Free liquor is the best liquor, I used to tell myself. I prefer tequila, gin, and bourbon in that order, but I’d drink the foulest of flavored vodkas if available at no cost. On this particular night, I disliked the flavor of the scotch in my glass, which had been abandoned here as an accidental housewarming gift. Not only did the taste fail to satiate me, so did the inebriation I sought. I expected the shame and physical ailment to wait until morning like usual, but for as-yet unknown reasons, I encountered the despair at night like an unwelcome Santa.

Hawaii lured my therapist from Nashville. When she told me our therapeutic relationship was about to transition to an LDR, it accelerated my decision about whether to pursue a ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) ceremony: September or bust. She recommends it for most of her clients, but I specifically stood to benefit from the prospective treatment of my depression, self-hatred, and the numerous severances within my being that once drove me to alcohol addiction. The cost and scheduling had driven my indecisiveness, but when she informed me her only available date for the three-hour session was September 14, I welcomed the serendipity: that’s my birthday.

Someone recently asked me what my religious or spiritual orientation is, an appropriate question in context because we were meeting in relation to a divinity school. I started to tell him I was raised conservative/evangelical/charismatic/nondenominational, that I drifted from that interpretation of Christianity in college, floated around a hipster church in grad school (studying theology), but haven’t been to church in ten years. I told him my recovery community is situated in a Buddhist meditation center, and I love studying that tradition, but feel no need to identify as Buddhist. I am a student of religions, I said, but don’t belong to any particular one. I could feel his dissatisfaction with the ambiguity of this response because I shared that sentiment. Then, I grabbed the book by my desk, Mariame Kaba’s latest tome, and thumping it like a Bible, I told him I wish it sufficed to say that I’m an abolitionist. Kaba’s work is deeply spiritual to me. Abolition is my religion.