his waist. For drinking as much as he does, he is still in relatively good
shape. At the age of 46, his body has taken its share of abuse but it
doesn’t betray his bad behavior. His waist is still a size 32 and the trace
of a six-pack of abs can be seen. His biceps are strong and his back is
defined. He throws on his workout clothes and makes the hour-long
rural commute to the military base where he works as a civilian. He will
stop at the base gym for an hour and a half before work to lift weights
and run. This is a daily ritual he has followed for almost seven years
as a way to combat the weight gain typically experienced with copious
amounts of beer intake.
At work, he hides his alcoholism. He is pleasant and helpful,
hard-working. His office walls are lined with awards and plaques in his
honor—Employee of the Year, Civilian Employee of the Quarter, Soldier
of the Year. He is a government civilian and a soldier—equally proud
of both—working within the highly secretive government intelligence
community. He takes his job seriously and serves his country with an air
of pride and dedication. His position in both the military—where he has
served as a reservist for the last three years—and the government requires
a sharp mind and sound judgment. Both may be lacking in comparison
to a few years ago, but he can still perform his job satisfactorily. If it
weren’t for his constant thoughts about his next drink—or even the
occasional on-the-job swig behind his closed office door—there is a good
chance his work performance would be extraordinary.
He has very few friends and the ones he does have are his
drinking partners. He works with three of them, and stories are often
whispered around the workplace about the previous night’s debauchery.
Most of the stories are about him and involve fist fights at bars, passing
out in random places, breaking things, and of course, an ungodly amount
of alcohol. After a fight two years ago at a local biker bar, he stormed
outside and found his Harley. He sped out of the parking lot and down
a road closed for construction. He blew through the barrier and fell
down a six foot drop, dislocating his shoulder and suffering road rash
on the entire right side of his body. Too drunk to comprehend what
happened, he simply climbed out of the hole, left his wrecked bike, and
walked the two miles back to town. Almost to the bar, a police officer
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