Mudder in the First Degree

After dinner I got a text from an old friend. He was a year sober and thought he might have a glass of wine or two just to get through the day. ‘I’m surviving a pandemic. I think I’m entitled to a drink .’

I texted him ‘You are a mudder.  You will sink.’ He replied with a question mark.

I explained that some people are wreckers. They crash into things, literally and figuratively.  They wreck cars, marriages, and other people’s lives.  Unlike wreckers who hold onto their sanity and health, flame-outs quickly destroy their bodies and minds.  They tend to die young.

‘A mudder,’ I texted, ‘is someone who sinks into their addiction.  They reach a plateau in their lives and never go higher.   Functional alcoholics like you are almost always mudders. They go to work, they come home, sink into their couches.  They waste their talents.’

I added.  ‘Having nothing to do is mud and mud is all around you now.  Avoid the mud, find something.’  

Today I’ll avoid the mud.

Jury Duty © 2020 by Ken Montrose

Jury Duty is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and anyone you might know is purely coincidental.