Stella (Chook), I stole your booze...

[RunningCourage]

Stella (Chook), I stole your booze...

Byrdlady;1430709 wrote: RC, I am convinced that family will drive you nuts. Just look at me. I'm a rational person....UNTIL I GET WITH MY FAMILY! Holy Moly....just chalk it up to that, it's what I do and it helps me deal. How are you fixed with cats? XO, B

:H :H Thanks Byrdie! Family is a funny one. There's a tension that sits just above the dinner table. Invisible, thin, like an ozone layer of familial frustrations, misunderstandings, miscommunications, things never said, vented, acknowledged. And it remains there, lingering. And I doubt any one of us would dare break it.

As for the booze, it's the unsaid, or minimally spoken about things. My brother knew and I never told him, so clearly the folks have informed him. His only acknowledgement was "Was gonna get you a bottle of whisky, but you don't drink."

Full stop.

And then we continued shopping for presents.

[RunningCourage]

Stella (Chook), I stole your booze...

Day 23

Christmas Eve 2012

At dinner last night, I said to dad, "what would you like to drink" and there was almost a tentativeness in his voice as he said "oh, well, i think i'd like a glass of wine" as if that might tempt me. As if he didn't want to flaunt in front of me the drinking of something i so clearly enjoyed only weeks ago. But this is natural. I would be the same if he gave up wine for whatever reason.

However, so far, I am very thankful to say that it has been relatively straight forward. With only the 4 of us, there isn't much of a push to drink. None of them are big drinkers. And since my brother arrived he hasn't drunk a drop - nothing to do with me, just he sees little point in drinking at home or with the family. In a pub with friends is different. But here he can take it or leave it.

I wont lie though - there is something revealing about being sober and not allowing myself to drink a few drinks in the evening which did 2 distinct things 1) gave me a mild sense of reverie and 2) drowned any negative emotions, or if negative emotions riled forth, I'd drink some more to ensure their drowning for another day.

Not anymore. As briefly mentioned in the reply to Byrdie, that slight (fraught?) lingering tension that hangs about the family table (brought about with the sometimes tense communication between my brother and my mum - he's not the greatest communicator, she on the other hand is good at communicating, but perhaps just not with him). I can really feel the desire - perhaps from both my dad and me - to make light of everything, or if not, to at least ensure that nothing (i.e. no feeling) becomes hurt. And so he will joke. My brother will continue monosyllabic responses as and when is required. Mother rattles of another story to keep the "conversation" at the table going.

And I? Well after a few vino's I'd have more comfortably juggled between dad's joviality, mum's conversing and my brother's comedic monosyllabic answers; trying to elicit a lacing of the happy juice in and around the table. But last night, that was harder. It was rawer. (And my shoulder was in absolute agony for some reason). I felt physically smaller, weaker, inferior. And this is in a direct "compare and contrast" with my brother. Some things just seemed painful. The failed attempt at my brother to crack a joke (he's generally very witty) that turns out to be a little hurtful (often towards our mum); mum's failed attempts to start a conversation by telling a story which is, in its own merit, interesting, but frankly at that moment, no one round the table cares.

I make it sound morbid. It's not. But what I feel is sharper and sometimes I wish I could deaden it. The dinner table is actually no better nor no worse than any other. In fact it is in the grand scheme of things all very civilised. I might just be showing my uber sensitivity with not having a beer and wine and whisky by my side. It's a little like being undressed! Naked and vulnerable...

Today all the boys (dad, brother and me) head into town to buy a belated birthday present for the ol' man.

[lagataloca]

Stella (Chook), I stole your booze...

Hi again,

I have girlfriends who are true social drinkers and then only drink maybe one or 2 when they are out, and I can assure you that when they meet a man who does not drink they do NOT think any negative thoughts about it at all. To them its like someone telling them they can't eat shellfish, just Oh well....

So I do think that you are projecting your own thoughts and previous reactions. Actually anyone who reacts too strongly is someone who most likely has a little or big problem of their own, so not someone who you want to be hanging out with anyway, you know?

[RunningCourage]

Stella (Chook), I stole your booze...

Christmas 2012 - Christmas Eve

Hello. OK, so what follows is me trying to capture some of what I felt during the christmas period. This is - as with much of the Stella Thread - firstly posts for me to read back on in due course. This is what i felt, i thought this Christmas. Secondly, it is for anyone else who is interested or who it might take something from it (even a good nights sleep if it bores you :H)

Xmas Eve Dinner

Sobriety affords me, us, the simmering of true feelings to surface. Not only can I feel these feelings simmer within me, I can?t dilute them so as not to feel them so acutely.

Xmas eve morning saw dad, my rbother and I go into the local garden centre ostensibly to buy dad a belated birthday present for him. We had a coffee and share a gingerbread man, each taking a piece while my brother photo-documented the quick decapitation of it.

After arriving home and after a snack lunch, Dermot retired to the living room to lounge horizontal watching Christmas TV. He pretty much does this every year. He?s where he is most comfortable. Although he has seen our family throughout the year on a few occasions he hasn?t been back to mum and dad?s since last Xmas. He lives at the opposite end of the UK and my folks don?t exactly live where it?s easy to get to (you really need your own vehicle). So, perhaps he?s not sure of how to engage in this environment and returns to what he knows best, and what is ?expected? of him. So he lies horizontal watching Home Alone 2.

Meanwhile I hide upstairs online raiding a large encyclopedia of cookbook recipes (aka bbc.co.uk/goodfood) for that evenings dinner. I hear mum become uptight, frustrated as she prepares things for tomorrow, especially as dad tries to make a light, in-jest, comment that she takes seriously and has them both end up frustrated. I want to appease the tension. Dermot remains hidden in the lounge. I come downstairs with lappie and a chosen recipe.

I begin to cook. Quietly. Mum busies herself around me. Dad recites his sermon for tonight?s midnight service, which I have no intention of going to.

As dinner closes in nibbles are laid out in the kitchen. Dermot comes through. ?What?s happening?? He asks nonchalantly, almost disparagingly.
?We?re having drinks and nibbles before dinner? Dad explains. As if it really needs explaining. I mean, for fuck sake, if he?s so not in the know of what is happening perhaps he oughta get out of the fucking lounge lizard position he?s been lying in for the last 3 hours?

It?s all fine. Just restrained. I?m restrained. I?m? Well, every year I say I should just relax more at Xmas, not let my feelings get the better of me (which are then doused with whisky and wine), just chill, and make light with my brothers sometimes comic, sometimes insensitive and sometimes insightful attempts at witticisms. Yet as ever I feel the knotted, uptight, fissure of voices shouting and mashing against each other in my head. The voices that give rise to feelings of failure, of pathetic-ness.

Dinner. I dish out the food then sit cross-legged on the seat, the folks say ?this is lovely?, ?where did you get this recipe?? as brother eats and mumbles something about ?it?s alright, suppose?. Not that I care. I?m just more and more aware of how, despite the resort to playing our roles in this nuclear family environment (where I can feel that my brother is stupidly insensitive) the irony is that he has grown up more than I. In the ability to live life fully as an adult, he seems to be making bigger strides than I.

Mum has spent the last few months writing something for Dermot and I, called ?Beginnings?. It?s a 10 page synopsis of where we came from ? out parents, grandparents and great grand parents. I read about how they first met. He was 29, she was 24. By the time Dad was my age he was married, By the time Mum was my age she had had her first son. My brother, 2 years younger than I, will likely get married, if not next year then surely the year after. I sat hunched, considering this.

[RunningCourage]

Stella (Chook), I stole your booze...

Christmas 2012 - Midnight Carol Service

Midnight Carol Service

Later in the evening, I return to cook and prep food for tomorrow?s dinner. The folks get ready to leave for the midnight service. I thought it was quite clear that I (nor my brother I thought) had any intention of going. But in the last minute he, my brother, has decided he would? and yes, perhaps a family outing to a wee church 30 miles away that he or I have never frequented (presently my folks are regulars) on Xmas eve might be seen as a ?good thing? to do. Perhaps. For him. Who has seen his folks at most 3 times the past year but never here. As for me, living only down the road, I see them way more frequently. I could take it or leave it.

So as my brother has decided to go, I grab my jacket and join them all to go sing carols that mean so little to me, at a service the words of which I can?t connect with. The only thing that resonates is dad?s familiar intonations as he preaches, and the simple interior of a church with the familiar gathering of vagrants meeting to celebrate the arrival, the birth, of something, the meaning of which increasingly I don?t comprehend.

I sing and speak along with the conversation as and when we are suppose to. It feels hollow. And then dad preaches. Something about angels. That we imagine them as happy and feel-good creatures, but that sometimes, as in the Christmas story, they fill those they come to greet with fear. This led onto some comment about fundamentalism and how we must be wary of taking positions that have the inability, or refuse to listen, to understand, to work with another?s place/position/believe/act. Ultimately it was leading to forgiveness.

I need to look it out. For it made me angry.

And, eventually, resentful as I sat beside my brother feeling small, insipid, pathetic. It made me feel that this was easy preaching. Preaching done by a libertarian who had not had to deal with these issues other than as one who presented themselves as sympathetic libertarian with social liberal democratic beliefs. Someone who was able to deal with all these issues from an arms length. Over there, in that house, but not his own. And when I say house, I mean him. It is easy to speak out against, or for, a position one believes in. It is easy to connect with difficult issues if one is slightly disconnected to them.

When one is not, when one is dealing with issues head on, when one is struggling to conceive even of the term forgiveness of another, when one sees a fundamental approach, or attitude, to a concept, idea or believe as being one that is most emotionally fulfilling then it?s hard. It is hard to separate acts of forgiveness from acts of betrayal.

It sounds cryptic. Sorry. It made me angry at him. And resent where I was in life.

Resent that I had arrived at age 33 with work that was, yes at times fulfilling, but also questioning where any of it was going. And other than work, I live in a flat with young ?uns that feel a generation apart from me. I have been single for a year. And I have what feel to be fucking neurosis? in my head. I sit beside my brother. And feel like an ill old man. I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror and recoil. The receding hair bears a ?me? that I?m not ready to see. The fear that I would turn into some lonely reclusive Philip Larkin-esque older man stares back at me.

I?m very tired. It?s after 1.30am by the time I hit the hay. Angry, frustrated, sad. Yet, I am too aware of an almost automatic switch in me that buries these angers deeper inside of me. Like a Room 101 shaft into which these feelings fall. In some ways similar to what AL did, only this time they don?t seem to be buried quite as deep.

[RunningCourage]

Stella (Chook), I stole your booze...

Christmas 2012 - Christmas Day

Christmas Day

I’m writing this on the 27th. So feelings have subsided. This is more a summary of what it felt to be AF on Christmas day.

The folks were up first - back off to church first thing. I grab a small bowl of cereal. An hour or so later my brother wakes up. He slumbers down, grabs a bowl of cereal and mutters “wanna go forra run?” Part of me does and part of me doesn’t. But I do. It’s shorter than 2 days previous – a 5mile circuit. He sets the pace. I trail behind. Feeling like an older man behind the strength and vitality of my younger sibling. The only plus side is that it will likely be my PB for this route as he has set the pace.

I spend the time running thinking. The top of my shoulder aches. I’m not sure whether it’s my posture when I run, posture at other times, or whether it’s something else entirely. Sometimes I just feel like stopping. Negative thoughts race through my heads (this is normal) (actually when I say negative, I mean more “dramatic”) for example, I wonder whether I might just collapse, whether my heart will suddenly just go “fuck this for a game of soldiers”, cramp up and stop beating. My next thought was “that would show them.”

Show who what?

I watched the Craig Fergusson youtube video on Alcoholism – he said he woke up hungover one Christmas morning and thought a thought only alcoholics think: “I’m gonna kill myself, that’ll show them.” WHY he was going to and who THEY were, were never answered, just that he would. When I first watched that, I thought, here we go, yet another stage 4 alcoholic that I can’t relate to because they hit rock bottom and I don’t actually know what that might have been for me. Kill myself? God no. I’ve never thought that. And in reality I haven’t per se, but I can have a dramatic, emotional mind landscape. One that thinks such things even if I don’t feel or believe I’ll ever do such things. Just like running on Christmas morning – “ooooh, I wonder what would happen if I just collapsed right now…”

I prep the turkey.

The folks arrive back from church.

Lunch. My brother makes pancakes. Part of me wished he’d not. It’s a control problem I have with food consumption. I see pancakes as stodge (I do love ‘em tho) and would rather not eat them today. But it’s his way, I think, of contributing at Christmas. Attending midnight mass and making pancakes. “We’re doing the family thing” he says drolly, as if it’s an enforced ritual – like going to church Sunday mornings as a kid.

We have one guest at Christmas, an older lady, a friend of the family. I reside mostly in the kitchen. I don’t feel like being sociable. I don’t feel like much conversing. I certainly don’t want to speak about myself and “how my job is” etc etc. So I hide in the kitchen stressing somewhat over the cooking.

We sit down to eat. I pour myself a drink from the non-wine bottle. “Not having some wine?” says the family friend. A very reasonable thing to ask, all things considered – me and wine have always bee associated together like cheese and crackers. “No.” I say. “Any reason?” And I rattle off the old ‘oh, I gave up for marathon training and just liked not drinking.’ Which, I am thankful to say, seems to work.

We eat. Mario said on the Army thread DON’T count the calories! I don’t. I tried to stop doing that about 10 or 12 years ago. But I still can’t fully let go. Not like I once did. Back when I was a kid. And conversation somehow turned to obese people. Our older family guest wondering just how one could people get SO fat. She mentioned how her daughter was once ‘chubby’ and was now thin. Mum mentioned our cousins – both obese. My brother pipes in, pointing at me “he was fat once.” I sit stoney faced. Not engaging with this one.
“He was never fat,” said mum defensively.
“No, he was never fat” said our friend supportively.
“Well, chubby then, a wee bit fat,” my brother tried to clarify.
“You know, dear such-and-such once said,” said Dad, in an appeasing tone, “how it was better to be fat and lead a happy, fulfilled life, than to be skinny and be unhappy and unfulfilled.” Always the pacifier is Dad.
“Hmmmm” a chorus of agreeing hums…. We continue to eat.

I am smaller than my brother – shorter and skinnier. When I was 18/19 I left home – moved across to the other side of the world for a year. He was 16/17. In that year he grew – taller, more muscular. He physically grew into a man. I shrank. 15 years later, there hasn’t been much movement on this front. I am not as shrunken as I once was, he is, if anything, a bit more muscular or solid. He has, if you like, grown into himself as he has grown up. I on the other hand have continuously sought to shed something of myself. I don’t know what precisely. But it is as if I have sought to run away, get away from, escape something. And whatever this something is, I have used food and alcohol to assist or control aspects of that.

Perhaps I am stunted in my growth emotionally and this has stunted my growth physically?

Whenever I think of my brother, I do feel, as mentioned before, resentment. His wage, his abode, his settled relationship that sees marriage and children in due course, his attitude to life, his comfort at being able to afford things I myself would love to be able to, his ability to travel (often at low or no cost due to his work), that he only works 5 days a week and not 6 (making breaks and travel a lot easier with 2 clear days)… and the more I think the more resentful I become. In becoming resentful I begin to only dislike myself more for not being able to show some semblance of gratitude for what I have … But then there is always the philosophy of relativity, isn’t there?

Once the family friend leaves, we relax as a family for a short while. Mum pries further into what it is exactly my brother does at his job, trying to eek out what it is he does. He’s a bit like the family enigma code.

[RunningCourage]

Stella (Chook), I stole your booze...

Christmas 2012 - Sober Christmas

Boxing Day
I drove him first thing in the morning to the airport. He’s off to his partner’s. His life that is quite separate from the rest of the family.

Left with the folks. I don’t speak much of the day. They go out for a walk, I consider marathons I might try and run in 2013. I resent having spent 2 hours lying horizontal looking at marathons online and head out for a short walk… need to move.

The evening is spent mostly in front of the box. There is no conversation. I don’t particularly want there to be. I think. I just sit, almost as if being maudlin in silence but without the alcohol!

Nothing happened this day.

In many ways, despite feeling some things that I didn’t like feeling, that we HAD to do Christmas, that it has some structure to it, that we feel in many ways forced to cook all this food, to spend the day together banishes for a few hours at least the, at times mundanely, frustrating everyday like.

Welcome to the 27th December. Work thoughts are creeping back in. Emails are cranked back open. Wish they’d not. Don’t feel like working for a while…

Sober Christmas
Did I enjoy it?
I enjoyed not being at work.
It was good, despite all I have said, to see my brother again.
It was good to buy Dad his belated birthday present.
It was good to sit at some meal times and to realize how QUICK my brain can be with comic retorts when it is sober.
It was good, yes, to wake up hangover free (as it is every day to wake up like that)

And, it was good to feel everything I felt that was not so good…
I didn’t like what I felt.
I don’t like how I feel about myself
I don’t like how I feed the jealous part of me
I don’t like how I feel I haven’t grown up and yet my brother has
I don’t like the fact that I can’t let go (I used AL to do that instead, prolly)
I didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t use AL to lace the Christmas holidays with a warm glow of something nice… the same way I lace most days /evenings with it, only at Christmas I’d drink more spirits
I didn’t like listening to my dad’s sermon and thinking (perhaps indirect) thoughts that filled me with a feeling of resentment
I didn’t like having to sense how others were or might be feeling.

I wrote on a thread earlier today (27th) briefly about the fact that an AF Christmas wasn’t necessarily a magical experience. It’s not. But I don’t regret it. Not one bit. Because this Christmas has to also be about next Christmas. If, for example, I make 2013 sober (this would be an amazing achievement but one I don’t want to dwell on, ODAAT and all that), then I HOPE that 2013 Christmas would be a very different one from 2012.

And not just because I went 365 days sober, but because in that time, and through being sober, I had to face up to those things I drowned through AL – and dealt with them.

[ThreeDogNight]

Stella (Chook), I stole your booze...

Wow! This is fascinating to read. You write eloquently, RC, and there is a lot to absorb here. It's got to be cathartic and you are writing your "story," one which will hopefully serve several purposes. Careful look at what life is like sans AL, and how raw the emotions are when not fueled/protected by the evil AL.

About the stunted growth. Not sure about the physical thing, but I do know that at AA it is said that one remains at the emotional age one was at when s/he started drinking. MAy be some truth in that. a

I wish I'd been this insightful about AL when I was your age!

I am going to reread all of this later.

Big:lto you for your honesty and courage!

TDN

[RunningCourage]

Stella (Chook), I stole your booze...

From Slay from another thread

I think it will be good here. Remember when you reach back for the water wings, you aren't a failure. You are just reaching for the familiar. It takes time to change the familiar.

I wasn't being lubed! I want lubrication! I want to have my tongue loosen, be able to converse, join in, have "Dutch Courage", say to such-and-such "Hey, wanna grab a coffee sometime."

I wondered at dinner tonight that if I had my minimum 2 glasses of wine, whether this would be a good enough lube to encourage more in-depth dialogue.

But I want to believe that's BULLSHIT. Why?

Because I want to believe I CAN do all of the above WITHOUT AL. I know AF peeps. Two in particular - one lives in Perth, Australia and the other in London, so not as if I could ever just go hang with them for an afternoon! - and when i think of them in social occasions, AL was so clearly NOT on their radars. It wasn't what they were about. It wasn't who they were. It was US who made AL something about them. It was US that raised an eyebrow of curiosity as to the fact that they didn't imbibe and yet seemed to be having a great time, and it seemed so easy to them.

I have a sneaky suspicion that being AF makes you stronger than being tied to AL.

My Reply:

I was AF for years...that will become your normal once you make it to that point. Kuya just got a taste of it as posted in the newbies nest. I drank when I was young like a party animal, then stopped for A LONG LONG TIME...YEARS. I started again about five to six years ago and went wild (many reasons). Right back into my addiction craziness again. Anyway, you need to reestablish yourself without AL. It's like giving up your water wings and learning to swim without them. You don't just jump in the water and swim. You have to learn how. You are in training. It's just like anything else. You won't feel safe at first because you've been relying on those water wings. With time and practice, it will become second nature. The trick is getting to that point where you trust and believe in yourself...look in that mirror and quit letting programs tell you what you like or don't like about yourself. What do YOU want to be as YOU and be it. You'll never please everyone else. Nor will everyone else like you, and rejection will always be a possibility for EVERYONE! BE you and let those who like you like you and those who don't, don't. We'll get comfortable again without those wings. Patience grasshopper. (Don't use my words against me later...yikes....what have I done?!)

DAMN right you'll be stronger!!!! AL is something we hide behind and it doesn't develop courage and strength. How can an illusion do that? Ok, I'll quit babbling now. It's getting late. Just finished my movie and thought I'd check in. Feeling AF strong tonight, so thought I'd use some of my muscles.

Love,

Slay

[Byrdlady]

Stella (Chook), I stole your booze...

The discomfort this year IS an investment in next year! My second Christmas was hands down easier than it was last year.

Point #2. Family will drive you NUTS! (see @#$%^! thread). There is something about the family dynamic that takes you right back to your old role. I try to accept it and keep moving.....XXOO, B

[kuya]

Stella (Chook), I stole your booze...

As always, a fascinating read, you have truth,a fearless approach to what is, rather than what you want it to be and bravery ...... You WILL recover.

I think it was Pixie that mentioned arrested emotional development when one abuses drugs of any kind. I think it is true, and is certainly borne out by my observation.

I have often wondered at the difference between people when they quit and I think a big factor is when the drug abuse began. My abusive relationship with drugs(alcohol) did not start until I was 32 and was the result of PTSD, I was not a party animal as a youth, though if I partied I could drink! There are many here who grew up abusing alcohol in families that abused alcohol ..... This was not the case for either of us....thank goodness.

I was an emotionally mature adult with a career and kids BEFORE the drinking. I , therefore, have a memory of 'normal' and that gives me a place to go back to, rather than it being a journey into the unknown. I am sure that is what is so frightening for those who started their drug journey young.

You, however, fall into another category, you are intelligent and have 'copped on' early, this may make it daunting on one level but it means you have many years less damage to overcome. The process of maturation can now resume and complete while you are still young enough to have that full life with few regrets.

I sincerely hope that coming to MWO helps you to complete this journey, and from what I have seen I have very little doubt.

As I always say.....keep trucking

[RunningCourage]

Stella (Chook), I stole your booze...

Day 28

A clamber up a mole hill

I have, thanks to this thread and a link posted by Kuya, joined a couple of walking groups. How often I will end up walking with them is another question, as with work starting back up in the new year, my only free days are Sundays. And i'm suppose to be training for my second marathon.

However, the upside is - I'm out meeting some new folks doing something I enjoy.

I've been known, in the past, as being a social butterfly, the life and soul of some parties perhaps (perhaps not, but what we perceive of ourselves is sometimes rather different to the perceptions others have of us). But I don't speak much just now.

Kinda like, i'm a wee bit shy.

Perhaps I am?

Sure, when I get to know folks, am comfortable yada yada, then I can exude more confidence. But initially, I think I'm all rather understated. Well, certainly more understated than the girl whose first walk with the group it was also, who, half way up the mountain said, "I've got a sore tummy" as she rubbed her tummy.

"Bit of cramp is it?" said the walk leader.

"OH NO - I'VE GOT CHRON'S DISEASE!" she belted out. Even mountains miles away murmured a disgruntled 'must she mention that while she is on us?'

I drove there form my folks - a 2hr drive - and some of the way I was typically in RC-dream land, which goes something like this...

"So I'll meet a lass and we'll hit it off... it'll be the smile, the glance the intitial questions, the invisible KNOW between us that something magical is beginning to happen here... and we'll talk all the way up and laugh all the way down and neither will we want it to end... And in the pub after as we drink our juices, people will look, comment "how much do they get on?!". "Do you two know each other?" they will ask, "You get on so well, as if you've known each other for years!" They'll remark.

And after the juice in the Public Hoose, I'll offer her a lift back to hers.

Glasgow.

"Yes", she says "If it's not out of your way?" ... It is out of my way, but I say something like 'not at all - i'd love to'. Because I would.

So we end up back at hers and she offers me tea and I'll say please, and she'll say, please make yourself at home. And I'll take off my coat and remove my shoes and we'll both sit, legs curled up, on a sofa in a top storey sandstone tenement overlooking some part of this fine city. And the chewing of the fat just does not cease, on and on and on we go from one thing to another... and we'll jest and flirt that way whereby we use the friendly touching of the other persons arm, hand, leg, ruffle of hair to seemingly emphasise some point of a story, when really all we want to do is ... touch.

Tiredness envelopes hunger as her head lays against mine, I put my arm around her shoulders and we pause, each staring downwards in a warm, drunk-with-this-feeling, haze... and wonder at how amazing this day has turned out to be."

Just at that point I arrive at the bottom of the mole hill. Some people, various ages, are here. Twelve of us.

We climb.

Other than a brief spatterings of conversation I remain pretty silent, other than a lengthy chat with a guy towards the end about what his kids do. It feels, at times, that I am just "getting by" as sober me. Is there not more to this? I ask myself. I tell myself there is. I tell myself that at 28 days - 4 sober weeks - I am only beginning to work out who I might actually be without recourse to booze. That it might take (as I believe FreeFly said it took for her) 10 months, more or less, to start feeling settled, or more content (to use Mollyka's word for it) or to realise WHO this person is. Just now I'm not sure if I truly know who the person is. Or who this person is suppose to be, has potential to be.

But just now it's like a fog. Granted, I am very tired to day, with little sleep, 4 hours driving and good hike up a mole hill, BUT it does feel like fog. [I need to add a footnote about how I am very quiet with my folks now. Have been here a few days, and for whatever reason, and I don't know what it is, as much as I get pissed of with them and myself... it's a little easier, and physically warmer, than returning to the flat in Stirberia. Maybe it's the Stirberia association with work? Maybe there's just more space here in a 4 bedroom home, than a flat where 3 folks share ... but i digress...]

The booze once helped lift the fog. Now, I never drank while I was hiking up a mountain, but it did mean that any subsequent social occasion would have the lube. And without the lube I don't feel like either a) I have the energy to be partying/socialising/relaxing-while-getting-a-wee-bit-high or b) the energy to make conversation as I once did...

Here come Hogmanay... good grief... :H

So I never met her - the girl I dreamt of. Still, it helped the journey pass with a little more interest.

[kuya]

Stella (Chook), I stole your booze...

I reckon it may be a bit much to climb a mountain AND find the girl all at the same time !

[RunningCourage]

Stella (Chook), I stole your booze...

kuya;1434537 wrote: I reckon it may be a bit much to climb a mountain AND find the girl all at the same time !

:H But there's a good view for looking... only not bugger lives in and around the mountains... Gotta get grounded again.

[startingover]

Stella (Chook), I stole your booze...

I think you may feel different about socialising at the Dublin meet up RC.
Thats when I realised that I wasnt as reclusive as I thought and that I did actually enjoy peoples company