Saturday 31 March 2012

Four weeks

It has been a while since the last post. Today is week 4 and it is difficult to look back and see that I have been successful in any way what soever. In fact I have probably been worse.
Yesterday, knowing that I was at a danger point I bought two bottles of gin...I also advised someone who was having a little trouble (how would I know if she was having trouble just because she told me she wasn't drinking too much doesn't mean she was telling the truth we drunks are all deceptive and liars!)Any way the last third of one bottle and an unopened bottle got poured down the sink...and an open bottle of red and the last of a cask of wine
Any way, I must begin again. That is the advice I gave that woman, and it is my own advice.
Danger time is late afternoon
I need to heed my advice...be diverted, visualize a Stop sign....talk to myself about the real consequences of what is happening and what I am doing
I can lick this. I am conscious of all Sorts of things about sin. I do the thing that I hate. The more I try the more I fail. The need to acknowledge that I need to source e spiritual strength from without as well as within. And ere is a real sense of dealing with a demon
I don't like that sort of narrow b/s but it does seem real enough to be a person and possessive. And I have cried out...and all sorts of things have happened. I am more comfortable in my own skin...because of course the al reason I drink is so that I don't have to feel guilty abo being a poof.
Glad I told C & M the othER day, although it was a bit spontaneous and unplanned. He was a bit shocked. And I told PK probably because I was drunk
That's a big thing about the drunkenness ....I have been writing mad emails and letters.
I will eventually do something I regret in thAt regard.
I can do this. I want to be an alcohol free zone. I am never going to be able to just have one drink. I don't want to do rehab
O lord if this is a prayer to you. And it is! Then hear it.

Saturday 17 March 2012

Two weeks

To be sure to be sure! (it is St Pat's Day after all) it has been two weeks since I started this blog.
A bit of a roller coaster, but I am probably better than I was. Have probably not managed to abstain for half the time. But to put it another way. It does mean I have managed to not drink for some of the time.
I crashed again yesterday, and bought alcohol. This morning it got poured down the sink...again!  I am such an idiot.
If nothing else I must eventually run out of money.
Any way I was not well last night after I went to bed...a combination of drinking and not eating...and then eating too late.
I had a busy day today...had to get going. By the time I reached my first destination and did the few set-up things I felt like crap...and came home and went back to bed.
It is now 2 in the afternoon...I don't have that much to do; but I had allowed myself till 4 any way.
I feel not too bad. Just hope I sleep tonight


So ....in the two weeks.

  • I still consider myself to be recovering even though I have not been abstinent, but everything seems more under control than it was.
  • I need to be careful that this just doesn't become a rationalisation, I don't think it has. Every time I pour gin down the sink I am confronting something!
  • I know that when I don't drink, I actually feel physically well...or at least better than normal
  • And when I do drink...my head aches, my gut aches and my bones ache.
  • If I am going to live...then I have to stick with this
  • My sex drive seems to have become maniacal...now what's that all about?
Where is God in all this? I cry out, and God seems quiet. But in  the last 6 weeks one of my desperate prayers was "God you must do something about this"
As I attest I am some what better certainly not perfect...then that prayer has begun to be answered.
One thing has been clear...God has been saying to me that he will heal me, but he will not overwhelm me. And if I want to be well, then I've got to do it too.  This is a new level of spiritual awareness for me. 

Wednesday 14 March 2012

A clear day

First one for a while

Badly rationalized !

I did note some days ago that a drunk can rationalize anything . So yes I have drunk
Yes I have bought quite a lot of booze.

I have drunk quite a lot of it.
Ad I have tipped a lot of it down the toilet in the mornings when i feel more moral
It's an expensive and not very bright exercise I still don't get why I have not got the will power to not be stupid!
Any way. I went to bed late, I slept really poorly and it's 630. I feel like shit and wonder how I will get through the day. Part of me is saying that I deserve this.
So I have all this self awareness but I still do the thing that I hate. The is some bigger dynamic going on here, and that's a bit scary . If it were just about not drinking alcohol, if it was about Trying to deal with being gay....but I don't think it's with of these things at the core.
Is it, God, that I cry out to you and nothing happens. And so I have this Angst....that my life has been a fucking waste
It is not that I do not believe, i want to,believe that there is more going on....maybe I am afeared that there is not. It's all just crap
Anyhow I do objectively feel that I don't want to,continue like this....I don't like the aura of hangover ormofmage. C said a few months ago...I don't want to drink like that any more. For me it means I can't drink at all
So today God, Jesus, Holy Spirit....please just give grace, energy and health to deal with how I'm feeling..
One stupid thing is that I have to,stop emailing and making mad decisions when I'm drunk. The more perceptive will note if they haven't already that my life is falling apart. I am not quite ready for that anomaly to,happen. And I desperately don't want to hit rock bottom before I actually can turn around. It is such a cliche

Monday 12 March 2012

Wish I was doing better

I am feeling OK, but not resisting the booze.
This is really hard. There is no doubt that if you have an 'addictive personality' then one thing will just replace another.
And it is very easy to rationalise almost anything to do with addiction. I wish I could just stop....but not quite there yet

Sunday 11 March 2012

I am not doing well

It is day 7/8 and as I write this I am blotto. Smashed out of my mind on gin, I am watching porn....a guy sucking a cock...which I wish I was sucking too!!!
This may surprise you
There is no doubt in my mind that what has fucked with my mind all these years is that I am a faggot!!!! And proud of it!
Many years ago I went to confession and the priest asked me "Do you want to stop being homosexual?"
For once in my life I was clear.   "No!" was my answer
But the cost of my being gay is that I also have to be a drunk. I feel sufficiently guilty that I have to be drunk in order to fuck another guy.
I want it to be different I want to have sex with one of my own.....a gay guy...and not feel like a fucking freak.
I am now quite old, in my 50s....and I want to fuck and not be drunk
And I ask myself  (and you God)  why can't I just have someone to love?

Thursday 8 March 2012

Whacky old day and a couple of graces

So any way, as I said in the last post, I am glad I didn't feel like shit this morning after yesterday's lapse. BUT I have felt so tired, could barely get out of bed this morning. I half suspect that my medication got stuck last night (it does sometimes) and then went through this morning, so instead of sleeping well last night...I have felt like sleeping all day.
During the course of this whacky day I had two insightful things happen.  Richard Fidler was interviewing US filmmaker Broderick Fox (here) who spoke about the alcoholic collapse of his life. And I realise that I am not the only one who has this issue.  Of course I know this. But it was good to do it.
The there was a blog I came across...writer Kristian Johns...almost exactly the same.
Both of them talking about "pouring alcohol down the throat" not for the taste..but for the ever decreasing effect.
It at least reminds me that many of us are in trouble with addiction, and we can't always control it.

It's now  5 p.m.. So this is danger time. But I'm going to be OK.

A major lapse

Yesterday was day 5/6
Everything was going quite well
I'd been to Dr psych in the morning and told him how I was going. To be sure he always seems sceptical about total,abstinence. Who knows what that's about, I half suspect he is telling me that he has difficulty himself
I had a funny afternoon shifting S's belongings from her flat and then on the way home I became overtaken by the "it's 5 o'clock mentality!" and bought two bottles of gin on the way home! Yes two...because it was cheaper to buy two . I realized it was madness on both counts. Mad to buy one...even if I was allowing myself a little indulgence. Totally insane to buy 2 in order to save $2 and lock myself in
And I had to decide to do it, I almost drove past the shop....(I did in fact choose to drive away from three other bottleshops)  But the fourth one got me.
At home I told myself two drinks and no more. Then I chilled e it up,in a jug and realised I had poured a quarter of a bottle.
Thank god I don't feel like total shitbthis morning...only partially
There is a lot of stuff going on here

  • The 5 o'clock danger time
  • Feeling tired
  • Disappointment because S and I weren't going to the pics
  • The cheapskate buying stuff because it was cheaper,  when  I shouldn't have bought at all
  • The amazement thatat I didn't get immediately smashed and thought therefore it was ok

Now I have to live with two bottles of gin....I feel I should be able to...but of course I can't
I'm inclined to think I'll lock one awayq, and finish the one I opened.......probably a mistake

I still count this as a day of awareness and therefore I am still on the program.
It is a lapse, not a total failure. I think this is an important realisation

Monday 5 March 2012

Holding in there just

Its 5 pm on day 3 and I am aware that this is the time I rationalize best, or worst, depending on perspective. I have held in....this is a grace.
I have done this with smoking before. Perhaps never quite so alone, and I had a great sense of purpose....we had just become pregnant. I struggled for about 3 years, and am glad I succeeded.
I guess this struggle is no less important. Maybe even more so. I don't feel particularly well, but I guess I will.

Sunday 4 March 2012

A good thing to do

I took the bottle of white that sits 'benignly' in the fridge out. I will never drink warm white wine!

Day 2----OOps

It's after 7p.m. Which is always danger time. All sorts of rationalitsations are going on in my mind.
Like:

  • I can handle one small drink
  • I could drink wine...as long as I don't drink spirits
  • I have been to this place before and it doesn't matter if I fail again
  • I can start again tomorrow
  • No one is watching
  • It's not as if I'm going to drive
  • I've had one clear day so it's OK to just have one drink
Thank God that all this sounds so pathetic and shallow. I am still not  sure that I will manage this tonight.

Let me affirm!
  • This is a time of great gift
  • Not drinking is a blessing not a curse
  • I am saving my life not diminishing it
  • All the above excuses are exactly that, excuses
  • I have had long periods in my life ....even not so long ago...when I have not drunk for months
  • I can do this
This is a time of great gift. This is God moving in my life. Inviting me to respond to God alone. I'll blog more about the faith dimensions of all this soon.
But for now...this is good!

Sorry to be boring...Day 2!!!!

It is some time since I have been able to get through one day without a drink, even despite good intents, so I feel goodto have done it. I did have to take a sleeping pill, but it has worked well. I have probably had 7 hours sleep, which is in itself amazing.
It is a real gift and for that I am cautiously thankful to God and to myself
I think one of the things I have to do today is prune the drinking glasses. Yes, get rid of all those martini glasses and wine glasses that I so love to drink from. Anything I can do to reinforce a new pattern is good.

Saturday 3 March 2012

Day 1!

I don't know if I am 'technically' an alcoholic. Some days it seems clearer than others. This week as I threw away the second bottle of gin I had bought this week I suspect I was more ready to admit the truth.