated, like I could break out of my quiet shell and be that fun, goofy person that everyone wanted to hang out with. Prior to this night I had never used any type of substance, legal or illegal. Since then I have continued using alcohol while also trying various different types of drugs including caffeine, marijuana, tobacco, and adderall.

Once this girl started with the drugs, she could not stop. As soon as she tried the first drug, it lead to all of the other drugs and things that she did. Her first time doing the drug was an accident, and she did not know, but she made the wrong choice in continuing to do them. She said it gave her a feeling of belonging and love that she had never felt before. If her parents or her close friends had paid more attention to her, then some of the events that happened would not have happened. Her heavy drug use lead to her runaway from home to the streets, involvement in crime, her prostitution, and her visit to the insane asylum. She found a "best friend" (Chris) - one that would give her drugs - and they decided to runaway and leave their family and friends to start their own shop in San Francisco. They thought they could not handle their parents telling them what is right and what is wrong, but that is what they needed to hear. They were naive in thinking they could live their lives alone without any rules or any authority.

mother died of lung cancer. After these devastating events took place, it was a phone call from her twin sister Becka, and knowing that therapy alone or coupled with AA weren’t enough to break her physical and emotional addiction with alcohol, that

Alcohol is a drug that is classified as a central nervous system depressant. There are three forms of alcohol, beer, wine and distilled spirits. Alcohol is one of the most commonly used drugs in the United States and has more adverse effects that most other drugs combined. There are many aspects to consider when thinking about alcohol as a drug. There are many myths surrounding alcohol, including who uses it, what its effects are on users, social and sexual situations and the amounts people drink. The vast majority of the American population uses alcohol and in many various ways and this also causes different effects. Alcohol is also has a great causation in crimes committed by users, social, medical, and educational problems as a

In Lisa McGirr’s book The War on Alcohol it is hard for the reader to pinpoint one central thesis. One thesis however, can be simply marked down to the title of one of her chapters entitled “Selective Enforcement.” During the Prohibition period police were cracking down on speakeasies and bootleggers and people smuggling alcohol across state lines. However when police would make these arrests the people being arrested were mostly of minority origins. Although poor whites from the South did get arrested as well, most of the jails and prisons were made up of blacks, hispanics and latinos. McGirr said that “Uneven enforcement was the hidden reason the white, urbane upper-middle class could laugh at the antics of Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith, while Mexicans, poor European immigrants, African-Americans, poor whites in the South, and the unlucky experienced the full brunt of Prohibition enforcement’s deadly reality” (McGirr, 71).

There have been many influential events and time periods in history which have directly affected America today such as prohibition and “bootlegging.” The era of prohibition began on January 29th, 1920(Rebman9). Prohibition influenced many things such as the ratification of the 18th and 21st amendment. However, prohibition led to a huge increase in crime rates as well as taking a huge role in the development of NASCAR. Although, many notorious criminals came out of prohibition, by far the most famous would be Alphonse Gabriel Capone, also known as Al Capone.

The summer I turned 13, my granddaddy gave me a book about moonshine still blueprints. The first chapter was about the ingredients; sweet corn, yeller sweet corn mesh, sugar, yeast, and water. You can probably guess what I did then. I looked throughout the whole house looking for the ingredients. I found all of them except the sweet corn but I knew where some was. I ran to our back 40, crossed an old barb-wire fence, and sneaked into the Moore’s garden and borrowed some sweet corn (that I’ll be gladly to return in whiskey or white lightning). People call the liquor I made white lightning, whiskey, and moonshine, it depends on where ya from how you say it I guess. I got my ingredients rounded up and I stashed it down by Sycamore Creek.

We were both crazy, and stayed high off each other. She was the electric that brought my guitar to life...but a blade killed our bond..and I was the one holding the knife. I arrive at the studio with Dre, and with a promise of a 'reward'.

She told me about Bob, and what he liked to do, how people seemed to follow him. In return, I told her about Dally and Johnny, how they were before all of that happened. I told her about how I used to hate Dally, and not understand why Johnny looked up to a person like him. I told her about how he acted, being sorta brave, and reckless, not caring about anything. Then I spoke of Jonny his soft natural, how he hid behind his long black locks of hair. How he was always off on his own, and how he understood the beauty of the world, and when I showed him the sun set, how it was like he saw the wonder of the world, for the first time. Cherry seems more open to talking. No one else lets me talk this opening about what happened to me. Old friends at school don’t really talk to me, and it seems as if the gang does not want to talk about it as well, worried I will go back to the way I

She put her lunch tray on the table, plopped her backpack on the floor, and sat down across from me. She started to eat the mac and cheese on her plate (51).” When Auggie was hurt he clung to the only people he knew were true friends to him. He is lucky to have Summer, having a Summer in high school would have meant everything to me, as it does to Auggie. Summer saw Auggie for who he truly was, she did not see just his difference she saw him. She saw how smart he was, how nice he was to her. She saw his humor and his pain, she just wanted to be the best person she could be for him and that was a friend. A friend is something you should never take for granted. Someone to lean on, to confess to, and to be silly with. I never had friends like that. My friends talked behind my back to my sister about me, telling her how annoying I was or they couldn’t understand why I thought the way I did. They told my sister not to let me go to a certain college so they didn’t have to “take care” of me for four more years. I didn’t have friends in high school, I had acquaintances, because I was different. The people in my life never even said bye to me when I left for college that is when I started to truly see how I was treated. It took me until I went away to college to find someone like Summer. To find someone who would constantly be there for me whenever I need them and to laugh

I really enjoyed this chapter and there are some dynamics that I know all too well. The family model and the complexities are something I haven’t know until more recent, at least a certain dynamic of it. I families want and expect me to be a certain way. I think about my wife and how she would try to exclude me and how she seemed happier when I was on drugs. She grew up in a family of six where the father, for the most part was absent. Lee had left for four years of Kyia’s life for reasons I never pursued and probably aren’t known, meaning that rarely does a person commit to such a change without have multiple motivators. For the most part I wasn’t a drug user throughout our marriage, my faith was extremely important to me, and still is.

“I…” Nyame trailed off, taken aback by his reply. She watched wordlessly for a few moments as he guzzled down another glass of wine. That should have stopped her. Alex drinking so much was a sure sign that he was beyond the anger point. She could visibly see the change in his eyes, the way he spoke where biting in tempo. It was all downhill from here. There would be no reconciliation tonight and somewhere in her heart she regretted that but it was background noise to her enraged thoughts.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is a collection of short stories by Raymond Carver. Named “One of the true contemporary masters,” by Robert Towers of The New York Times Review of Books, Carver creates fiction that opens the reader’s eyes to a seldom spoken of, but all too real, part of American life. Alcoholism, and its ability to destroy families and escalate domestic disputes into violence, was a common theme throughout Carver’s short stories. Though there are many equally powerful themes in all of the stories, alcoholism is the driving force behind most of the misfortune in “Gazebo” and “A Serious Talk.”

I understand that, at least for me at the time, drinking was a way of connecting with friends, to socialize with strangers, and to alleviate the shyness. But in hindsight, I noticed there was a change from wanting to needing a drink.  It was a way to deal with the tree of work and life itself. Years later now my wife and son are in the picture, I do my best not drink "that much" at home, but still finding a myriad of excuses to do so.

That lady made me feel like I was worthless. I told her about my dad driving the car while totally wasted, nearly killing himself, my mom, and me. She didn’t even ask if I was okay. Not too long after – I asked her for help getting away from him because I knew I was in danger. She told me that no one had saved her from her alcoholic dad so why should she save me? I internalized that…I wasn’t worth saving. I still feel that way, I’m not worth saving. That I’m not worth anything. And no, I don’t know why I internalized that from one person…well, I didn’t just from one person. As a child I was never put first in my household so I never felt important or cherished by my parents. So I never got that “I’m special” feeling.