It should be self-explanatory. Like anything else, it bears explaining for some reason.

Oh I always used to be healthy. You probably were too. I’d say the primary thing you need to avoid in effort to better prolong your health is alcohol. That’s got to be the worst thing you can do for your body that’s also a thing that people do on a regular basis. That and smoking, but the smoking you might not notice so much if you’re the vape type. Nicotine is bad for you though. Mess with your blood vessels. You don’t want that. In grade school they show you about the lungs and the tar, but it can turn your feet black like the dead little formerly diseased stumps they’ll become, if you don’t watch out.

I know I enjoyed drinking when I discovered it so long ago. It’s crazy the number of memories I can recall and think of it as being in the context of drinking booze. I guess it depends on where you are. You might just be having a drink, because your pal offered you one because you just finished helping move a bed or something requiring assistance. You didn’t ask for it though. Then you go off and do something else, and someone else gave you a drink. Not uncommon at all if you’re doing business in bars, as I often did in the late 1990’s/ early 2000’s.

It’s easy to get caught up in it, probably. A day like that could go either way, but honestly wouldn’t have been that common. But being a performing musician, having a town like State College, PA (PSU) being home-base with built-in crowds after PSU football games, etc. People probably don’t party much more than that. It’s not physically possible, unless you’re being administered hospital grade meds or something. Dialysis. You experienced a weekend or two? I went through that Fri, Sat, Sun just about every weekend for about 10 years, give or take. Because I got out of that scene in my early 30’s. I had to.

Then there’s the other years after that. The rehabilitative years while convalescing. Those weren’t particularly productive years.

Then there were the re-emergent years of drinking alcohol mid-late 40’s. Truly a bad decision, again. Not sure really when it all hit me, but I went from feeling pretty much about 35 for about 10 years, then pow. All of a sudden, everything showing signs of being tired of floating in so much alcohol. So, you cut that alcohol out. But it’s too late. The body’s shot. Liver doesn’t work right, so you always feel a little bit shitty. A little bit like you could use a Percocet to help with the pain. And therein lies the curse.

That’s what it means to sell your soul to the devil.