The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Monday, May 29th 2017 (Wedding Reception and the Party Afterwards)



I've just completed a quite horrible eighteen miles of walking which is pretty much the last of the big walks of this training schedule. What made it so difficult was that it came the day after Sunday's horrible thirty two mile trek. The legs are tight and I'm feeling it in my lower back. Mainly it's the feet though – they feel quite incapable of walking any further. That's fifty miles walked in the last two days. It's a fair amount of walking yet it still doesn't equate to what I must walk in one fourteen hour period in less than two weeks. I don't know (and I'm not just moaning here – I'm being totally straight with you) how the hell I'm actually going to cope on the day. It's an enormous challenge for a Stevie. I've also suffered a little sunburn on my arms and the back of my neck due to this wonderful weather we've been having. I should be careful in future when it's hot though – us Scottish dudes just are not built for warm weather like that!

So I was at Lindsay's friend's wedding on Saturday there and had wanted to talk a little about it yesterday but got caught up rambling about the convention and so on and so I didn't get the chance. Dr. Bacon has been keen for me to get on with my home work tasks in trying to spot when my behaviour and personality modes come into effect and how it all pans out. There were plenty opportunities at this wedding to check out my dodgy behaviour and try to gain a little insight into what causes it in the first place.

I learned a great deal about my Detached Protector Mode when I was at the wedding. It was okay actually during the service and while the photographs were being taken – it was really at its worst while we were at the party afterwards. Most people in AA say that they are very socially awkward. Some of them are. Others are not though – they just say that they are. Lindsay is one such person. She often talks of how she lacks confidence in groups of people that she doesn't know but from what I could see at the party she did a pretty good job at socialising. Neither Lindsay nor me knew many of the people who were there (although she did know one or two from our table) but she managed to talk, seemingly effortlessly, to most of them. I found it a tremendous struggle the whole night and was glad when her dad came to pick us up in the car. When we got back to hers I headed straight to bed and fell asleep right away. Lindsay tells me the next day that she wishes she could fall asleep as quickly as I sometimes do. Makes me think back to my early days of sobriety when I just could not get to sleep no matter what I tried.

I think it's the Detached Protector that wants me to hide away in these situations. Get out of here any way you can. Save face and get the fuck outta here!! This could be my Critical Parent but it's much more likely the old Detached Protector. Whichever mode it is I can be damn sure it isn't the Healthy Adult. He's the one I'm supposed to be trying to reach in most situations but always seems to be the most elusive – especially when I'm in a position where Little Stevie feels threatened. The whole idea of a system of modes seems silly to me when I'm in an awkward situation and at exactly the times I should be trying to watch out for them. It means that I'm not really doing my homework for Dr. Bacon, my clinical psychologist, the way I've been asked to. I'm not spotting patterns of mode based thinking and behaviour as they are happening and learning from these experiences but I'm instead dismissing the home work while in the midst of the patterns and then trying to look back on them the next day and hoping to figure them out. It's still doing my home work, just perhaps not in the way I've been asked to. Whatever way I ''choose'' to go about it I think that as long as I have something to show for my efforts this week then all the better our next session will be.

There's no doubt that had I taken a drink of alcohol I would have had a better time (actually – since it's been so long I'd likely overdo it and end up being a complete ass-head and so had a much worse time, made a complete fool of myself and would probably have fallen out with Lindsay – but you know what I mean?!) but that would have been me trying to stuff out my feelings instead of dealing with them. In dealing with them I had a pretty miserable night where I just couldn't connect with anything. My inhibitions were sufficiently high that my self-consciousness was nothing short of overwhelming.

One of the bridesmaids is also Lindsay's friend and it was with her and her family that we sat with at the party and that we arrived in the car with. While in the car on the way there they were bickering. The car is a seven seater and is full. Lindsay does mention this later – how she and I both come from tiny (and, let's be honest – shitty) families who don't really care about us all that much and so it was nice to be amongst another family while they were having some banter – banter those from tiny (and shitty) families don't have the opportunity to become involved in.

She's right. My family – even on the rare occasion that we are together – tend not to know how to laugh and banter with one and other. It's fun to watch others who can but it doesn't have give my self-pity defect a workout – a little play in the sun. I've noticed that my defects have become stronger and more resistant to my defences since I started getting involved again with ACA and AA meetings. The God of my understanding is becoming harder and harder to reach.

It wouldn't surprise me if He's trying to teach me a lesson.

I wonder who'd win in a fight: the God of my understanding or my Detached Protector.

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Stevie

Wouldn't want to bet against either.

1116

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Tuesday, May 30th 2017 (Loss Aversion)



I'm just back from visiting English Sara and Dennis. I'm not at Lindsay's this evening – I'm in the diabolical and claustrophobic cave instead – and on the way here I checked in at Barry the Bullet's brother's house. He wasn't in and there are no ladders in the back garden. This is where we started keeping the window cleaning equipment when we lost the car and were working in that area. There's still a chance that Barry could still be out and about and working away but is just in a different area but it doesn't look good.

Why won't he answer his phone? Or even text message me back? It'd be great to know either way if there is still a window cleaning business for me to go back to over the summer. It's easily the best way for someone like me to go about earning some cash over the ten weeks I will be without college. I could apply for jobs to keep me going over the summer but how long would it take to get one and to get a start? I could be back cleaning windows for myself with Barry the Bullet the day after the college finishes.

I was at the Credit Union earlier to make a withdrawal. I took out fifty quid. This gives me ten bucks to buy a MIDI keyboard that one of the guys from my college class was selling and forty quid to get me through the next bunch of days. I was gutted to hear my balance. I currently, now that the fifty pounds has been withdrawn, have nine hundred and fifty pounds in the account. This is the first time I've been under a thousand pounds for a while. The thing it – this is the most I've ever had in the bank in my life! This had come completely out of the blue and due to a random bunch of events. Most people have plenty of thousands in the bank at any one time (even those who claim to be alcoholic which is something I could never get my head around) but since I started college I managed to save this cash.

This hasn't happened because I earn a lot being a student or because I'm a hard worker or anything like that. It all happened due to a government fuck up that saw me still receive my sickness benefit that I was on prior to starting my studies as well as the student bursary I get for studying. This means I have been ''earning'' twice as much as I might normally have been. I'll admit that the extra cash saved in not having to pay for nicotine every day since early February has probably helped in this as well. But the bottom line is that I have under one thousand pounds in there and I started to feel something. Could this be Loss Aversion?

Loss Aversion is a part of our psychological make-up and one of the reasons that as a species we are mostly heartless and selfish. I didn't care much about money when I was drinking. I only had to source enough cash each day to buy booze, weed, and cigs, and maybe some food, and I was rocking. Now that I've had a thousand in the bank I am noticing myself feeling different about money. I'm averse to losing it. Despite the MIDI keyboard being a possible investment in a mini-studio I could get up and running in the coming months (which would be really handy if I plan on taking my studies further) and living costs being essential I am hating the fact that the supply of cash is as it is. I'm perhaps more afraid of losing that (or even spending it) than I was of being constantly penniless as I was when I was drinking and at any part of my life before or since. I wonder if this is what it feels like to be a normal person. To live in this constant and irrational fear of losing what we have built. It seems like a horrible way to be. I wonder if we all experience this all the time, just that we deny it to ourselves. No wonder humans seem so angry all the time.

Something will have to give on this situation though. Sooner or later someone from upstairs is going to realise that this wee Stevie dude has been overpaid and I'll be charged all this cash back. This'll likely happen very soon as the college comes to a close in just under four weeks. I don't know how I've been managing to get away with this for so long now. This has been going on since I started college back on August 29th. It's quite insane but has been very handy. Before I started studying at the college I was in receipt of sickness benefit due to my being declared mentally unstable to immediately return to the workplace and I was placed on the Back To Work Programme which aimed to help me slowly integrate myself back to work within two years. I used to have to attend meetings with an agency called Triage every two weeks or so. This let the government know what I was up to. It was all handy enough. Then I started at the college, but, for some unknown reason, I continued to receive Triage appointments through the post. I called them and explained that I was now in full time education and so I wouldn't apply. I had already explained all of this when the college sent out my start date. The Triage letters kept coming. I never attended one the whole time I've been a student yet the letters just keep coming. I'm amazed that no one has clocked that I haven't been to a single Triage meeting in the last nine months yet still my benefit is not stopped. It's quite amazing actually.

I'll be continuing to try Barry the Bullet every way I can until I hear from him that it is over and that there is no business left. I'm willing to meet up with him and, assuming he's quit, get details of customers we might still have left and go out myself. I'm willing to invest in new equipment for this in a bid to try to make the very best of the summer.

It's the only way I can think of that I'll be able to keep my Credit Union account above one thousand pounds.

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Stevie

Really hoping that he can get his account back up to one thousand.

1121

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Wednesday, May 31st 2017 (Mabel Mittens)



I keep thinking about how close I am to completing the college course. All of the short term goals are being ticked off but now it feels as though one or two of the more long term ones are starting to be as well. Assuming my house plant lives to see midnight tonight (which it will) then it'll be eleven months in my care and thriving. Three weeks tomorrow will be the last day of the college year. That's two challenges that were a little more than just getting through a day sober or similar. These required a little more in the way of care and consistency. I'm getting better at things I guess, becoming a slightly better human being than I was before. I hope so anyway.

English Sara has bought a kitten. Mabel Mittens is its name. I don't know what on earth would possess her to go about making this choice. When I arrived there last night both she and Dennis were sitting with hardly any tobacco and grumbling about an electricity bill. Moments like this aren't uncommon in their world. Now they'll have to buy cat litter, cat food, pet insurance, and all the rest on top of what they normally spend. I think both Sara and Dennis struggle with feelings of loneliness. Even though both now live together I think that I notice it when I am visiting. I can feel the loneliness, sense it in the room. Or is this just me being in tune with my own loneliness? Perhaps all three of us experience this emotion in the same way. I don't think that all three of us suffer from any kind of constant extreme loneliness, but I do feel something of it coming from all us, seeping from our pores.

When I get back to my town tomorrow there are a few things I have to do. I have to go to college for the fourth last Thursday (might not even have to go four times if I can finish off the radio broadcasting unit soon) and then I have another session with Dr. Bacon, my clinical psychologist. I'll have to make the most of this one because I'm sure he mentioned something about annual leave in June and so I'm expecting it to be a few weeks until we next meet. In the evening I am going to visit one (or more – we'll see) of my old window cleaning customers. One of them text me the other day and so I know she's expecting us soon. Maybe she'll be able to tell me exactly when Barry the Bullet was last in the area. I keep thinking that if I could just try to keep around one hundred and fifty to two hundred of them (customers, I mean) then I would be on Easy Street for the summer. That would be....say.....fifty houses per week at a value of five bucks per property. Two hundred and fifty bucks a week. That would be okay. In order to finish off the fifty houses for the week I'd only have to go out Monday, Tuesday, and maybe Wednesday. I'd have plenty time to collect the money in the evenings and plenty time during the week to make Triage appointments or work at the Charity Shop Cafe. The only problem I have is time. I don't have much time between now and the end of college/start of working happens on the 23rd of June.

Actually, that's insane saying that – there's almost a full month. In this time I am to find the work (much of which should already still be there) get the gear in (ladder, bucket, scrims, cloths and business cards) and that'll be me ready to go. I'd much prefer Barry the Bullet to be assisting me in this but if I have to go it alone then so be it. I'll keep trying him but in the meantime I'll start working on my own solution. It's what a healthy person would do.

Most text messages I receive are pretty easy to reply to but I have two on my phone from today that I'm having to think about a little more than usual. I have one from ACA's Sandra. She's just asking me how I'm getting on. I'm not really sure on how to answer, as silly as that sounds. It's not that it's a big issue – I just find it difficult to dismiss someone by sending them some shit I don't mean or that doesn't have any effort behind it. How am I doing? I was hoping to go to the fun fair that is being held at the country park in my town on Saturday and had planned to go to Gary's last night after visiting with English Sara to see if the nieces were going. I didn't go though.

Why not? If I'm being honest I think that the comment Lindsay made was playing on my mind a little. About how she and I don't have positive families around us. Maybe I want to stay away from my family for long enough so that they make the connection first. How long would it be before my brother made the phone call to me? I can pretty much tell you now – the next time they are heading out one night and need a babysitter for the nieces. I don't know if this is good enough. The annoying thing is that Gary communicates with Barry the Bullet through some online app of some kind. When I can't reach Barry I usually contact my brother and he reaches him online. This is why it's been so tough this time. I'm on my own in trying to reach him. This is kinda getting off topic though – I was supposed to be talking about that message from ACA's Sandra. I don't know what I'll say to her. If I don't go to that fun fair on Saturday then I'll show face at the ACA meeting.

The other message was from my housing officer. I think he's trying to fuck with me – to test if I'm staying in the cave or not. Twice now he's had anonymous phone calls from someone (or someone's) in the area reporting my cave as being abandoned. Each time he's contacted me and I've defended my position, telling him that I am most definitely living there. The first time we arranged a home visit and he came out to me. It went well. The second time a ''conversation'' via text messages was enough. Now he seems to be wanting to come out again. I don't know if this means that there's been a third call about the property. Why would someone go to all the trouble of phoning the council over and over to report an empty house? The local busy-body. I am surrounded by old people. Maybe they have nothing else to do. It's possibly Peter that's been making these calls. He's ninety six and terrified of his own shadow. He's the gossip. No wonder. At ninety six he might not have worked in the whole time I've been alive. Scary!

So – I am struggling with whether to contact my brother first as he seems not to give the slightest shit; I'm struggling with what to reply to Sandra regarding how I'm doing; and I'm looking to meet with my housing officer again at the cave to discuss what's happening with my property and if anyone lives there.

Just another day in the life of a Stevie really.

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Stevie

What sort of name is Mabel Mittens for a cat anyway?

1291

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Thursday, June 01st 2017 (Fifty Peppers)



Last week saw the fiftieth anniversary of its release in the UK and tomorrow will be its fiftieth in the USA. The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Fifty years old. In saying that, it really shows how new a medium popular music actually is and judging by the Britain's Got Talent show that it running every night this week we are getting so very close we could be to it being over. To think that the electric guitar, the synthesizer, all of these modern instruments, we could have exhausted within one hundred years. It's bound to happen. We got a few hundred years out of a piano and a bunch of stringed and wind instruments but then when do you ever hear them being played nowadays? In the same way that academic study keeps most classic novels in print it is the movie soundtrack that keeps classical music alive. I may have to stick on Sgt. Pepper to hear what it sounds like after all this time (although it certainly hasn't been anywhere close to fifty years since I last had it on).

The radio broadcasting project will have to wait until next week. If it were me I would have organised everyone alphabetically and then booked them into the radio studio accordingly. Instead it has been a case of no one wanting to go in there and be assessed and so everyone still has their broadcast to do and we only have.....what!?....three weeks left!? I was hoping to get mine done this afternoon but there were diploma students in there doing their graded units and so I've booked myself in for nine o'clock next Thursday morning. I'm dying to get all of the work for this NC completed and in the bag. It'll be the first time I've actually finished anything worthwhile for years. It's getting to the stage where I'm allowing myself to become frustrated though – I know I'm going to do it, I just want it done.

But then what? What happens after this course is done with? At least while it is running I have drive and focus. It gives me something enjoyable to look forward to each week. I enjoy the learning. I enjoy having the access to all of the lovely equipment. I like finding out what new projects we'll be doing from one month to the next. I actually enjoy the friendships as well. Our class started with sixteen or so students in it and this whittled down to just the eight of us. This has kind of split the group into two bands of four students. The three guys I speak with most regularly have become people I enjoy meeting up with from one day to the next. Come Sunday night I find myself wondering what they might have been up to over the weekend. So what happens next then?

At the risk of sounding like a broken record I am hoping to reach Barry the Bullet so that my summer might be filled with a large amount of window cleaning. This morning everything went to plan. I got up in plenty time, got ready and then made it into college. I practiced my radio script until I was ready to be assessed. Then I went for lunch and to make a withdrawal from the Credit Union. The afternoon then took a turn for the worst. I ended up going back to the college for my assessment but, like I said, there were other students higher up the priority food-chain so they got the vote. Then I had a nightmare with Dr. Bacon. It was a successful enough session – don't get me wrong – it was just putting me into some tight spots and made me a little uncomfortable. I'll talk more about that another time, probably tomorrow but certainly over the weekend.

Then I was set to go speak with a window cleaning customer whom Barry the Bullet has been cleaning in the time I've been at college in the hope that I might be able to track his whereabouts – exactly where he might be in the monthly run – but she wasn't in. It'll have to be tomorrow. I have a short window after I do my voluntary shift at the Charity Shop Cafe and before I head to Restoration. I can visit sometime around then. She's a fairly old woman so could be in or out at any time of day but I know that she goes into hospital next week so I'm hoping I can catch her before then. I've been trying to think of other customers we used to do that Barry might have continued doing for the last few months and contacting them. If I can track down roughly where he is in the monthly cycle then I have a better chance to finally speaking with him. It's been a long time.

So – Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is fifty years old!? It was never my favourite album and I was always bemused and more than a tad bewildered when it used to top all of the album polls and lists in all of the music magazines but in recent years it has fallen from grace a little as the Beatles' milestone record in favour of Revolver and/or Abbey Road. Revolver is already fifty (fifty one actually) and Abbey Road will be turning forty eight in September of this year. I remember when I started really getting into their records that they were around thirty years old. Now they are fifty. It's crazy the way that time passes when you're not thinking about it. Nowadays there are many younger people locally listening to Oasis albums and they seem like they were only released a few years ago but they are all around twenty – twenty five years old now. It's nuts!!

This record turning fifty has really opened my eyes and made me think a lot about how new a medium the album actually is.

Not that that'll help me locate Barry the Bullet.

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Stevie

Has a few years before he reaches fifty.

1038

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Friday, June 02nd 2017 (Daydreaming Drinkers)




Lindsay and I are chatting this evening while Jools Holland is on in the background. She mentions something about her fantasy life that she used to have. I ask her to elaborate a little and she tells me a little about what some of her fantasy life used to contain and where it took her.

I guess that most of us are prone to a little daydreaming from time to time. Some of us more than others (and I suspect that us drinkers might be many of those who do it more than others) – I know I had a rich and furtive imagination when it came to what might have been. Mine didn't start off when I was a young boy and develop as I grew up. It rather just started a few years ago when I was really getting into my stride with the whole drinking thing. In Lindsay's daydream she kind of went from one idea to the next. I kind of clung onto one idea and rolled with it. When she had first started getting help for her drinking Lindsay's psychologist had said that there was nothing wrong with a little daydreaming here and there but when she started seeing her psychiatric nurse she was told that this sort of disassociation is unhealthy and they worked on bringing a halt to it. I don't keep my daydream life going any longer either – I guess it died off when the horrors of the reality of sobering up proved to be stronger than any fantasy life might be.

I'm still thinking a little about the Beatles and their album ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' and how it recently celebrated its fiftieth birthday (actually today is the fiftieth birthday of its release in the United States) and how young this makes music – at least popular chart music the likes of which dominates popular culture these days – actually is. Fifty years! It's sweet fuck all really. In fact, there will be loads of people on these forums who are old enough to remember its release. It's.......disappointing, in a way. I've always been raised believing that these albums of the fifties and sixties were true classics having stood the test of time and survived generations. The truth is that we only go back one generation really before we have people the same age as McCartney and Starr – the two remaining Beatles.

In fact – most people who were making music or movies back in the sixties, the Golden Ages, are still very much alive and with us. Bob Dylan released his first album in 1962 and is still alive. The Rolling Stones are still kicking around. It's the same with movies. Did you know that Clint Eastwood was born in 1930? He's been around for fucking ever, starring in and directing movies. He's still with us. I've been thinking about this stuff all week. My mum has been alive through most of the poignant moments we talk about in popular modern culture and if she wasn't then her mother certainly was. It means that we are not even near to finding out which films and movies will truly stand the test of time and will be loved by my great grandchildren and yours.

I don't actually think that they will fare all that well to be honest. Having spent the last nine months working in a college classroom and studio with teenagers and dudes in their early twenties it becomes quite clear that their musical knowledge is incredibly limited when it comes to most things prior to......maybe the mid nineteen nineties. This'll continue until the day comes when no one alive will have even heard Sgt. Pepper's album before. It's happened to a large extent with novels. It'll happen with music too. In saying that – classical music written hundreds of years ago still gets airplay but I don't think popular music has the character in many ways to lend itself to adverts as such. Classical music doesn't really date and so it always sounds pretty menacing. Pop music changes shape all the time and relies heavily on technology of the day. As a result it can age really badly really quickly. Just listen to almost any record from the eighties to see what I'm talking about.

The walks are getting shorter and much easier. I only have four to go before the main event next weekend. The longest one of these is only eight miles. Last weekend proved to be quite stressful for my body and I can still feel my muscles a little sore in my calves and lower back. The big walks are done with. It makes me wonder if I'll keep up with this level of activity once the event is over. Will I continue to walk as I have been doing? I can't see me putting in the thirty mile walks unless I had a reason to but hopefully I can keep up the ten mile ones. They take up quite a bit of time but they are great opportunities to get some alone time and listen to music through the headphones. Maybe I should make a point of trying to get twenty miles in every week. It's something to think about later in the month.

On an end note: how many hours could be deemed excessive regarding playing online games on one's phone? Lindsay has recently become addicted to a little hospital game called My Hospital and seems to spend quite a bit of time on it (is actually on it right now). I'm thinking that it can't be too realistic else she wouldn't want to spend all this time on it after just finishing a twelve hour shift in a real hospital. I was just wondering. I guess I spend quite a bit of time online so I shouldn't probably get into it.

Anyway – busy weekend coming up again.

The Champion's League final (and, if you don't like that – the Britain's Got Talent final) will be the icing on Saturday's cake.

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Stevie

Doesn't daydream like he used to.

Misses it sometimes.

1040

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Saturday, June 03rd 2017 (Before The Football)




The Champion's League final will be getting underway soon so I'm looking forward to watching that. I actually think that this will be the first football match I'll have watched in its entirety. Last season I did a lot better than that. I actually went to a few games to support my local team. Nikki at Restoation managed to get us free tickets and I would take Dennis and English Sara. This season I have kept up to date with all that's been happening in all of the leagues across Britain, and I could probably give you the impression that I knew what I was talking about, but this will be the first game I'll actually have watched. That might be a lie actually. I think I watched Manchester City put five past West Ham in the League Cup a couple of months or so ago. But anyway – football isn't what I came here to talk about.

I don't know what I came here to say really. I just try to type something up every day and try to reach the one thousand word mark. We're now into early June and so that'll be over one hundred and fifty days I've consecutively written in this journal. Scary stuff. I think that some of the posts fly by when I seem to have lots to say but at other times I feel the word count a chore to try to reach. One hundred and fifty thousand words written in the journal this year so far. It'll be more than that actually. I usually write a little more and so all of the one hundred and fifty extra bits will add up to a few thousand.

I met up with Lindsay down town this afternoon. We were going shopping. I wanted to try to find an extra couple of things that might make next week's walk a little more comfortable. I managed to get in some marathon socks which seem to have extra support in key areas of the foot where blisters are most likely to be a problem. We're talking over fifty miles here, remember, and so it's not a case of ''if'' when it comes to blisters – it's a case of ''when'' and I'll do well to be fully ready for when they come. There are two pairs and we are allowed to stop after the first marathon to change our footwear and get some protein down our necks.

Earlier this morning I nipped along to the shop for milk and noticed the anger of my fellow countrymen. It's hard to go out there every day with love in my heart (head) and try to get along with the people who make up my community when they themselves come out with such anger. People trying to push in front of others in the queue at the shop and getting defensive when they are caught out; drivers acting rudely on the road to other road users. The list goes on. Dr. Bacon (my clinical psychologist who I will talk more about tomorrow) would likely say that it is my Critical Parent Mode that is at work here. It's telling me that these people are acting in ways that don't meet up to my standards and so I become judgemental. I don't know if it's this or if it's just a case of me absorbing so much negative energy from the people out here with me this morning when all I wanted was a calming walk to the shops for milk on a lovely sunny start to the day.

So I met with Lindsay this afternoon.

Lindsay – ''How was it?''

Stevie – ''Oh my God – it was horrible! And I forgot to give Sandra her book back so I'll have to go back again.''

Lindsay – ''What was so bad about it?''

Stevie – ''It's just sucked the emotional strength out of me and I can actually feel myself in a much worse headspace than I was when I left the house this morning.''

It's true. ACA has been testing my sanity for a couple of weeks now but this week just pushed me over the edge. I used to get like this in AA as well at time – I would leave the house feeling good and optimistic about the day and coming meeting and then would feel the good mood being sapped out of me during the meeting. It's happening in ACA now too. The days of me going to meetings of any kind are very limited now, I can feel it. I think if I can just continue to wean myself off them I'll be fine. I'll manage without them. In this way I feel like one of the lucky ones.

Lindsay – ''That's not good, babe! You shouldn't be going to meetings and feeling worse!''

Stevie – ''They were all crying in there. All about different things.''

One of them was crying because she wasn't sure whether she should take less hours at work to spend with her family. She isn't sure that they can cope with the reduction in wages. There are tears but I don't really know what they are there for. Dramatic effect for our benefit? It's possible. It would be like me going in there and crying about not knowing what I'm going to be doing next year. Will I go back and study for my sound production diploma or what will I do? There's a time and a place and I don't think ACA is it. I also believe that if I fail to track down Barry the Bullet then I'll face money shortages the likes of which this particular ACA member would likely be unable to relate. I'm getting stronger though. I know this because I don't have to mention it in meetings. The others took turns to weep over the smallest things.

Lindsay – 'They're sick people. I don't think you should go back.''

Stevie – ''We'll see.''

We will indeed. I have to say though – the longer I stay sober for and the more work I do with Dr. Bacon, the sicker these fellows of mine appear. It's quite frightening. We are walking along the high street and we bump into Kerry who used to be in AA but whom I haven't seen since she brought Lindsay to my old home group back in August last year. I chat with her partner and son about the coming Champion's League final while Lindsay and Kerry catch up on things. They are going to meet up next week for coffee. It's a good thing for Lindsay I think. She's a bit like me in that she sometimes appears isolated and doesn't make the necessary steps to reach out. Turns out that Kerry is still struggling with weed smoking and drinking but can't go back to AA for reasons we already know. Two of AA's male members have a special liking for her.

I could think that she is overreacting but I know all about this and how rife and unmonitored it is within the fellowship and it's dreadful. I've seen it with my own eyes too many times now.

Right then – football!

I was reading this morning about Dani Alves who will be playing for Juventus this evening. He was talking about how he used to get woken up in the mornings by his father back in Brazil to help work on the farm before they made the twelve mile trip to school. Either he or his brother – whoever was deemed by the father to have worked the hardest that morning got to take the bicycle to school while the other walked.

Makes you wonder what chance our pampered nation's children have of growing up to compete with that.

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Stevie

Off to watch the football.

1325

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Sunday, June 04th 2017 (Incredible Deja Vu)




I messaged Sandra from ACA to let her know that I wouldn't be attending another meeting for the foreseeable, but that Lindsay had said that she would like to try it one more time and so would take the book in to her that I borrowed a few weeks ago. It was that book about recovery from Bob Earll, ''I Got Tired Of Pretending!'' - was an okay book with some interesting points that I typed out in this journal, just so that I might be able to locate them again if I want to for any reason. I say that a lot actually with regards to books and copying stuff out that I find interesting. I say that I dump them in here so that they will be easy for me to find. The truth is that trying to find anything in these pages would be quite a struggle. A post every day – how could I ever remember where I wrote something. It hasn't been long since I copied out some of those sections of that book I'm talking about but I couldn't tell you where on earth back there it might actually be. Even though I have the advantages of naming my posts accordingly it is still often very unclear what exactly might be contained within each post. Anyway.......

I had one of my little walks to do today and so I got it done this afternoon. Eight miles is all that was asked of me. I have another short one of seven miles tomorrow and then an even shorter one of just five miles on Wednesday and that's the training done. I'll be ready (apparently) for the double marathon on Saturday. I kinda can't wait until it's over even though I know that it will be fun at the time. I've been on dozens of walks this year so far and covered hundreds of miles. I've made some interesting discoveries along the way. This afternoon I made another discovery. I had always meant to go down this way on my travels but was always afraid of the unknown. If I kept walking to places I roughly knew where I was going then I could track my times and distances better. If I knew the terrain then I could get more accurate readings from my walking and the surfaces will be similar to what I will face on the day. We're on the coast and so to travel anywhere where there might be rocks or beach is risky. This afternoon I take the risk.

I like to slag my town off quite a bit, and Lindsay's town too (I ''like'' slagging off everything though, don't I!?) but today was another scorcher and there are some lovely places locally with some wonderful scenery. This afternoon I find myself walking along a little harbour along the coast of a little village that is almost directly joined onto the edge of Lindsay's town. There are plenty people around but not so much that I begin to get agitated with them. There's just the right amount of them for me to tolerate. The harbour then turns into a coastal walk which I have been down parts of but never around here – or so I thought. I'm walking down a little path towards a section of beach and I get the most incredible deja vu. I have actually been to this little strip of beach before but it was when I was a little kid. I can remember my auntie being there, and my cousin, her son, but very little else. I have been here before. I've probably not been back here since. It's fucked up! I've been a few places since I was last here (and am even looking to get away for a week to Spain at the end of the summer) but there are pretty little places all around me. I don't know where my negativity is this afternoon. Not that I'm complaining.

I've sunburn on my neck and on both arms. Had I shorts then I'd have been wearing them and so would have had burns on the backs of my legs too, which is one of the worst places from what I can remember of summers gone by. I always get burned at the start of the summer. I think it's because it's usually so cold, grey, cloudy and miserable that we take for granted the higher temperatures when they do arrive. It can go from being cold one week to all of a sudden the summer wants to turn up and so just appears the next. Last night I was sitting out on the balcony at Lindsay's flat and noticed that it was quarter past eleven yet still it was not dark. It wasn't bright sunshine, but it wasn't dark. It doesn't get fully dark here in June and won't again until towards the end of July. Within three months of that we'll hit the clock change and it'll be heading towards being pitch black – darker than it gets at this time of year – by four in the afternoon.

It is a very strange place, this Scotland. Nothing much really happens. It was all happening down south this weekend though as we've seen more terrorist attacks and the British Red Cross concert for the Manchester attacks a few days ago – and Cardiff (in Wales – in southern England) just hosted the Uefa Champion's League final in which Real Madrid did what no other team has done in the modern era and retained the title. That gives me more ammunition for the next time I'm involved in a ''Who's better? Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo?'' debate – a debate of which I've always leaned towards the Ronaldo side.

Anyway – I don't have much time so I'm gonna get moving. Back to college tomorrow for the third last teaching week and then I'll have to figure out what I'm doing with myself. I know I said I'd copy out my session from Dr. Bacon but haven't managed to find the (lots of needed) time. I really want to though because I felt that to be one of our better sessions.

I think that I'm fine with Dr. Bacon. There's an action plan.

It means I don't need AA and ACA anymore.


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Stevie

Discovering beaches he's been to already.

1080

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Monday, June 05th 2017 (Level 9, 8, 6)



I'm still not going to be typing out my session with Dr. Bacon. I'll be sleeping in the cave tomorrow night though so I'll have peace, time, and nothing else to do. This coming weekend I'll be super-busy with the huge walk and won't want any stress for a few days after it. I'm actually having problems in collecting the cash I've been sponsored. People have been really good at telling me that they'll contribute this and that and then signing the form but then they don't seem to be available to put the money where they put their mouths. As things stand I am going to have to throw in around sixty quid of my own cash which will take the cost of me doing this to one hundred and forty five quid. It's not the sort of cash I'm normally able to spend and wouldn't have been able to were it not for the Department of Work and Pensions' tremendous fuck up with me this year and last, since August until now which saw me, for a few months at least, receive both a student bursary and my sickness benefit. Yesterday I was loving people – today I am back to thinking of them as cunts!! Seems like I still have the old Black & White thinking.....

So I'm back at Lindsay's and she's still working. She did get some bad news though in that she checked her exam results and has failed. Everything was going so well. She was studying every spare minute she had and seemed to be peaking at just the right time. She'd gone throughout the year passing each of her essays: the first one she got a C, the second a B. The main one last month (actually would have been around two months ago now – fuck this year is flying) she got an A. Everything seemed to be heading for a success. Now this has happened. I don't know exactly what it means – whether there will be a resit, or remediation, or what happens now. Something will happen though. It's not the end of the world but I think from what she's been texting this afternoon that there have been a few tears. She'll get there – she's just doing it the hard way, that's all!

My course couldn't be any different. Lindsay is currently at the tail end of her degree – it's Level 9 on the UK qualifications framework. Both my brother and my pal Gillon are sitting their Level 8 in their respective subjects. Gary is doing well (from what I hear – it's been over six weeks since I talked with my brother in any capacity) but Gillon has been lazy (his words, not mine) and is struggling at the end. I am, in comparison, working through the very latter stages of my sound production course, which is at NC level, or – Level 6 of the British qualifications framework. I'm sure that each of these guys studying above my level have had much more to do whereas I have had it pretty easy I think. There haven't been many problems I've encountered during the course of my study.

I think that this coming Thursday I'm booked in to be the first of the two Level 6 groups to do his radio broadcasting unit and so I won't have to go in on the Thursdays after that. I think that the final week we are not even in on the Tuesday morning for some reason. At least that's what it says on the online timetable. So I'll be in tomorrow all day and then Thursday morning. Next week I'll be in all day Monday and Tuesday, and then the last week I'll be in only on the Monday and the Tuesday afternoon. Then it'll be done, completed – I'll have finished my first big sober challenge. A week after that my house plant will be getting its birthday card. I'll be killing two, rather large all things considered, sober stones in one week. This'll all happen a fortnight after I (hopefully, but I've honestly no fucking idea how) complete a fifty mile walk for breast cancer.

What'll be happening in the weeks after that I have absolutely no idea and, if I'm being honest, it's a really scary feeling. I suppose that this is what Lindsay was talking about the other day – the change from being a student to actually going out into the world and doing the job, and how different and big a change that is. I think if you asked Gillon to be honest he would tell you that he started the college as a way of avoiding going into the workplace with the very limited skills he possessed and that at the start of his studies he felt relaxed knowing that he had a few years of study left. He has children so the state gives him plenty coin, he doesn't have to work to support them. I guess maybe I felt that same way when I started my own study. I had a year where I could decide what I wanted to do next. The college has been fun and it asked many questions of me this early into my sobriety. Could I self-care enough to get through it, to stick it out until the end? Could I bond with other men? I've done okay with these things but three weeks from now and I'll be onto something else.

Will it be a summer of working with Barry the Bullet? Or would I get stuck in that trap again? Will I go back to study for another year? Would there be a point? It's all pretty scary. The uncertainty. I think I'm at that age now where uncertainty is most unwelcome.

I've wasted so, so much of this life. Almost forty years of it flushed down the pan.

I don't feel at the moment as though I'm any closer to saving myself from flushing the rest down with it.

Something'll turn up.

Just when and what is completely unknown.....


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Stevie

Counting down the days until his student days are over.......

1045

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Tuesday, June 06th 2017 (Projects)



The college course is almost finished. We're on the eighth and final project. Here's what I've been getting up to these last nine months or so:

For the first project we were assigned a group. Everyone was a stranger to one and other and this was a good way of getting us to mix together. I was put in a group with young Ross who is still on the course today; Devin who left the course earlier in the year; and another guy who is still technically on the course but I'd be amazed if he managed to stick it out and get everything done these next two weeks so that he actually gains the qualification. This took us the majority of September and all we had to really do was create a dance track using software that was alien to most of us. The result was okay at the time – completely shite when I listen to it now.

The second project was group based as well but this time we were to work on a sound design. I was placed in a group with a guy called Harry who is long gone from the course; a guy Daniel who is one of the seven still going; and Shaun, who was after this project to become the person I've become closest to within the group. We've even been to a gig back in February. Sound design is basically creating sounds for a movie or video clip. In this case we were given a two minute clip of an alien roaming an unknown planet after landing on earth. We worked pretty well together and I feel listening to and watching this clip now that we nailed the atmosphere. We did a good job.

The third project took part over the course of November and was our first self-directed one. The brief asked of us many things but encouraged we used both of the software programs we work with in college. Ableton Live 9 is a dance music based program which is perfect for electronic music and Pro Tools 12 is used more as a studio tool and is brilliant for recording live and mixing and mastering. I created my track using Ableton for the MIDI sections and the backing track which I then took into the studio with my guitar and used Pro Tools to record myself and then create the finished version. This track is okay when I listen back to it but the guitar sounds pretty lame. I should have spent more time at home working on the tone and practicing the parts. The MIDI part I programmed for this track using the piano in Ableton is a high point for me.

For two weeks in December we worked on a Christmas remix and we could do whatever we wanted providing we used one of the MIDI stems the lecturers gave us. I wrote a metal-style electric guitar version of O Come All Ye Faithful and at the time, again, I felt that I'd done pretty well. Now that I know better I hate the way I've compressed the fuck out of every part. If I could do it again I'd come up with something better but this time the playing by myself was pretty good. I stayed late a couple of times to work on this track and it was around this time that I last worked with Barry the Bullet. It seems so long ago.

Project Four was the podcast and I got creative, searching through Youtube to find interviews with Frank Zappa and John Lennon and making it out as if I was interviewing them. We had to select a music genre and dedicate our podcast to studying it. I went for popular commercial music and went for a sort of critique of modern music television like X-Factor and Britain's Got Talent and have felt ever since doing this that this was the point in which I peaked during my study of sound production. The lecturers have only recently got around to marking all of our coursework this past week and I received positive feedback with Neil saying that this was the best podcast project submitted by an NC student.

Project Five took us from early February until March 10th and was dedicated to sound synthesis and sampling. This was, and still is, my weakest project. Strangely it is the one to receive the most ''likes'' on Soundcloud but I know pish when I hear it and this is most definitely it. It's probably the project in which I learned the most though. By this time I was quite comfortable using Pro Tools and navigating my way around the hardware in the studio (it helped that I used to do a bit of home recording using an old LE version of Pro Tools back when I was trying to sober up initially) but I was falling behind a little when using the Ableton program. With this project I got my skills with it up to that of the rest of the class, and in most cases, above it.

Project Six was another sound design similar to Project Two but this time it was a little more complicated. It was also a solo project (all projects since the second one have been solo but we are expected to get other students to help us in every project since) creating the sound effects and music for a short Pixar film ''Lifted'' which I posted a few weeks ago. This was another pretty strong work of mine and a return to form after a quite shocking fifth project.

Project Seven has not long since been submitted and was another pretty good one. This time a remix of a song we were given the stems for. Stems are just the individual sections of the song (one for main vocals; another for backing vocals, guitar, synth, drums, etc) and I was happy with what I managed to create. Alongside this project there was quite a bit of paperwork, a couple of written assessments, and another MIDI track which probably should have been part of the Project Five sound sampling and synthesis but was done instead over the last couple of weeks.

At the moment we have two projects running together: a digital DJ unit and the radio broadcast project which I'll hopefully be nailing on Thursday morning. I'm booked in at nine as the first student to do it and I can't see anything other than a complete pass. I won't take anything else if I'm being honest. This'll mean that this coming Thursday will be the last Thursday I'll need to be in. It's just Monday and Tuesday for the next two weeks and then it's all over and done with.

Over and done with and onto what I am not sure. I still get frightened when I even think about what life will be like after these next two weeks are done.

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Stevie

The best podcast handed in by an NC student.

1189

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Wednesday, June 07th 2017 (University Tour)



Lindsay had a practical assessment to do this morning at the university campus and the deal was that I would go along and support her and so we are out the door together this morning. She's been to the college I attend a few times now. She actually used to study there back in the day but recently she's been a couple of times to the studio with me just to see what it is that we get up to when at the college. This is the first time I've had the chance of her returning the favour though. I have been to Dundee University before – I actually wasn't in attendance the first day of the college year last August as I was attending an open day – but this is the first time I've seen the nursing campus which is based in another town.

It's interesting to get the tour. I can see Lindsay being quite popular around here. Everyone stops to speak with her and most of the time I feel like that quiet little schoolboy with nothing to say, just standing there like some frozen moron. The campus is actually pretty small. There's a main courtyard surrounded by the buildings themselves but half of these are for residents – students living on campus or doctors who are over here for any number of reasons. It's the first time I've ever been in a lecture theatre. It is, disappointingly, just as I pictured them to be.

Lindsay nips off and does her assessment which, I'm happy to say, she passed. While she's off doing that I am sitting in the canteen (only fifty pence for a latte and it's better than the ones we get at the college) reading my latest book. I've only read a few books this year. Actually, it's worse than that. I read Green River, Running Red (story of the Green River Killer Gary Ridgeway) which I bought online while Christmas shopping – I'd wanted to read it for years. I also read The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer which I thought was a really humorous look at autism; I Got Tired of Pretending (which I have written about recently in this very journal – and which I have still to somehow return to ACA's Sandra without actually setting foot in another meeting) and.......and that's it. Shocking really. This latest one is another book I've had my sights on for a while but have never seen at a discounted price. I have never had bank cards or money or any way of paying for things over the internet and so have never been able to do it that way but Lindsay got me it in secret a couple of weeks ago and so I've started on it. Revolution by Russell Brand. Lindsay could have been in that assessment all morning and afternoon and I wouldn't have cared. I'd have been happy just sitting in that canteen sipping on a fifty pence latte with my Russell Brand book.

The weather has really sucked this week. It's done little to nothing but rain – sometimes torrentially – for the biggest part of the last three days. This is a good thing in that if it rains like this now then it isn't likely to on Saturday night when I start my big walk. I had my last practice walk today (a whole five miles) and that's it until half past eleven on Saturday night. That is when the clock starts on the fourteen hour time limit that the one hundred of us mad enough to not feel that walking one marathon is enough of a challenge and so commit to doing a second one immediately afterwards will have to walk the full fifty two miles. The closer we get to the event the more I am starting to freak out about it. The size of the challenge is only now sinking in. I have a bra to decorate which I'll ask my nieces to do tomorrow after I've passed that radio assessment at college. Then it'll just be the waiting game – a game I've never been all that great at.

I should be expecting these challenges to be coming thick and fast now. That's me four months off the cigarettes today after all, which means that I'll also be sixteen months off the drugs and twenty eight months away from my last drink. I'm no slouch to quitting any more. Challenges should be something I am coming to expect.

One of my bigger challenges started this afternoon. Lindsay and I are down town and we're sitting in the travel agents looking over trips to Spain for a little getaway later in the year. We manage to find something we're happy with and so we nip along to the bank to make the withdrawal from her ISA (I put one thousand pounds in there when I noticed that the Department for Work and Pensions had made the overpayment into my Credit Union account. This way it's not lying around in my account) and we have now paid for the trip in full. We'll be flying from Edinburgh to Costa del Brava on October 02nd – something like sixteen weeks on Monday. It's just for a week but it'll be the first time I've been away in over twelve years. I was quite a dark drinker. I wasn't one of the guys who managed to have an active addiction as well as a life. The way I operated one had to go – and it was the life.

Now I'm relaxing in the evening. It'll be bedtime before too long and will be heading back to my town tomorrow. First will come the radio broadcasting assessment and then I'll be heading to my brother's. I'll ask the nieces to decorate my bra (the walk is for breast cancer so we all wear a bra – even the dudes) and I'll ask Gary to contact Barry the Bullet via that app he speaks to him with. Then I'll be staying at my cave for a night. I think I've broken my five night rule at Lindsay's this week. While I'm in the cave over the next night or two I'll be copying out the session with Dr. Bacon. It was too good a session to miss out on.

Right then – enough typing. On with the evening.

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Stevie

Booked his first trip abroad in more than a decade.

1097

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Thursday, June 08th 2017 (Applying Myself)



This summer is flying by so quickly that I'll have to be careful to stop and suck some of it in – else I'm in danger of letting it slip away. Mind you – given the way that the weather has been recently there is little chance for summer. We'll get back there again soon. I just hope that this rain doesn't keep going through to tomorrow and, most importantly, Saturday night for the big walk. Fifty miles in the warm (but also strangely cool) night and into the morning would be fine without the extra hassle of having to battle against any dodgy weather. It'll be hard enough as it is. The rain is easing off a little now that we are into the evening but it hasn't vanished altogether and the sky looks as though it could fall again at any given moment.

I'm back in the cave writing this evening having just spent the longest spell at Lindsay's since the Christmas period. Nothing much changes while I'm away. The plant I am hoping to keep alive for a full year is now eleven months and one week old and is going strong. The place is as I left it. There is plenty mail. My latest Triage appointment has come through. It's on Wednesday next week. I won't be going. I haven't been since I started attending the college and shouldn't even be getting these appointments through the door but if I just keep ignoring them then I should continue to receive sickness benefit over the ten summer months.

One piece of mail, more a little calling card actually, is from my housing officer. Again he is saying that the council has received complaints regarding my cave being uninhabited. It's been abandoned. I'm lucky that it's dated today. He's been to my door this morning. With me texting back this afternoon it looks more like I am living here full time. It would have been a little on the dodgy side had he posted the card through the door last week and it had taken me until now to get back to him. He would have had more reason to be suspicious then. As things stand it appears to be working out for me but this time he wants to come out again and visit me at home. I don't know who he'll be bringing with him but I'm expecting it to be a little more difficult this time. I'm expecting them to push me a bit more.

I'm pleased to say that I managed to pass my radio broadcasting unit at the college this morning and so that ticks off another box in the list of things to do before this qualification becomes something I've officially completed. There's not much left and so I've been thinking a little about what might be best for me to do next. The radio lecturer gave me his sales pitch and did a good job of advertising his course to me. The biggest concern for me in doing the sound production is the chances that I'll find work in the field once I've qualified. They say that there are many different things that you can do with the sound production degree but they're gonna say that, aren't they!? The radio lecturer seems better able to prove that there are greater working opportunities after we've graduated.

I apply for the radio course. It's better to apply for courses now and to refuse the offers over the summer than it is to do what I've already done this year and not apply (as was the case with my top choice which was to study psychology at Dundee University. Like I said though – I failed to actually apply. I think that fear combined with a lack of confidence and belief in myself to ruin that chance for me. I kept telling myself that I wouldn't be accepted due to lack of experience) and so I spent the rest of the morning applying for courses and looking through the prospectus.

The radio course is a two year diploma and after that they work with Sunderland University with the degree program. Sunderland is down south in England, near Newcastle, and would be a lovely little trip away for study. Chances of working in the industry (or at least in some part of the sound industry) seem to be quite high as the lecturer recounts many former students who have all passed their degree by doing the two year diploma in this town followed by the Sunderland degree option.

Another course I applied for is the Practical Journalism. This was an idea that English Sara had suggested to me a couple of years ago when I was just sobering up. It would perhaps whet my appetite for writing and put it to some good, or some bad, depending on how you look at it. Again it would be a two year diploma and then onto a degree somewhere else. They don't seem to have a partnership with a university like they do with the radio program and so I'm not sure what the next step would be. Universities tend to be a little on the pompous side when it comes to things like this. They tend to want you to start and finish with them rather than start somewhere else and then join later on. I'll likely get an interview so I'll be able to ask plenty questions over the summer.

Then there's the option of staying on and doing the sound production diploma. All three of these courses would run at the same level (Level Seven/HNC next year and then Level Eight/HND the following year) and then lead onto university afterwards should I find my chosen course to be desirable. I know that at thirty nine I am pushing it a little. These courses all take time and two or three years from now I will be well into my early forties. When I consider the wreckage that has been my past life though it kind of makes me feel as if there has never been a better time to go off and do something like this. I'll never get another chance. I should choose wisely. Radio broadcasting; practical journalism; sound production.

I'll have plenty to think about over the next two months.


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Stevie

Giving himself plenty to think about.

1079

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Friday, June 09th 2017 (Planning the Walk)



I've gone and got myself up this morning far too early. I've ages to go before I have to be at the Charity Shop Cafe for my voluntary shift this morning. This is all part of the plan though. I went to bed late last night and got up early this morning. Tonight I will be staying up late again but tomorrow morning I will be sleeping in. I'm hoping to sleep right into Saturday afternoon. This is for that bloody walk this weekend. I'm trying to get my body into the habit of having energy at night. The walk kicks off at around midnight tomorrow night and I'll be walking right through the night and into the early afternoon of Sunday. When I wake up early tomorrow afternoon that'll be the last of me being in bed until Sunday night when the walk is all over. The God of my understanding knows how badly I want this walk to be over.

The Charity Shop Cafe has put the prices up on some of its products. I'm okay with that but remember talking with that MSP at the meeting the other week about changes planned for our community in the coming months and him saying that there is a difference between a volunteer and a voluntary worker. That I am actually a voluntary worker. He kind of got me into the way of thinking that what I am doing by giving up some of my time to help out the cause of the charity shop is in some way me allowing myself to in some ways be exploited. Elsa, who is the manager, has just been to Portugal on holiday for two weeks. This is all fine and well, people go on holiday (even I now have one booked and paid for), but it does make me wonder a little now that the prices have been increased on some of the products in the cafe. I'm paying thirty five pence more now than I was last week at this time and I'm getting nothing extra for it. The systems we have in place ensure that nothing that doesn't succumb to it has a chance of surviving.

I was thinking a while back that things seemed to be happening in fortnights these last few months. At the time there was a fortnight until I was to walk into my first AA meeting in ninety days. A fortnight after that was Lindsay's friend's wedding and the AA convention. A fortnight after that was to be the massive walk I had signed up for. A fortnight after that was to be the end of the college year. Each of these fortnights has resulted in disappointments if I'm being honest. The return to AA was nothing short of disastrous. The wedding was okay but my struggling to connect with anything while there fairly bettered on my self-esteem. This next fortnight is all but upon me. The walk.

I've to arrive at Holyrood Park between nine and ten tomorrow night. I have then to make my way to the pink tent which is where I'll be registering for the event. I can then head off to the yellow area to set up camp and prepare myself. Lindsay will be coming with me up to this point. She won't be allowed in the yellow area as she isn't registered but she'll be needing to get back to the bus station around this time anyway. We're hopefully heading to Edinburgh from whenever I wake up tomorrow and get a bus through to have a look around the shops and a bite to eat. She'll then be making her way back to her flat which is, amazingly, not even as far from the starting grid as the end of my challenge will be.

I have packed everything I need into my little bag. I have my Cap and Walker Number. Apparently it's important that we wear our caps as it helps the volunteers to recognise us from the other, more sane, walkers. There are apparently going to be several hundred to a couple of thousand taking part on the night but only one hundred of us are set to be doing the two laps. Our caps are different colours and from the halfway point onwards I think they have strict policies in place to look after those trying for the fifty miles.

We will get a little break after the first marathon. We had to select our half-time meal (well.....soup) when we applied for this challenge and so we get that plus a chance to change our clothing, socks or shoes, and to collect our marathon medal. Then it's off for the next lap around the track. The second marathon. The temptation to sit will be strong at this point but I should be careful. Much will depend on the time it takes me to complete that first lap as the challenge shuts down exactly fourteen hours after the first challengers, which will be us, set off from the starting grid. The council will be wanting the roads back up and running by then. For the second lap I think there are vehicles driving around which carry water supplies and cereal bars and suchlike. If we get stuck along the way or feel thirsty then we are to contact volunteer and they will flag down a vehicle. It says this on their little sheet:

''On your second lap, we will not keep Marshals at fixed locations, instead it will become a moveable feast and they will travel with you, consequently foot, bike, and car Marshals will continually patrol the distance between the front and back Walkers ensuring that you have all you will need in the case of water etc. The route will be clearly marked to assist you.''

Initially I just started walking as a way to combat the slight cravings I was having for cigarettes. I didn't want to put on weight as a result of my quit. Now it's turned into a fifty two mile walk for breast cancer and I've only been off the cigarettes for one hundred and twenty two days or so.

Hopefully this fortnight's challenge will be more successful than the return to AA's rooms and the wedding was. The next fortnight will see me finish up with the college and gain my NC in sound production. It'll also spell the end for me in terms of knowing what it is I have to do from one week to the next.

As soon as this walk is over I'm going to have to get busy.


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Stevie

Preparing for that damn walk.

1126

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Saturday, June 10th 2017 (The Morning of the Walk)



You'll know straight away that I've managed to complete both laps of this monstrous walk as I'll call tomorrow's post ''Two Medals.'' Any other title and it means I've failed to get round the second lap and so only get my marathon medal. Two Medals it will hopefully be but exactly how I'll manage to do this I haven't the faintest idea. People keep telling me that it'll be different on the night, that I'll manage to get more miles in as the event will heighten my motivation. I get this. I can see how this could happen. I don't see how it will make my legs any more capable of walking distances it hasn't been able to in the past, not that it's ever tried.

We're gonna be heading out soon as there's a few things I need to get first. I know – I sound disorganised, rushing out to get stuff at the last minute, but to be fair to myself I only received the email last night telling me of all the rules and conditions associated with and fixed to the event. One of them is that no walkers are allowed to wear backpacks of any kind. We are to store goodies we might need (phones, extra cash, blister kits, anything we might need) in bum-bags instead. Being a guy my initial thought is something along the lines of: ''Ahem, excuse me!?!? Did someone just say gay-bag!?'' but I have to look quickly past this as I prepare to head out to pick one up. I could do with getting the carbohydrates in me as well. I could also probably benefit from getting something to wear on my bottom half. Jeans and the tracksuit I have are no go's.

I've upped my efforts to contact Barry the Bullet even dragging my brother into the mix. He uses that What's App thing that I don't and the last few times I've struggled to get a hold of Barry it's been through Gary and What's App. This time not even Gary can get an answer. I've tried Barry's brother but he seems as elusive as Barry himself. I await Gary's response. Will What's App save the day again?

It's a good thing that this has maybe happened actually. I reached out to my brother. Since it doesn't look like I'll get around to typing out that session with Dr. Bacon I'll just quickly mention a little about what he was saying last week with regards to my brother. I explained to him all about how I used to feature heavily in my nieces' lives but now just play a little infrequent cameo and that I have a particular distaste towards this new role. I'm struggling to fit into it. I want my brother, or his wife, to get in contact with me and reassure me that I am a part of the family. To be sitting on these cold and barren outskirts is most uncomfortable (which is strange because you'd think I'd be used to it giving how isolated and on the fringes of society I once was). I explain that Scottish Sarah had text me out of the blue one evening to say that Oldest Niece had mentioned that I don't visit anymore and that she misses me.

Dr. Bacon – ''Sounds to me like when she was saying ''they miss you'' that she was perhaps saying ''WE miss you?''

Stevie - ''…...I don't think so...''

But there's a chance he could be right. We also look back at our communication over the course of 2017 and it would seem that what is going on right now is pretty common. I sit and wait on them to contact me. Just before Oldest Niece's birthday in February it was they who contacted me. Then there was a spell when I wasn't around for about six weeks. It was then Sarah who broke the ice. Now it's been around the same again yet it is I waiting by the phone on another call. From their perspective I must seem pretty disinterested. This time I pick up the phone – stop things from getting any worse.

Last night I decide to give Barry the Bullet one more try but his phone goes straight to answer-phone. For all I know he's quit and has given up. He's maybe even gone and got himself another job. I just need to know which addresses are still on our books and I can go out myself, if I know where the ladders are. There's so much I don't know about this business now that only Barry does. I give up and head to bed.

This morning I wake and check my phone. Has Gary heard from him and left a message? I'm afraid not. I'm still none-the-wiser. I dial Barry's number one more futile time. This time it starts to ring.

Barry the Bullet – ''Hello?''

Stevie – ''Barry?''

Barry the Bullet – ''Steve?''

Turns out he's still been going out cleaning the windows but not as often and not for around five weeks now. Things are salvagable. He didn't reply to the Facebook friend request I made using Lindsay's account (I just will not go down that road myself) because it seemed like an old woman trying to reach him. Turns out that it was the anniversary of Lindsay's gran's death and so she had temporarily changed her profile picture. Barry's looked at it and thought that it must have been some mistake. None of this matters now.

Stevie – ''I only have two weeks left at the college. Four days actually, then that's me off for the summer.''

We arrange things for this coming week. I'll be at college on Monday and Tuesday so Wednesday we arrange it for. I don't know where we'll be meeting yet. The ladders are at some guy called Andy's house as he was in the area when he last was out working. I don't know who this guy is or where he stays so as things stand I'm not really any further forward. This could all still turn out to be nothing yet.

But I'm not going to think along those lines. I have to stay positive and will need positive vibes and thoughts when we get to twenty four hours from now when I'm either honing in on the finish line or sitting in the ditch cursing my failure.

You'll know straight away tomorrow if I managed to complete both marathons as I'll title the post ''Two Medals.'' Any other title and I didn't manage it.

I'll see you at the finish line.


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Stevie

Going back to work.

1130

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Sunday, June 11th 2017 (One Medal)


It's a little predictable really but I didn't manage to finish the double marathon and claim my second and most sought after medal. I still like the one I've got though. The problem was pace. I attached myself to the end of a little group that were setting quite a strong pace from the get-go and did my best to keep up with them. This was tough going but a huge distance started to build up between us and the next closest group behind. If we wanted to realistically complete two marathons in fourteen hours then it would be essential to complete the first one in less than seven hours. After the first marathon there's a little health check and the option of some soup. This is all fine and well but every second that ticks away during the half time break is a second that you're not getting back at the end of the second lap.

This group I was slowly establishing myself as being a part of were starting to look as though we were going to set a first lap time of under six hours. This would be pretty good going and would be by far the fastest time I've ever walked twenty six miles. It would leave eight hours for the second marathon. Things were going really well.....until I felt something just after the eighteen mile mark. Something in my leg telling me that the rest of the night was going to be a little tougher. As the miles started to drag in I noticed how much I was starting to struggle to keep up with my group. At this point I think I should have dramatically slowed the pace. I should have thought, ''Okay – that's been a really fast first eighteen miles. Let's slow it right down for the rest of the lap and stop thinking about the time quite so much.''

The fifty two miles was never all that realistic for me but I had my sights kind of set on forty miles. That would have been a success in my view. Had I slowed the pace and played for distance rather than time then the forty miles may have been achievable. As it went I kept the speed high – determined to get what was looking like a sub six hour marathon. Around twenty two miles I found that the group was just keeping the pace too consistently for me and my poor legs and a small gap started to build. Still there is no one in sight behind us, maybe a dozen walkers in front. The last two miles are the worst and the regret of trying to reach the six hour marathon sinks in as the gap between my group and me becomes large. Eventually we reach a corner in the track and they go out of sight for the first time in the night. From then on it just gets worse.

I manage to stumble across the finish line in six hours and forty five which means that those last couple of miles must have been really slow. My group vanished from sight altogether and those who had been so far behind us that they could not be seen by us started to overtake me. Six hours and forty five minutes is still my quickest ever time at walking twenty six and a bit miles but were it not for my stupid little legs starting to feel the burn around that eighteen mile mark, if they'd just managed to hold out a little longer, maybe another two or three miles, then I might have been able to keep up with the group.

So I have my medal and I'm sitting back at Moonwalk City munching on my soup and roll and I can't shake off the feeling that this will be impossible now. I've taken on a challenge that is far too much for me. It's the time limit that makes it so difficult. Two marathons. I guess that anyone could do it given enough time but as I'm sitting there nursing my poor feet (it kind of changes actually, rotates where the pain may be felt. On moment it will be in the legs or feet and then I'll get used to that so it'll change and my lower back will start hurting. Then it'll be my shoulders. Then back to the bottom half again, and on and on) the big clock strikes half past six in the morning meaning that the halfway point has now passed. This would then mean that I would have to do the second marathon in under seven hours. Still though – there are Over the Moon walkers (those committed to taking on both marathons) coming in and then ten minutes later they'll set back out again.

They won't have time to finish. Besides the group that I was a part of for those first six hours and the group in front of us I doubt that anyone else will make it within the time limit. Still though – they head out and give it a blast. I notify the volunteers that I won't be doing the second lap and I rest some more before heading back to the bus station. I guess that I should have done what those walkers coming in after me did. They went at a comfortable pace, even though it meant that they were finishing half an hour after me – a true Hare and the Tortoise moment – and then just went for the second lap as best as they could until the time limit expires and they are asked to leave the course. At least this way they would have more miles under their belt than I do.

I'm sitting at Lindsay's now and wondering what to do about next year. Will there be a next time? This is an annual event. I'd have to work hard on my stamina and pace in order to even have a hope of trying for that second lap. I don't really see the point in just trying for the first lap as the fourtene hour time limit pretty much means that you could almost crawl your way to the finish line on time. The two laps though? That seems so far away given last night's performance that my feet ache just thinking about it.

There were around forty of us Over the Moon walkers. There were around the same number of children out there trying for the half lap. There were two people in their eighties – one did the mini walk (six miles) and another (at eighty three) was trying to complete the half marathon. It's hard to forget what the event is actually all about. It's about Scotland uniting against and raising money for breast cancer.

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Stevie

Starting to feel a little stronger this afternoon.

1163

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Monday, June 12th 2017 (Not All That Stiff)



The legs aren't as stiff as I might have imagined them to be on a morning such as this. I'd expect them to be a little on the cramped side but that isn't the case at all. My body has recovered quite well and quite quickly. This will be really important given my desire to get back out to work with Barry the Bullet midweek. I wonder how some of the other walkers are faring at this moment. Those who completed the double marathon are probably doing okay as they tended to be obvious fitness experts but the normal guy and girl doing the marathon might be feeling one or two tightened thighs or calves right about now. My muscles feel okay until I sit in one position for a little too long. Usually when I go to stand up I am reminded of what it was I was doing this weekend.

Walking around Edinburgh at this time of the morning allowed me to see a little more clearly what it is actually like. What is really behind all of that famous architecture and history? Unfortunately it is nothing nice. Homeless people. In Fife where I live in Scotland we have the best homeless system in the whole of the United Kingdom. The British government is presently trying to squeeze the life out of it but as things stand it is strong. On the two main occasions I have had nowhere to stay I have found the system to be very accommodating. The people I am walking past this morning in Edinburgh are not so fortunate. This is the real Edinburgh, the real Scotland

. There's a sickness can be felt in my stomach a little regarding what it is that I am actually involved in here. Sure – I am showing support for breast cancer and that is fine and all that. After all – the homeless people probably deserve to be homeless, right!? They probably had homes and all that but gave them up because they're junkies, yeah!? The truth is that some of us make as much of a choice to become homeless as others do to contract breast cancer. What if some of these women smoke? Does what we eat not have an effect on our odds of cancer growing within us. The Moonwalk all of a sudden seems so incredibly selfish and exclusive – a way of raising money for those who already have plenty. Why can't there just be a big walk where you raise money for what it is that you want to raise money for?

I left the college early this afternoon. I was stuck on something and was becoming frustrated that there were no lecturers around to help me out. I decided just to leave. It's not often I am stuck on something but it is often that there are no lecturers around. Considering what they earn it is frustrating that they are so seldom available. It seems as though things are going to be going right to the wire with us this year when most of us might have already finished our NC by now had we had the luxury of having a lecturer present.

I have an assessment coming up on the technology we use at the college to create our projects and so I should have a little look at that for the rest of this post. I believe that the main parts we will be asked about will be:

The host computer, DAW software, audio interface, the MIDI controller, and probably monitoring. Here's a little look at the specifications of each and the role they play in me producing these projects at the college:

The host computer.*

This is the PC in front of me. This contains an Operating System (Windows 7 in this case) - HP Intel i5 with 16.0 GB RAM and is a 64-bit Operating System. DAW system (Ableton Live)*
Contains HDD (Hard Disk Drive) to store software applications (DAW - Digital Audio Workstation) and to store music library; and also to load and save*projects.*
Hosts input/output devices.

Inputs = qwerty keyboard/mouse/MIDI keyboard (Novation Launchkey 49)/audio interface.*

Outputs = *audio interface/VDU (Visual Display Unit = AKA. The Screen on the monitor).*

The audio interface provides bus power to external devices. This is an important thing to remember.*

DAW Software

Ableton Live 9. This allows me to browse and import music from my music library; to load and save projects. Crucially, it allows me to warp audio to a beat grid (beat matching); to create templates; map MIDI parameters; and to play, record, mix, edit, master and bounce my final session. It also allows me to blend music as a DJ.*

The Audio Interface*

A Sound card and audio interface is the same thing. It allows me to monitor the incoming or outgoing audio signal; provides digital to analogue conversion; can be used to monitor on headphones and connects to main PA. The audio interface is the M-Box 2.*

The MIDI Controller*

It provides tactile, hands-on, control of virtual parameters within the DAW software environment. This is done via MIDI mapping and the controller that I am using is a Novation Launchkey 49. MIDI mapping can include faders, pots, pads, pitch and mod wheels keys and transport controls.*

Monitoring*

Allows me to monitor output from DAW and this can be done using either headphones or the main Pa.*


That should just about cover it. I think we'll be doing that tomorrow. After that then there's just the Digital Djing practical assessment to do and I'm pretty sure that I'll be finished with the course for the year. I don't have to go in on Thursdays anymore since I'm finished with the radio broadcasting unit. The time I'm expected to be in class each week is diminishing quickly. The week after next it'll be down to zero hours and hopefully this will result in a significant rise in the number of hours I go out to clean windows with Barry the Bullet. We'll see.


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Stevie

Not as stiff as one might have anticipated.

1034