Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

[treetops]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

On another long haul flight I watched Hitchcock and then Psycho - back to back. Now that was great fun - and a great way to avoid any AL on offer.

I love the mother-son relationship in Psycho :H

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

I misread Hitchcock as "Hancock." Now *that* was a good movie about drinking. Well, at least the first little bit of it was. :H

[skullbabyland]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

I too enjoy watching movies about drunks, be they inspirational tales of gaining control, or cautionary tales of the gutter like "Leaving Las Vegas". I still want to check out "Flight" and also "Smashed".

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

And then there are afternoons where all you can really do is sit in the living room in front of the computer, chain smoking and not looking at anything in particular, as the hours build up and slide on by into the early evening. Everything feels like the wreckage of some unknown past: lights left on the night before, dishes piled in the sink for the last week and filthy, coffee spills over the countertops, bottles of bourbon empty or nearly so and one fresh one bought in a blackout on the way home.

Dinner last night was a pack of string cheese, wrapped in slices of disgusting pre-cooked ham bought from the liquor store. And I have got to pull myself together at some point, but I'm finding that, deep down, I don't really *want* to right now. I need to clean this apartment, brush the cats, unpack the box of stuff my parents shipped from back home, do some major work on my dissertation and start filling out an application for next year's funding from school. I'm trying to finish an article I started on way back in the beginning of last summer, and made one of my professors give me a non-negotiable deadline of next Thursday for it. I just need to write the last 2,000 words or so, but finding it nearly impossible. Then I have a conference paper that was accepted for a panel, and I need to write that at some point this month. Oh, and my novel that's sitting untouched but really the only thing I actually care about. The amount of work on my plate that I'm simply not doing is overwhelming.

Elsewhere I suggested someone start a thread and vent, or "share" I guess depending on your perspective, and I suppose that's what I'm doing here now. I am starting therapy, believe it or not, in like a week and a half. I finally, finally, finally got around to calling some referrals that I'd gotten from the counselor I saw two years ago - I'd emailed her before the new year, asking for new referrals especially now that I can drive again, and so can get around easily - and I found one that I made an appointment with. When I'd asked, and started thinking about seeing somebody, sobriety was going pretty well so I don't know how non-sobriety will affect treatment goals or whatever. The last thing I want is for everything to be about not drinking. Though it does all seem to start there doesn't it? I asked specifically for women, so I'll be talking with a chick, and that's probably both not at all and *exactly* what I need which is why I made that particular request. She sounds kinda hot on the phone. Not really. But sort of. Maybe.

So things were going surprisingly well, if a little emotionally flat and dead, right up until New Orleans. Even that didn't feel like too big of a bump in the AF road, as I got myself back to LA and decided I didn't really want to be drinking and it was 2 weeks no problem before New Years Eve, and I only drank a little bit that night and not until midnight. Then 1 week before getting back to LA and drinking for a couple nights, then 1 more week AF until this past Wednesday, and now 3 straight nights of boozing and you probably are super-uninterested right about now. The biggest problem is that there isn't a really serious problem. The sky's not crashing down, the world's still spinning, and with the exception of sleeping all morning and being hungover and low-grade anxious there isn't anything big *making* me want to stop. But I'm going to.

No really, I'm serious. Stop laughing. I mean it, I'm gonna commit to f**king abstinence, again, and it's going to be beautiful and rainbows will appear every morning when I wake up. One day at time, one non-alcoholic beer at a time, and maybe I'll try to pick up a pill habit or something. Weed's still out, I think, though if I can work up the motivation to go to a better dispensary with milder strain options, who knows I'm not completely ruling it out. There's definitely a 1/2 Ativan in my future this evening, and one of these days I probably ought to try gabapentin in a regimented, regular way just to see, and lord knows I've got plenty of that lying around.

So watch out, Abstinence Challenge thread. Here's Day 1 and you can all get a good chuckle if I end up drunk again tomorrow after such a drawn-out, hand-on-the-forehead, melodramatic post.

[kronkcarr]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Hey, Stuck,

In an odd way it's kinda good to see a post like your older ones. You sound like you're getting it together. I hate when I have a pile of stuff that needs to be done. And I have a book I'm writing and I was so excited about it and yet I just can't get to it. Hang tough and let me know how the appointment goes.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Thanks, Kronk! Great to see you. How's things? I popped some sedatives and am feeling pretty darned OK at the moment. Threw a load of laundry in and did all the dishes and cleaned the kitchen except for the stove and the floor, oh god, the floor. Mind follows the body, sort of, so maybe getting organized will help. Took a smoke break and now I'm off to unpack the box o' stuff from home.

The new girl bought me a set of art supplies - sketchbook and charcoal and pencils n' such - for Xmas. She's sneaky, that one, and had asked about a few things I'd done and framed back in college and I think this is her way of getting me maybe to start being artistic again or something. That set is one of the things in the box, so maybe I'll draw some dirty pictures for (of) her. Or I'll just smoke more and sit here wearing a beret and *look* really artistic...

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Well, so The Trip to Echo Spring happened. She *is* a cheerleader for AA and I want to try to excuse her for that but I just can't. I didn't realize Cheever and Carver sobered up in AA, but Fitzgerald spent the last 2-ish years of his life sober without AA, in f**king Hollywood of all places. Oh, but it gets worse. She spends several pages late in the book on traumatic events in childhood and parades out this study that rated trauma on a 1- 4 scale and found that 16% of children with a "4" grew up to be addicts as adults. Sweet and Almighty Communist God, WTF? First - well no sh*t, and second that's actually *not even 1 out of 5*. If you're trying to make a correlation between childhood trauma and adult addiction, you'd think it would way higher, if you're saying that 4 out of every 5 kids with the worst-of-the-worst childhoods grow up to be right as rain then clearly something else is going on. Not to mention the genetic component jesus christ. Figure why are there sh*t-tastic childhoods in the first place? Well probably 'cause a lot of those kids are being raised by addicts, and well then now how do we figure that in... So yes, she can go to hell on that point, too.

And she does put herself into a lot of this book. I mean, I know it's being billed as vaguely memoir-ish, and I suppose on that score it could be considered mildly interesting, blending the genres of travel narrative, autobiography, and biography, but really who gives a f**k about all those birds? It would have been far more interesting if she took the time to investigate her own feelings about her childhood and adult life - as a goddamned writer no less - and think about why she's *not* an alcoholic. She talks about having a few drinks here and there, so what's up with that? If she's going to be paid for a book, then we might as well get our money's worth with some self-investigation. That is, after all, what we pay writers for these days.

And I'm glad that I have the Bailey biography of Cheever on my nightstand. Only about 80 pages or so in, and it's been sitting there for a while. But after reading The Trip to Echo Spring my biggest question is why the f**k am I reading her and not just going straight to the biographies she's quoting. I've read the Bruccoli bio of Fitzgerald, the weirdly not-about-Hemingway-but-kinda-awesome bio Hemingway's Boat, and I'm knee-deep in the Cheever. So thanks, Laing, for reading a few volumes of journals and some letters for me... Oh, and do we *really* care this much about Tennessee Williams??? Sweet Christ.

Well so that's Day 2. I guess I didn't get much done today, but no booze and no Xbox. And appetite = returned, with a powerful force. Hope ya'll are having a good one. :l

EDIT: She is a pretty good reader though, particularly of Cheever and her reading of "The Swimmer" is awesome. She maybe gives Berryman a little too much credit and really misses a golden opportunity with the Carver stories in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, but otherwise it's nice to hear her take on the literature. I was maybe a tad too harsh.

[skullbabyland]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

StuckinLA;1615719 wrote: I guess I didn't get much done today, but no booze and no Xbox. And appetite = returned, with a powerful force. Hope ya'll are having a good one. :l

I'd say that a day without booze (and Xbox lol) is quite well done, and it DOES sound to me like you're getting stuff done, with all the reading you're doing. Great stuff.

[treetops]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Well Stuck I won't put your name down to write reviews of any of my stuff:H:H
I'm slowly getting through Echo Spring - its my bath book. I don't have time to read all the original memoirs so its a nice compendium for me - and it did get me to read The Swimmer and watch the movie - which I have enthused about. I don't know so much about American lit - so thats a wee education too (book is very American in its focus but thats OK). And its male drinkers - but then Highsmith was supposed to be somewhat private about her daily AL routine.
I have found that when I read a lot of the other AL confessionals I start off full of enthusiasm and then get very bored. So thats telling isn't it.
And I have sat through too many badly acted Tennesee plays - you can imagine how the accents get twisted here. But then Americans can't do Kiwi or Aussie accents - not that they have to. Elizabeth Ross got a Golden Globe for 'Top of the Lake' - and she sort of did a Kiwi accent - Lake is a TV mini-series set in NZ - dark, brooding, incest, etc, some AL, drugs - stunning scenery - Holly Hunter has a weirdo role. Quite a creepy movie so you might appreciate it.

[Juan BH]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Hey Stuck-

Well done on getting the AF ball rolling again. I think/hope you will be happy with that choice... And thanks for helping out around here so much, too. I appreciate it.

:goodjob:

[spiritwolf333]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

I am lost as a w--e in church regarding the reading/books, but I am just going to second Skull's post -No Alcohol. But what the frik -no Xbox. That can lead to delusions and other stuff. Just a thought.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

treetops;1615920 wrote: Elizabeth Ross got a Golden Globe for 'Top of the Lake' - and she sort of did a Kiwi accent - Lake is a TV mini-series set in NZ - dark, brooding, incest, etc, some AL, drugs - stunning scenery - Holly Hunter has a weirdo role. Quite a creepy movie so you might appreciate it.

That sounds kind of hot, actually. Though I will have you know that my one published review, of a book I didn't particularly care for, was very even-handed and even vaguely positive as it turned out.

So first off, I'd just like to take a moment for a shout-out and a big thanks to everyone who made this thread the 11th most-viewed in the Meds Threads. My ego is now almost as big as my d**k, and while I may never crack the top 10, there are plenty of worse places to be than right behind RedH. Oh, and also for the rating bumps. Every time chaos/desperados/baclofan makes a new screen name my rating takes a hit, and while I personally have never given stars to my own thread, people seem to be chipping in to keep me at 4 stars and I appreciate the sentiment.

So I actually spent all afternoon at my desk working, and while I don't feel like I accomplished a damned thing, I'm closer now to completing this project I've been working on than I was this morning, and that at least feels good. The question now is what the heck to do - it's only 4:30 and I'm feeling pretty burned out. No, drinking's not an option, but there is the Xbox and my online hockey character has been feeling really neglected. Trouble is that Xbox is yet one more compulsive behavior that I'm kind of trying to work on, and even if I say I've worked hard and I'm just going to play for a little bit, that's the same kind of alky thinking as anything else. But who am I kidding, I'm probably moments away from jumping online with my headset and screaming at 12 year-olds while they beat the crap out of me in game after game until the middle of the night.

Been taking a little more gabapentin yesterday and today, and going to try to give it a real shot. Since I don't noticeably feel *anything* it's not like bac at all, and I don't think about it or worry about missing a dose, so it's tough to remember but I'm trying. The AF thing isn't bad and I only "needed" a 1/2 Ativan the first day and haven't touched that since. Definitely feeling better though do of course get the feeling like I wish I could drink. Even - especially - reading The Trip to Echo Spring, ironically enough considering that was all about the waste and devastation of alcohol. Maybe giving out too much personal info here, maybe not, but it was particularly hard reading about Cheever and Carver in Iowa City, since I remember drinking (a lot) in several of the places named while I was there. Oh, The Mill, how I loved you for a time.

:l

[skullbabyland]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

LOL @Spirit, great post

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

treetops;1615920 wrote: Well Stuck I won't put your name down to write reviews of any of my stuff:H:H

Elizabeth Ross got a Golden Globe for 'Top of the Lake' - and she sort of did a Kiwi accent - Lake is a TV mini-series set in NZ - dark, brooding, incest, etc, some AL, drugs - stunning scenery - Holly Hunter has a weirdo role. Quite a creepy movie so you might appreciate it.

Sounds hot, Treetops. And let it be known that my one published review, of a book I didn't particularly care for, was actually very even-handed and vaguely positive. Of course, it was a review not a hatchet job that the magazine asked me for, and the book was written by the sister of a writer/professor who I like and respect very much. Anyway, that's neither here nor there.

I'm seeing visions of my little digital hockey guy in what little sleep I've gotten over the past several days, guys. I wake up and my thumbs are moving over a phantom Xbox controller... OK, that's not exactly true, but I have been sleeping even if not great, and back to waking up in the middle of the night and eating. It's 1/2 that I'm hungry and 3/4 that I'm just reaching for something. Woke up at 4 this morning after going to bed around 12:30, and found myself eating a carton of yogurt and some dry oatmeal cereal. At least I don't have anything too unhealthy around here right now, except that over the last 3 days I have eaten 16 string cheeses. Those are gone now.

Again, trying to give gabapentin a real go, but felt all kinds of crazy weird yesterday evening. Pentin doesn't seem to do much for my anxiety so rather than take a little more of that (I'm trying to do 1800mg/day, so far have maxed out at 1200mg), I took 1/2 an Ativan and that helped tons - though didn't put me to sleep I just chilled in front of the computer in bed.

Now yesterday during the day, I actually spent several (SEVERAL) hours working in the afternoon, and by the end of it felt like I'd accomplished absolutely zero, was right back where I'd started, and still have to do it all over again today. But I suppose I am nevertheless closer to finishing this project than I was yesterday morning. And then of course there's this side-work. I finished up all the applications essays that I'm doing for this Israeli company, thank Iova, but now there's an individual who was referred to me for some applications to an externship of some sort, and she's sending all these cover letters that she needs done. It's annoying, and time consuming, and apparently time-sensitive and she had me all freaked out and working like [insert analogy] last night on 2 letters that are I think due today, and I've got one more to do today before doing anything else. I mean, it's good, because I'm not cheap and it's good to make money, but it also throws everything else off and I hate working on things that aren't productive for me long-term.

So back to the grind. :l

[spiritwolf333]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Really look forward to hearing more about your results taking gabapentin. Thankss