Good Hair Days

Things continue along a positive vein (apart from a dip the other day - see last post) but I'm still very very new to this, so I must always remember to take nothing for granted.

Anything 'else', sir?

I had my first proper night out in a pub last night (my Christmas do didn't really count, as I'd had enough of that and bailed by 5.30pm).  Yeah, I know.  If you go into a barber's shop you come out with a haircut and all that!  Well, my hair's the same, didn't even get a shave, and definitely didn't pick up 'something for the weekend' (suppose that's married life for you - ho ho)...

I really enjoyed myself.  Granted I got a bit agitated by the end of the evening; and the odd drunken person got on my pip a little; but all told, I had a lovely lovely time.  Thankfully, some wonderful folks were out and it was a pleasure to share an evening with 'em (J & K - you know who you are!!!).  Not excepting L (the perennially curly missus) who is my rock and no messin'!

Although, I do worry that I have a desire to tell all and sundry about my plight - "I'm an alcoholic, me!" (the postman didn't look particularly impressed...)  I also fear that I witter on about my sobriety far too much and bore every poor bloody soul to death (says me, writing this gloriously self-indulgent drivel for your delectation)! I've resolved to try not to mention it so much, as I'll start sounding like some fundamentalist vegan or devout God-botherer; constantly blithering on about how honey-production is exploitation of bees or how much Jesus loves every last one of you...

I'm still smoking the tabs.  Which, sadly, I bloody love.  It really annoys me that (as I wasn't smoking when I was boozing) the money I'd save on pouring grog down me neck is now being frittered on smell-sticks.  But, like I say, I love it and I'm simply not ready to quit.  A man's gotta have a vice (particularly an obsessive freak like yours truly), and it's either that or gambling or whores!  And it's probably much cheaper - athough, nearly seven feckin quid for 20 Marboro! I remember when I lived in Sheffield, 25 Royals from the Happy Shopper 'round the corner were two quid! Incidentally, this very same Happy Shopper used to sell a litre and half of 'alcoholic beverage' for £1.99 - yes, that was what it was called on the label.  What a bargain!  Less than two quid for the same effect as laser eye surgery performed by a one-armed break-dancer with advanced Parkinson's Disease!

Fly Paper

I mentioned in a previous post about being in the process of transformation (think I've predicted I'll emerge from my chrysalis as an extra-clumsy daddy longlegs... with a beard...).  There's no doubt that this is the case; as my life, my psyche, my everything is (feels) so different without the drink.  Without sounding too bloody pompous and over-intellectualising (or rather, with sounding these things - you decide...), it has been and continues to be a metamorphosis - as in Kafka's book of the same name!  In particular, the way in which Gregor's (main character, newly transformed insect) language becomes unintelligible to everyone around him.  It feels as if very few people would now understand my motivations and thought-processes, as if in an entirely foreign language to them.

I sense this sounds conceited.  There's almost an intimation of superiority about this.  As if I'm setting myself apart from the rest of society, due to some enlightening epiphany that has brought me understanding that others simply cannot grasp.  That's not my intention.  It's just that if I explained this or that emotion, intention, action etc. to a 'normal' person, they would look at me blankly, perplexed and without empathy.

To be honest, this change sometimes frightens me - as if I'm evolving in a direction that I have no control over; with an end product that will not necessarily be what everyone wants.  Yeah, in fact, right now, it scares me a lot...

* You may gather I'm feeling a bit odd today.  

Where did you get that hat...?

Been a strange weekend.  The missus had a bit of a car crash, and I hardly eased things yesterday with some complicated unpleasantness that I won't go into detail about.  Needless to say, being a 'grown-up' isn't always particularly fun (mind you, not that anyone ever said it was!).

I've heard folks say at AA that you have to be selfish and ruthless if you want long term sobriety.  I never quite got this, because for me, my family comes first.  However, I now understand what this means. I've had to make a call that is far from ideal; but I believe that, to protect my sobriety, I have little choice.  Like I say, I won't go into detail - but it seems like the 'appropriate' thing to do.  Notice how I don't say 'right' here - ultimately, I'm new to all this business.  Very new.  And I'll probably make some calls and judgements that don't necessarily turn out the way I expect them to. And within days, I may realise that I've made a misjudgement and change my mind. All I know is that, right now, I believe I have to do certain things, and sadly they will cause some pain.  I don't like it.  Far from it.  I think 'ruthless', unfortunately, sums it up.

This may seem very strange, but I visualise my sobriety like my own child.  That notion that you would do absolutely anything to protect your offspring (I would carry my daughter barefoot over a desert of broken glass if I had to!) is exactly how I feel.  I would do anything it takes to keep my sobriety safe; and never do anything that could put it in jeopardy.

Give me a break!

On a lighter (yet, as usual, surly) note, I have a particular bug-bear that's been irritating me all blummin winter.  I have noticed a disturbing number of people ('grown' adults, I am talking about here) wearing woolly hats that have two bobbles strategically placed to look like bears' ears.  Add buttons (of which I have a pathological aversion to - don't get me started on that one) or black patches for eyes and you have yourself, in what appears to be the majority of cases, a bloody Giant Panda on your head!  How bloody bloody  cute!  Now, I can understand this of girls, say, age 5-9; but grown women?!!  Ridiculous!

But get this!  I kid you not.  On the train this very morning was a 'grown' MAN wearing one of these abominations.  But, oh no, a panda is too orthodox for this wacky, quirky individual.  He was wearing a hat that looked like one of the monsters from the Monster Munch adverts of old; replete with giant buttons (eurrgh!) for eyes, and dangly-down bits that were either representing teeth or tentacles (I couldn't quite work out which).  This person should be removed from society immediately; because he will no doubt go on to commit more equally heinous crimes, and ruin the mornings of countless innocent bystanders in the process!  Come the Revolution...

And the Oscar goes to...

In the past, if work was giving me even minor hassles, I'd react like it was the end of the world - and, Jesus, what a perfect excuse to have a drink or ten.  Not that I needed an excuse - but even the smallest bit of justification would assuage my guilt - "oh my god! The cheese out of my breville has escaped!!!  What am I going to do!!!  I can't cope!  Aaaarrrrgghhhh!!!  I need a drink!"

Right now, work is throwing all sorts of difficulties at me.  Particularly team management; and juggling this and plate-spinning that - but it just doesn't seem to phase me.  I know what I need to to do, and how to address these things - so I'll just get on with them.  Simple as.  Cliché Alert: if life gives you lemons, then make lemonade (although, in my head I nearly wrote 'mayonnaise' - more of a Heston Blumenthal recipe, that one)...

But important stuff doesn't seem to bother me.  However... Trivial crap does (you might have gleaned this from my misanthropic ramblings about the more senior members of our society).  For example, it seems like inanimate objects conspire against me.  I try shutting the utensil drawer and some bastard whisk or an arseface potato masher gets stuck and the drawer wont shut!  The little bastards do it on purpose!!!.

The following three things that drive me to an apoplectic rage right now:

1. When a knife is left on the bread board with even the tiniest bit of jam on it - any subsequent spreading action, where no jam is desired, contaminates the slice of toast/bread.
2. It's pretty cold in the mornings at the moment, innit?  Well, when I'm in the shower, and that goddam wet, cold shower curtain accidentally touches me, I get so bleedin' angry.  It ruins my morning.
3. The way in which iceberg lettuce is packaged in Tesco.  It rips, it twists, it drives me insane! (And brown lettuce - what's that all about?  It's sent to test me!)

I believed that becoming sober, doing AA and so on, would make me a more stoic, tolerant soul.  And, yes, in some ways it has; but generally I am still a grumpy, miserable, and deeply flawed individual.  Ah, well.

P-p-p-pick up a...

Ooops!

I know I'm going on about my geriatric friends down at the gym/pool, but observing them this morning made me think of a zoo.  They obviously clamber into their figure-hugging(!) swimwear before the pool is ready; and when the staff give them the all-clear, they emerge from a little door at the far end of the building en masse.  So, out they waddle, and only one thought comes to mind. Penguins!  A gaggle (is that the right collective noun??) of blummin' portly penguins!! Yes, they look exactly like penguins being let out by the zoo-keeper.  Sadly, not one of them has comically fallen over yet, or slid into the pool on their bellies in an oh-so-cute way... but give it time.  Think I might video them each morning - £250 would come in nicely care of You've Been Framed!

Thought I'd just say that I feel blummin' ELECTRIC today - yet, the pessimist in me always thinks, "yeah, but what's around the corner, bozo?  It won't last you know!"  Just can't help it.  Never seem to accept that things could possibly go well for me. I always feel things will eventually go tits up, or that I'll get found out for being a fraud, or that I'm bound to let me and everyone around me down.  Although, a little bit of me has decided that, if things are gonna go pear-shaped, I might as well enjoy the ups while I can.  Make hay while the sun shines, and all that...

If it works, work it... and work out!

Had my first meeting in about a month on Friday and it was soooo good!  I felt like sharing, but it opened with an old-timer from Scotland who came out with some very maudlin sombre stuff (and, jeezaloo, did he go on and on and on), and continued in this downbeat vein for a bit, so I changed my mind.  But, typical of the ebb and flow of these meetings, the mood started to lighten and the theme started to turn towards acceptance.  Acceptance of our alcoholism and acceptance of making changes that are not just about drinking.  Having gone from deciding to not put me oar in, I again changed my mind.

My share came down to confessing that I just don't see the point of the Steps or rather the rigidity of them.  All I know is that those meetings give me something, and keep me on the right path.

Incidentally. these are the pesky blighters:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

I believe I have been doing some of these things anyway (obviously, #1; #4 in a kinda way; #9 also in a way; #10 trying to). But you can see how 'religious' the terminology is - which is offputting from the start.  I have my own spirituality, but the nature of some of these things just doesn't seem fitting in my life.  Anyway, a chap shared in response to me (I've mentioned him before; he has the same first name as me - I'll call him Mr P from now on) - well, Mr P said that it took him 14 months to start to 'do' the steps and get a sponsor, but believes that for long-term sobriety I'll have to do the Steps "just like us poor bastards had to."  Well, I'm open-minded (more so than ever before) and, maybe, he's right.  We'll just have to wait and see.  But Mr P did say that whatever works for me, then all is well and good - i.e. "if it works then work it!"

Another sign that my mindset is changing is that I've started going to the gym - and I don't just go feeling it's a chore - I actually bloody love it!  To the point that I now go everyday before work and will also do a bigger sesh on Saturdays.  But I tell you what get's me goat about going in the morning.  The morning crowd's average age is about 75 and they look at you as if you're intruding on their territory!  One old biddy woman was talking about newcomers in an obviously negative light; quite openly in front of me as if I wasn't there - the only reason I didn't say something to the wizened old crone was that I was too knackered and out of breath!

Dead yet???

You look down at the swimming pool at this time, and it's like septuagenarian soup!  I used to go swimming in amongst these cantankerous lot and they used to hate my presence.  If you dared choose to swim in one of 'their' lanes they looked at you as it you'd just done a brown baby boy in there!  Why do they have to go at that time of day?!  They've got all bloody day to get in there but, oh no, "I go for my swim at 7am then I get my paper at 8.12am and then I have a cup of tea at 11.17am..." and so on and bloody so forth!  What about people that have to go to work?! We've not got all day. We have to go at that time if we want a swim before work.  Cranky old bastards - at least some of them die off from time to time and free up a bit of space...

Long Time Gone

Jeez, not done this for AGES!  It appears I get the motivation to blog only when I'm on company time - back to work today having been off for Christmas for nearly three weeks!  Avoided most work today on the pretence that I'm 'easing myself in'; nothing to do with being inherently lazy.

I've been meaning to resuscitate this blog for too long now, and a good friend of mine was bemoaning its absence - hence I've been inspired to put neurotically picked skin and bitten nails to keyboard.  It's good to be back.

Well, what the heckers has happened in my ongoing battle of Man vs. Booze?  In a nutshell, this "War on Sherry" (TM) is an on-going success for this Government of One.  Despite the odd skirmish and insurrection, the home forces are repelling all attacks with relative ease...

Christmas.  A wonderful period for most.  But for some, not so.  And I take the liberty of saying that those  'some' include a helluva lot of alcoholics.  I expected it to be a breeze, enjoy the Big Day opening presents and making it all about L & M (My Main Girls).  And, yeah, it was a nice family Christmas - M got spoilt rotten and loved every minute of it.  Unfortunately, however, I was taken aback by how difficult it really was (and L, being an intuitive wife, sensed that difficulty and, in turn, felt it was stressful.).  I think matters were compounded by me being particularly knackered and having chosen to stop smoking on that day.  All told, a bad recipe.

The thing is, it’s not that I wanted a drink, more that I wished that I could be able to have a drink.  It was the only time I’ve felt it ‘unfair’ that I’m an alcoholic; unfair that I couldn’t have that ‘day off’.  Particularly on the 'day off' that everyone else gets.  It was a struggle and it was tense - I actually got in bed at 7.30pm simply to cocoon myself away from it (although, it's highly likely that I was in bed by that time on previous Christmas Days also - only those times I was pie-eyed and woe-begone).  Anyway, got through it.

It's now been over 10 weeks of sobriety and in some ways, it feels so much longer.  Sadly, cigarettes have become my surrogate vice and I've failed three times over the festive period to sack them (ridiculously, having only re-started smoking again about 6 weeks ago, after being a non-smoker for nearly a year!).  The problem is, is that I bloody enjoy smoking; and when I've previously quit, I was ready to quit.  I'd had enough.  Right now, I can't say that.  So, I'm trying a cutting-down strategy of 5 a-day.  Good luck with that, says the imaginary sarcastic bastard who is thoroughly disappointed about my successes and wants me to fail at something - just like the good old days, he says!  Well, those 'good' old days were not so good - so the miserable bastard had better 'get with the programme'.  

Speaking of, not been to AA now for at least a month.  Don't particularly miss it, but it'll be good to get back in there on Friday.  In fact, I've decided that the Friday meeting will be my one and only meeting, as I prefer going on my own - AA can get complicated and the-simpler things are, the-better.

So, a whole new year, with a whole bunch of stuff ahead.  And more blogging!  Now I'm back at work, I've got to find something to help me avoid doing my job, haven't I???