Jack Kerouac, “The Dharma Bums”
Pg. 189

“I got the overwhelming urge to get drunk and feel good. I bought a poorboy of ruby port and uncapped it and dragged Japhy into an alley and we drank. “You better not drink too much” he said. “You know we gotta go to Berkeley after this and attend a lecture and discussion at the Buddhist Center.” “Aw I don’t wanta go to such a thing, I just wanta drink in alleys.” “But they’re expecting you, I read all your poems there last year.” “I don’t care. Look at the fog flying over the alley and look at this warm ruby red port, don’t it make ya feel like singing in the wind?” “No it doesn’t. You know, Ray, Cacoethes says you dinks too much.”

Ray still has a drinking problem but unlike before he is now in denial about his addiction. Japhy being a good friend he is trying to look out for Ray, but ray doesn’t accept. Although Ray trusts Japhy with his life drinking makes him feel good and happy and that is an addiction that is much harder to break then by telling him to stop. Ray seems to have it all together but the drinking is a big issue that stems from personal problems in which he turned to drinking and now he is stuck.

Pg. 199

“Boy I am drunk!” I said. “Wake up! Wake up!” I yelled. “The goat of day is butting dawn! No ifs or buts! Bang! Come on, you girls! Gimps! Punks! Thieves! Pimps! Hangmen! Run!” Than I suddenly had the most tremendous feeling of the pitiful ness of human beings, whatever they were their faces, pained mouths, personalities, attempts to be gay, little petulance, feelings of loss, their dull and empty witticism so soon forgotten: Ah, for what? I knew that the sound of silence was everywhere and therefore everything everywhere was silence. Suppose we suddenly wake up and see that what we thought to be this and that aren’t this and that at all?

Ray is at the going away party and he is drunk, once again, while he is drunk and stumbles back into the cabin to have a snack, ray sits down to eat and recognizes that he is drunk again but this time was different he came to figure out there are so many people with the same sadness and uncertainty, but some of them instead of turning to drinking and numbing them selves out they find other outlets to make them feel happy. And that getting drunk to be happy isn’t really being happy at all it’s a false sense of happiness, and maybe one day he’ll wake up and everything that he thought was to be would then be not.