I was laying linoleum in the spare bedroom on Friday.  The floor was cut and the sub-floor prepared. I had to go out to the shop to get the floor adhesive. As I went to pick up the pail, the smelt net (Google 'smelt net' if you don't know what that is) behind it moved. Caught in the clutches of the fine netting was a member of the king snake family, an Eastern Milk Snake to be exact. He was about 2' long. I am petrified of snakes, and if you ever want to see someone become stupid and silly real fast, tell me you see a snake. There was a time not too long ago, that a trapped snake would have been a bloody pulp, after Boo and I were done with it. Boo is my Jack Russell Terrier.

But that didn't happen.  I pulled the net out into the yard and could see how badly tangled he was. He was choking himself the more he struggled against it. And he was powerless against it. It didn't take long for him to tire from the struggle.  Remember, I am absolutely petrified of this coiling mass, just a few feet away. Yet I had no inclination to kill it. I got my fillet  knife and started to cut the tiny knots and slowly begn the tedious process of freeing it. At some points he took  liberty with his new found freedom, and the freed coils found freshly cut fabric and he ensnared himself yet again. Blindly clinging to the thing that was choking him out. Milk Snakes are constrictors, and constrict he did.  I watched as he coiled around the frame, strongly clinging to the only solid thing he could feel, and still clinging on to the netting which was doing so much damage at the same time. The string and knots cutting into his skin. He became weak from the struggle, and had no fight left in him. He was easily manouvered into any position so as not to harm him , and I steadily worked at what was killing him. It was almost as if he admitted defeat and asked me to free him as he had no power over it and could not control it. 
The will to see him freed, was more powerful than my fear of it, and more powerful than wanting to see it die. With the last knot cut, he fell, and just laid there. Maybe wondering where to go, now that he is free.  It didn't take me long to see the correlations.

I was the snake. Alcohol was the net. The more I struggled with and against alcohol, the more ensnared I became. I grew weary from the fight, but still clung to reality as I knew it at that time. After becoming so badly ensnared an incapable of freedom, I finally admitted defeat. I yielded to a higher power.  The choking feeling soon left, the knot in my stomach was gone, as well as the one around my neck. The only thing I will not do, is to intimate that I am the higher power in this story, because I am not.  My God is the Higher Power in both of these stories, the one who freed me from the clutches of alcohol, and the one who gave me the courage to face one of the things that scares me the most in this life.

I thank God for not giving up on me, like my ex-family did. I wait in humble silence, looking for another chance to prove what he has done for me.
Hoping to find another family that will want me.


I am an alcoholic, and I am proud to say that my name is Scott.