Bad News Beers...

I am definitely drinking too much.

I'm not entirely surprised, or overly concerned, by this.  It's to be expected that after abstaining for a year, I would revel a bit in the new found freedom to drink again.  It's new and shiny and fun and I want it all right now!  And I also expected it to take me a while to learn the ropes again; we have to fuck up in order to learn how to do something right.

But, still, I'm definitely drinking too much.  And I need to calm down.  Now.

I need to remember that I can't just drink as much as I want, whenever I want.  I could die that way.  And if I keep it up, I will die that way.

Wake up, motherfucker.

Further Results...

Well, this is getting downright disappointing.  Last night, things got even worse.  I'm beginning to feel down about this whole thing.  I'm honestly not sure what to do at this point.

Yesterday afternoon, I started to feel restless and anxious.  I couldn't pinpoint why, exactly.  But that's not entirely unusual for me.  What was unusual, was that the feeling steadily grew as the day went on.  And then I started to get upset.  Just feeling really down, really unhappy.  Again, no apparent cause for this emotional state, and again, it grew steadily.  By the time I got home from work, I felt like complete shit.  I was really depressed, and really unhappy, about nothing in particular, and everything in general.

And I could discern this strange disconnect between my emotional state and the rest of my perception.  For instance, something unpleasant would happen, and my mental response would be, "Oh, well," while my emotional response would be, "Oh, gods, WHY??"  And I would wonder, why did that emotional response pair with that mental response?  They don't fit together.  And of the two of them, the mental response seemed a more appropriate and accurate reflection of the event that triggered it; the emotional response seems over-the-top and uncalled for.  And that kind of thing kept happening over and over again.

Eventually I began to realize that one of my worst fears about this experiment seemed to be coming to pass.  I was clearly depressed, that much was obvious.  And it seemed likely that this was another of those backlash chemical depressions that have followed any and every intoxication I've experienced this past year.

Only one way to be sure.  Have to test the theory.  I hadn't been planning to drink last night, because I didn't want to immediately start off drinking every day again.  My plan is not to have a drink unless there's a good reason.  (And neither "it's Thursday night" nor "I just got home from work" qualify as good reasons to drink.)  But if I had a drink, and the depression and anxiety went away, then I would know that it was definitely chemical withdrawal that caused it.

So I had a shot of tequila.  And immediately felt that dizzy sickness again.  And then I started to feel better.

A little while later, I had another shot.  And then I felt perfectly normal.  No depression, no anxiety.  Nice and relaxed.

So, now I know.  On top of no longer being able to enjoy it the way that I used to, the way that I would like to, I will also have to deal with the fact that any time I take a drink, I am then going to have to deal with a deep depression, for which the only cures are to either let it run its course, however long it takes (days, weeks, months - I've experienced all of those at various points this past year), or to have another drink.

To say that I am discouraged by these findings would be rather an understatement.

Preliminary Results...

Okay, that was not at all what I expected.

I didn't actually know what to expect, exactly, but I had some ideas that seemed plausible and/or probable.  But what actually happened was something I had never even thought of.

For starters, it was a lot harder to actually do than I thought it would be.  Holding a bottle of beer in my hand for the first time in a year, I was surprised by how difficult it was to make myself take a drink.  I assumed I would be jumping right into that bottle.  But I'd been entirely focused on not drinking for an entire year of my life.  And knowing that as soon as I took that first sip, all of that was done, over, finished, made it difficult to do.  I had to intentionally and purposefully bring to an end something that I had invested a lot of time and energy into.  And I had a lot of mixed feelings about that.  It wasn't all happiness and "yeah, I did it!"  It was a lot more "I can't believe it's over" and "am I sure about this?"  It was very strange.  And, as I said, unexpected.

Also unexpected was the degree to which my tolerance has tanked.  I knew that my tolerance would be significantly lower than it was a year ago, but I don't think my tolerance has ever been as low as it is right now.  I was noticeably altered from a half of a beer.  And not just a little bit, either.  It was almost overwhelming.  From a half of a beer.

But the worst thing - and I really never, ever saw this coming - was that I didn't actually enjoy it.  Any of it.  I couldn't find any of the sensations I used to enjoy about it.  It was a wholly different experience now, and I didn't like it.  I just felt dizzy and nauseated.  None of the happiness or relaxation that I've come to expect from alcohol.

I was prepared for the possibility of liking it too much.  It never occurred to me that I might not like it at all.  And I'm finding myself really upset about that.  I liked enjoying alcohol.  And all I wanted to do here was try and learn how to enjoy it in a responsible way.  I never would've done this if I'd known that it was going to completely eliminate my ability to enjoy it at all.

All I wanted to do was try and learn how to drink in moderation.  Not become someone who can't drink, and doesn't want to.

Now what?

Falling Back Screaming...

Tomorrow night, at sundown.

I can't believe it's almost here.  The other end of this beginning.  It's almost staggering, really.  It's very difficult to concentrate on anything else.  And every hour seems to crawl slower and slower, the closer I get to the finish line.

I wish I was happier about it all.  I thought I would be.  I always thought this would be a joyous moment of celebration and triumph.  But I don't feel any of that.  I'm just anxious and worried.  I don't know what about, exactly.  Just fear of the unknown, I guess.  And I'm kinda pissed off, too.  But that's unrelated.  Just getting in the way, and making everything just that much more confusing and difficult.

And disappointed, too.  Because I was looking forward to this so much, and I worked so hard to get here, and it just seems really unfair for me to not be enjoying it now.  I feel like I earned this, bought it with pain and sacrifice, but now in the end I'm not getting my reward.  Just seems wrong.  Fucking cosmic gyp.

But I think I'm looking at it the wrong way.  I've been so obsessed with this moment over the last few weeks, that I've lost my focus.  It's not about this moment.  It was never about this moment.  When I decided to do this one year ago, it wasn't so that I could feel happy when it was all over.  It was about the experience of the past year.  It was about learning, and growing, and earning another opportunity to shape myself to the form that I want.  This moment was inevitable, but it wasn't the point.

I don't need to enjoy this.  Any more than I needed to enjoy the past year.  I just need to do it.

And maybe that's all this is, really:  natural grief over the end of something important to me, something I've spent a significant period of my life focused on, and working toward.  Every ending is also a new beginning of something else.  And grief is a natural response to an ending.  And since I don't know what to expect from this new beginning, there's little joy or excitement about what-comes-next to temper that grief.  And so I just end up feeling sad and anxious, when it seems like I should feel proud and elated.

And the bitter irony of it all is, all this just leaves me feeling like I could really use a drink.

Fifty-one Down...

Only one week left.  Just seven days (and three hours) from now, I will have completed one of the most significant accomplishments of my life so far.

I wish I knew how to feel about that.

About To Get Wet...

thirteen days
and I'm feeling unlucky
less than two weeks
until
I break this self-imposed fast
and I don't know
what I'm feeling
anymore
so excited
overly anxious
prematurely proud
afraid
it will all go wrong

I've never wanted
a drink
more than I do right now
and every day
that is true
all over again
how will I feel
with three days to go?
with two?
that first sip of whiskey
might make me cry

what if I can't handle it
what if I get depressed again
what if I lose my creativity
what if I can't write anymore
what if I can write
but I don't want to
what if I can write
and I want to
but I don't feel anything when I do
what if I don't feel anything

I only learned
to express myself
when I stopped
only started to write
when I dried up
so now I'm afraid
dipping my toe back
into that
golden Kentucky spring
could take that all away from me
and I don't know
what I'd do without this
how I'd deal without this
who I'd be without this
joy of
turning inward
feeling around
pulling something out
pouring over it
crafting it
shaping it
until it's just right
and then
casting it out
into the universe
to be its own

if I have to choose
I know what I'll choose
but either way
I'll lose
something
I love
and I won't be
me
anymore

Three-hundred Fifty-one...

Only two weeks left.

Two weeks from today, I will drink a beer.  A Guinness.  In a bottle.  And then I will have a glass of whiskey.  Eagle Rare bourbon, my favorite.  On the rocks, in my favorite glass tumbler.  And who knows what else after that.

I can't tell what I'm feeling.  Something like excitement, but not quite.  Almost anxiety, but not exactly.  Anticipation?  Fear?  Some jumbled soup of them all, most likely.

I want it so badly.  I've never wanted a drink this much in my entire life.  I want a drink right now more than I ever, ever wanted a drink when I actually was drinking.

I feel so proud of myself for actually accomplishing this.

I feel guilty for feeling this way, and I try to suppress it, reminding myself that I haven't actually accomplished anything yet.  I have two weeks left to go.  I can feel proud then.  And celebrate with a drink.

I'm so scared that something bad is going to happen.  That I'm going to go off the deep end and lose control in some way that I never have before.  That I'm going to end up in another of those deep chemical depressions.  That I'm going to lose all of my creativity and desire to express myself.  That I'm going to lose the ability to write poetry.  Or worse, that I'm going to lose the ability to enjoy writing.  I'm scared of some other bad result that I haven't even thought of.

I'm scared of the fact that I don't know what's going to happen.

But I have to find out.

I have to know if I can handle it or not.

I have to find out how else the last year has changed me.

It's Almost Later Now...

I've noticed recently that, the closer I get to my one-year-sober anniversary, the more I'm craving a drink.

I haven't had a chance to discuss it here yet, but I am planning to let myself have a drink that day, and see what happens.  If anything.  (Hopefully, nothing will.)  I've always said that I made the decision to be sober for "at least a year," because I didn't want to set a hard-and-fast deadline for it.  I wanted to play it by ear, and do it for as long as I felt it was necessary, and not as long as some arbitrary date I thought was a good idea before I'd even started.  But I also always knew somehow that, by the time I got to this point, unless there was a really compelling reason to extend it, then it was just going to be a year.  Because the fact is, after making it one year, I'm very proud of myself, and I feel that is a really significant accomplishment.  Enough so that I don't feel the need to keep it going indefinitely.  I'm satisfied, for now.  And the other side of that coin, is that it's been difficult, and unpleasant, and I'm really just tired of it, and ready to see what change, if any, this year has bought me.  And the only way to see what effect it has had is to experiment, and see what happens.  So, that's the plan for Walpurgisnacht, 2013.

Anyway, that's a topic that deserves its own entire post, and I've been wanting to get to that for some time now.  But I had to at least mention it here for this post to make sense.  Because as I've been thinking about this upcoming Witches' Night, and planning out what I'm going to do, and how, and why, I've found myself getting really excited.  Wow, it's been almost an entire year!  Only one month to go.  Then I finally get to have a Guinness and a bourbon again.  I can't believe it!  And the more I think about it, and the more excited I get, the more I start to crave it.  Crave it in a way that I haven't craved it for almost the entire year I've been sober.

I don't want to say this year has been easy, but it also hasn't been especially difficult.  There have definitely been some very difficult moments, where I really wanted a drink and had to try really hard to avoid it.  But, by-and-large, on any given day, I haven't had to think about it.  I certainly haven't had to deal with resisting strong cravings on a regular basis.  But as the anniversary day approaches, I'm finding myself doing exactly that.  Knowing that I'm going to finally get to have some again so soon is making me really want some right now.  I'm like a kid at the beginning of December, counting down the days with my advent calendar.  And every day I'm getting a little more excited, a little more anxious, and it's a little harder to resist, and I'm wishing harder and harder that it could just be Christmas already!  

Until recently, the end of this period has always been in some half-formed "future."  Whenever I wanted a drink, I'd just tell myself, "Not now; I'll have one later."  And I didn't have to think about when "later" was.  It was just "later."  But now I can see that "later" quite clearly.  So instead of telling myself, "Not now; I'll have one later," it's become, "Not now; I'll have one in five weeks."  And pretty soon that's going to be, "Not now; I'll have one in a month."  And so on.  And the smaller that number gets, the louder and more insistently some part of me says, "Fuck it!  Close enough."  And then the more energy I need to expend shutting that voice up.  (Because there's no such thing as "close enough."  I'm going to see this through.  I didn't work this hard and this long only to fuck it up right here at the end.)

I didn't anticipate how much simply defining that "later" was going to effect me.  But as soon as it went from Vague to Specific, everything changed.  Such a minute distinction, but it apparently made all the difference.

Lesson learned.

Nine Months...

Nine months
since My
Last
Drink.

Nine months.

That is
Significant
in an obvious way.

Nine months,
Today.

Nine months since
I last sipped
purposeful poison.
Nine months since
I last heard
the beautiful
tink-tink-tink
of ice
swirling around
into amber
glass
wall.
Nine months since
I last melted
away
into caramel-
and smoke-
flavored
oblivion.
Nine months since
I last felt
the burning hole
in my gut
weep red and raw
and wail for more
More
MORE.

Nine months since.

Nine months today.

Does that make me a new man?
Am I a New Man yet?
Am I re-born?

The bags
under my eyes
are gone
but it's still Me
I see
looking back
from that glass.

It's still Me.
I'm the Same Man.
I just found
some New Pleasures.
And New Problems
to go with them.

Happy Birthday,
Little Man.

Lost In Recvoery...

Ok, so, in hindsight, clearly not the most righteous stance I've ever taken.  But I still don't think I did anything wrong.  And I just can't help but bristle at the idea that my attempt to view an explicit media with clear artistic merit has caused me to get lumped into the same group as the guy who spends his lunch hour spanking it in his office.  And it really bothers me that, because of this, I now have to fear for my job.  That just seems wrong to me, but I'll drop the subject now, I swear.

In other news, I think I'm going to go back to a SMART meeting tonight, if I can get home in time.  (Yesterday's Inauguration has snarled traffic all through the surrounding area.)  I haven't been to a SMART meeting in months.  It got to the point where they became more of a hassle then they were worth.  I never got very much out of the meetings, and I often felt worse afterwards, which struck me as rather counter-productive.  And having to give up every Tuesday night (and Tuesday morning for that matter, as I had to get to work early to make sure I could leave early so that I could get to the meetings on time) became rather tiresome.  I wanted to make sure I attended enough meetings on a regular basis to establish myself in the group, and to be sure to give them a fair chance (and not make any decisions based on first impressions), and get a sense of what I could expect from SMART in general, and from this group in particular.  And I accomplished that.  And if I'd felt as if I was having trouble maintaining my sobriety, or that attending these meetings would help me maintain my sobriety in any way, then I would've continued to attend.  But, as neither of those were the case, I decided to take my Tuesday nights back, knowing that this group was always there, should I ever need help again.

And now, I think I do.  I had always assumed that, in regards to my sobriety, the only person's reaction I needed to be concerned about, was my own.  It never occurred to me that other people that I care about might have as difficult a time dealing with my sobriety as I did.  I've known that my wife has been missing her "drinking buddy" since I sobered up; we established that early on, in just the first couple of months.  But, honestly, I didn't really think much of it; it just didn't seem that important.  She didn't seem all that upset about it, and my focus, frankly, especially in those early months, had to be on maintaining my sobriety, and not on whether or not She had someone to get drunk with on Friday nights.  I don't think either of us realized just how important it really was to Her, or that it was actually about much more than just missing Her "drinking buddy" - it was about my entire personality changing, again, and for the first time, changing in respect to the ways that I treat Her.  And as the months have dragged on and on, and the situation has remained unchanged, Her feelings about it have apparently grown worse and worse, until we are at the point now where it has become a painful and difficult problem in our marriage.

And I don't know what to do about it.  I thought things had unarguably changed for the better.  I'm much more even-keeled now than I ever have been before.  Yes, I still have my ups and downs, but everyone does.  But whereas before every emotion was turned up to eleven, now I never get much higher than a four or five.  I used to be full volume every minute of every day.  Every high was the highest high possible, and every low was the lowest I could get.  And in terms of how I treated Her, that meant that when I was happy with Her, she was the Sun, Moon, and Stars to me, and I loved her more than Romeo ever loved Juliet; my entire world revolved around her.  (Which sounds beautifully romantic at first, but try living up to such ridiculous and fantastical standards for ten years.  It can't be done.  And I did a lot of damage to our relationship trying to keep her up on that pedestal for so many years.)  But it also means that when I wasn't happy with her, I hated her, because she was completely ruining my entire fucking life.

Now, my feelings never get that ridiculously, over-the-top intense.  I still love her, and I still sometimes get angry with her, but I don't treat her like the be-all-end-all of my existence, nor do I treat her like the worst thing that ever happened to me.  All of my feelings for her, both good and bad, are much softer and quieter, much more reasonable and responsible, much more practical; and so completely fucking boring.  Because while both of us are clearly glad that I no longer feel such intense anger at her every time she makes me feel anything bad, from her point of view, my world used to revolve around Her.  And now it doesn't.  And that hurts her.  It hurts in a way she has a very difficult time understanding, or articulating.  And it's very confusing.  Because while she's certainly glad that I don't yell at her anymore, and while she is definitely very proud of me for all that I've accomplished these past eight months, she's also really hurt and upset; she feels rejected, because, from her point of view, I don't seem to love her as much as I used to.  Which isn't true at all; I still love her just as much as I used to, I just don't express it as intensely.  But how can she be expected to know what I'm really feeling, if I've completely changed the way that I express those feelings?

And then, on top of all of the hurt and rejection she's already feeling, she ends up feeling very guilty, too.  She feels guilty because she understands that my sobriety is clearly a good thing for me, and she wants to be able to support me in that and feel proud of me.  And by feeling hurt and upset in response to my sobriety, regardless of how else she feels about it, she feels like she is doing something wrong, and hurting me, and undermining my sobriety.  Which, unfortunately, I have to agree with, in a sense.  It definitely hurts me to know that I'm hurting her.  And it definitely makes me want to drink, because I feel like that would make her happy (and I'm kind of hard-wired to want to make her happy).  But I don't think she's doing anything wrong; on that point we disagree.  I can't blame her for how she feels, at all.  I would almost certainly feel the same thing in her place.  And I think it can be said that, almost certainly, she has been the one the most hurt, she has been the one who has lost the most, she has been the one who has sacrificed the most, for my sobriety.  And I could never expect her to just be a hundred percent happy about that.  I feel horribly naive for not anticipating it ahead of time.

But now, what do I do?  How am I supposed to respond to this?  How should we deal with it?  What can we do about it?  In the addiction/recovery cycle, most people end up feeling like they lost their loved ones to the addiction side of things, when the addict reaches the point where the only thing they are capable of caring about anymore is using.  We're really fortunate that we've never had to face that problem.  But I've never heard of anyone feeling like they lost their loved one to sobriety.  In all of my experience with addiction and recovery, I've never heard anyone say, "Now that you're sober, you don't love me the way that you used to."  And now that we're unfortunate enough to be faced with that problem, I have no idea how to deal with it.  I have no experience to draw on.

And, so, back to SMART.  I'm hoping someone there has some experience with this, or has at least heard of it before.  At the very least, I'm hoping to come away with some perspective.

Will me luck.

Stark Words...

Stressed.

Again.

As always.

Too much work to do, and more coming in all the time; before I can finish one thing, three more have landed on my desk.

And it's the same at home.  I feel over-whelmed and under-supported.  I get a little less sleep every night.  Feel a little more tired every morning.  Each day harder than the one before it.

And it's Repellation Day.

And I would love a drink.

We have some apple moonshine at home right now that I would absolutely fucking murder.

We always have a drink on Repellation Day.  (Of course, until this year, we always had a drink on Thursday, as well, so take that with a pinch of salt.  And a lime wedge.)  And there's something about drinking moonshine on Repellation Day that just feels poetically justified.

Of course, I won't.

I'm going to go home, and do my bills, and stress, and not get enough sleep, the way I'm supposed to.  I'll be a good little monkey.

Because I decided to do this, and I hate giving up, especially at something I know I can do.  I decided to do this, and no matter how miserable I feel, I will only feel worse if I let myself fail.  I won't quit.  And I won't fail.

I won't quit, even though three words keep echoing in my mind, filling me with a hollow dread:


Winter is coming.

Family Feast Day...

I want to write about Thanksgiving this year, but I don't know who is going to read this, and that makes me feel self-conscious about what I should or shouldn't say, and that makes me not want to write about it anymore.  I guess it's for the best; I don't really have much of anything to say about it, anyways.  It was just a recent event that seemed like an obvious topic for posting.  It's a bit cliché, honestly.

For now I'll simply note that I stayed sober throughout, despite a seemingly never-ending stream of enticing opportunities to do otherwise.  And I still had a great time; staying sober didn't negatively impact my experience at all.  If anything, it might've actually helped make it even more enjoyable, simply because I wasn't as tired, exhausted, and worn-out by the whole thing as I would've normally been if I'd been drinking, etc.  (I feel like I've said this same thing over and over again lately, about Dover, about the AGM, about every experience I've recently had sober for the first time, where normally I would be intoxicated.  Maybe I can start taking this lesson to heart now?  Soon?)

Also, this is pretty much my experience of Pittsburgh:

Give And Take...

So, apparently today marks six months since my last drink.  Pretty happy about that.

Also, my wife dropped her phone in the toilet.  Less happy about that.

It would seem my world is in balance.

Lapse...

So, I think I relapsed.

Accidentally.  Without even knowing it.

That sounds absurd, but it's the most logical assumption to make, given the evidence.

I had no trouble staying sober at Dover, and though I recognized on a couple of occasions that it would've been nice to have a drink or something, I was never stressed by it, and it didn't interfere with my ability to enjoy myself in the slightest.  In fact, the one notable difference between this weekend and past trips was that this one was noticeable easier for me.  I'm normally exhausted by the experience, but this time it was just a nice little vacation; I never realized how much of that exhaustion was apparently due to the booze, etc.

So, I had a great time, and was feeling wonderful.  But then, a day or so after coming home, I suddenly started to feel really down.  It started when I couldn't sleep properly.  But it just got worse from there.  I ended up getting severely depressed, and completely exhausted.  I couldn't sleep enough, and yet I never felt rested.  And I had no energy, no drive, no ambition, no desires; at best I was numb - at worst, I was completely miserable and pissed off at everything.

I had a few different guesses as to what might be causing this condition, but as I resolved them one-by-one, with no change in my mood, I had to try and form new theories.  Which is when I realized that what I was experiencing felt like the exact same depressive period that follows a relapse for me.  And that's when I remembered the sleeping pills.

I took sleeping pills the nights we stayed at Dover.  One pill each night; half the recommended dosage.  I wasn't taking them to get high.  I was taking them for their intended purpose, to help me sleep.  We were staying in a flea-bag hotel, and I was wide awake in an uncomfortable bed, and I had a lot to do the next day, and needed to get an early start.  I didn't think anything of it at the time.  Because I was thinking of it as "medicine" and not "drugs."  But in hindsight, it became obvious - of course I got high off of them (they altered my brain-chemistry to the point that I was rendered unconscious, for fuck's sake), and so of course I was going to experience the same depression afterwards that I experience whenever I get high off of anything; the reason why I took them is completely irrelevant to my brain-chemistry.

So, I've been suffering through that since we got back, and am only just now starting to come out of it.  That's one reason why I haven't posted anything for a while.  (Work is the other half of that, but that's a whole other post in and of itself.) This one has been particularly difficult to deal with, because it's been accompanied by strong doses of self-pity and righteous indignation.  Normally, I know exactly what I did wrong, and I know exactly why it was wrong, and so a part of this depression feels like a deserved punishment; I knew what to expect, and I did this to myself, so I really have no right to complain about it, and should just shut the fuck up and take it like a man.  But in this case, I don't really feel like I did anything wrong.  I didn't truly relapse in the sense that I didn't give in to my cravings and desires.  I didn't even have any cravings or desires!  I was just trying to solve a problem I was experiencing by taking a medicine designed to alleviate that particular ailment, and is available at any local convenience store.  And now I have to feel like complete shit for two weeks??

And the worst part is, I didn't even get to get high!  If I'm going to have to suffer through this period of misery, I should at least get the enjoyment of having a drink or something out of it.  That's only fair, right?  But in this case, I didn't get the drink; all I got was the hangover.  And that just feels so wrong.

Those thoughts kept running through my mind, and it became really difficult to not have a drink.  To know that all I would have to do is have one drink, and all this pain would simply vanish for a time, and I would be allowed to feel good again for a short while - that was really hard to resist.  Especially when I felt like I was already paying the price for it; it felt like I'd earned it, in a way.  But I was able to maintain perspective, and remind myself that having a drink would only prolong the inevitable, and make it worse in the long-run.  And set me back a few months.  (I really didn't want to erase all those Sober Days from my tally and have to start back at zero again.)  And, thankfully, a part of me wanted to suffer through it.  I have that stubborn desire to build endurance through gritting my teeth and taking pain lately, and that served me well here, again.  As horrible as the experience was - and perhaps even because it was so horrible - I wanted it to be over as quickly as possible, and I knew the best way to accomplish that was just to try and keep my mouth shut and suffer through it.

I also ate whatever the fuck I wanted for two weeks and gained several pounds, but again, that's a whole other post, entirely.

They Come In Three's...

There has been a sudden epidemic of relapses among the members of my SMART group.

Several people, one right after another, taking their turn to share their story of falling off the wagon.  Some people have put off talking about it for a week or so, because they didn't want to add yet another relapse story into a meeting that was already crowded with them.  Some of these people are new to recovery, and are still struggling with it, and so that's to be expected.  But others have been sober for years.   And those are a lot harder to deal with.  For everyone involved.

Relapses are a part of recovery, as they say.  But though they happen, they're still rare enough that it feels very bizarre for them to be happening in a cluster like this.  It feels improbable, bordering on paranormal.

And I can't help thinking about this, as we get ready to go to Dover for the NASCAR race this weekend.  I normally have a six-pack all to myself during the race, plus a few other fun enhancers and reality lubricants both before and after.  It's always been a party weekend for us.  This will be my first time at a race completely sober.

I'm honestly not worried about my sobriety right now.  I don't feel I am in any danger of getting fucked up in any way this weekend.  Nor am I concerned about my ability to enjoy myself this weekend sober.  This weekend is a blast, period, and there's nothing about it that I need to get fucked up in order to enjoy.  I know I'm going to have a great time.

But with the way things have been going lately, I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel a little bit like tempting fate.

The Lost Sharing...

I had to skip SMART again this week.  But I wrote to the facilitator, to let him know I'd be out and so he'd know I hadn't fallen off the wagon or whatever; and also to let him know what I would've shared, if I'd been able to make it.

I thought it would be worth sharing here, too:


On Friday, my wife and I went out to our local for dinner and drinks (I had O'Douls).  I mentioned to her that I had recently realized that I could not remember the last time we'd had a fight, or even any sort of minor emotional dust-up, and asked her if she could remember.  She realized she couldn't remember, either.  Things have been really good for us lately; for a good, long while now, in fact.  I hypothesized that this was probably a result of two recent changes in my life.

One of them is a bit involved to try and explain; it involves changes to the way I perceive and interact with her, and to the way I think about Love in general, and so it would require a good bit of backstory that I don't really have time to get into right now in order for you to really be able to understand it.  Suffice it to say that the end result was that I'm no longer as emotionally fragile with her as I used to be, and that these changes began happening quite literally at the same time as I began to get sober.

And the other change that I think has contributed to our recent run of marital harmony and happiness is obviously just that:  my sobriety.  Drinking and taking drugs by definition alter your mood, and your feelings.  They lift them up when you take them, and then they fall down when it runs out.  And even if you're not taking them right at that moment, if you're doing it regularly enough, then the effect persists, and your emotions continue to go up and down, up and down, even when you're sober.  And so one of the results of this extended period of sobriety, is that I'm finding that I'm less emotionally volatile than I used to be; I'm much more even-keeled now that I'm not playing chemical yo-yo with my feelings.

This prompted my wife to tell me again, as we were sitting at the bar, how proud she was of me for being able to stay sober for so long.  And she added how proud she was of me, in particular, for being able to come out drinking with her and still remain sober.  And, I replied back to her that, as always, I found it difficult to accept that praise.  Because I didn't feel like I was doing anything.  It wasn't as if being at the bar made me want a drink, and I was having to spend the entire time resisting this overwhelming urge.  If that were the case, if I was struggling with urges, and then successfully overcoming them, then I would feel as if I had done something worthy of praise.  But as it was, being at the bar didn't make me want to drink anymore than at any other point in my day.  I just don't want to drink right now.  I'm very much enjoying not drinking.

The other half of that coin is that I am very much looking forward to drinking again, later.  We saw a bottle behind the bar that night, of Fireball whiskey; a cinnamon-flavored whiskey that we only just discovered last year, a few months before I sobered up.  And with the seasons turning right now, and the crisp scent of Autumn in the air, I had the thought, "Oh, a shot of that would be delightful for Fall.  That will be really nice to have again.  Maybe next year?"  I realize it isn't typical, but I'm lucky enough that I haven't yet had to say to myself, "I can never drink again."  I didn't fall that far.  I just didn't pay attention to what I was doing, and then realized that I was drinking too much, and that it had gotten a little scary, and so decided that I needed to stop for a while; for some unspecified period of time of at least one year.  And so I've never had to confront that issue, or deal with all the grief and loss of "I can never drink again."  I'm fortunate enough that I've been able to say just, "Not now, maybe later."  And this is just so much easier to handle on an emotional level.  And that makes it easier to stay sober.  Because I can kick that can of "later" down the road indefinitely.

And that's where I'm at right now, and where I've been for a while:  I don't want to drink right now, and I'm looking forward to drinking again, later.  Whether that "later" will ever actually come is a mystery to me.  I honestly don't know.  I imagine it will again, but no one knows what the future holds.  I don't know who I'll be after spending my first year sober as an adult, and I don't want to project who I want that person to be.  I want to find out myself along the way.  And I remember that when I quit smoking pot for a year (that time I had planned from the beginning to do it for exactly one year, and then smoke again, and see how it affected me - I designed the whole experience as a personal experiment conducted on my own brain chemistry), at the end of that year, I found it really difficult to smoke again.  I had built up so much momentum towards staying sober over the course of that year, that it was really hard to make myself suddenly switch directions and do the exact opposite.  Yes, I did want to smoke again, but a huge part of me did not want to, as well.  And in the end, what finally helped push me over the edge was that I had set out from the get-go to do it for exactly one year, and then do it again and see what happened, and I wanted to fulfill that original intent.

I don't have any set time-period of sobriety like that this time around.  I don't have any line of demarcation that I'm going to cross at some point in the future that will tell me that it's time to stop being sober.  (And that was intentional, based on the lessons learned in the experience I just mentioned above.)  So, who knows how long this will last?  Who knows when that "later" will come?  Who knows if that "later" will ever actually come, at all?

And more to the point, whether it does or not is completely irrelevant.  Because thinking about that ephemeral "later" - enjoying the idea of it, looking forward to it - helps me to remain sober now.  And even better, it grants me the ability to do things like go out to bars with my wife, and actually be able to enjoy the experience, without struggling against my desires.  It allows me to accept my desires, and still keep moving forward, comfortably, without having to indulge them.

And to my mind, that's gold.  That's pure magick.

Elephant Blurble...

Still way too much to do and nowhere near enough time to do it.  (When I finished that section of code from the other instrument, they gave me another one!  When, exactly, am I supposed to work on my own code before this ridiculous Friday deadline, huh?)

Have a SMART meeting tonight, so for now I'll just quickly report that, yes, I did make it through the entire AGM sober.  And, more importantly, staying sober wasn't difficult at all, and didn't interfere with my ability to enjoy or participate in the event in the slightest.  (My sinus infection took care of that part.)  So, as I suspected (or finally managed to figure out) during the final week preceding the event, I was, indeed, over-reacting to the whole thing.  I really didn't have anything to worry about.

Again, a lot more to say on the subject, but I wanted to at least address the elephant in the room before the meeting tonight.

Friendships In Chaos, pt. 3...

It happens to everyone in recovery, at some point.

After sobering up, you run into an old friend, and realize that they have the same problem.

Maybe it's a new development.  Or maybe they've always been an addict or alcoholic, but you just couldn't see it before, through the rose-tinted glasses of your own addictions.  Either way, the question you now have to face is:  what do you do?

When I got together with my old Temple last weekend, it was immediately obvious to me that in the last couple of years, while I was away, one of my old friends has become an alcoholic.  The first thing I noticed, as soon as I saw him, was that he's put on at least fifty pounds.  He's always been a thin, handsome guy, so the weight is really apparent now.  But he doesn't look fat; he just looks bloated.  When I got there, he was finishing up a scotch.  I assume it was his first, but I don't really know, because as soon as he finished that one, he poured himself another.  And twenty minutes later, when he'd finished that one, he poured himself a third.  Then we went out to dinner, where he had a 32 oz. beer, and two large bottles of sake, all by himself.

Now, that's a lot for one person to drink in just a few hours, but that doesn't automatically make him an alcoholic.  The nail in the coffin was that, even after all of that, he didn't seem drunk.  He was a bit red in the face, and he was obviously loose and feeling good, but he didn't seem sloppy; he wasn't slurring his words or stumbling or anything like that.  So, either it takes that much alcohol just in order for him to get a good buzz on, or he's really good at hiding just how drunk he really is.  Either way, combine that with the weight gain, and it's clear this is a chronic thing with him.  And just in case it wasn't certain already, at one point he made a "joke" about how he doesn't even taste his first two beers of the night; that as soon as he gets home from work, he immediately pounds two beers, and then he interacts with his wife and sons.  He seemed to think that was funny, but I'm not sure why.

So, now the big question:  what do I do?

The answer is surprisingly simple.  I don't do anything.

Now, he's my friend, and I'm obviously worried about him.  But I have to remember that there really isn't anything I can do.  I'm aware of the situation, and I'm going to keep my eyes open, but that's about it in terms of my available options here.  If an opportunity arises at some point down the road for me to somehow subtly let him know that I know what he's going through, and that I'm available for him if he needs anything, then great.  If not, that's okay, too.

Ultimately, he's responsible for himself, and no one will be able to help him unless he believes he has a problem and he wants help with it.  If I were to confront him about his drinking in some way, all that would serve to do would be to alienate him and strain, or possibly even end, our friendship.  And if he does end up needing help at some point down the road, then that's the worst thing I could possibly have done, because then I wouldn't be there to be able to help him anymore.

There's also the hammer/nail problem of being a newly recovered addict.  As in, "when you're a Hammer, everything looks like a Nail."  There is nothing worse than the self-righteous douchebag with a handful of weeks sober, who suddenly decides to start going around diagnosing everyone else as alcoholics, as though being a drunk somehow made them an expert.  But even beyond simply not wanting to be that asshole, what's more important is that I could be wrong.  It doesn't seem all that likely in this situation, but it's definitely possible.  Maybe he doesn't usually drink like that; maybe he had a hard week and was just blowing off some extra steam that night.  There's no way for me to know, and it would be premature for me to judge him after just a couple of hours.  And newly sober people do have a tendency to start seeing addicts and alcoholics everywhere.  And yes, part of that is because they are everywhere, and because we don't tend to notice them as easily when we are one of them, and then they suddenly stand out like sore thumbs once we clean ourselves up.  But it's equally as true that we tend to project our issues onto other people, and see problems that aren't really there.  Not everyone who enjoys a few drinks has a problem, and it's easy for the person who does have a problem to lose sight of that.  And there's really no way to tell if someone really has a problem, or if you just think they have a problem, and so it's usually best to just keep your mouth shut and observe for a while, and just try to make yourself available.

Another thing that is important to remember in this situation, but that is often forgotten, is that there is a big difference between being addicted to alcohol and being a dysfunctional drunk.  It seems pretty clear to me that my friend has become addicted to alcohol.  But, as far as I can tell, the only negative effect that seems to be having on his life, is his health.  (And maybe his wallet.)  And if that's all - if he's still doing his job well, and maintaining relationships, and being a good husband and father and friend (all of which seem to be true) - then who am I to judge him?  We each have to decide how much our own health is worth to us, and it's no one else's place to tell us how much it should be worth to us.  (Our families might have some say in that decision, but that's about as far as it goes.  As a friend, I'm certainly not in any place to be telling him how to feel about himself.)  And so if he's enjoying his drinking, and he doesn't mind the toll it's taking on his health, or he thinks that is a reasonable price to pay for the amount of joy or pleasure he is getting out of it, and it isn't interfering with his ability to maintain his responsibilities and be a decent human being, then that's entirely his decision to make, and I really have no reason to be sticking my nose into his business.

And there's one more wrinkle to this situation that applies to this friend in particular.  I can't forget that he is a powerful chaos magickian.  And we magickians (chaos magickians in particular, I think) have a much greater tendency to get ourselves into trouble.  As a general rule, we push boundaries.  We try to find the edge of things, and then live there.  (Another way I don't fit the general model, as I tend to bounce back and forth from edge to edge in order to find the middle.)  But we also have a much greater tendency to find our own solutions to the problems we create for ourselves.  We get ourselves into trouble more often than the average, but we're also good at finding ways to smooth those problems over.  Self-empowerment is what we do.  I've seen many, many other magickians in similar situations over the years; situations where just about anyone else would be in over their head and need to ask for help, but the magickian is able to navigate the situation safely themselves, and find their own way to get better.  So, if it were anyone else, I would be much more worried.  But because I know he is a damned good magickian, I can feel confident in the fact that he has a much greater chance of successfully pulling himself out of this hole he's digging right now, if and when he ever feels the need to.

So, for now, I'm just going to keep my eye on him, and just try to be there if and when he decides he needs my help.  If I get a chance at any point during the AGM next week, maybe I'll try to tell him a little bit of my story, just to let him know that I've recently been in the same situation.

At the very least, I want to pay attention to him, as a living, breathing example of the possible future I only recently so narrowly escaped.

Good SMART...

Another part of getting back into my routine, was getting back to a SMART meeting last night, after missing the previous two weeks.  Rather surprisingly, this one actually made me feel a little better.

Talked about my recent relapse and depression, and my struggle to learn endurance, and to allow myself to simply accept unhappiness in those situations where I can't find any relief, rather than falling back into the habit of using drugs to create a synthetic happiness to relieve those feelings.  (I feel like I've made progress, because drugs used to be my first response to those feelings, and now they are only a last-resort when all else has failed.  But, still, it's unhealthy, and more to the point, it doesn't work - it doesn't actually relieve the feeling or make me feel better - and I'm tired of it, and I want to break this habit and learn to accept pain and unhappiness when I have to.)  I tried to keep it brief, because one of the last times I talked, the Facilitator actually cut me off after fifteen minutes for taking up too much time.  But despite my efforts, my check-in seemed to spark a rather intense and lengthy discussion that involved almost the entire group, and ended up lasting for a full half-hour.

And in that thirty minutes, I actually got some good advice.  For instance, not to even bother to give people a reason that I'm not drinking, etc.  And if they press me for a reason, to just say that I don't feel like it right now.  There's no need to say any more than that; and, in fact, often times giving people a reason will only invite them to debate said reason in an effort to try to convince you to join them.  So, don't give them a chance.

Someone described my condition as a "relief-seeking missile," which I thought was rather amusing.

Also, someone suggested that these past two weeks of depression are actually an example of the endurance I'm struggling to learn.  I hadn't thought of it that way.  In thinking about it, it occurred to me that I'd been able to endure these past two weeks because I felt like I had no other choice.  I wanted it to end, and the only way to do that was to let it run its course, and then jump up at the very first sign of emotional elevation.  And at the cabin, I hadn't been able to endure, and (probably not coincidentally) I believed then that I did have a choice; that I could choose to get high and that would make me feel better.  And, of course, that's not really true.  It made me feel a little better, sort of, for a very short time, and then made me feel much, much worse for a good, long while after that.  So, I think part of the key to getting through those triggering situations like the cabin, is to tell myself that I don't really have a choice.  I want to be happy and healthy right now, and the only way to do that is to endure those periods of suffering when they arise.  Just like I did for the past two weeks.

I was also reminded of the simple truth that the good times only exist because of the bad times; they only exist in relation to one another, so one can't exist without the other.  And therefore, the bad times only serve to make the good times that much better.  And that if I ever want to be happy, I have to allow myself to be unhappy once in a while, too.

And there was also a lot of general encouragement and congratulations and I'm-proud-of-you's just for being honest and telling my story.  (I guess this is difficult for a lot of people?  Because everyone seemed to be particularly amazed by it and proud of me for doing it.  But it's just really easy to be honest when you're shameless and generally don't care what people think of you.  Besides, if I'm not honest during these check-ins, then I'm just shooting myself in the foot and wasting my time, so what's the point of even being there?  If I'm not going to be honest, then I've got much better things that I could be doing with my Tuesday nights.)

After it was all over, I found that I felt a lot better about the past few weeks, and a lot better about myself.  Enough that I was actually surprised by the feeling.  I realized I'd actually made some progress with this experience, and that it wasn't just a setback.  And I felt a lot better about this process going forward.  I realized I was more hopeful about my chances of success now.

And all that made me realize that, for once, I was actually glad to be there.

Disappointments & Failures...

How's that for a title, huh?

I was in a pretty good place the last time I wrote here, almost a week ago.  But the past week hasn't gone well for me, and I've swung myself over to the opposite end of the scale since then.

It started when my weekend vacation in the woods didn't work out as anticipated.  I got some writing done (expect to be reading my crappy work off and on for the next week or so), but nowhere near as much as I had wanted.  The mosquitoes and other bugs were simply relentless, so I couldn't do any meditating out in the peaceful forest setting, either, which I'd been looking forward to a great deal.  (We are both covered in itchy, red bites from head to toe now.)  And the hot tub out on the back deck, which is one of my favorite features of this cabin-in-the-woods, and which might've provided some needed respite from the bugs, was broken.  So, while the weather was beautiful, and the setting serene, I couldn't really spend any time outside to enjoy it.  Oh, and somehow, we only managed to have sex once all weekend.  So pathetic.  What a waste.

And to top it all off, after all of these disappointments, combined with all of the stress of getting everything ready for the vacation, and then not being able to find any way to relax once we got there, I ended up succumbing to my addictive desires, and relapsed again.  So much for "looking forward to spending this weekend sober."  I somehow managed to justify it with the fact that I was using a drug I'd never used before, and not one of the ones that I'm currently trying to resist because I've had problems with them in the past.  (Basically, I told myself it was okay to use this drug, because it wasn't alcohol or pot or painkillers, and because I'd never used it before.  Which is such complete bullshit.  Same old pattern I'm trying to break:  avoid using one drug by using another instead.)  I'm not going to name the drug here, but it's legal (or maybe it'd be better to say that it's not yet illegal), and while not actually a painkiller, one of the active chemicals in the plant bonds to the opiod-receptors in the brain, producing the same physical sensation, without most (if not all) of the harmful side-effects of true opiates (liver damage, chemical dependency, respiratory failure, withdrawl, etc.)

So, basically, it's a safe, cheap, legal way to get an opiate-like high.  How the fuck am I supposed to say no to that?!  The horrible, deadly, sickness-inducing side-effects of opiates are what I use to convince myself not to do them in the first place!  Without them, I'm reduced to telling myself, "Well, you shouldn't use it because... well, because you've committed to a year sober and you don't want to feel like a failure.  Oh, and don't forget that if you get high, on anything, at all, you'll end up feeling depressed and lazy and unmotivated and emotionally unbalanced for a week, remember?"

All of which is true, but I couldn't bring myself to give a shit at the time.  And now I'm paying the price.  I just wanted to enjoy my vacation, and I had run out of other options that I could find.  Somehow, sitting around the cabin watching DVDs (two of the three movies we watched ended up being really awful) and snacking (which just made me feel fat - I could feel all of my workouts being undone with every bite) just weren't going to do it for me.   And that's my problem in a nutshell.  I couldn't bring myself to stay sober, knowing that it meant not enjoying myself on my vacation.  Because when I get in a situation where I feel like I need to have a good time, and I try and fail to find any other way to do it, I always know that I've got this sure-fire method right in my back pocket.  And, sure, that shortcut comes with a heavy price to pay, but I can never seem to bring myself to care about that in the moment.  I'm always willing to pay almost any price later to enjoy myself now.

Like I said last week, a lot of what I'm trying to work on right now is learning how to suffer; how to allow myself to be okay with something like having a shitty, sober vacation, rather than feeling like I have to get high in order to avoid it (which only ends up making for a shittier vacation anyways).  And this was put to the test this weekend, hard.  And I failed that test, completely and utterly.

Anyways, then I got home and found out that my wireless had broken, again.  So I had to take the laptop back to the shop and have them fix it, again, less than a week after I got it back from them and spent two days frantically trying to restore all my files and programs.  But before I took it back to the shop I wanted to make another back up, since my previous one is corrupted.  I decided to back-up to disk this time, since every other method I've tried has failed.  After three hours, and three failed attempts, I had to give up on that method, as well.  (I have never, not once in my entire life, successfully backed-up a computer.  Every single attempt I have ever made using any method has failed.  Either it crashes while creating the back-up, or it doesn't restore from the back-up properly.  Why the fuck do I even bother?)

Then the depression from a weekend spent getting high kicked in full-force, and (combined with all of the other things I was already legitimately depressed about) totally knocked me on my ass, and I ended up calling out sick and spending two days on my couch playing video games.  (I am such a fucking child!)  I'm chemically exhausted from the coming-down, and so it takes me hours to get up and out the door in the morning.  As such, I haven't worked out in almost a week, and I know I've managed to completely undo most of the gains I've made with all that hard work in the last month.  I finally managed to make it into work today, but an hour late, only to find out that I missed an important assignment while I was out, and my boss had to take care of it for me.  (I didn't know about it, because I couldn't check my work email, because my computer is still fucking broken!)  Then my boss had a "talk" with me about the fact that I never seem to have any internet at home.  (For years, this was because our building's internet sucked.  And now that we have finally managed to fix that, my computer has been broken for a month!)  And my story of why I never seem to have internet at home sounds ridiculous (even to me, and I know it's true!) so she didn't believe me, and I can hardly blame her.

I skipped SMART last night, because I'm too depressed, and too much of a coward to face all those assholes and admit what a stupid fucking failure I am.  And I skipped my therapist appointment today (which I should be at right now, actually) because I couldn't bring myself to leave work early to go to my appointment, after missing two days and then coming in late today.

So, basically, my vacation sucked, I relapsed, I'm chemically depressed and exhausted, my computer is still broken and back in the shop again, I haven't worked out in a week, I'm way behind and in trouble at work, and I feel like a miserable, worthless, piece-of-shit excuse for a person right now.

And it is ALL.  My.  Fault.