There is darkness in the world

In 2006, I was stationed in South Korea, I had developed an unhealthy drinking problem. And would frequently venture out alone to drink. By this time I had begun to show signs of depression, I was moody, I had thoughts of hurting myself and others. The alcohol was my way of escaping Korea.

I would drink away my day, I would drink til I forgot. Forgot everything. I would drink to kill the feelings I had. I would drink to silence all of the sadness and pain I saw around me.

In S.Korea, there is a common practice, it is a depressing display of humanity. There are women who are "hired" from other countries, they are brought to S.Korea and forced to work off the debt of their family members. When the women arrive, their papers are taken, they are made to work in bars and clubs as 'drinkie girls'. The scam is simple if you want to talk to the girls, you buy them a drink and you buy yourself a drink. After a set amount of time, you have to buy her another drink. And then another and another. When you run out of money the girls are sent to someone else who does have money.

The scam goes on and on all night long. The girls spend the night drinking juice at 10 dollars a glass. Hopping from guy to guy, trying to pay off their families debt. A father so morally bankrupt that he would sell his own daughter to a bar owner in a different country. A country so corrupt that this practice is legalized. Men so callous and jaded that the knowledge of this practice does nothing to chink away at their cold hearts.

I would walk the streets, drinking, smoking, cursing the world. I was a nineteen-year-old Holden Caulfield, and I hated the Catcher in the Rye. Through all of my walking, and hating I would wonder the masses of debauchery and sickness. Every night I would find myself in a new circle of nightmares.

From taxi drivers trying to get you to get some "boom boom", to random factories full of children chained to desks sewing the wallets we buy in Wal-Mart. From Bestiality to carrying IV bags in your backpack so you can hydrate before you show up for morning formation. I would drink to make it all go away.

I would drink anything to make it all disappear.

I was alone, no one else could see the filth that fertilized my disgust with my own life.

These are the memories that haunt me, these are the memories that will not leave me. The late nights full of broken souls, tears behind eyes that I can never forget.

I have stared into the eyes of a sex slave and felt my own humanity crumble, no longer able to support its own crushing weight in the absence of my broken heart.

I have looked upon the child slaves of this world and felt the missing joy of stolen childhoods.

I have drank to kill the pain of broken families, and crooked fathers and heartless mothers.