Arbor Mist

There are times in life when you can’t see what lies ahead, when all you can do is grope your way towards wherever you hope the exit lies. Whether an arbor is an entrance or an exit only depends on which side of it you’re on. 

This wine presents an excellent citrus flavor and honeysuckle aroma, greatly enhanced by hints of peach and lychee for a fruity finish. 

Bottles

They’re stacked neatly in the kitchen cabinets. They’re buried in bins in the garage. They roll across the dining table. They hang by their necks in the cellar. They’re scattered like teardrops around a heaving shadow, curled up on the chilled ceramic tiles of the bathroom. 

Cheers

“Cheers'' originated from the old French word chiere, meaning “face” or “head.” In the 18th century, it eventually came to signify “gladness,” and was used as a way of expressing encouragement. Nowadays, “cheers'' is simply a succinct way of wishing good health and prosperity to those around us. 

Required to be on the back of all bottles is a label that reads “Consumption of alcoholic beverages impairs your ability to drive a car or operate machinery, and may cause health problems.”

Cheers.

Dependence

/dɪˈpen.dəns/ n.

1. The state of relying on or needing someone or something for aid or support (confidence, trust)

2. Addiction to drink or drugs
   “He had to learn that dependence on others is not a sign of weakness.”
   

Evenings

As the sun drowns beneath the canopy of trees, a cork can be heard falling into a burgeoning pile. 

Fifty Percent

Half a bottle of gin has been poured into a porcelain bowl and drained through its hollow, rusted stem. To any stranger, it would seem as though a little boy has just finished washing his hands and is watching the water swirl around. What he sees is a poison that he’s just saved his mother from drinking.

Grapes

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

Hennessey

Illuminated by the evening rays, the glass on the countertop appears to be holding flames. Its inferno flickers, shifts, spills over the brim; it will consume those who drink it but offer no light. 

Hennesy offers toasted fruit notes mellowed out by a pleasant oakiness. Hints of spice, vanilla, citrus, and chocolate are common in these cognacs. 

Illness

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, excessive drinking could pose the following long-term health risks: 

• High blood pressure, stroke, liver disease, and digestive problems.

• Cancer of the breast, mouth, throat, esophagus, voice box, liver, colon, and rectum.

• Alcohol use disorders, or alcohol dependence.

/dɪˈpen.dəns/ n.

1. The state of relying on…

Just One More

“Come on! I promise! Come on, come on… uh… come on… just tell me where it is!”
It’s hidden between the cushions of the threadbare couch in the attic. Please just only have one glass. 

Kitchen

Murder. The walls are bleeding, seeds are trickling down the floorboards. Carrots lie in puddles of long-spoiled milk. The roots of a ginger knob reach out for pools of sunlight on the floor, fractured from the leaves of the tree outside the window. Too late; a cloud shrouds the sun and a pall sweeps across the room. The refrigerator’s gaping doors display the visceral sight that lies inside it. A shard of glass is lodged in your foot, now stained red. 

Lies

ʸᵒᵘ ᵃʳᵉⁿ’ᵗ ᵐʸ ˢᵒⁿ. ᴵ ⁿᵉᵛᵉʳ ʷᵒᵘˡᵈ’ᵛᵉ ʳᵃⁱˢᵉᵈ ˢᵒᵐᵉᵒⁿᵉ ˡⁱᵏᵉ ʸᵒᵘ.
I’m so sorry for what happened last night, I promise I’ll never drink again.

ⁱˢ ᵗʰⁱˢ ʰᵒʷ ʸᵒᵘ ʳᵉᵖᵃʸ ᵐᵉ, ʳᵉᵖᵃʸ ᵐᵉ ᵃᶠᵗᵉʳ ᵉᵛᵉʳʸᵗʰⁱⁿᵍ ᴵ'ᵛᵉ ˢᵃᶜʳⁱᶠⁱᶜᵉᵈᶠᵒʳ ʸᵒᵘ?

About last night… 
These were the words that raised me. Those were the nights that tore me down.

Malӧrt

Malӧrt is a liquor notorious for its bitter aftertaste, which seemingly never goes away. Drinking it has been likened to putting sawdust in your mouth. The flavor of Malӧrt is also said to contain hints of gasoline, sweat, wax, ash, and mineral oil.

Neat

Dozens of glasses and shakers stand like sentinels in the shadows of the kitchen cupboards. Above them, tucked between lattices, are enough bottles to approximate every color in the garden outside. Just a quicker way to forget the night. 

Ozymandias

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command…
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that pitiful Wreck, desperate and bare
The bitter kitchen tiles stretch far away. 

Pour

Whether the glass is half empty or half full depends on whether or not you’re pouring it. Whether you’re the one pouring the drink depends on whether or not you can afford to hurt those you love. 

Quell

I used to sleep with headphones under my pillow, just in case the strange woman came into my room at night and launched into one of her tirades. I used to chew gum to stop myself from snapping back at her. I used to dilute her drinks, I used to water roses with them, I used to collect their corks in my drawers. But now I just sit and wait.

Remedy

What should i do if theres a stranger in my house?
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FabFrench

•14 hr. ago
Call the police! 

Ambulocetes

•7 hr. Ago
Don’t approach, your best option is to escape. If you can’t, try to hide somewhere and barricade the door. 

See more… 

What should i do if im alone with a drunk parent?
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Spiral

I’ve always found spirals interesting. When a pendulum moving in a circular motion can’t quite reach its starting point—even if it misses by just the slightest fraction of an inch—it’ll simply continue on its path, growing further and further away from where it started. I feel that we often view our own lives like these “downward” spirals; if we don’t get into that one school, don’t get that one job, don’t ace that one test, we convince ourselves that we’ll be permanently derailed from our desired path. However, a spiral’s failure to complete a full cycle will only result in its constant evolution. Unlike the meaningless loops of a circle, a spiral is always moving towards something, and again unlike a circle, it’ll never be quite the same shape twice. A downward spiral is unhealthy, yes. But I’d make the argument that moving in circles is just as harmful. 

Nearly every night, I see the same woman at the dinner table, yet she still remains a stranger to me. It’s terrible that I just called my own mother a stranger, I realize that, but let me ask you this: if the three fundamental criteria for personhood are rationality, moral agency, and the ability to communicate, and alcohol takes away all of those things, then was it still my mom who told me I could go die a few minutes ago?

I’m moving in circles, and if I don’t do something to help my mom I’ll keep on losing her every night. But what if I spiral out of control?

Truth

Alcohol may be the closest thing we’ve got to a truth serum, but most often the intoxicated person isn’t even aware of what they’re saying. In that case, how can you tell what’s the truth? Easy. Whatever hurts the most. All a drink really does is peel off a person’s label. All a drink really does is show you what’s actually inside their bottle.

Under The Influence

You can tell if someone’s intoxicated if they slur their words and they easily lose attention and if they ramble on and on and on and on an their speech is incoherent ‘cause they’ll become a husk of the person you’d knwon thme to eb… 

Vodka

Besides being a potent vehicle for intoxication, vodka is a natural disinfectant and anesthetic. It is a colorless and odorless spirit that is assumed by many to have no flavor. However, vodka will often take on notes of the base ingredient used to make it.  

Whine

“Whoops! I’ve spilled it! I’ll just pour myself another glass, another, another, another… no more? Oh no oh no no no no this can’t cannot this can’t not be!”

This was the scene that greeted me on my first day of winter break in fifth grade.

X-amination

1. Check any of the following flavors that were said to be found in Malӧrt:

   □ Tar
   □ Mineral Oil
   □ Smoke

2. Name as many long-term health effects of drinking as you can remember (1 pt. each): __________________________________________________________________

Yeast

Most yeast strains are able to tolerate an alcohol content of 10-15% before being killed. However, much like humans, different strains can tolerate varying concentrations. Yeasts are the main producers of ethanol in a drink, the very thing that kills them.

Arbor Mist

Were you expecting me to end with Z? This story will only keep moving in circles until you derail it. But until then, all you can do is start and end the night with another drink.

Whether an arbor is an entrance or an exit only depends on which side of it you’re on.

Notes for the Readers

I know that it can often be difficult trying to understand certain word or formatting choices an author makes without any prior introduction (especially in creative writing), so below I’ve written an explanation for every section of the text you might’ve found confusing. Hope you enjoyed it!

Cheers - This section signifies the irony of how “cheers” is a phrase used to wish people good health but alcohol inherently causes numerous health problems.  

Dependence - These two definitions of “dependence” were meant to show how I had to learn to support my mom during the nights she’d drink. 

Fifty Percent - Gin is usually around 40-50% alcohol by volume, which is relatively strong for an alcoholic beverage. The hidden meaning behind this title, however, was how alcohol would divide my mom into two entirely different people. 

Grapes - These four lines come from the popular abolitionist song The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Kitchen - A description of a scene left behind by my mom searching for hidden bottles in the kitchen. 

Malört - The “bitter aftertaste” of Malört is a metaphor for how even after my mom sobered up I couldn’t forget what had happened the night before. 

Neat - A play on words between the homonyms “neat” (orderly) and “neat” (liquor poured straight from the bottle).

Ozymandias - All five lines were taken from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem Ozymandias, describing my mom passed out on the kitchen floor. The “man” in the title is formatted like that to symbolize how I was only a little kid when those events happened. 

Pour - A play on words between “poor” (not being able to afford to hurt those you love) and “pour”.

Remedy - Formatted like a post on an online forum, meant to show how I’d considered my intoxicated mom to be a stranger and how little advice I could find regarding how to help her. 

Under The Influence - Written like how a drunk person would speak.

Vodka - The last sentence is meant to be a metaphor for how my mom’s drinking habits began to have an effect on me as though she were the base ingredient and I was the vodka that was taking notes of her flavor.

Whine - A play on words between “wine” and “whine”.
X-amination - Sounds like “examination” when read out loud.