" The cough penetrates my dream with the sandpapered force of a chain-smoking speed freak. It’s Daddy’s pneumonia-laden cough, Mother’s emphysema wheeze. Even without the monitor, I can hear the hacking gasps start. My body’s a sandbag, but my eyelids split open like clam shells (3:10). On the table, a tumbler of mahogany whiskey burns bright as any flaming oil slick. Gone a little watery on top, it’s still possessed of a golden nimbus. That’s the secret to getting up: the glass talks and my neck cranes toward the drink like flower to sunbeam. My heavy skull rises, throbbing with a pulse beat. I grab the drink and let a long gulp burn a corridor through the sludge that runs up the middle of me—that trace of fire my sole brightness. A drink once brought ease, a bronze warmth spreading through all my muddy regions. Now it only brings a brief respite from the bone ache of craving it, no more delicious numbness. Slurping these spirits is soul preparation, a warped communion, myself serving as god, priest, and congregation. I rise on rickety legs, dripping sweat despite the air conditioner’s blast across my naked chest. Forgoing bathrobe, I pull on a wife-beater T-shirt. (3:15!) "

― Mary Karr , Lit