June Prompt--Note We meet Sunday June 12 and Friday June 17. No session Sunday June 26

 I first started drinking in bars in Manhattan when I was 18, imagining the bars would lead to those dreamed-of cocktail parties. That didn’t happen. 

Against the Odds

Sunday mornings were devoted to The New York Times.

On Saturdays at midnight, I’d buy mine at the corner 

of 64th and Lex, with change scrounged from my purse,

tuck it on the front hall table to read through Sunday noon.

The drinking age was eighteen, a bar on every corner.

Stingers were my drink of choice, a minty hit

of crème de menthe and brandy, as good as Crest, 

without the need to spit.

First, The Lexington Café. 

Then on to Carlow’s, J. G. Melon’s.

The East End Grill.

Then Barnaby’s.

I was a horseman’s daughter, knew not to bet against

the odds. But at O’Flanagan’s, a maybe cute guy

one stool over said, I’ll bet I can get you into bed by midnight.

The stingers took him on.

Midnight. I left him passed out on his Murphy bed

in Brooklyn, crept down four flights, 

scrounging for the change to take a cab. 

 Prompt:

1. Write about any incident you are ashamed of, particularly if it involved one of your addictions (alcohol, people, food, shopping, praise, TV, etc.).

2. Write about any time you put on a mask of being worldly or sophisticated and how that worked out.

3. Bring some compassion into the piece for the person you were then, a person before the tools of recovery.