Odds and Sods

I'll be honest with you, I've hit a rough patch!  It's been bubbling for a bit now, and it coincides with having now been nearly two weeks off the smokes (no surprise there).

I've been demonstrating alcoholic behaviour with chocolate!  Sounds innocuous, but in my noggin it's not.  The fierceness with which I crave more chocolate, once having eaten a bit, is frightening.  I go at it with total conviction, and know that, if it was there, I'd keep snaffling the stuff until I puked (brown sick - nice)! This is such a concern for me that I have now banned Cadbury's from the house!  Poor L & M will have to get their chocolate fix when I'm not around...

However, it's not just this.  My beloved Blues went and won the FA Cup on Saturday and, my oh my, could I have gone on one serious session!  That old desire to drink and drink and drink and drink came flooding into my brain.  Thankfully, I didn't; but it was there alright!  I've been warned that there will be hard & tough times (remember, life does have a tendency to throw shite our way from time-to-time) that will put me in danger of 'picking-up'.  What I didn't expect is that there'll be good times too that put me in just as much danger!  And City's win was one of them (granted, one big win every 35 years isn't too much to worry about!) - I wanted to seriously celebrate, and it took a fair-old bit of will to dispel such thoughts...

So, as a result, it's been a strange weekend (for example, I could've easily got in bed at about 7pm last night, just to get away from the unsettled and agitated feelings.  I didn't - I managed til 9pm instead!).

Blue 'Moon

I'm absolutely certain my Honeymoon Period of sobriety is well and truly over now!  This means I have to face the hard & cold fact that this will be a battle.  A daily struggle that will sometimes be okay, but will sometimes be tough too.  Even the gym was a chore today (the first time I have genuinely found it hard to get motivated for it in the morning).

It's the humdrum that concerns me. The daily grind of maintaining.  But, s'pose we all have to do that in our own way.  I also have to come to terms with the fact that I am odd, and I'll occasionally have to do odd things - e.g. like going to bed at a ridiculously early time, if that's what helps me to deal with things.   So that's me right now:  My name's Mr Partridge.  And I am odd...  (you say, "Hello, Mr Partridge!")

Hit the Sauce!

My sponsor tells me that, apparently, I have completed step 2 ("Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity") - and I had some homework as part of my doing this step.


I had to write a job ad for my Higher Power.  Essentially, I went with the approach that it's highly likely there will not always be mutual admiration and cooperation between me and such an entity - they'll be times when I don't want a bar of him (I've decided he may as well be male - but I'm not using the proper (pro)noun), and he'll have to persist and work through that!  In fact, you may as well have a butchers:

So, on to Step 3 ("Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.") - notice that famous proper (pro)noun; it get's everywhere (especially in the Big Buggering Book)!

Serenity, No?

This one is about commitment - the willingness to buy-in, jump-in with two feet, get in the middle of the lifeboat, etc.  and let Mr H.P. carry me along.  The idea is that this is, of course, to help stop drinking - but I'm told  it moves into one's life holistically!  Mmmmm - we shall see.


A lot of people I've spoke to in AA said they really got stuck on this Step - and, yet, one day, got bloody bored and fed-up of questioning and succumbed, threw in the towel.  Others, including devout atheists (try and reconcile that one!), had a 'Eureka' moment and understood it, got it finally and comprehended once-and-for-all!  Again, we shall see. 


My sponsor said that he was dreading this one, as he thought I'd plague him with bastards of questions.  And, yes, I want to do just that!  But, I reckon, right now, doing that may just be counter-productive.  It's Early Doors and I really have to keep it simple, and over-complication will close my noggin - I must stay open-minded and give things a try. Granted, sometimes I just can't help myself, and sometimes I say them aloud - but this smart-arse needs to realise he has a lot to learn!