In the middle of my tour, I had an abnormal TB test. And, since it's the military, there is no "wait and see" about anything. It was straight to the full six-month long treatment referred to as INH. To this day, because of my general disregard for things affecting my body, I only know vaguely that it had to be rough on my liver because the exclamated point was that there could be no alcohol during the treatment. Also because it was the military, that was a memorable time span to survive sober.
So I stole a chance to cheat when I got a TDY assignment to New York City and my bag with the medicine was lost in transit. I'm pretty sure I knew better at the time, but I decided to nuzzle into my ignorance and say that any day I wasn't actually ingesting the INH poison I could imbibe as much as I pleased. And I pleased very much in that city. This was my first and, to this day, only experience of the Big City, and I hit every jazz club and pub I could in that two days alongside the alcoholic colleague that had scored the trip with me. I didn't know at the time, but we were both on benders of sorts albeit for very different reasons. My abject hedonism matched up quite nicely with his "just found out his newlywed wife was using her job as a hotel clerk to have nightly one night stands with everyone but him" sort of off-the-railsness.
For once, the ending is happy as far as these things can be. My liver has continued to test healthy, continued hedonism aside. And my alchy friend found a good one after his none-too-soon divorce and has a couple gorgeous kiddos and clear eyes to boot. I think that New York trip was an oasis for both of us that rerouted our lives in more ways than one.
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