I loved the count down quality to the story. Really built up to the punch line at the end. So goes the battle to stay sober. A daily grind. Bottoms up!

This idea has a lot of potential: a view into the moment where someone makes the tragic choice, gives up what they really want for what they want right now. The prose has a good rhythm to it, too.

However, I couldn’t really get into the story — I felt like you were holding me at arm’s length, simply telling me that he was having uncertainties instead of showing me what’s causing that and letting me feel his emotions, his dilemma, the dark pull from the addiction that hasn’t quite gone away.

If you could bring us more viscerally into the events, you’d have an even stronger work. Thanks for sharing this.

I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment Elizabeth. I have never been in that moment and so could only speculate, hence the lack of SDT.

Thank you both for the kind words!

The language really reminded me of the life or death dice scene from Lord of Light, very earthy reconnect to life.

‘the friends who abandoned him – for abandoning them’ is very poignant, the protag knows that his anger is hypocritical, but is being swept along on a wave of his own self destructive urges.