tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17680563941821384892024-03-05T05:43:58.490+00:00Chapman's ChangeA record of the highs and lows of a man looking at life with people without a drink in his handG. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-87690379935438326422013-03-06T10:42:00.000+00:002013-03-06T10:42:21.791+00:00Eleven days soberIt feels very odd to say "eleven days sober". This is now the longest I've managed for about three years, the last time I did a sober January. Let's have a look at the pro's and con's.<br />
<ul>
<li>I'm eating like crazy. (That's in the sense I eat American-size portions now for my American friends.)</li>
<li>I'm sleeping normally too, so I have energy to actually do things and have been early for work every day for the last fortnight. (That's two weeks for my American friends.)</li>
<li>Saved an absolute fortune. A drink habit in the UK is expensive, even on the cheapest stuff. It's very difficult to estimate because by nature an everyday drinker doesn't keep track of how much they are really spending on drinking (denial is an amazingly powerful force), but if I rough it out at £5 in the day and £5 at night during the week, then throw in three nights out a week at £25, that's £100-125 a week on drink and drink-related stuff like lazy food and taxis, so I'm looking at £400-500 a month gone on my drink habit. (That's $600-750USD for my American friends.)</li>
<li>I've reminded myself I am capable of living with myself sober, something that while in the middle of a long drinking session ie. the last three years, I began to doubt and fear.</li>
<li>I've finally made it to AA meetings to figure out if it's something that may help me in these times when for whatever reason, the drinking has to go on hold for a while. The jury's still out on that one but it's been interesting so far and I'm keeping it up until my trip in May at least. </li>
</ul>
I guess at the moment, with my trip to the States coming up, the money thing is the best out of those. It's not all rosy, though.<br />
<ul>
<li>It's weird being... me. I guess I always drank because I felt uncomfortable almost 24/7 and drinking takes the edge off that anxiety. Now, I'm a lot older than when I started drinking to self-medicate these feelings and a much different person. I am a lot less anxious while sober now, which I think just comes with age. There are still times though when the old symptoms come back; I stutter and stumble over words, find reasons to escape social situations, retreat into myself. I'm not enjoying dealing with these again when I know just a couple of drinks would make me behave like anyone else, but at least they are not as bad as they used to be.</li>
<li>Obviously, temptation is around every corner. In the case of work, literally, the pub is on the corner next door. I miss pubs. I've never been a "home" sort of person and miss being out and about as much.</li>
<li>I miss the silly times being drunk with all the Americans (and Canadians). I've been keeping track of things on Reddit but I can't help feeling like the designated driver or a bloody chaperone watching over a kid's party. I last a little while before I feel like I just don't fit in and quit it. I miss that a lot.</li>
</ul>
Balancing the two out isn't a hard decision. By packing in drinking for a while, I can go and see my girl for a couple of weeks and have a great time over there with her instead of sitting at home drinking on my own. My body is really appreciating the break too - no more side-pains, vomiting or headaches. I'm trying to keep all this in mind when it comes round to 1pm and I have an hours break from work, with a pub right on the doorstep, and temptation comes knocking at the door...<br />
<br />
Next step: trying out the AA meeting at Sacred Heart on Sunday night, the church two minutes round the corner from my house. It seems to make more sense than losing all my Monday night travelling to and from the Darwen meeting. I'll see how it goes.G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-40575504973940887332013-03-01T17:06:00.000+00:002013-03-05T09:42:34.063+00:00An experience of AAIt's been over a year since the last entry here, my last real attempt to quit for any length of time. I can't remember if I managed it or not, but it's pretty unlikely. This time I'm not trying to quit completely, just pack it in for roughly ten weeks 'til I go to the States to see my fiance. Oh shit, yeah, did I mention? We're engaged. I almost keep forgetting.<br />
<br />
I went to an AA meeting with a mate from work on Monday night. That was weird. I'd always been curious what they're like and well, here's an honest account. In the interests of openness, I should state I am atheist and have been drinking daily for around five or six years with breaks of no more than a month one January and the odd few days while ill. Over the last few years it has ruined great relationships, cost me a fortune and damaged my health which has led me to this point where I want to give anything a shot to help me cut out the everyday drinking and become the social drinker I always was.<br />
<br />
So, you go in - this one was at a United Reform Church with a dedicated AA room, I guess, as it has the logo attached to the door - and there are rows and rows of chairs. Maybe thirty people milling around getting coffee and biscuits - this is a fairly busy meeting, he tells me. We sit at the back after he introduces me to a few of the people he knows - apparently almost everyone is a regular, and one guy describes AA as his social life, going to six meetings a week.<br />
<br />
There's an awkward moment when I'm handed a sheet by the chairperson to "read" - I presumed it meant for me to read, then my mate explains it's what they take turns reading out at the end of the meeting, some kind of vows or something. Fuck this. So I go up to the front and quietly say to the guy that this is my first time and I misunderstood. He's cool with it and hands me a beginner's pack.<br />
<br />
It seems the format is that the chairman does some sort of reminder of why everyone is there, because we're all alcoholics, and quickly runs through what will happen. He asks everyone to say hi to the newcomer and I get a lot of greetings. And then it's on to, well, what is the term, the... lead speaker? The accused? The confessor? She is a woman in her mid-30s who gets the rest of the first half of the meeting to tell her story - or "share" as the terminology they use is - in as much detail as she likes. It goes all the way from her youth through to where she is now, 13 years sober and for the first time ready to sit at the front and talk about it. It's really quite an intense experience as she goes into detail about how she ended up feeling she needed AA to help quit for good, and the 20 or 30 minutes fly by.<br />
<br />
A short break for another coffee, and then it's on to more of the same, just in a cut down format. People seem to take turns saying, "Hi, I'm Bob and I'm and alcoholic", to which everyone replies, "Hi, Bob", and then Bob launches into a monologue about whatever is on his mind. When I say "his", I should mention that the split of men to women was probably two thirds to one third, so there is not a huge disparity by gender. It being my first time there, quite a few of the six or seven shares were directed towards me, encouraging me to come back and recounting the first time they came and all the fears and doubts over whether they would ever come back. One guy in particular told his story which was essentially a mirror of my own - the functional alcoholic hiding it just enough most of the time until it creeps up eventually and causes chaos. One other share hit me the hardest; a man in his 60s saying how the hardest thing about going sober was dealing with having feelings again; how for the first time in years his grandchild ran up and grabbed his leg and he actually felt something inside other than wondering where the next drink was, and he cried.<br />
<br />
They were all a genuinely nice, normal bunch of people. If you met them in the street, you would never know they were struggling every moment of their lives not to pick up a drink and drift into blissful oblivion. They are just the alcoholics among us who for their own reasons have decided they just cannot keep that lifestyle up any longer. I was the youngest in the room by a good 10 years but I have reached that point, too.<br />
<br />
The meeting draws to a close with everyone standing in a circle holding hands, reciting something I presume you are supposed to learn eventually, and then you leave at your own pace. I had to shoot off as I had a lift waiting but four people stopped me before I could leave to give me their numbers and tell me to call them any time I felt desperate. I've never seen compassion like that outside of CA.<br />
<br />
I do not know if AA will help me, or even what help I am looking for. I know at the very least I want help towards long-term moderation, if not total abstinence. I have no idea who it will or will not work for until you yourself have tried it; this is just to give you an idea of how the meetings go, here in the UK at least. My only advice would be to give one a look out of morbid curiosity if nothing else, as some of the stories you will hear will echo your own experiences down to the bone and it's quite a fascinating feeling.G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-68174496666180966022011-10-20T11:58:00.002+01:002011-10-20T12:01:06.784+01:00Sobering up for a monthFor the next month or so I'm going to try abstaining completely to hopefully get me out of this sordid little grief-hole I've got myself in to. That last post sums it up - it was written while drunk and my room was dark and I was in one of those moments where you can't ever imagine not drinking.<br />
<br />
As usual it took one of those terrifying withdrawals to force me to stop. I didn't even think I'd been drinking a lot but I think my liver is protesting at the moment, and can cope with less than it used to, hence the random blackouts in bed and sickness. Waking up drenched in sweat and so weak through shaking I can barely make it downstairs. I'm now on my second full day dry, and could only manage one drink the day before that because I felt so ill. Having a virus hasn't helped that much but I'm now back on my cocktail of thiamine, milk thistle, folic acid, omeprazole and a week-long course of antibiotics I'd been putting off taking for months.<br />
<br />
I came very close to asking my parents if I could stay with them for a couple of weeks to help me avoid drinking. Unfortunately, by the time the opportunity arose the other day, they'd started drinking to celebrate my sister graduating and it being my dad's birthday, so I couldn't talk about anything serious. I'll see how it goes this weekend. I've got a few things planned to keep me busy, but if I start getting tempted I'll go round there. The only problem is my dad at weekends coming home drunk and as I'd have to sleep on the couch he's sure to wake me up ranting. Last time I did that, when I'd just broken my arm, I ended up going home and struggling on my own rather than dealing with him. <br />
<br />
Hopefully, in a months time I'll be feeling a lot better and actually have some spare money for a change. I'm allowing myself one cup of tea in town on my breaks because I have to get out of work and do something or I go crazy, but tea is only £1 compared to anywhere between £3 to £7 if I go boozing in my hour. I can stretch one cup of tea out over an hour while reading Reddit, I am sure :)G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-1969276128937420302011-10-15T02:41:00.001+01:002011-10-15T02:41:59.178+01:00Definitions of alcoholismIt is somewhere between a cross of loneliness, abandonment, rejection, futility, somewhere you go and you stand on your own and you go home and you cry and you want to die.<br />
<br />
I find it quite a shameful life. When I'm drinking on my own, I feel superb. When I have to interact with people while drinking, I find it very troublesome. This seems to be a common theme among drinkers. What starts as social drinking develops into the resentment of other people's perceptions of it and a desire to escape from that judgement, so before you know it you're drinking twice as much at home on your own rather than being with people.<br />
<br />
Then the depression kicks in. For many months, years, you don't know if you're depressed because you're drinking or drinking because you're depressed. The problem is that by this point you're physically addicted so stopping to find out is something hardly anyone can do on a whim. The misery of physical withdrawal is not something I would wish on someone who'd gang-raped Barack Obama in a sex dungeon.<br />
<br />
Drinking has ruined relationships for me. I'm not even that bothered about being with anyone but I wouldn't say no to it if someone interesting appeared. Yet all year I've pissed away moment after moment with women purely because I either knew I was too drunk to make sense or I was too drunk and destroyed things. A lot of people on r/ca think that sort of thing is funny - I don't. By nature I'm thoughtful about people and this strange nihilism I've developed while constantly drunk is... not me.<br />
<br />
Drinking has got me in to shit at work. I don't care about that though: work is a four letter word.<br />
<br />
My friends know I'm a drunk, especially since my recent spate of blackouts. Well, who cares. If they like me enough and appreciate all I do for them, then we'll stay friends. If not, who cares, I have another 40 trillion friends who do care.<br />
<br />
Reading this back, it's quite clear I'm torn between my natural independence and comfort that my stupid drinking only affects me, and some form of loneliness, a grasp back to the past where I had someone to be normal for and be normal with. I miss her more than I miss cheap beer.G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-15773732265166310992011-09-21T13:06:00.000+01:002011-09-21T13:06:13.871+01:00As low as you can goThis week has been the worst drinking experience of my life. I completely over-did it at the weekend; blacked out at a party on Friday, woke up at 2pm and hit the wine, passed out, woke up at 2am and hit the wine, woke up at 4pm and hit the (new box of) wine. This completely screwed sleep pattern is still with me, and I hate it. After work on Monday I was expecting one of those horrible nights sleep where you get the hot and cold sweats, twitches and may as well not bother trying to sleep at all for all the good it does you. I got that, plus the strongest shakes of my life... I had to drink more to relieve it, then was up 'til nearly 6am.<br />
<br />
Tuesday began okay but half way through the day I went home and had another bout of strong shakes, which I honestly thought were turning into a seizure. I was really quite scared, to be honest. So, back to the wine it was, which killed it for a while, but I had to spend all of last night sipping wine just to avoid a repeat. I tried sleeping at 2am, laid there for an hour and then felt another of the bad shakes coming on and dealt with it with deep breathing. The rest of the night was spent waking to nightmares every half hour, specifically people being around me and causing pain in specific parts of the body.<br />
<br />
So, now it's Wednesday. Never in the past have I had to deal with this kind of crap for so long after a weekend. I clearly crossed some sort of invisible line and now I'm at its whim. The same whole body shaking hit me at work earlier and I had to run to the supermarket to buy something, anything to drink. I felt disgraced with myself.<br />
<br />
I have to survive until Friday morning like this now, when I get to see the doctor and get some benzos. Two more days of trying to perfectly balance the alcohol intake so I avoid the shakes, reducing the intake a bit each time but still having enough that it aggravates my stomach and gives me the worst acid reflux I've felt for years.<br />
<br />
I really need to stop with the alcohol, which is where the benzos come in. Earlier this week I had pretty bad pain on my right side, it's fucking my acid reflux up even worse (I've already been on omeprazole for that for a decade) and I have a recurrence of those horrible pressure headaches, like a vice being clamped around your skull. Oh poor body, what have I done to you? Let me make up for this quickly.<br />
<br />
So, tonight will be a repeat of the previous two, I'm sure; laid wrapped in a blanket in bed, watching Star Trek: Voyager endlessly, sipping at a little less wine than the day before (tonight's plan is to stretch a small glass to every two episodes, so I should stay under the bottle mark - yesterday I went over a bottle). If I get the benzos (I will kill for them) then I'm going to stay with my family for a week or two to remove the temptations and boredoms that surround me here. When you live with a guy who drinks most nights and you've not much else to do after work, it's so easy to pick something up just for the sake of it. I need to get away from that whole scene.<br />
<br />
Physical symptoms aside, I do actually feel shame for ending up in this situation. Most people now expect me to do something absurd at parties. I find it impossible to go shopping without picking up some beer. My health has been battered. Drink-induced apathy has ended my relationships and stopped me forming new ones. Some drinkers are okay with these things and Godspeed to them. But I, well I'd like to get to know again the Richard before all of this took a hold.G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-24351340674456529152011-09-06T20:30:00.002+01:002011-09-06T20:40:21.573+01:00An unused HTC Wildfire-SI keep on thinking about why I drink. Avi set this off, the bastard. I can see I'm destroying myself slowly. I ruin most of any relationships I form, though friendships persist because I'm easy to get along with in that way. I don't really know why I keep going this way. I remember a time when I didn't drink and felt okay, but now... fuck no. Day to day life scares me to death, such is its triviality. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have a drink to liven things up. I'd die of boredom before anything self-inflicted.<br /><br />If I had to hazard a guess, I think I drink because day to day life doesn't trigger anything pleasurable in my head. Stuff happens that other people are excited by, but it does nothing to me. So, for years, I've drunk to make up for that missing stimulus.<br /><br />I dread to think what Americans would make of me, morbidly self-obsessed as I evidently am.G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-79984486262461962202011-08-26T00:56:00.002+01:002011-08-26T01:36:04.033+01:00NEWSThe alcholism, then. A strange beast which destroys half of your life and leaves you perfectly fuctional for the rest, at least for me. I can't speak of other people's experience. It seems it's usually people who aren't drinkers who comment on us drinkers. I'm not fond of them. Everyone's different so I've no idea why the rest of the drinkers drink... I'll leave it to them to tell their story.
<br />
<br />A friend wishes to know of my experience of drinking, however, so here we go. Why not be more honest with an American drunk you love than a counsellor you don't trust for a second?
<br />
<br />I drink mainly because when I'm sober I find life so boring I find myself boring and am then unable to conjure validations to make myself interesting to other people; basically I suppose it's a self-worth thing, but it is not overcomeable simply by having knowledge of this deficiency. Chemically, when my head is tired of being here, it needs something more than a funny TV programme to let me escape it. Drinking has been the best solution.
<br />
<br />You should listen to Maximo Park for a bit. "Some things are worth the bruises, some things are worth the hurt." You know what that means.
<br />
<br />I think I'll probably die young of some sort of alcohol-based disease but I know for sure I'm okay at the moment after a load of tests. Maybe 50 or 60, I'll be gone. I'm not bothered. I am, really; I love my sisters and the thought of not seeing them makes me cry. Everything they do matters to me more than anything, and always has done. I mean that when I say always - probably because of a strange combination of being 8 years older than the elder one and just being generally fond of them; they've always mattered more to me than anything.
<br />
<br />Perhaps the synopsis of what I have just written, upon re-reading, is a journey into the subconscious. I drink to escape the reality I hate and then find the people I love to make things feel better.
<br />G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-51014414543774797302010-03-18T13:48:00.003+00:002010-03-18T16:22:49.911+00:00End of the alco teamJust a quick look back on things now, as I've a lot of other things on my mind. None of this is really clear in my head yet, anyway, so there's no point trying to go into it too much.<br /><br />I had my last session with Mark yesterday, just a short one to wrap things up. I didn't want to make a scene so I put a positive face on things. Going has certainly helped me swing things round from the way I was heading for the last few years, but that's all it can do - just give you a nudge. The rest of the time I'm on my own and only have my own willpower to rely on, my own head to listen to, my own decisions to make. Going to see these people hasn't done much to make those decisions any easier, it's just put them at the front of my mind all the time rather than me shoving them to the back whenever convenient.<br /><br />I'm seeing a counsellor now instead, for up to ten sessions. Depends how it goes, y'know. I don't really know at the moment why I'm doing it, as it just seemed a good idea months ago when they first suggested it to me. It takes that long to get an appointment. By now, I feel like I've already done some of the things that counselling would have helped me to do, so I don't really know why I'm going? It was a bit weird today seeing this middle-aged woman three feet away from me and asking me why I was there. I think that's a really bad way to begin. It just left me flummoxed for words and wondering where the hell to start. Surely the point of seeing someone like them is that you bury your real reasons behind everyday denial and confusion so to be asked outright what's wrong with you is like going to your GP and explaining that a weakness in your aorta has been aggravated by an infection you picked up on a recent holiday leading to your shallow breathing and increased blood pressure.<br /><br />I'll give it a go anyway. I remember going into this right at the beginning being sceptical they'd be of any use to me, but they had a few useful things to say over the course of it. Maybe something will come of this too. I know I don't enjoy the way I relate to my dad much but what can be done about it now? He's the person he is, I was brought up the way I was, we're not close, so what? I think we both prefer it that way. It just means we don't involve each other in private parts of our lives unless drink is involved, but I've had enough of that now anyway so I've been stopping that too. I don't know how often I'll see the man really since the times just don't come up any more when we cross paths. It's a shame as I do like him but it's kinda like any relationship, you can't get by just based on being pissed. It's too hard to keep up and even when you try there's not much of substance there.<br /><br />I don't know what I think about my mum. I've tried to get to know her better and we get on alright and all that, but I still wonder what other people are on about when they talk about their mums. To me she's just another person, I'm not dependent on her in any way and have never felt I have been. I don't really know any other way since that's the way it's always been so I don't feel like I'm "missing" anything by it. I've always had my sisters anyway. I like her a lot as a person, don't get me wrong.<br /><br />I think what I would have talked to the counsellor about months ago, was how difficult I found it at the time to admit that I was struggling with drinking to my mum and dad. Like I said, I've always had a distance between myself and them so it wasn't something I ever felt like I needed to do. When it got bad at the end of last year though, it seemed admitting things to people was necessary and I eventually told them both. I told my mum, and she was okay about it, and we have the occasional word now and then about it. I told my dad, and it became a discussion about depression and suicide and so on. It's done now anyway, so that difficulty has passed, and I no longer really feel like I have any difficulties in my life other than keeping an eye on my drinking habits.<br /><br />Sorry for that ramble - just trying to clear things up in my head.G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-54519924415741890522010-02-16T23:38:00.002+00:002010-02-16T23:52:35.253+00:00NeglectApologies to my meagre readership and myself for my failure to update this for a while. It's not been through a lack of desire but a lack of time - writing on here isn't just a case of hammering away at a keyboard for ten minutes, but takes a good few hours or days of thought first before anything consequential comes to mind.<br /><br />I don't think I've mentioned yet that I no longer see the woman I first saw when I went to the place. She's been assigned somewhere else, so I turned up to an appointment and this geezer was there. He explained she'd been moved and he was my new one. Of course, it felt strange and like a hard reboot after all I'd talked about with her. Suddenly there's this guy in front of me who knows nothing about me apart from a few of her scribbled notes and he wants me to tell the story from scratch. It was a hard reboot.<br /><br />Anyway, the first one flew by as I basically just repeated what I'd told her at the start. I must say, it wasn't helpful having to do that. It forced me to go over things, say things out loud, I've been working on putting in the past. I felt just like I did two months ago all over again, just by telling him the original stories. When I get into this line of work I'll remember what that feels like because I don't want to make anyone else have to do that.<br /><br />The second one was more useful as we looked at an example of a time I went for a drink when I didn't "have to". By that we meant a time there was no pressure on me to drink other than my own inward desires. It was an illuminating experience because it literally put my thought processes down on paper on front of me. I have a tendency to think I know myself inside out but this kind of thing makes clear that I don't, because it showed me the thoughts I have which I use to convince myself that random drinking is okay.<br /><br />It also reminded me of the problem I have living here at the moment. I don't have the option other people have of "going home to avoid drinking", because I don't like coming home. I need to get my own place again and I'm working on it, but in the meantime I need to find alternatives to going out with people other than going home because it's a bad option for me.<br /><br />In terms of actual drinking, I've been doing well. Wiped out chunks of the week I may otherwise have gone out with people on, and stuck to my things at weekends. I miss people now and then, and get bored, but it's part of the mission to figure all this out. I've maintained control of an argument twice now in situations that otherwise would have got out of hand, which I'm very happy with because previously I let those get carried away.<br /><br />In summary: breezes.G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-19666800510709730182010-01-26T09:24:00.004+00:002010-01-26T09:45:17.214+00:00Small but significantI'm not quite sure of its importance, but last night I did something differently again and it's worth mentioning to remind me in future that this was the first time I chose to do it. At about ten o'clock I went downstairs to make supper and get a drink before watching <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Kane">Citizen Kane</a>. On the way down I began to have familiar thoughts about... about, well, what other people do, I guess. I have a picture in my head of what "normal" people do and it includes pissing away their lives in front of a computer to pay an absurd mortgage on a house they don't want decorated by a woman they don't love and filled with children who barely tolerate them - but when they finally get two hours of freedom before it all begins again the next day, they like to pour themselves a drink "to relax" and watch a film.<br /><br />As you may gather, that's not a life for me. But you see, I think up to now my reasoning has always stopped around the point where the story gets to them pouring themselves a drink, as if to justify me doing the same - if it's what "normal" people do, and I want to be "normal" about drink, then why can't I do it?<br /><br />Maybe because of the amount of thought I put into everything I do at the moment, last night my reasoning went past that point and I thought back to times I've done that before. I don't drink "to relax" like a lot of people seem to, I drink in social situations to make myself more at ease with the group. When I've had a drink on my own at night before, I end up feeling barely different, occasionally slightly more maudlin than when I started, the contrast between social drinking and sitting around drinking because you can all too clear in my mind. Frequently I wonder what the point was at all and why other people do it; I've always known I don't like drinking on my own and never ever used to, but I guess the distinction became blurred around the years I started drinking at home with my mates and found that habit difficult to give up when living on my own again.<br /><br />So, last night, I reasoned that there was no point having a whisky and hot water while watching Citizen Kane. Sitting around having one or two drinks in the evening just because I can isn't my kind of thing. Like a lot of my character, I'm all or nothing with drinking and this seems to be working for me at the moment - the interesting, different things to do in my free time more than making up for me not having drinks on my own in an evening just because it's what other people think is normal.G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-5468602295459004422010-01-24T11:51:00.005+00:002010-01-24T12:06:21.795+00:00A beer festival ticked off the listAfter my jaunt out two or three Sunday afternoons ago, I found that having something different to do at the weekend was a very useful way to me of staving off the midweek boredom pangs that frequently led to me accepting any invite out (it was often because I feared that the weekend would be void of anything fun to do, so I had no reason to say no that night).<br /><br />Yesterday I went to a very very massive beer festival with a couple of mates. The instant thought is that I must either be masochistic or possibly suicidal, a man with a drink problem going to a beer festival. However, I've emerged from the day out feeling very positive for having managed to stay in control again and just have a good trip out. You see, real ale is where I'm trying to get to. It agrees with me and I find it much easier to measure and predict than other drinks, and I also happen to think it tastes great (well, unless you get a bad 'un...). The whole scene around it sums up what I like about drinking - the social side of things, no aggression, drinking something that actually has character and real taste, leaves you with no nitrogen-head after... I could go on.<br /><br />I didn't drink much at all throughout the day; we ticked off 23 halves between the three of us so that's about four pints each over the course of four hours. (Yes, we were sad enough to tick them off and I'll be writing about the day and the beers elsewhere, but I should note that we weren't being serious about it. Honest.)<br /><br />The summary of yesterday is that I quite easily managed a day out with two mates who aren't entirely unfamiliar with getting wazzocked, spent four hours at a massive beer festival without getting hammered, went and had something to eat on the way back and got home in time for a couple of brews and the football highlights. I was up by 9 this morning and feel fine (but am conscious it's still in my system and my body lies to me so there'll be no drinking today). Having something like this to look forward to is helping me stave off the silly drinking for the sake of something to do during the rest of the week, and even on the day I didn't feel any of the pangs to go crazy. I went to an 18th the night before but only had a few pints because I didn't want to spoil yesterday, something I wouldn't have done in the past; I'd have gone to the beer fest "topping up" and not eating properly. Today I'm spending with family and then back here to write about the beer festival. I feel positive about doing things like this.G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-1222025332357963952010-01-24T11:18:00.002+00:002010-01-24T11:50:54.156+00:00The second meetingI went to the second appointment on Friday morning. It was another chance to talk about how I'd got on that week, which is something I look forward to now. It helps having something to aim for at the end of the week, knowing I have a release for whatever happens. My current thinking on independence is that people should still rely on themselves first and foremost, but I now see the value of having the occasional vent to get a new perspective on your thoughts.<br /><br />We did a kind of "goals" chart to get down on paper what I'm actually trying to do. The ultimate goal is for me to learn the control around drinking that I've never really bothered with before, to kill the urge I normally feel to just keep going and not worry about tomorrow. For support in this I have family, friends, the weekly visits and in the next few weeks I'll be going to see a counsellor too. What am I doing to achieve it? - mainly making sure I have a plan in place whenever drinking might be on the horizon, simple things like thinking about what to drink and what sort of time would be good to go, and keeping an eye out for risk influences. Why am I doing it? - after I'd rambled for a while, it seemed to her that my main motivation was to be seen as a better person than I'd been presenting myself as due to drink. I don't know if that's noble or misguided or what, but I guess it's basically why I'm doing it - I've become tired of being a person like that, being seen as a person like that, having to apologise for things "another person" had done.<br /><br />She said I'd done very well on Wednesday when I was at a funeral wake all day and managed to stay sober throughout. I alternated between ~3.4% mixed and ~1.7% shandy, with the net effect that I was never close to crossing any sort of line. It felt very hard at first, almost unnatural, but I got into the swing of it later on. She said that me choosing to do things like this so quickly, and managing to stick to it, was a massive thing. I guess I spend so much time at the moment just planning my days and actually going through the ups and downs that all this involves that I hadn't thought that much of it, but now I do feel quite proud I managed it okay.<br /><br />Recently I've made some steps forward by stopping caring what people think about my problems. Whenever I've told people or written things on here, I've instantly felt a sense of shame and stupidity for having to go through all of this to solve what isn't even a problem to most other people. But recently I've realised that what other people think of my problems doesn't make any difference. If they understand where I'm coming from, all the better and I appreciate their compassion. If they don't, well, so what? I go a long way on here and with people to explain why I find this difficult, far more verbosely and eloquently than the vast majority of other people could ever manage, and if that isn't enough then I don't see any value to me in keeping on trying and feeling bad for having a problem. I was probably trying to fix perception rather than reality - not so much worrying about how to actually solve the things I have trouble with, but more trying to change people's views of me. That's wrong. Everyone has problems of their own - I'm very capable at things other people are hopeless at and fret about every day, so what use could they have comparing themselves to me? They'd be better off just trying to do something about the things they're crap at, which is what I've been doing for the past month. Someone close to me told me a few weeks ago that my problem is that I don't value myself highly enough and see all the things people love me for, and I remembered that I do by nature concentrate on problems, my own and other people's, and sometimes forget about the good things. So, at the moment, I feel good about what I've managed and want to remember this is just one part of me and I'm trying fucking hard to do something about it, a step that most people will never take with their own problems.G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-91859157829322532952010-01-21T09:52:00.003+00:002010-01-21T10:01:18.724+00:00A sad caseA woman sat in front of me on the bus to work this morning was drunk, drinking Lambrini out of double-bagged carrier bags. She was quiet for the first half of the journey but something sparked her to life and she started talking to herself about how her house had burned down last August and she'd been on the streets ever since. She hadn't slept the night before and was going to drink on the streets in town, hoping she'd be arrested because it was warm and "you get some cornflakes". She has, so she said, a 16 year old son at Rhyddings who was ashamed of her. She said she was intellectual but had a chemical inbalance in her head that made her go crazy. It's impossible to know what bits are true, but it wasn't pleasant to hear.<br /><br />Who knows this woman's story before last August? Or does it go back further than then? I leaned forward and asked her if she'd heard of THOMAS, the Catholic group down on King Street that help out people like her with getting clean and with their housing and so on. I'm not keen on the religious side of things, but they do a very hard job and I can put aside religious indifference for the sake of that. I presume she'd been asked that before because she launched into an instant diatribe, one of those things that seemed burned into memory - a standard response to a question too often asked. At least I tried; for the moment, until I finish with uni and training in a few years time, it's only little things like this I can do. I've already enquired about helping out at THOMAS one night a week but not heard anything back - this can be a reminder to chase that up.G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-22162368335398191902010-01-15T13:17:00.004+00:002010-01-15T17:23:35.414+00:00Meeting one<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Borg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 270px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjisyhRJc2oCds3R2hZ92N90mfZRl0HB-ntiXk0fkpRAAEmDICy6kDXGbRLGEcBrq9ngALfubDvbE1hVYWTbAPX38dflbRRSoI7YDs1fSnd3M_stZMMdQxtjsH9qYmW3x8cY3XjruInOvc/s320/hugh_of_borg.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426958910969844466" border="0" /></a>Speak of the devil - I was told my appointment would be in the post and there it was waiting for me, letting me know to go along this morning.<br /><br />As you might have gathered from yesterday's posts, a feeling of isolation and disconnection from the group has dominated me recently. I've tried to explain this to people but it seems to be one of those feelings that can only be understood while it is underway, after which it is hurriedly filed away using selective memory to black it out.<br /><br />Being able to talk about this to someone was very helpful. I explained how since cutting down on the things I do I've had a lot of empty time, and about the challenges that presents. I talked about the day I told my mum and how I struggled with my dad. I mentioned how in the last few weeks no-one has spoken to me about it and how I feel totally on my own whenever it's on my mind, like a forgotten case. She picked up on that pretty quickly and I made sure she knew how much I appreciate having her to talk to. Without her to aim for I think I'd be going mad with no release for my own thoughts, no alternative opinion to counter mine, no new input.<br /><br />She also thought, after I'd gone on a minutes-long ramble, that it's important to me how people see me. That stumped me for a little while as it came out of the blue; at the time my train of thought was heading elsewhere, but there must have been something I said without thinking. It made me wonder how much I want to change people's perceptions of me, and I did realise I've been getting very frustrated by the efforts I've put in over the last month which only I can see the rewards of. I've talked about it with a few people but then there's been no more feedback and I guess it is frustrating knowing that you've put effort in to improve yourself but no-one seems to notice. Now, and I said this to her, I know that I'm in this alone and I don't expect anything from anyone. In fact the last few weeks have been a course of shock therapy in cutting off ties with people I'm close to, and as lonely as it gets it's better than waiting around for other people to do a job for you. The conclusion I came to was that people's perceptions of me do matter because at the moment I think they're out of line with who I really am and I feel angry that changes I'm making aren't getting me visibly far. As I said to her: "it'd be nice for one person to put something in writing just so I know what they thought about what I'm doing." I feel like a donkey chasing an invisible carrot.<br /><br />She had quite a lot of encouraging words for me after I showed her my drinking diary from the last week, which was good to hear. Everything's been so downbeat that I feel like the only ever comment about me and drinking is negative, and anything good or normal I do goes without mention. The vast majority of the time I do act normally, it's just the times I go too far I'm working on with her help. One of the habits of my lifetime is making my own problems more difficult for myself by being open and honest about them - I always seem to think that people will appreciate honesty and be able to deal with it, but really it's just telling people stuff they don't want to hear. Take this, for example. I could have dealt with it by force of will, made apologies for the past and gone from there. Instead I chose to detail every flaw in my character on here and go to see an alcohol advisory team, which instantly elevates it in people's mind into a different category of problem. I do keep my mouth shut about the majority of troubles (who really wants to hear them?) and the character flaws of other people, but whenever I say something it comes back to bite me. Maybe I should shut up and keep everything between me and her.<br /><br />I've been thinking too about how having a drink changes me, and what other people's perceptions of me then are. This was one of the main reasons I went to see those people, because I needed an external sense of perspective on myself and my situation. It is impossible to tell from within - I need other opinions to get to the truth. I think one of the things that people and me have always struggled with is that there's quite a sharp comparison between how much I bite my tongue while sober compared to while drunk. While sober I hold back from all kinds of personal insults, comments and opinions, purely because I like to keep the peace and find it very easy to be tolerant and let things go. I very rarely get into arguments and loath the ceaseless pointless contradictions couples fall into, so try my best to avoid those. A few beers weakens this though and suddenly I'm not the reserved tolerant one, I'm expressing opinions and dissatisfaction with things that normally I would just let go. I'm not like a drunk who "gets a bit loud" and people have a cheap laugh at his expense, I'm someone who's amiable enough to get on with nearly everyone I've met despite my shyness, who after a drink starts challenging people, and I don't think people like the unexpected contrast.<br /><br />Anyway, that's another thought nugget to chip away at. I recommended a friend have a crack at one of these semi-anonymous blogs yesterday because it's strangely cathertic to express these things to an unknown audience.<br /><br />Let's finish on some high notes from the past few weeks, anyway. I deserve the odd moment of feeling slightly happy with what I've managed.<br /><ul><li>I had a drink and didn't touch a drop the next day.</li><li>I went out for an afternoon and just had a few halves with the odd pint, and went home in a fine mood.</li><li>I haven't made myself ill or missed any work.</li><li>I kept a clear head and did plenty of revision for my first exam, which went very well.</li><li>I haven't entered into any drunken poorly-informed arguments.</li><li>I've avoided drinking during moments of boredom.</li><li>I went to watch the football, had a couple of drinks then went home, made a brew and had supper rather than go looking for another drink.<br /></li><li>I've done all this on my own.<br /></li></ul>G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-5109656510325988412010-01-14T23:08:00.002+00:002010-01-14T23:29:56.857+00:00Class warAnother thought struck me today related to this, that for the last decade I've felt very much trapped between social classes and it normally leaves me feeling very isolated.<br /><br />This occurred to me tonight when, after my exam, I made my way to a pub near my home to catch as much of the Rovers-Villa semi-final as I could. (That was a conscious decision - I was avoiding watching it at the nearest pub to the college and then ending up hanging around in town drinking afterwards until the bus home.) There can be few more obvious juxtapositions than a two hour psychology exam essentially forcing me to discuss why people are fucked, followed by an hour sat on my own watching people who are fucked.<br /><br />What struck me was that I've always felt somewhere inbetween the working class I was born in to - the people who drink socially in the pubs I like - and the middle class - the people I've always intellectually more associated with. I've never been that close to my family apart from liking how they can, without a second's notice or a hint of awkwardness, gather for any social occasion and totally relate to each other. That is something that very few middle class, geographically disparate families I have ever known, have been capable of doing, and it's a very warming thing. On the other hand, from an early age at school I always associated with the clever lads and am still great friends with them to this day - and they're all from middle class backgrounds. My girlfriends have been from that background, too; I'm attracted to intelligence before anything else, I know by now.<br /><br />What I've put myself through is a torn life between the fantastic honesty and utterly genuine warmth of my family, tempered by their requirement for beer and complete lack of relation I feel for them often, and the intellectual and comic rewards I've always sought from my friends, partly cancelled out by their own detachment and individualistic views. Pub-going people are by definition blessed with social skills, warmth and a genuine temperament few possess, but equally they have a fondness for laughing too loud at simple jokes and taking the edge off most humour. The more gifted people out there have a knack of seeing into your soul with a wise comment, but are more than fond of patronising comments and sorry put-downs. Somewhere in the middle is who I look for but I've ended up with this huge mass of friends and family who I can relate to in one way or another but few of whom I feel any real kinship with, and I've been using beer to fill in those gaps.<br /><br />I often think that just "taking it as it comes" is the best answer, but the fundamental issue with that is that if that ability isn't born into you, and you're one of those people who want to make a difference and give answers to people, you can't just take things like this as they come.G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-76571688348110394992010-01-14T17:11:00.002+00:002010-01-14T17:11:57.970+00:00Self-controlInteresting look at the "contagious" nature of self-control, which is an aspect of what I'm struggling with.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.uga.edu/news/artman/publish/100113_SelfControlStudy.shtml">http://www.uga.edu/news/artman/publish/100113_SelfControlStudy.shtml</a>G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-58710759933081186772010-01-14T11:30:00.003+00:002010-01-14T12:47:19.618+00:00Ploughing onNot the easiest of times recently. I've been exposed to some of the risk factors I recognise, but I've come through them okay. A death in the family and not seeing my girlfriend much - one, my family's inclination to drink at times like this, and two, the absence of the usual things to do in the evenings and a feeling of isolation. It was potentially a bad combination but I stuck it out by creating something for me to do that took away the worst pangs of boredom and loneliness; last Sunday I went on a very chilly walk around part of town with a friend, looking at old pubs mentioned in an online group I visit. I took a few photos which I'll get online at some point and had a good natter with a mate - something I've been missing, as I expected, being able to share a problem with someone who gets where you're coming from. It was everything I wanted and have been aiming for, the kind of social drinking that people do without a second glance - a gentlemanly walk around a few quiet pubs having halves in some and pints in others, no need to rush anything or anyone pressuring me, finishing up with a curry and a trip to the cinema and not a negative thought in my mind. Along with being busy revising for an exam tonight, that kept me sufficiently occupied not to do much but be on my own with books and notes, really.<br /><br />This whole thing is proving to be a bit of a mission of self-discovery and from the last fortnight I've learned that the idea of suddenly stopping is too much for me and just makes me want to go completely in the opposite direction. However, contrary to what I'd previously thought, when I carefully position beer in my life, for example this week by having a quiet weekend at home so that I'd enjoy my Sunday afternoon out with a mate, I can moderate like a normal person. Crucially I was also able, again, to stop it turning into anything more than that afternoon, and this time on my own; I had a few drinks on Monday night, but only because my mate's dad had just died, and it didn't get late. Slowly I can feel my instinctive opinion changing from that insane urge to just keep going, into thinking more about the consequences; changing that instinctive feeling is very important as it's what guides a person when they've had more than a couple of drinks.<br /><br />I haven't heard from the alcohol advisers since December 21st so I'll be ringing them today. They were supposed to ring me to schedule an appointment in the new year, but it's the 14th now and no word, and the snow's died down enough that they must be back up to speed now. I've felt very isolated in the last few weeks and sometimes feel the pangs to just give up because everyone's left me to it, but I've held them off just waiting to have this person to talk to. That's the problem with drinking. People always look after themselves first but a pint's always ready to listen. Not that I believe in that, by the way, I'm just making an observation on the nature of it. The counterside to that, of course, is that a pint is like having a mate who just nods to everything you say and never tells you when you're wrong or gives friendly advice - not much use at the end of the day.<br /><br />It is a slow and unpleasant process, but I'm slowly phasing out time around some people. There are people I know who "get it" and others who don't. I'll never have any influence on them so my answer is to cut down the time around them, for better or worse. This week should perhaps remind me that there are people out there with problems they can't beat who deserve more sympathy than me, and I'm in this on my own anyway.G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-70708920544423357752010-01-04T15:19:00.002+00:002010-01-04T16:24:45.980+00:00Social situationsI've learned several things over the last week which is always a very pleasing state of affairs, for there's nothing more frustrating than stagnating in a feeling that you're getting nowhere fast.<br /><br />Firstly I had what felt like a setback on New Year's Day. I'd managed fine going from the weekend of the 27th until then without having anything. I'd intended going through the wedding I was at the same way but I pretty quickly discovered what is probably one of the biggest reasons I drink at things like that. I found myself in new company and while they were all very nice people it was the fact alone that they were new to me that filled me with a heavy sense of unease and worry. To be specific, it's not a generic shyness around new people I feel, for in day to day situations I can carry myself perfectly adequately, but in social situations it's an overwhelming sense of disappointment in myself for not naturally being able to be as funny or interesting with them as I can be with people I know. The sense of disappointment quickly becomes all I can think about, even when I'm conscious of it and am willing myself to just think straight and act as I would with people I know.<br /><br />Drink comes into this as it puts a foot in that revolving door and has the same effect as if I was magically suddenly sat at a table of friends - the mental block clears and I find it possible again to think clearly and without hindrance. Part of it is psychological in that having a drink in front of me makes me feel less of an outcast and more a part of the group, but part of it is the physical relaxing effect of a beer or two. I've come to see that this is one of the reasons I have instinctively drunk at occasions like this, because I'd got used to it as a way of killing off those feelings of unease before they had chance to kick in - feelings of unease which I've never really learned to handle.<br /><br />Despite there being a free bar at the wedding, I maintained a good degree of sobriety and managed to think logically and calm myself about a moment of anger I had when I saw someone ordering two strong drinks at the end of the night - I had a flash of anger that if I had done that I'd be leapt upon as a raging alcoholic, but then I remembered that it would be justified to do so as I've shown that I react in a different way to that kind of drinking than other people - a worse way. What's not okay for me is okay for them, you know, and I remembered that and stopped myself before I got angry. It might not sound much of an achievement but normally I find it quite alluring to succumb to those flashes of anger and switch off any resistance to them, because they feel like such a change from the normal hyper-self controlled me.<br /><br />Anyway, in summary, when faced at the wedding with the pressure of a new social group, I learned that I'd gone too far by thinking I was ready to totally not drink at things like that. Maybe in the future, when I've done it a few times with less drink than usual, yeah, but not yet. I kept the drinking to a normal level, though, went home fine and was A-okay the next day, so I think I just did enough to kill off my freaking-out that night and get me through to the next stage.<br /><br />So what was the next stage? Well part of what I've been doing on here and in person is being honest about as much as I can, so before we went into the reception I told my girlfriend I was panicking a lot about the next six hours and I'd be having a few drinks. She took it well which was a relief as I can understand that I change my mind a fair bit on here - as I mentioned in a recent post, it's because I don't know myself what the best route is from day to day. A fair point she had was that a few drinks that night might kick off my usual urge to have a few more the next day, and then a few more, and then the whole "stopped drinking" thing is dead in the water again. Being honest I only fully understood what was happening at those times about three or four months ago, when I began to see a pattern emerging after yet another stupidly intense weekend. But I get it now, and I think it's one of the main things I need to be doing to keep in control - avoiding the one night leading into another just because I get that feeling inside and my body tells me I'm fine. The lesson has been that my body lies to me and the voice making me want another is the remnants of last night's alcohol leaving my system; two simple but duplicitous chemical facts.<br /><br />So, and I felt a bit lame for suggesting it, I asked if we could spend some of the next day together. There was no need to explain why - obviously partly it was to give me some company to help me avoid the boredom that makes me want to give in, and partly to show her in person that I wasn't falling into that trap again. And it is a trap - as I mentioned some time ago on here, when I think back, almost universally, the times I've ended up stupidly drunk and ended up upsetting her or being an all-round wazzock haven't been after a night out but after a second or third night out, when it's built up inside me but for lord knows what reason I seem unable to recognise it. It seems to me then that if I can't rely on the instinctive feeling that "I've had enough" that most other people have, then I have to create and rely on an intellectual decision to stop myself and ignore what my body tells me. On the day following the wedding I did just that and once the pangs for more had passed by dinnertime, I felt back to normal once again.<br /><br />I'm actually taking some genuine comfort from that because, and it's really hard to describe just how strong an urge it is, when I've had that wanting for more in the past I've normally just given in and let it beat me. It will be hard for me to exercise the same decision every time and I think I will have to actively plan to have something to do or have people around to help me avoid it, but I know now it's possible.<br /><br />For the future, I'm currently going back to the idea I had several months ago that having something unusual to look forward to every month or so might help me get through the intermediate patches without feeling too cut off from the rest of the world, my friends and family. It's a hard trade-off for me, on the one hand the need to be more moderate and on the other the need to see people. I've been reading about the <a href="http://www.alefestival.org.uk/winterales/">National Winter Ales Festival 2010</a> over in Manchester later this month and it's that kind of thing that I think I'd like to do more - go along for the day (having most definitely not had a beer the night before!), try the food, try some crazy new beers (which I really do love doing, always have done, just hidden it by the obviousness of my excesses), see a few friends I don't often see, and get the train home with a Sunday ahead to spend "in recovery" - not tricking myself I'm immortal and I can quite easily go out again that night. When I think about it, it feels like the solution that might work for me, helping me hit that middle ground. I'll be asking around anyway, putting some feelers out, and seeing what happens.G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-75574298803900614202009-12-29T16:47:00.002+00:002009-12-29T16:49:33.683+00:00Beer stories #395Hell, if I can't talk about my own beer career, other people's will have to do!<br /><br />From Reddit: <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/ajdic/funniest_thing_youve_ever_heard_in_a_bar/c0hvdea">Funniest thing you've ever heard in a bar</a>.G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-1886343041570552402009-12-29T15:42:00.003+00:002009-12-29T16:08:47.762+00:00The deed is doneFor the last couple of weeks I've been wrangling over the best way to proceed. It basically boiled down to two choices - either try to learn how to moderate better, or totally pack it in. I haven't wanted to speak about this choice yet because one of the problems I've had so far is that my mind has hardly ever been made up about what the best thing to do is, so when I've said things I later have a change of heart about they end up coming back to bite me and creating their own set of problems I really don't have the time for.<br /><br />I've no doubt that my opinion will change again and I'll just have to go with the flow on that when it happens; it's really impossible to set anything in stone since I'm going into this virtually blind and with one person to talk to once a week about it. Nonetheless the inescapable conclusion I must draw from the time when I most recently realised I had to do something about all of this, is that for whatever reason I still have times where I lose self-control and so trying to moderate myself isn't very likely to work. I'm always wary of extreme solutions as I think they tend to provoke a rebellious response but as I mentioned earlier today, I've come to see that stopping altogether is a safer method for me to control it than muddling along clinging to a vague self-belief I might be able to manage it.<br /><br />When I've talked about this in the past, people have usually tried to change my mind and tell me there's no need to be so extreme. I think that's just testament to the decent job I manage of hiding how much it sometimes affects me - how even on nights where I can seem fine, I'm either on the way down into a spiralling mood or I'll be such a wreck the next day I have to put aside days to get over it. I don't intentionally do that to myself - I don't enjoy the after-effects at all. I seem to have been blessed or cursed with a remarkable stamina for self-abuse up to a point, before which I feel on top of the world and after which I'm six feet under. Do you see part of the problem now? - it's that I can't even trust my own body to give me any pointers, so I'm even in a fight against myself. Even while I've been trying to moderate recently, the same thing happens - I feel absolutely fine and dandy until the moment comes when it all catches up with me in an instant. That isn't an easy thing to learn how to live with or work around, hence the decision to take this war nuclear and cut it out altogether.<br /><br />I am tired of all this, and I know it seems silly - at least I'm not <a href="http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/4820993.MRSA_gel_man__I_ll_turn_my_life_around/">drinking MRSA gel</a>, eh? But it has a big effect on me in its own way, and it's a hard thing to shake once it has its grip on you. If you see me at the bar, do a friend a favour and get me a lemonade, yeah?G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-52956489457558631822009-12-29T09:36:00.002+00:002009-12-29T10:12:43.401+00:00A new yearI think I've finally managed to come completely clean about all of this to all of the people to whom it matters. The only remaining thing left to say is that I know I've still got a long way to go with sorting it out because over Christmas I got the usual moments of either feeling close to losing control or actually losing control. This wasn't helped by telling my parents over this period which, naturally, wasn't very easy and after which I got the usual green light in my head to "reward" myself for doing something hard by having a drink to help get over it. Silly, I know, and one of the things I need to talk about to change.<br /><br />Moderating it is very difficult for me. I feel that something has physically changed because it just sneaks up on me from nowhere these days, and I go from doing fine and feeling quite good about myself, to making the same old mistakes again before I know it. I think then that with Christmas out of the way, now's the time to stop. I've been searching for ways to cut down without making me feel isolated and alone by losing social time with all the people I know, but even if I managed it some times over the holidays, at other times it just seems impossible; drinking is so deeply entwined with most of the people I socialise with that without a drink involved, I feel like I don't really know them. The logical conclusion is that I should abandon that policy and accept that I'm really not much better than the rest of the people in my boat, and try whatever they try to get over the problem.<br /><br />To be honest I'm pretty worried about how hard I'll find this, but at the same time I've actually just become very bored of talking to myself about all of this and seeing myself as someone with a problem - and other people seeing me as weak. I'd rather have to deal with a bit of loneliness when I'm not seeing people because I'm lonely anyway. And the idea of seeing this alcohol adviser is that I can get this off my chest without affecting my day to day life - perhaps this blog is subverting that idea so I might have to cut back on this. Sometimes I think I spend endless hours thinking about answers to problems when all I really should be doing is being a man, taking them on the chin and getting on with things.<br /><br />I don't really have a grand statement to end this with, other than that I'm bored of all this and want it to end.G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-37624815891150730932009-12-22T17:01:00.004+00:002009-12-22T17:19:23.873+00:00The importance of perceptionNot so much an interesting article here but an interesting chain of comments: <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/children_shealth/6833969/Why-I-will-let-my-children-drink-alcohol.html">Why I will let my children drink alcohol</a>, from the Telegraph.<br /><br />Have a quick look through the first 25 or 30 comments and see what impression you form of the debate. Mine is that it immediately seems like the old class war - the middle class mums happy to have their children drink a glass of "pink water" around the Sunday dinner table, while feral working class kids drink alcopops on park slides.<br /><br />One thing I've found though is that the class explanation is a very superficial one; it immediately seems to make sense and because of that it's a widely accepted "reason" for many things, this apparent alcohol problem one of them.<br /><br />The superficiality of using class to describe problems also extends to my arguments; for example, I could quite truthfully say that there is a large degree of blinkeredness and "shut-out" attitude about the middle classes seeking to dispose of their problems on the poorer class, but equally there is an unwarranted contempt in the opposite direction, the working class feeling their problems can always be blamed on someone else. The point is, very often the real root of a problem transcends our concept of social class and applies across the board, just manifesting in different ways.<br /><br />With that impression out of the way, I was struck by the number of times people said "I...". It's almost universal. I know that it's a comment board and it takes a moments thought to come up with an interesting opener to a sentence that doesn't use "I...", "The problem..." and so on, but it's still a striking impression.<br /><br />What this makes me feel is that the use of alcohol is a deeply personal thing. Based not just on this one article but my whole life experience around people who drink, I've always found that people have a fairly strong opinion of some sort on alcohol. The middle ground is sparsely populated by the few who really just have no opinion, of whom I'll shortly be making another post about elsewhere.<br /><br />It being a very personal thing, then, accounts for one of the biggest problems I've had in dealing with my views on drinking - it's that understanding between people is really pretty weak. In just the same way that I struggle with being in a pub environment and watching people get drunk, people don't get why I keep on drinking. It seems to be an almost inate thing that contradictory behaviours really aggravate, which is perhaps why it's a difficult problem for people to resolve.G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-90097687586997371282009-12-21T15:56:00.003+00:002009-12-21T17:08:47.237+00:00First meetingI had my first meeting with the adviser today, and it went okay. I'm not going to say very much yet since it was literally only an hour ago and I need a lot more time to think about things first. In the space of an hour though we covered quite a bit, much of it a repitition of what was said at the first appointment, but the odd comment here and there gave me food for thought. Most importantly it dispelled the lingering fear I had that it would be totally futile; even on the steps towards the door, I was thinking I surely sit somewhere in that horrible middle bracket of people with problems that are neither too extreme to warrant a bluntly extreme response nor too bland to warrant solution by rote, instead sitting somewhere on a vague middle line of irritating uncertainty for all concerned. However, the effect of the meeting was to remind me that sometimes I take my self-perception too factually and that other people can have useful input now and then.<br /><br />From what I gathered it will be a fairly informal thing, just an hour or so of talking and trying to understand the causes of my thoughts and behaviour. That was pretty much exactly what I was looking for since for so many years I've hardly ever spoken about any of this and even until very recently I've been keeping things secret because of the damage that being honest does to the rest of your life. Even now, you can tell I still have doubts about whether anyone else can help me - my instinct (as with everything else in life) is that if I need a job doing, I'm best doing it myself, so I have a resistance to asking for help from anyone. I think she understood the benefit of me being able to be free to talk without it coming back to make things worse, though. There'll be analysis of the problems and the patterns and aims for the future; that kind of thing. I didn't have a long time to explain why I was there, so the message I got across was that in the last five years or so, my whole social life has become entwined with drinking and now I feel both trapped and lost whenever I try to cut back or stop - and that's something she understood straight away, so it's a start. From what I briefly mentioned about how hectic my social life is at work and home I think I sounded like an international playboy so the stuff about how I drink to overcome shyness will have to be a surprise for another day.<br /><br />My one real hope from it all is to know the truth about the way I am. I have my own views about what I do but I don't know other people's and I certainly don't know those of people who work with alcoholics every day; there must be something I can learn from them that'll help me in future.<br /><br />The German trip went okay, in terms of drinking. I could have done a lot better, I could have done a lot worse. I suppose it depends very much upon what <span style="font-style: italic;">better</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">worse</span> are, and I think one of the problems here is that my perceptions of that very often collide with other peoples'. I must get far too wrapped up in my self-analysis sometimes to see what my behaviour looks like to other people because I'm sometimes baffled by how I'm told I looked compared to what was going on in my head. That's getting off the subject and into the realms of analysing the sober me, though.<br /><br />Christmas will be a funny one, I'm sure. I'm not entering into making predictions and binding myself to obligations, because I know for sure that it's in my character to rebel and that includes against myself. It seems better then to just go with the flow and try my best. I'm not going on a few things I normally do, but the lessons of the last few weeks are that even then I can still come close to ruining things, so I'll just have to keep biding my time until the next meeting.G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-37542997384261558592009-12-15T17:23:00.002+00:002009-12-15T17:26:36.863+00:00Dangerous situationsI'm pretty sure a big thing I need to do is lose trust in myself and keep myself out of dangerous situations. I came close, pretty damn close, to losing control of things at the weekend - the work's party and a trip to Manchester. It was mostly because I was stupid enough to put myself in situations where my sense of self-control is challenged by my surroundings. I suppose, as I mentioned a week ago, I'd been feeling buoyed by doing pretty well, and thought I could keep hold of control. As it was I came pretty close to getting messy; I only just clinged on.<br /><br />I shouldn't have been so confident I could manage it, but it's hard to describe how you get filled with self-belief when you've managed something good for a while - only to have to accept that you're still just part way into the fight.<br /><br />I'm off to Germany for a few days now, the home of beer.G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1768056394182138489.post-70660697233444340372009-12-04T10:09:00.002+00:002009-12-04T14:20:38.117+00:00Two light ales, pleaseIt seems that it takes about a week for the physical cravings to pass, that peculiar longing inside to sit down with a pint and read the paper in a quiet pub. The thought normally crops up during moments of boredom or anger, when it seems by far the easiest and most comprehensive solution to whatever problem is at hand. However, once this week or so has passed, during those times it isn't the first though that comes to mind; instead, it seems to be "so what can I do with my time instead?" I'm glad to be over the first hurdle - physical craving.<br /><br />Exactly the same thing happened last time I stopped drinking normally, and I remember thinking how easy it all was. As ever, with experience you notice differences, though, and one thing I'm learning this time is to spot the first signs on complacency creeping in. It seems to be a natural response I have to how (relatively) easy I find it to just stop getting drunk - "well, that was easy enough - you can't have had a problem at all!"<br /><br />Of course this is flawed reasoning as my problem has never been an inability to pack it in when I choose to, but a serial failure to recognise when I've had enough and stop drinking before I disable one too many of those switches in my head that keep me as the normal me. To this end I haven't been congratulating myself in the slightest and indeed my perception of the situation is that I'm about four battles into what may be a hundred year war.<br /><br />Those four battles have been won, I should say though; I've put myself in social drinking situations four times in the last ten days and either not drunk at all or spread a couple of pints out over a course of hours. I've been to the Rovers twice and somehow avoided my usual impulse to abuse the occasion as a drinking opportunity with the odd bit of football crammed inbetween. I've been out in a pub and had a night in, and not touched more than a shandy. So, I suppose, I should take mild encouragement from that, but not to the point of overly reassuring myself as I can feel the temptation to.<br /><br />Some time this week I should be hearing from the alcohol team about getting a case worker, and from there going to some kind of sessions. I don't know exactly how it will all work, but I'm finding the whole thing pretty intriguing. It's the kind of thing normal people never get to know about beyond the immediate preconceptions of what it's about (some of which I'm sure I wrongly subscribe to myself) so to actually be able to go through the system and see what it's really like is, in a perverse way, a bit of a gift.<br /><br />I suspect the hardest part about it I'll find is that I'll feel "above" it and a big part of me will want to dismiss these people's advice as weak. I got that feeling the first time I went, when I was sat in a room of four or five smackheads, and I thought, "Jesus H Christ, all I do is drink too much now and then, I don't belong with these people!" And I could see how a drug counsellor would be able to help someone coming off heroin, but I couldn't imagine for a second what use they'd be to me. Quite a few years ago, a friend said that there didn't seem much point in going to see a counsellor or therapist since they just help you see what your problems are, and if you've already spent all your life cataloguing those problems precisely then they've nothing left to offer you. I worry this forthcoming experience of mine may go along the same lines so I'm not going into it hoping to be hand-given some blinding piece of wisdom that will blow me away, but really just to use them as people who won't belittle me when I talk about all the difficulties I've had around drinking, and who I don't have to worry about affecting my day-to-day life.<br /><br />I guess to summarise, this stage can be tricky for me as a small part of me is rebelling and trying to convince me there was never a problem in the first place. That, however, would be to forget the mistakes of the past decade so I've no intention of going there.<br /><br />Tomorrow's weekend special: send your kids to the 'sitter and draw the curtains, as your screen comes alive with a writhing, groaning mass of flesh and ale.G. Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13150296313397067018noreply@blogger.com0