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The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

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    Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

    Tuesday, July 25th 2017 (Phoning Every Hour)


    Barry the Bullet has been a little easier to reach ever since the escapades last Wednesday when I had to go track down his home address and post the phone he'd left with me through his door. Today has not been one of these times though. Today is supposed to be the only day for the rest of the week where we have workable weather too and so I'm a little on the grumpy side. Lindsay is at her placement all day and I'm sitting here doing very little. I'm hoping to reach Barry soon to arrange going through to his to collect all of the work related stuff he has so that I can just forget about him and keep myself right about work these next five weeks but he has yet to pick up his phone despite more than twenty attempts. It just keeps saying that the phone I'm trying to reach is unable to connect and this usually happens when a line is dead because the phone is switched off. The most important thing for today (in my world I mean) is getting an answer from him and then picking up the workbook and cloths from his place. I should have had them in my possession a long time ago. The time for giving him extra chances has long, long, long since passed. I'll try calling him every half hour throughout the course of the entire day.

    If there was beginning within my brain a little lingering doubt as to my future studying it was to be relieved a little this morning when I saw the email from the college offering me an unconditional place on the radio diploma that begins on September 04th – five weeks on Monday – and so I have replied to that. I've accepted it and so its kinda set in stone, although I'll not say that it's definitely definite until I receive the confirmation email back from them in response to my acceptance. It's almost definitely definite......but just not quite. I have to sort out my funding and so get that done this morning also – the only issue being where to ask for these payments to be deposited. The Credit Union isn't designed for things like this, it's more a savings account kind of thing, and so I give them Lindsay's details. I'm heading down the town in a while to kill a few birds (this is a metaphor meaning that I'll do many things on this one trip) and so I'll pop into a couple of banks as well just to see if I have any options other than the Credit Union.

    I'll be killing some boredom by doing this. I'll also be out and about as I haven't done nearly as much walking since the Moonwalk as I did in the weeks and months leading up to it. I've kinda just stopped walking at all unless it's necessary and this isn't all that cool. I'll also be checking into the job centre to have a wee look at anything that might take my fancy. Browsing through their employment ''opportunities'' can be a real depressing drag at times but my current work situation can't be much worse than anything that they may have to offer. Too much time off and I am becoming restless, irritable and discontent – the times AA warns me of. Keep moving forwards.

    Lindsay has with her to the hospital today my passport application which is still needing a signature from someone in a privileged enough position in society and so one of her nursy pals is doing that at some point throughout the day. Either this evening (or at the very latest tomorrow morning) and the passport application will be winging its way to the passport application reviewing people. It's another step in the right direction although one that has seemed a little more time consuming and disorganised than it perhaps needed to be.

    I keep thinking back to that counselling session last night. It's the only one I'm likely to get on my own – all the other times will be with both Lindsay and I. I think the fact that this is happening every week (except for next week because holidays get in the way) and my sessions with Dr. Bacon – my clinical psychologist – are only once in a blue moon, I find myself warming to it a little more. As a counsellor she seems quite good. I guess the fact that she asks so many questions suggests that we are still very much in the assessment phase with her too as I am with Dr. Bacon but with the appointments being every week we will get a glimpse into how things can progress beyond this phase sooner rather than later. Despite having lots of experience of sitting in rooms such as this (well – not THAT much experience really, but a bit of experience) I don't have much knowledge of the later stages of therapy. Once we have a clear outline of the problem what do we do to try to sort it out? The only experience of this stage of recovery and therapy is with the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

    Even though it costs us every week (twenty bucks whereas the psychology is all paid for through the NHS or only the God of my understanding knows what it might cost) it's the frequency that has me rooting for Monday nights to come around so that we can move forward with this and see where it goes next.

    One thing the counsellor does say that I truly believe is that whatever happens in the future Lindsay and I will always have a special place for each other – we'll remain in each other's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, sort of thing – because this is a first for each of us. The first sober. That's what it's all about in the early years is it not!? Getting through all of those ''firsts'' unscathed!?

    So far I remain unscathed.


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    Stevie

    Phone's still ringing.

    1037

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      Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

      Wednesday, July 26th 2017 (Lurking)


      Those of you reading this journal on Ryver WQD (if anyone still even does) will remember a guy who used to write on the old forum we used to use up until last year. Paulmh. He was one of the more respected members of our former community, a modern day social media recovery old-timer (to be an online old timer you seem to need only a handful of years in recovery as opposed to AA old-timers and their thirty years and more). Those reading on My Way Out won't know who the fuck I'm banging on about and will just have to trust me that there was some dude on WQD called Paulmh and he was a veritable old-timer in an online sense and that he and I would on occasion exchange words relating to the recovery process. Well he's back.

      We had a little ''conversation'' recently. This was the first time I've heard from him since the new year started and the old site went down. Among many things he says that he is impressed.... no – wildly impressed...by my commitment to writing out my recovery process daily in the way that I do and have done since around May of 2014. Sometimes it does take effort to write in here every day but most of the time it is due to some kind of inner voice telling me that an event or thought process in my life hasn't been looked at or reflected upon in the right way or nearly enough and so I had better get online and discuss with myself how I feel about it. Then it all of a sudden makes sense. It usually takes around one thousand words for this to happen, sometimes a little more.

      I'm up early this morning but discover straight away that I won't be doing any work as the rainfall is torrential. Another day off! Yesterday Barry the Bullet didn't wake up until late and so neither of us could go out. It's ridiculous. I start to browse the news online and there's all the usual suspects: a guy kidnaps a woman and kids and has a twenty five hour stand off with the cops but has now been apprehended; austerity is now reaching schools as we are now to be having teachers employed who don't have official teaching qualifications; what happens to seven year old boys when they are excluded from school; do people who take many selfies daily show personality traits similar to those with psychopathy and narcissistic disorders? There's also an interesting little article regarding social media and this somehow gets me thinking about Paul's comment. Before I know it I am doing a little research, looking for opinions and perspectives.

      Are message boards/online forums to be considered forms of social media?

      There is, as to be expected, a large amount of information on both sides. Message boards are the original social media. There are even some arguments which suggest that Youtube should be considered as social media. It gets me thinking about my own use of the internet and whether or not I could be seen as being a part of this social media craze. I like to think I'm not but maybe I am using self-justification to hide this from myself. Humans are great at doing that. Now that the cat is all the way out of the bag I have to say I'm a little worried.

      I post these ramblings onto two sites as I explained above. There's Ryver (the new version of the old and now defunct WQD forum which I signed up for when I made the decision to quit drinking more than three years ago now) and there's My Way Out – a site I joined back in March of this year and the one I like most of these two now. I think I'll stop posting onto Ryver when the year is out. I don't feel any connection to it. If anything I think I only post there so that I can have another copy of my journal online so that it is safe should I ever wish to skim through this journal when we reach the end of days.

      These are not the only two communities I am a part of though.

      I have a Twitter account but I barely use it and have never actually typed up a single tweet. I use it mainly just to keep up to date with football transfers and gigs and releases that bands I follow have coming in the near future.

      I am also a member of BBC Sport which allows me to vote on certain issues and comment on articles.

      I am a member of The Pie Shop (Pie and Bovril) which is a message board dealing more with local football and a great place to discuss lower league football the likes of which my team, Raith Rovers, are involved.

      Let me see.......what else?....... Oh yeah – Transfermarkt is another football website that I use more for statistics than anything else. The amount of information regarding everyone who's ever had a job in football at any level in any part of the world is positively terrifying.

      There is one thing I have to say I notice about my involvement with all these sites and forums though. Something that makes me feel as though they are not social media outlets, at least not in the way that I use them. I don't ever comment in any of them. Not one of these sites do I ever write. I've never tweeted one single time. Apart from the journal posts I write every day that go into this site (Ryver or My Way Out – whichever we're on just now) I don't really have any involvement. This brings up something that I found on my ''Forum Vs. Social Media'' mini research mission this morning.

      One guy writes (funny how conversations about whether forums are comparable to social media would take place on a bunch of forums) ''The ultra penetration of Facebook and its ilk attract the "lighter weight" participants -- I mean those who are not super invested and will lurk a lot more than they'll post.'' I think he means this as a negative thing. Why shouldn't he? We should all pay our dues when it comes to the sharing of information, but I am the exact opposite of what this guy is suggesting. I do a hell of a lot more lurking than I do posting but I have no interest in lurking and reading the writings I see on social networking. I'm more attracted to stories. I take out of the internet what I need.

      I tend not to lurk around social media because I find the majority of people's activity to be bullshit. Which part of the person is mostly active when they visit their Facebook page? I don't think it's anywhere close to the real part of them. I also see no evidence that it's the giving part of the person either. It's the taking part. What are the motives for posting on social media? It seems to me to be all show. Every time anything happens in life you throw up a picture of you smiling beside it. There's no emotional connection to anything. It feels wrong to me in some way. In many ways. Maybe it's just that I can't connect with it. Fuck knows. It's a common issue I have with Ryver too. People seem only to be posting things to take. Like they are sucking attention out of the site.

      I don't suppose I have to worry much then. There's no way I am addicted to, or have a problem with, social media. Internet involvement may be a different story. There are only a handful of people I feel to be lurk-worthy on Ryver and My Way Out combined. Whether I'm lurking on people by reading their public ''conversations'' on the other sites I use is not something I worry about.

      Today is the day when the passport application can be sent off.

      The rain is only to last until this evening so there will be work tomorrow.

      I never have to worry about internet and whether forums are too close to social networking when I'm working.

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      Stevie

      Indoors.

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        Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

        Thursday, July 27th 2017 (Day Nine Hundred and One)



        Isn't that nice? It seems like a great many days. It's not really. Just under two and a half years.

        Should cannabis become legal? That was the topic of one of the documentaries I watched this evening. The other was a debate on whether one of the factors involved in James Holmes decision to carry out the Batman Shootings in Aurora, Colorado back in 2012 could have been his recent taking of SSRI Sertraline. He seemed to be prescribed it in the months leading up to his attack before coming off them sharply and suddenly just before building up to the shooting. There are, as always, plenty of other factors to consider. One of the main ones for me being (and always will be when it comes to things like this considering I'm a Briton) is how easy it was for him to purchase the weapons for the attack. He just walked into the store and bought them. In Britain the idea of being able to do this is just insane. Would the shooting have occurred had he not been able to get his hands so easily on the instruments of death and destruction? It's never mentioned in a documentary that is only focused on the antidepressants.

        Both Lindsay and I have experience with these SSRIs. She still takes a daily dose while I now abstain, coming off them back in February on the same day I quit smoking – my second sober birthday. I did so without the help of my doctor as is suggested in the program and the wider general population. He seemed to want me to stay on them forever. We were always waiting for something but never getting on with getting me off them. In the end I made my decision and lived with it, weaning off them over a five week period. I did have withdrawal and it was at times pretty nasty – the dreaded brain zaps!! - but over all it was well worth me doing and was done with the bare minimum of fuss. There are instances, however, where people have come off them suddenly and turned violent.

        I'm writing while in bed (which never happens as I'm normally much better prepared with my posts than this) so this might be a flying visit from me this evening but I thought I'd check in anyway. That's not true actually. I feel as though I have to check in. If I want to post every day for the whole year than I have still over one hundred and fifty days to go. That's somewhere around one hundred and sixty thousand words to write judging by the way I've been going recently. I didn't manage to write every day of last year I don't think. Or did I? I can't fucking remember. I do remember writing a lot more frequently last year. There were several posts written most days but if I managed to post every single day is something I would have to check. But won't. I didn't manage to post every day of 2015 as I took most of August out and missed a few here and there. I didn't manage to post every day in 2014 because I didn't join the forum until late May and so missed the first one hundred and forty posts or so. 2017 it'll have to be then. So far I'm on fine form.

        Both Shaun and Paige from my sound production course last year have been in contact today and all three of us will be reunited in early September for the Higher National Certificate in radio. Tomorrow will signify the end of the fifth week (unless you count the weekend, which I actually do) since the end of the course and so the halfway point of this new course coming back around. It won't be too long in arriving. It'll likely be similar to Christmas – you wait for a whole month for it to get here and when it does you end up wondering what all the fuss was about.

        Barry the Bullet was on the ball today but I slept in a little. I was struggling to sleep last night so took one of Lindsay's tablets and they seemed to have made me oversleep a little. We ended up starting an hour later than usual but were pretty good once we got started. Tomorrow we'll be going at it again and I believe that Barry will be ready and with me all the way although I have finally taken the cloths and book back with me and so if he doesn't show then I can still get out myself. That'll be a bit of a challenge but one that I will almost certainly have to face at some point in the next five weeks. So be it. Tomorrow I am hopeful he will be there with me.

        So should cannabis be made legal? In some countries and American states it already is. I signed the online petition to show support for its legalisation a couple of years ago when it was all the rage. I think that it is not necessarily inevitable as we are coming up with all manner of ways to deter people from smoking cigarettes and so it seems wild that we would consider putting weed on the shelves of our stores. Perhaps it would all be done online. You would only be able to purchase it on the internet and from big licensed companies. One of the things the documentary seemed to overlook was when it was talking about how current illegal dealers and producers care nothing for quality control and only about profit yet totally ignores the fact that this is the only way that big businesses will look at it. A company in it for profit will do whatever it can do to make money and will care nothing about the harm done to others......

        Apparently my tapping on the computer keyboard is annoying and so I'm going to have to wrap it up there knowing that the next time I want to write while in bed then I should make sure that there's no one else in here first.

        Over and out!

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        Stevie

        Only just managed to get my thousand in for the day.

        1069

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          Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

          Friday, July 28th 2017 (Cash on the Floor)


          This is one of those times when writing in here can become a drag. For the most part it's fine but then days like today when I've been working all day and have only recently come in but it's approaching midnight are a pain in the ass. To have to type away for a thousand words or so when I can't really be arsed. It feels like posting for the sake of posting. I'll be fine when I get into it. It's only a thousand words.

          I've done quite well over the last couple of days. Barry the Bullet and I have bit the bullet and got the heads down and done some work. As a result I am left wondering once again how well we might be doing had we been out working every possible day over the last five weeks but there is no real point in thinking along those lines. We did our best today and this evening when we went out debt collecting.

          I've had fun too. There was a time I used to positively hate doing this for a living. Anyone who read the early parts of this journal when I first joined the WQD would remember how I used to freak out about it and how much it would continually bring me down. I mentioned that I hoped that by getting sober I could finally end my relationship with cleaning windows. Some people, and this was echoed by people in AA as well, said to me that a change of job was not necessary. That this was an ''inside job'' and so the idea here was to change our internal worlds and not our external. Thankfully I have not gone along with this and have challenged the idea that I might not be able to do anything else and will be studying for another year starting on September 04th. For me it has to be an internal and external change.

          But this summer I have found myself warming to the ways of the window washing. Perhaps it's because I know that it is only temporary and that I am not stuck with this like it's some sort of curse placed on me. Perhaps it's because I could really do with the money. It's possible that it is just something as simple as me now having something to take the boredom away as I would surely be pulling my hair out by now had I not this work to do these last two days.

          Barry the Bullet and I nip into the Charity Shop Cafe at lunchtime for a quick bite to eat before we get back on it. It's not too busy so the staff are chatting away. I'm interested in finding out how they all find the first week without project manager for the last fourteen years Elsa. It's not sunk in yet. Feels like she's only away on holiday. Etcetera. Anna comes through and starts chatting. She was Elsa's second-in-command, sort of.

          Stevie – ''I've still got the hat and apron. You'll be wanting them back.''

          Anna – ''We'd rather have you back.''

          Awwww... Stevie was one of the crew. Accepted. At the charity shop was a place where I maybe fit in a little better than I expected. I can't go against my beliefs though. I have to hold firm with this. Besides – I am doing well working with Barry the Bullet at the moment. I need the days for work. When college starts back up I would do better working on my free days than I would giving up my time for free. It's a sad state of affairs that the world has to be all about money like it is but that is kinda the way it is for me. I'll not be earning much for the foreseeable. I should work when I get the chance. I have all of the equipment with me again tonight so that even if Barry wants to sleep in on Monday I will still be able to go out. We would be heading out tomorrow but I'll have to take a walk to the store to get us some new squeegee rubbers. We kinda got robbed with our last online order. We'll get out again on Monday, at least I will.

          Barry goes for the lasagne and I'm munching on a few breakfast items thrown on a plate when all of a sudden a little girl comes from nowhere over to our table. ''Daddy!'' she's saying. Barry has two children. One to his ex-wife and another, this girl, to a former partner. This former partner has just walked in with her two children and the daughter has seen Barry sitting there and come running across to see him. He tells me later that he saw her a couple of weeks ago but he's lying because I remember him mentioning to me last week that he hadn't seen her in ages.

          Barry and his daughter's mum seem on decent enough terms and she offers up her new number which Barry puts into his phone. I can't help again but notice how it doesn't really matter what's happened – it can't stop children loving parents. His daughter is nine but Barry seems confused as to whether she might actually be ten and has to think a little before settling on nine as his final answer. There's nothing at all special about Barry. He's just a regular bloke. In fact – sometimes recently I've wondered about even that as he's been failing to show up for work so often. This doesn't matter to children though. They don't see it like that. Not yet anyway. Dad is dad. And he's usually always awesome.

          It makes me wish that every man and woman, every mum and dad, and grandmother for that matter considering what is happening with Lindsay's son at the moment, would just put their selfishness and self-righteousness out of the way for a moment and all try to get along. Because what you feel about the other parent doesn't reflect what the child feels and trying to tempt a child into your way of thinking is among the sickest things a human being can do. It's happening right now though. All over the world.

          I'm one to talk though. My nieces haven't seen me since April – the longest period of me not being there since they were born. I did contact my brother yesterday though. I haven't spoken with him, even through text, since around the night of the Moonwalk in Edinburgh. That was in the early hours of the morning of June 11th, nearly seven weeks ago. With it being my youngest niece's birthday not this weekend but the next I thought I'd use that as a way of getting back in contact. What would she like as a present? He got back to me in less than five minutes.

          Well...I was quite surprised there to find that I've gone way over the one thousand words for the night and perhaps even more surprised that I did actually end up having a bit of fun doing it. It's nearly midnight where I am so it's almost tomorrow already. Lindsay is working tomorrow so she's been in bed for a while.

          I'm gonna go join her.

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          Stevie

          Off to bed after a hard day on the windaes

          1252

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            Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

            Saturday, July 29th 2017 (Now I'm Just Preaching)



            Whoever you may be, dear reader, you will likely have it. There's a greater than ninety nine percent chance. A sickness responsible for all the war, hunger, poverty and most of the deaths that have ever been. It's a sickness so profound we don't dare talk about it. Instead we act as though it isn't even there. But you have it. Not just you but everyone you know, ever have known, ever will know. It's a sickness you train into your children as well. It's the most outrageous example of human insecurity there can ever possibly be.

            Up until recently I have been one of the ''lucky'' few (and I mean...like....extreme few) who hasn't had it. Now though, I am worrying that I may have just arrived late in the day. This sickness now seems to be growing in me too as it has likely been growing in you for most of your life, like a nasty green tumor (more brown and blue if you are British) hell bent on destroying you and everyone around you. It's now got me too. It feels sickly, like I need to take a shower actually.

            It's money. It's not money itself – I get that some people want certain things in life and that they will need to bring in more money than some others if they are to do them – this I can totally accept and appreciate. It's the other money I'm talking about though. It's the side of money that shows how deeply and amazingly insecure we all are. How totally afraid every one of us is. I've never had money. In fact – one of the main differences between my own story and that of every single other story I read on the WQD forum when I was trying to sober up was that there were times in my first year of sobriety where I didn't have a penny to my name. I faced challenges that, while most of them denied the importance of and couldn't see the relevance, were quite unique in terms of sober up stories. There were many nights, particularly over the winter of 2015/16 where I starved.

            I don't starve now. I'm not wealthy, of course not, but a cock up in the payments of sickness benefit over the time I was at college combined with the recent smoking quit sees me now with more than a thousand pounds in the bank, or in my case the Credit Union. You may laugh. You probably can't remember a time in your life when you had as little as this but I don't care. For me it is a huge sum. It's around thirteen hundred bucks. When I consider what I brought in from working with Barry the Bullet and doing some window cleaning debt collecting I am doing okay today. This is all while having my first trip to another country in my adult life already booked and paid for.

            In this respect then I am starting to feel a little more normal. A little more like you. A little more like it's a level playing field on this forum now. I'm not so miles behind anymore. I still consider myself skint though. This is slang terminology for ''having no money''. I don't mean in a relative sense either. I mean that I am reluctant to let go of that money in the Credit Union. It'd be nice to say (with a straight face at least) that I am keeping it there for the future, so that it is there when I need it. I could make up some little fantasy about how it's for my children's inheritance. I could make up any little story I want though. It would all be bullshit though. The thing I've always been praised for in this journal is the honesty it contains.

            The truth is that I need this money to feel secure.

            Isn't that a worrying thought? That's just one thousand pounds in one bank account that maybe won't ever get used for anything other than feeding my insecurity. Scary. Think of how much combined in every bank account in the world which is doing just that exact same thing – satisfying someone's need to feel secure. That is truly scary. Most of the money that has ever been earned will never be used. Isn't that terrible to think about?

            Do you know the part about this that I feel is the most disturbing of all though? You probably don't care but I'll tell you anyway. The sad thing is that if we all knew for a fact that were we to give up all of the money in our accounts right now, stripping us down to the bare bones (but most of us would start building it back up again slowly on the next pay day), all of the world's problems would end, we'd have no more war, austerity, illness, hunger, you name it and it's wiped out, none of us would do it. We'd hold onto that money with both hands terrified to let even a small amount of it go.

            We care more about it than we do anything else in the world. Anything to take away that feeling of uncertainty and insecurity. Anything to keep us confident and self-assured. This is proof, if ever it were needed, that all humans, whether you're in recovery or not, are lacking that ability we talk about in the recovery world to feel safe and secure by our own volition. We need money to do that. An external source of happiness and security. No wonder we're all fucked. Psychologists call it Loss Aversion. Now I am starting to get sucked into it too. This was not what recovery was supposed to be about. So that I could become even more selfish than I was before but go through my life denying it. Yuck!

            I've been for the shopping and Lindsay's off to work. I'll be heading to the church tonight for my fifth meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in a row. In those five weeks some members will have been to more than thirty meetings. I prefer the way things are for me at the moment with the Relationships Scotland counsellor and Dr. Bacon keeping me occupied with the self-help stuff. Until then it'll just be a case of getting on with some housework and heading to pick up a couple of squeegee rubbers for work on Monday. I think I'll take the scenic route. It's been a while since I walked any distance and I passed many an overweight person on my travels this morning. It's enough to frighten me into action. Like Bacon said to me: it's not so much about goals as it is lifestyle changes. Goals are when these people go to Slimming World to lose weight and then just put it all back on when they reach target; lifestyle habits mean that they weight is never an issue again. It can happen to us all, getting fatter.

            It's up to me to make sure that it doesn't happen to me. I'll be forty next year. So the scenic route to the shop it will be.

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            Stevie

            How can anyone possibly say that humans are good?

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              Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

              Sunday, July 30th 2017 (Not Promising Anything)


              That's about another month done and so my house plant will be coming up on thirteen months of age. I haven't seen her in a while though. I'm trying to remember the last day I was in my cave. I think I spent last Thursday night there. It should be fine, it's a Dragon Tree and so it's required care level is pretty low (but high enough for last year's Stevie to have it killed off in less than ten months), but I should get it checked out just to make sure. I could also do with checking the garden and so on. If the council get another complaint about the property being abandoned and they come around and the cave doesn't look as though it is being kept up to date and clean then I might find myself with some explaining to do. I could also do with checking my mail. I'm expecting a couple of letters and I won't be able to read them unless I'm on the other side of my front door than I've been these last nine days or so.

              I received a text message from the Passport Office to tell me that I will hear from them by the eighteenth of next month. I'm assuming this means that this is when I'll get it. That means that things really will be good to go on the whole Spanish trip. Yippeeeee! Just spending money to get but that won't be coming out of the Credit Union, my insecurity sickness will ensure that. I'll have to continue to get out there and work with Barry the Bullet and to be fair I have enjoyed doing that these last few weeks. The only major issues I've had being the lack of shifts worked and the terrible Scottish summer weather. Hopefully in Spain we will be treated to some decent weather. We've not been without it here this year but it's been the usual fleeting sunshine followed by many days of constant rain and overcast skies. It's not much fun being Scottish. Nice to know that the passport will most likely arrive in plenty time for the trip though. We aren't scheduled to fly out until the first Monday in October.

              I'll get to last night's AA meeting in a moment but I just wanted to reflect a little on their Promises. They read these out in some of the meetings and I remember hearing them early on in my involvement and thinking that this would never happen with me. I was not at all hopeful that any of these promises would come true for me, not even given all the years I could potentially remain sober for. Quitting drinking at thirty six is pretty common in AA but is still a lot younger than many of them. I don't know what the average would be but with all the people who come in a little older and get it they probably bump the average age of a new quitter up a little. There aren't many people younger than thirty six come in and stay for very long. But then it's not exactly a great atmosphere for younger people given all the thirteenth stepping and shit that goes on. It's pretty dramatic as well. It suits older people I would say, the fellowship.

              But these promises. There's one that for some reason AA Gangster has chosen to overlook when he was printing out the reading. It's an important one as well. It's the first one. Here are the AA Promises:

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              1. If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.
              2. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
              3. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
              4. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.
              5. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
              6. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
              7. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
              8. Self-seeking will slip away.
              9. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
              10. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
              11. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
              12. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
              ''


              The thing about these Promises is, when you first arrive through the doors I mean, is that they seem unrealistic, unachievable. ''We will know a new freedom and a new happiness''? Not likely. ''Self Seeking will slip away''? What if you don't even know that you are selfish and self-seeking? Nope. For me the first Promise was the one that meant the most. This told me that if I was painstaking then I'd see the rewards eventually. It told me that if I just ground through it and stuck in there that I'd reap benefits in the long run. It's the Promise that offers some hope. The others don't make sense until later on. I don't know why the group members here only read out eleven of these Promises during the reading – most likely it's a mistake that no one has picked up on. Happens. They seem to confuse the little wrapping up at the end as the Twelfth Promise.

              The meeting itself was quite good. With the rain so torrential (yep – it really does rain this much in Scotland) most people have decided to stay in tonight but about a dozen of us have made the trip. I end up like a drowned rat by the time I get there. The sharer is a mess of a man with not much to say. He's one of those who pays lip service so that he can be liked. I find myself more accepting and tolerant of him than I may have been several months ago, indeed certainly more than I was the last time I listened to him ramble. The thing is I am liking my AA meetings again. That's five full meetings in a row I've been to, every Saturday night in July. Since mid February I had only been to half a meeting and the morning of a convention. Now I feel as though I am a part of it again. Maybe this shows me that the Promises are slowly beginning to take shape and become true for me. The ninety day abstinence from Alcoholics Anonymous was just what I needed to wake me up and allow me the time and space to think about things without being bombarded with suggestions as to how I should be living my life.

              I had a decent little walk yesterday, ended up around ten miles, and so that's me just two miles outside the border from Belgium going into Holland. Hypothetically the distance I've walked since I quit smoking. From Scotland all the way down south and across the tunnel. Now progressing across Europe. It's around five hundred and seventy six miles walked. Better than a kick in the stones I guess.

              I think I'm gonna go for a twelve mile walk on this fine day.

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              Stevie

              Finding AA to his liking again.

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                Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

                Monday, July 31st 2017 (One Month Down; One Month to Go)


                Barry the Bullet and I should be getting back to all things work relates in a couple of hours. It looks like the rain is going to hold up and so that won't stop us. Motivation is also high from each of us. There's certainly work to be done so everything is pointing to another successful day to hopefully set off our first really good week of the summer. Up until now we've been peaking towards the end of the working week and this has often left me feeling a little flat. I'd have happily worked on Saturday there is it weren't for the problems I was having with my squeegee rubber and us not having any replacements left. I walked up to the local Rejects store and picked one up during my ten mile walk on Saturday – and a total rip off it was too – but then ordered a dozen decent ones online that should arrive on Lindsay's doorstep on Tuesday morning. I've never used these rubbers before but Barry recommended them and so I've trusted him with this. We now have enough of these essential little things to last us for a few months. Next week we'll order a thousand more business cards.

                It's important to me that when I go back to study that all of this other stuff is taken care of as best as possible. Although I expect my study to start off really slowly it will mean that my mind is thinking about other things. Winter changes things. Just going into September will change things. Lindsay and I will have our holiday looming; Christmas won't be a million miles away; it'll start getting colder; we'll have that Metallica gig as well and although that's paid for, the tickets at least, the room needs to be paid still. It's on a Thursday night as well and so I won't be working much that week and certainly not the following day. I know that we are to live in the day and take things a day at a time but I'm getting better at not using those phrases to my illness's advantage and actually just taking the advice. I'm planning ahead as opposed to procrastinating and worrying about the future.

                Just how slow exactly will the course take to get into the swing of things I wonder. The sound production course took ages. Sure, it was a lower level – one level below on the UK qualifications framework than this one will be – but I still expect it to start off at a snail's pace and not pick up until we get into next year when our Graded Unit will be required. It's frustrating. It was a good two months into the course last year before I felt that I was actually having to put some work into my classes. Up until then it was really slow. I suppose I should use the first weeks to get to know as many people in the class as possible.

                While Shaun and Paige from last year's course will also be doing this year with me, as well as one guy from the other sound production group who I met a few times, it would serve me well if I was to keep trying to get to know the others. I have this advantage in that I know three people who will be in this class before it even starts but I know how bad I am at meeting people. I should beware not to fall into the trap of not bothering to try to get to know the others and stick to my little group. I'd imagine Shaun will mix well with the others and so he might bond well with someone else more his age group in the early weeks. I don't know about Paige. She's not the best at mixing in with new people but then she is only sixteen. I'm thirty nine and really should be better than all of this than I actually am.

                The money that British football clubs have been spending this summer has been nothing short of sickening. Manchester City have spent the most with over two hundred million pounds spent on defenders with another in the pipeline. That's around 223,500,000 Euros. That's one team. Paris are trying to buy Barcelona and Brazil sensation Neymar for around £200M. That's for one player. It's getting so outrageous that I wonder where it'll all end. It might keep going like this until players choose to cash in every season with a move. It might end up with many teams going bust and having to call it a day like happened with Wimbledon, Clydebank and Gretna to name just three. In the coming years it could hit an all time low.

                The real sadness of it all is that it is only afforded because human beings are so easily manipulated. All it would take was for a million people to say that enough was enough and cancel their subscriptions for sport television and do what I do – stream!! I find it humorous that it is people like me who are blamed for the way the television companies rip off their loyal supporters. If I was to conform and buy a subscription then they could afford to put the prices down. Some people, dumb as we can be, see things this way. I have seen nothing from human beings to allow me to believe that a company would lower its prices on anything for any reason. General Motors discovered, once upon a time, that it was cheaper to pay its customers court settlements and compensation than it was to recall a bunch of their cars that were dangerous and that were resulting in deaths. This decision caused more deaths. No one these days seems to want to stand up for what they believe in.

                July still has a little while left but I can safely say that it has not been my best month of the year. It's been wet, sure, and it has followed the wettest June we've had since records began apparently, but not feeling as though I had a purpose was what I feel made it more difficult than the others. Interesting how I could feel this most on the month I returned to the rooms of AA. I think that I've been isolated from family as well and this hasn't helped. It'll end with a fifth trip to Relationships Scotland this evening – actually it won't! The counsellor is on holiday this week. It'll end quiet then.

                I hope that August gets off to a better start.

                One month down, one month to go.

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                Stevie

                Ending July

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                  Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

                  Tuesday, August 01st 2017 (A Difficult Habit To Stop)


                  According to the latest weather reports we are to be having torrential rainfall and thunderstorms for the next couple of hours or so. The sky seems to agree. It's going to start teeming down in a little while. It rained a couple of times yesterday while we were out at work too. It really is terrible. Weather changes everything. It's very difficult to make plans when the summer weather is as shocking as it has been this year. I can't remember the summers in particular being as bad as they have been these last three or four years. We also had those two outrageously bad winters in the past ten years (which just happened to coincide with my two homeless spells and sleeping in a VW Golf). Weather changes everything. It's really important. When your livelihood is on the line it is even more noticeable. Whether Barry the Bullet and I get out today is up to Mother Nature, and she HATES Scotland!!

                  It's a shame too because while we've been struggling to get into a routine of regular work and have been peaking towards the end of the weeks we did start off really well yesterday morning. Barry called to say that his bus didn't turn up and that he would get the next one. This was a little test for me. Would I go and sit at mine for a while (the ladders were kept in my garden over the weekend as on Friday we finished up in the local area) and wait it out until he got here to meet me so that we could get on with it together, or would I bash on myself? I did think about taking the easy option but I knew how important it might be in the future for me to get my finger outta my ass and get out there and do some solo work. I used to back in the day. This business only exists because I was willing to go out there and work on my own every now and again. I hadn't done much on my own when Barry did turn up – but I'd done some. I now know that when I need to do it I can find the motivation from within.

                  Barry is telling me at lunchtime about how he's got a grass tent up in his spare room and has begun growing. Anything to get some extra cash in I guess. He seems to be smoking it every night. I remember Super-Zoe saying to me that it was amazing the number of people who quit drinking and all drugs but just cannot let go of the weed. Eventually it brings them to their knees and the time comes when it is tricky to give up. I think that anything consumed in excess amounts leads to a difficult habit to stop. Weed is no different from anything else. Especially if the drug is the last thing to come off.

                  I think for me the trick was as simple as planning ahead and using the experience gained from my drinking quit. Exactly one year after putting down the booze I stubbed the last joint. This same tactic has recently helped me stop smoking for almost six months too. I think, to be honest, now that I have started this roll of quitting things on the 07th February it makes it more unlikely that I'll slip and cave. Anything to keep the quit date alive, the quit date for alcohol, drugs and cigarettes.

                  I'm not saying that Barry has an issue with weed smoking. He might, but I'm not getting into that. It's not my business. I do know that he once upon a time had problems with Valium. Again – they're all just about as bad as each other once you develop a physical or emotional dependence on them, or both. I know he struggled for a while to stop popping those little bastards a few years back and that although he might take the odd little dab of fast stuff here and there that he no longer touches that which once brought him to his knees. It's a lot like the women that run Restoration actually. They completely abstain from the drug that caused them all of their problems in the past but seem totally fine drinking. They sip on a pint and then walk out the door. I've sat with them. I've seen it.

                  For some reason some of us don't seem to be able to have this luxury. For some of us we are never to again be out of our faces. That's when it hits me really. How well I've done and am doing. When I say something like, ''I haven't had a drink for two and a half years!'' it doesn't quite mean all that much. Maybe it will when it's ten years or twenty. It's when I think to myself that I haven't actually had my mind altered at all in eighteen months that I start to see a little more clearly what is actually happening here. No wonder it's been a little on the tricky side on occasion.

                  In Scotland we are almost trained to hate the English. It's really childish and really racist but it's kinda the way it is. So it must really be pissing some of my fellow countrymen off that the women's football team has reached the last four of the Euro 2017 tournament. We were dumped out in the first round winning one match and losing two – including a six-nil thumping by said most hated team. Next up they have the Netherlands team, the tournament hosts, on Thursday and a win there will (I'm sure you know the format for tournaments even if you are not a fan of football, what happens to the winner of a semi final, but I'll just point it out anyway, maybe a word-count thing) see them reach the final. Brrr.... Even saying it is enough to make the racist in me feel the chill. Fuck – even TYPING it sends me little shivers. It might well happen though. I don't suppose that it'll annoy too many Scots though as there seems to be very little interest generally for the women's game. There's plenty football on already it would seem without adding some more.

                  Right then. Let's go out and see what the clouds are doing now.

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                  Stevie

                  Rainspotting.

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                    Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

                    Looking at your thread, interesting. I had no idea you were that much a geek (compliment). I have multiple monitors (24,27,43) including a 4k. The software you use I used to use until I started to move away from music.
                    "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." - Albert Einstein

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                      Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

                      Wednesday, August 02nd 2017 (Sugar Walking)


                      I was walking a little yesterday. It's something I should really think about getting back into. I was getting quite good at it for a while there. With yesterday being the beginning of a new month I can use my Endomondo account to really have a look at how well I do this month. Last month was my poorest for walks I started logging when I quit smoking back on my two year anniversary from quitting drinking, February 07th with a total (rather lame one) of thirty three and a half miles. Next was June with sixty two which is amazing considering that this total includes the Moonwalk. The best month, and the month I will be aiming to beat at some point soon, was March, which is strange because that was before I started training for the Moonwalk, with one hundred and sixty two miles. This is still a pretty lame total when I think about it. There are scores to beat. August has started with one walk of five and a half miles. If I keep that up, five and a half miles per day, throughout the whole month then I'd end with a total of over one hundred seventy miles trekked. There's no excuse really. I do remember how hard some of those twenty and thirty mile training walks were becoming though. I'll just have to wait and see how I get on.

                      So no work got done yesterday but it's looking a little better for today. The weather was shocking but we didn't quite get the thunder and lightening we were promised and that I think would really clear up the sky and set up perhaps a little spell of decent sunny days, even just three or four would be nice. I still think I remember hearing that last June this year was one of the wettest, if not the very wettest, June that we have on record for central Scotland and surely the July we've just had must compete with other Julys as one of the worst we've had in terms of total rainfall. It's been the summer from Hell. It's really been a disappointing year for weather and so it goes without saying that it hasn't been a great summer for cleaning windows either, but then I usually do end up saying things that perhaps don't always need to be said, such is my propensity for verbosity.

                      I have been contacted by the Department for Work and Pensions about my assessment for work. They've come to a decision. I'm not sure what they have decided but I can handle a month at the job centre. I remember that woman I had as an advisor there when I was last signing on, Eileen, and how nasty she made life. Still though – even if I end up with her as my advisor it would only be for one month, five weeks at a push. My college course starts up on the 04th September, four weeks on Monday actually, and so I shouldn't have to worry too much about any hate-filled job centre worker trying to make my life as miserable as possible because seeing people she believes to be less than human, less than her, the ''work shy'' squirm under her power makes her reach for her groin. Work shy? I'd love to see any of those job centre employees I remember even climbing a ladder once let alone managing an entire shift. There is a chance that this will not happen but if it does I'll roll with it. You gotta.

                      One thing I'm going to start doing is taking my lunch with me to work. This'll be a little start for when I return to studies. All of last year Shaun would lead by example and I said I would follow. I never did. For some reason making lunch up in the morning or the night before seemed too hard. This is also the case at work too. I'm spending around five bucks a day on lunch plus a couple of quid on drinks. It adds up. I'm supposed to be saving up spending money for Lindsay and me for our little trip to Spain and a night in Barcelona. It's also poorer for my health. There aren't many good options down the town and during times like now when we're working near my cave the Glenwood Centre is the only option within walking distance and so the Charity Shop Cafe is practically the only choice you have there. I want to get into the habit of having nothing at all to do with that place unless I have to, and I shouldn't ever really have to.

                      Rather than having juice I think I'll be going for water instead. I've been doing well with the old quitting things bad for me on 07th February these last couple of years. Booze in 2015, weed in 2016, cigarettes in 2017, I really think that I'm building up to a sugar quit next. I'd have to have a look at it. I don't NEED to do this so I would have to set out some rules if I wasn't to absolutely abstain. Most people who I've known that abstain altogether are members of the fellowship who are also members of Overeaters Anonymous and so they are trying to do battle with a dysfunctional set of behaviours.

                      While Lindsay seems to believe that I have some kind of body dysmorphic condition I don't actually binge eat all that much, if ever, and have a relatively simple time in maintaining a healthy weight. I'll be forty in a few months so my body will begin to have more problems in this area (and every other one) but at the moment I have to try to be absolutely clear on why I want to try this out and what sort of rules I'll allow myself. For instance – will I allow myself to eat sugar at certain times? Maybe so that it becomes the little treat that it was supposed to be before human gluttony got in the way? We'll see. I don't have to decide any of that stuff now but it's something to spend a little time thinking about while I go about my daily eating.

                      For now I am going to get to work.

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                      Stevie

                      Hoping that it stays fair.

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                        Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

                        Water with flavour squits. Being verbose is not an issue for me at least. Interesting read again. My BMI is spot on and took some work from being under, not over. Good luck and I will read this all again to get the scope.
                        "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." - Albert Einstein

                        Comment


                          Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

                          Thursday, August 03rd 2017 (Hitting Forty Properties)



                          Barry the Bullet has said since we started working together again this summer that we should be able to clean the windows of more than forty properties. He says that he manages to do around twenty before chucking the towel in on days when he has been working solo. I've always thought that this seemed like a little too much but in recent shifts we've been getting closer and closer to it – peaking the other day at around thirty six. Yesterday we managed to hit the magic number and we would have had time to do another three or four were it not for that damn sucky rain again.

                          It's been raining this morning already but it's looking a little better so we'll get out again for another shift this morning. Then it's supposed to get wet again with showers and small bits and pieces of sunshine for the next few days, decent on Saturday and Sunday morning, and then it turns wet again at the start of next week. Phew! It's a good job I'm a little better at keeping things a day at a time these days or I would be stressing already.

                          Hitting forty properties in one day is a decent little slice of window cleaning and it allows me to add a little more to Lindsay and my growing holiday fund. We don't need all that much but a few hundred quit would be okay. I haven't been out of the country in so long I'd like to enjoy this little trip – assuming I am by that time able to allow myself to relax and enjoy something, to take the stick outta my ass, as it were. Each property we clean is around five bucks and so our total for the day, assuming we hit exactly forty each day, will be two hundred quid. This is then split equally between us.

                          To put this a little into perspective my weekly rent is sixty five quid. When I study next year I will be getting student loan payments of approximately five hundred pounds per month, around one hundred and twenty five per week. The current sickness benefit I receive is around one hundred quit per week. All of this makes my efforts cleaning windows yesterday and on Monday seem very promising. I'm doing okay if I can just keep getting out and putting the shifts in. Now that I don't ache as much as I did when I first started coming back out again I can put the legs into the shift more. Fifty properties isn't impossible.

                          Barry might disagree. He seemed a little on the grumpy side towards the end of things yesterday when we were pushing through as the rain was starting. He talks about weed a lot and I know that he was going to his see his pal last night to take a little trip to go get some green and that he stood to make a few grams for the hassle. Maybe he gets that same little signal I used to get on the rare day I'd be working when I was drinking and the rain would start. I'd begin to think that soon I'd be able to get myself alone for a while. Alone with the drink, but then you're never alone with the drink. Perhaps Barry gets a calling of sorts from this often overlooked and underestimated little drug.

                          On the way to work yesterday morning I was approached by someone, a woman pushing a children's buggy. She didn't want to bother me and she was terribly sorry and all the rest of it but she wanted to get to the next town and needed bus fare. I have to admit that my judgement came out at first. She's very clearly either got or had addiction issues in the past. She's likely in her mid to late twenties but it's hard to tell as she looks a lot older. I'm sure twenties though, somehow. Most of her teeth are missing. Fuck it. I have a few quid on me. I have two two pound coins and fifty five quid in change. The two pound coins are for my lunch so I give her the fifty five pence. This doesn't go down too well.

                          I get it – fifty five pence isn't much, and I did think about whether I should have given her one of the two pound coins for most of the morning. We pull in money all the time at work and so I could have just taken some from the takings for lunch and made up the two bucks. Then Barry points to someone going into the local shop. I'm going in for juice anyway so go in after this person. She's buying a bottle of Frosty Jack's cider (which is what I ended up drinking every day in the last uyear or two of my drinking career); a couple of bottles of Tennent's Super (9% lager) and a mixer, orange juice I think it was, for to make the cider bearable. I used to just take it as it came. She throws twenty cigarettes in there and off she goes.

                          Barry says that he sees her regularly begging in the high street of his town. Every Saturday. I'll bet she does okay. The guys begging down the town centre in my town (Lindsay's actually – no one seems to beg in my town with us having an indoor shopping centre) do okay. I was walking past one of them not long ago and he was saying to someone who was donating him a pound or two that someone walked past and threw in just a twenty pence. Both he and his donation-giver were discussing how this was just cheek. Like people should feel obligated to give up at least a pound or something!? I think it's more like cheek to have a home to go to yet go out begging for money for drugs every weekend.

                          You can't be homeless in my county. There are places in Scotland where you can, and most of the UK has a homeless population, but not where I come from. Doesn't happen. One day it will but for now we enjoy the best homeless system in the whole of Britain. These guys will know this so it's not as if they are really out here with nowhere else to go. It's drug and drink money they are after. I'm sure of it. Makes me feel less bad about keeping my bigger coins on me in the morning.

                          The weekend is approaching and we'll see the start of the football season. Neymar still hasn't moved to PSG for the crazy £200m price tag but every morning it looks more and more likely that it's gonna actually be happening.

                          Maybe tomorrow will be that morning.

                          I'll see you then.

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                          Hoping that the rain holds off until later.

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                            Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

                            Friday, August 04th 2017 (Doing My Bit)



                            That damn English women's football team. I had worried about them doing well in this tournament from the get-go and especially since they smashed six past us a couple of weeks ago. I needn't have worried however as they are out at the penultimate stage – punted out 3-0 by the Dutch hosts.

                            The weather forecast yesterday seemed okay but by the time I'd met with Barry the Bullet and we'd walked to where our ladders are kept the rain had started. In the end we called the day a write-off and went our separate ways. The month was three days old and every one of them featuring torrential rain. August is picking up exactly where July left off. It's a nightmare for working.

                            Barry tells me that he's already fallen out with Ian, an ex-employee of our company, this morning and it's about shifts. I think that he figured he'd be out working a lot more this summer since giving up on his job but didn't count on me being back out. I guess then that it's me who is stealing his shifts. It's good to have three people keen to get out to work as it seemed for a while there that nobody cared and that it would die a slow and painful death, me not even trying to cling on until the bitter end.

                            The truth is that there simply is not enough work to keep three people going all the time. Not any more. When I started this journal nine months before I got sober there were five of us working through the run and still couldn't get through it in the four week expected cycle. It's been cut short, really short, in the time I've been sober. I am beginning to see this now as Barry and I have been walking past entire streets which used to hold lots of work for us but now belong to our competitors. From what I can hear some of the customers say to Barry I think that the college finishing up when it did and us starting to get back into a regular rhythm has come just in the nick of time to save much of what we have left. People are beginning to feel as though we've been given enough chances.

                            Barry and I are in the Charity Shop Cafe for lunch the other day and I've decided I'm not going to go back there. Come Monday there will be four weeks until the college starts up. Shaun used to bring a packed lunch with him every day at the college last year. He says it was because he couldn't afford to eat out all the time. I would like to approach the college the same way this year. It's not just that though. Bayne's and Gregg's have sold me some really substandard and quite embarrassing ''food'' in recent weeks and I've been horribly disappointed by what people are willing to try and sell just to make a few extra quid that they will never spend. What people will do to con their fellows out of their cash, and what people are actually willing to overlook and accept within our communities. People who actually feed this stuff to their little kids.

                            I have noticed this philosophy creep into the Charity Shop Cafe for a while not but Barry the Bullet bites the bullet and orders a cheese and ham toastie for his lunch the other day. I have served these out many times to customers in my time as a volunteer in this place over the last year or so but never like this. Barry throws most of it away. I urge him to take it back and to ask for a refund but he's not that sort of guy. Instead he says he will simply never go back. It was the most flimsy and patronising little toastie I've yet to see. It seems as though our new chairperson will scrimp and scrape the bottom of the moral barrel to make a few extra quid as well. I have to hand my apron and hat back in so that they know not to ask when I am going back and I need to stop going. Period. Not just as a volunteer but in any capacity. The docile among us can support this decline of service and rise of price but I cannot.

                            Lindsay isn't at placement this morning again. That was a good little run for a while but this week has been a disaster with yesterday being cut short and today being totally absent. It was explained to her the other day about her absences not being acceptable. She's had time added on and so won't finish next week with the rest of the students. Rather she'll not finish until the end of September. I think that one of the reasons that the university people aren't too pleased is because there will be other students waiting to make up placement hours and they are missing out due to this extra time. I really don't know what's going to happen there. If she fails to get the hours in she'll fail to get the degree.

                            I started by talking about football and I'll end on it. A little anyway. Neymar has looked like he's been going to leave Barcelona for Paris and it became official last night. Two hundred million bucks. That's some amount of cash. Fans of the BBC Sport website are saying that they are going to start boycotting the bigger leagues and have a pact which will see us go and support our local teams at least once this season rather than stay at home or in the pub watching the big leagues and supporting this craziness.

                            They won't do it though. Not enough of them anyway. That would mean change and people don't change. They may individually make very tiny changes in come areas of their lives over long periods of time but humans tend to be too fond of safety and familiarity to truly make a difference. They seem too frightened to stand up for what they believe in. So they'll continue to support this. They could at least stream it illegally but most of them won't even do that.

                            I'll keep doing my little bit though. I have standards when it comes to things like this. Not going to the Charity Shop Cafe is further evidence of this. I do try to do my bit. I wish some others would too.

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                            Stevie

                            Trying to do his bit.

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                              Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

                              Saturday, August 05th 2017 (Empty Cave)



                              I should probably say hi to empyr3al as it's rude to have someone posting in your journal but not acknowledging them. Hi, empyr3al. I'll check out your story at some point soon, or at least communicate in some capacity. I have tended to do this as long as I've been a member on forums such as this. I post daily but don't often read around to find out what others are up to and have been through and barely even notice comments in my own journal let alone respond to them. That's just the way it's been for a while. My awareness of your interest may act as a way of stopping this and forcing me to be a bit more sociable. I am not promising anything but you never know.

                              I haven't been to mine in two weeks, or is it three? The cave I used to live throughout the darkest days of my drinking. I was there last week literally for two minutes but that's it. I think it was to check mail – I was waiting on that Triage appointment. I remember – it was the night of Elsa's leaving party at the church along the road from mine. That was the last night I stayed at mine. I reckon I've been in once since then. Luckily my Dragon Tree has already reached its one year alive target although I have to say that it is still looking strong despite the lack of company it has been receiving in recent times. It must take some amount of neglect to actually kill one of these things. I managed it. Now I've managed to save one, to keep it alive and well for a full year as suggested by Cocaine Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. Keep a house plant alive for a period of one year to get into the habit of caring about things and being responsible.

                              But anyway – I haven't been spending much time in the cave as of late. I popped in yesterday to check on things but generally I have not been around much to see what's been going on. This has kind of shown in my lack of visiting friends. I say ''friends'' but in reality I have only two in English Sara and Gillon. Nevertheless these are two households I tend not to visit as much these days. I don't know how London was for English Sara and Old Dennis and I don't know much about what Gillon has been up to with his family. I also have very little idea as to what it going on with my own family as I haven't seen my nieces in absolutely ages. Tomorrow is Youngest Niece's fourth birthday so today I will go a-travellin', try to find something she might be able to use. I don't know if I'll be present though. I haven't heard from my brother or Scottish Sarah for a while now and so I'll just get the present in, wrap it, and keep it safe until contact can once again be established.

                              Dr. Bacon had suggested it might be a good idea, but that there was no pressure, to try to initiate contact and go visit with them between the last time I saw him and our next session. I figured that I might be able to. I thought that this coming birthday I might be able to cheat and that I would have heard from my brother. I was half-expecting a text message or something by now saying, ''We're having a dinner for Youngest Niece on Sunday if you wanted to fire along'' but so far have heard nothing. The day is still young, of course, but it isn't looking good. I next see Dr. Bacon this coming Monday afternoon – a change from the usual Thursday – and it will have been almost three weeks since I saw him last. I won't be able to report on any good news regarding my nieces. My time with them now fading into an almost distant memory.

                              Tonight I will have the option of my sixth AA meeting in a row and I'll be there. I'm a little less optimistic about it this evening as I have been in the weeks before this. Perhaps a sign that it is close to reaching its saturation point again. So soon? As far as that meeting goes I will take it a week at a time. Maybe it's just my brain's way of telling me that I should not limit myself so much. That AA is much bigger than one meeting on a Saturday night in Lindsay's town. Get to a different meeting. There are plenty to choose from. If this is what is going on then my brain might have a point. Although I have liked this Saturday evening meeting ever since it began two years ago it was far from being the only meeting I ever got anything from.

                              There was the Tuesday night Step meeting across the road from Wetherspoon's. They dedicate the meeting to a Step, starting at One and then working through the cycle chronologically until Step Twelve before starting all over again. I was last there for my second birthday and took the top table. I even got my little cake for turning two. I haven't been back since then. Six months ago now.

                              There was also the Thursday night meeting in my own town. I have a different relationship with that meeting. I'm not sure if I like it or loathe it. I guess it just depends on the day. It is just across the road from English Sara's and so I could kill two birds with one sober stone next week if I fancied a change: go and find out about how London was and then hit a different meeting.

                              A new meeting has opened up on a Friday evening in my town. Barry the Bullet and I actually cleaned the windows of the property next door the other day on our way to reaching our forty. Maybe it is worth a shot at some point down the line.

                              For now though there is only really one option and that is to go this evening and hope for the best. There's always the hospital meeting on a Sunday afternoon. I used to go there quite a lot back when I was a single guy. I would take the laptop onto the bus with me and pop into the pub for a bar lunch afterwards. The bus would then stop off close to my old home group and I would arrive there forty minutes before it starts so that I could help set up. I haven't been to either of these meetings for months. I was at the hospital back in January but I haven't been to my old home group one town away in the opposite direction since I left the group. Sunday, September 11th last year. That's when I would have been there last.

                              Anyway. I had better head out and get some shopping done. Youngest Niece will need a present whether I see her this weekend or not. I'll need to do a little food shopping too. It's still early so I can get down that high street before it gets busy. I'm going to add some miles onto my walking total this weekend too.

                              Right then – on with it.

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                              Stevie

                              Getting jiggy with it.

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                                Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

                                Sunday, August 06th 2017 (Niece Turning Four)


                                The rainfall continued all day Friday and so Barry the Bullet and I haven't been out to work since beating the forty properties in one day at some point in the middle of last week. Later on it started to clear up so I made the trip through to my town for a debt collecting session. Then it started back up again and boy did it come down. Due to us being off work during the day (from rain, what else!?) we had had to keep ourselves amused. I struggled whereas Barry, being a weed smoker and all that, didn't struggle quite so much. He turns out with more red-eye than I feel would be safe to send him to a customer's door asking for money. That, plus the fact it is now pissing down terribly, is enough for me to call an end to the working week and jump on the next bus.

                                There isn't another bus leaves for another half an hour though and so I find myself making way for the local shop. It's been a while since I ate something so I grab a piece of chocolate and a Rockstar energy drink. Once they are done I realise something. I realise that the pain of the day (not getting out to work during the day and the pressure that this causes in knowing that time is running out before college starts back up now that there are only four of the ten weeks left with which to earn some cash and now the stress of coming through here just to be rained off in the evening) has been responsible for this trip to the shop. I'll be getting some dinner when I get back to Lindsay's yet here I am eating!? It is the sugar. Seventy seven grams in the drink and half as many in the chocolate? Sugar has become my coping strategy. Without booze, drugs or even cigarettes I find myself with a little chocolate every now and again, here and there, in times of stress. It's got to stop. I manage to get back to Lindsay's relatively unharmed.

                                I have a job centre letter on me. It tells me that my fitness for work assessment has revealed that while I may not be able to do the same level of work as I have done previously there is no reason why I can't find some work. If they could see me running up and down those ladders when window cleaning they'd likely change their minds even further. The letter says that I should now make an appointment with the job centre to discuss plans for finding work. This is fine, it was bound to happen. The job centre can be an okay place to go every now and again, the relief of getting out of there unscathed for another week should not be overlooked, and at other times can be a complete nightmare. If the job coach is an asshole then I could be in for a tough ride. It's no surprise so many people struggle when they lose their jobs and enter the dole queue. Any self respect you have left will be taken from you the moment you enter that building.

                                I'll be busy all day tomorrow so will make the phone call on Tuesday. Actually, if I hold out a little longer, say call them on Thursday, then they will probably not be able to hook me up with a job centre advisor until early next week. I don't want to leave it too long or they will start asking questions but the truth actually is that if I didn't pop into the cave the other day for a brief little visit then I would never have read this letter. I start college four weeks on Monday, September 04th. If I don't manage to get a job centre appointment until early the week after next then by the time I actually have to start the painstaking search for work there will only be a couple of weeks to go before I start. I should manage to keep things as low as three trips to the job centre if all goes to plan.

                                It's Youngest Niece's birthday today. She'll be four now. I don't know if I'll be there to see her but I do have her present. Things have slightly changed since the drinking days when I could never afford to feed my addictions and buy presents for my family. There were a few years there when I would turn up to birthdays and Christmas's empty handed. At the time my confidence was low and self worth desperately needed a boost and turning up to these things without made sure that everything was made to feel worse. Nowadays I can at least get the gifts in but if I'm being honest I think I'd rather return to the days when I turned up empty handed but at least turned up. I haven't had any kind of invite or anything yet and so if they are having any kind of birthday dinner or something this afternoon or evening then I won't be there. Not as things stand. It's a nightmare for me personally but there isn't a whole lot I can do if I am surplus to requirements these days.

                                Last night I left the AA meeting early again. That was five weeks on the bounce that I managed to get myself to and stay through the whole of the meeting. Last night was just a little too much to handle though. It wasn't that the top table was poor. It wasn't the food either. Maybe the risk of having to perhaps walk back in the rain prompted me to leave at the break. Maybe it was the fact that I was going to spend forty five minutes of my life listening to people and hear nothing in that time that I haven't heard dozens of times already at other meetings. I say my goodbyes and head back to Lindsay's. I still plan on being there next week though.

                                It's still before nine and I don't have much of anything planned for the rest of the day. Tomorrow will be pretty hectic with appointments galore before I return to work again on Tuesday for what will hopefully be a dry week.

                                It's rained every day in August so far.

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                                Stevie

                                It's August and raining.

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