Barfly
It wasn't so much that she hated her life or that she hated him for coming to her rescue her from it, it was that she couldn't rescue herself. That she needed someone else to come in and show her how to get out of where she was.

And looking back, it was so easy. Too easy to realize that it was only the most subtle of changes. Just don't go to the bar anymore, just don't pick up the bottle, just don't allow some dirt bag to walk her home and use her. Just don't. A simple mantra that she knew she had to make her own but couldn't.

So she resented him for trying, she resented him for giving up after a time and she resented him for moving on and making a better life that didn't include her. That would preclude anything that related to her. And she sank back down into the muck on the bottom of the barrel. Settling for any loser who would show an interest in her, degrading herself but covering up the degradation with cheap alcohol that never worked long enough, that only left her craving more to fill up the emptiness inside her.

But she also knew that the alcohol was a ruse, an escape from having to cope with the reality of her life. That being wasted was a waste of herself. That the bar set was a dead end street that would leave her alone, alone with Captain Morgan, Jack Daniels, Jim Beam and all the other bottles with names.

I knew why they named them like that. Why successful brands carried on and they had applied personalities. It made it easier to distract the mind into thinking that she wasn't alone, that there were others with her, commiserating on the sad and lonely state of their lives. But as long as the Captain was there then all wasn't totally lost. Sure, it was flawed logic but once she had a couple of shots in her, it all made sense and, after a few more, she even believed it herself. The delusion that the men she'd spend an evening with cared for her, wanted to get to know her instead of just wanted to get in between her legs to satisfy their own desire. She knew, when she was sober and mostly lucid, that they didn't care and that was part of the impetus to push her back into the bottle, every time. The knowledge was too much to bear and it stung like a hard slap to the face but one that never ended, ever.

We are social creatures, we need interaction (with the exception of abberations like hermits) and when you rely on the lowest common denominator in society for your companionship then you have to make sacrifices. Sacrifices like dignity, ethics, morality, taste, personal needs and even likability. She knew that with out the liquor to soften the edges there was no way she'd suffer their thinly veiled insults, their taunts behind her back. They way they treated her, the rough sex that had nothing to do with her even though it was her pussy they were abusing. Her body they were temporarily treating as their own little sex toy.

But she also wasn't alone then, she had somebody, anybody to lie next to. Another source of heat, of warmth and the dulling power of the alcohol allowing herself to deny that it was just for a night or a few hours or until he'd slept it off. Reality was the harshest drug of all and she hated dealing with it.

The rescue had been a failed attempt, ultimately undone by her own demons, the past that didn't know how to stay in the past. The craving that wasn't really a craving, it was a siren call of her own making. One that she wasn't powerless to resist but had no power against. Her slide had been inevitable and he saw that in retrospect. It isn't possible to save someone who's not ready to be saved and he cut her loose and got on with his life, resetting his sights on someone who wasn't happy to live on the bottom looking up and wondering what if.

Her arguments about her alcoholism rang false and hollow, a reflection of her own mind. A place that held a good deal of potential that had been pickled in the same alcohol until it was like a museum specimen, put it up on a shelf with a label and say "Yep, that's what I could have been." And now she couldn't even bring herself to think about that potential, it was painful as the years passed and nothing changed. She still found herself drawn, like a bug to the bug zapper, drawn into the false social contact of the bar only to notch her self loathing up again the next morning or afternoon when she awoke.

It couldn't last forever, life would intervene on her behalf to try and set her straight but the signs were ignored. A DUI that was seen as a nuisance and forgotten until another DUI and then another. Still the wrestling match with the bottle was so half hearted that she wasn't even really able to lie to herself that she was winning, that the bottle wasn't seeping into every pore and cell of her body and she was submitting to its velvety will.

And it hurt to see those she'd known in the past, those that had enjoyed their time in the bars and pubs, had partied with her and then moved on to better things. Like families and children and wives and futures. It was painful to assess her position that hadn't budged in years with the exception of jobs being lost, housing changes as people couldn't deal with her continued revolving door alcoholic hookups.

The years would pass, what beauty she had, what sparkle in her eye, it all began to fade, the smoking, the drinking, the late nights, the self loathing began to pile up in her until she couldn't stand it anymore. Her sober thoughts dwelled on end game actions, suicides, car crashes, the easy way out of the life and the hope that the next would serve up a better one to her.

And later on, when she was stumbling home again, laughing too loud to hide the crying inside, she would trip, falling into the broken glass behind the bar, her front yard. Slicing her wrist deeply but the inebriation would prevent her from realizing the danger until she'd laid herself down on her bed and slowly bled to death. As she felt the life draining from her, she did begin to catch on that the end was near and she smiled even as her heart began to struggle to find blood to pump. She slipped away and was lost.