Written in response to the one-word prompt - "Dose"

I gaze lovingly down into my fast-disappearing glass of beer and reflect that sometimes, self-medication is not as bad as I normally make out.

I know I come across as thinking I occupy some kind of moral high ground where things like that are concerned - or, at least - that I have an unrivalled in-depth understanding of the problem. My mother, of course, was the doyen of dosing. She was probably addicted to prescription pain killers as early on as the late 1960s, now I think about it. Who the hell would have even noticed, in those days? My dad was addicted to gambling. Amongst ... other things. That's where Frank got it from. My brother had crack cocaine too. He wasn't strong enough to battle against what was already running through his veins, courtesy of the DNA from both our parents.

(Did I catch a lucky break somehow? I'll need more beer, if I am going to start thinking about that.)

So, yeah - I always used to reckon I knew a thing or two. Autodidacticism starts off with life experience, they say.

Four years in Narcotics added to my knowledge. It got blended and aged in oak, like a good whisky. MCS isn't really all that different from Narcotics. In this job I've seen people high on wealth and adulation - or going crazy from the lack of it; I've seen people drunk on ambition or success, or out of their minds with greed and jealousy. With certain types of people, these addictions can lead them at a pretty brisk pace down the path towards monstrosity.

This glass of beer feels reassuringly cool against my fingers. I've been considering taking off my jacket and staying for a while, but that might mean that I want to be here, in this neighbourhood bar. I don't. Of course I don't.

Shit. Shit. It's so easy to get hooked! Junk is all around you, and one or maybe two doses can be all it takes, and then you cannot get enough. Eames is fond of saying how she misses the good ol' days in Vice, where people just "did it for money - easy to understand." I used to not believe her but now I think maybe she might have a point. Selling sex - as just another commodity - is not so much like an addiction as buying it is.

We're all dosing ourselves with SOMETHING though, aren't we? Whether it is classic cars or hard liquor, narcissism or vintage science fiction toys, it's all exactly the same compulsion that leads a junkie to stick a needle in their arm. You can even get addicted to the sensation of having the latest state-of-the-art cell phone or PlayStation game.

I've seen people go to extraordinary lengths to fuel their addictive behaviour. Some have been 'into' abusive relationships, or not having a relationship at all - it's what they know, it's what's familiar, it's what comforts them. Trying to break away from it is too painful, too frightening, too awful to contemplate. Some people persist with their behaviour patterns to such a degree that they end up painting themselves into tiny itty bitty little corners of existence where he only way out they can conceive of, is to kill someone else.

I thought I wanted to have another beer. I'm not so certain now.