The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Monday, November 20th 2017 (Helping Others)


Lindsay begins her final placement this morning so she'll be awake in a minute or two. I had better get on with it.

How quickly the weekends flash past us. I remember when days were so long and slow that I could scarcely believe it, scarcely bear it. When I first got sober on the old WQD website I had a period of weeks before I relapsed and ended up drinking again for a few months. I found AA and things were a little easier – I had things to do on the weekends – but when I first sobered up using the WQD site there were weekends when I didn't see a soul and I remember them being long and punishing. Now they are so short I feel as though to blink I might miss one.

I was supposed to mention this over the weekend but it slipped my mind completely (and rightly so) but while I was driving the hire car to pick up Barry the Bullet for work on Friday morning after the Opeth gig at the Barrowlands the night before something terrible happened over the radio. Many terrible things happen over the radio all the time and studying it only helps me to see how silly an industry it actually is but on this occasion there was a phone in and it was a guy talking about how his daughter was getting really excited about the ''big fat guy in the red suit'' coming and asked if they could play a Christmas song. The presenter refused and then the caller's daughter came onto the phone to say that if he was a bad boy and didn't play the song then Santa wouldn't be coming to town for him. He declined once again and ended the call but then the co-presenter came in and Mariah Carey started singing. The first Christmas song I heard this year was on the 17th November.

That was not the biggest issue here though. I'll admit that it is a big issue though – let's wait until next weekend when the lights go up in all of the town centre's, eh? The biggest issue I had with this whole thing was how fake and staged it was. I get it – not everyone listens to radio the way a radio student will, and not everyone has my gift/curse of being able to smell bullshit from advanced distances, but this really was cringy. Staging something like a child on the radio asking for Christmas music is a little pathetic to say the least and this station will forever be known in my eyes for this which will have a drastic effect on my likelihood of ever listening to them again but I guess that from a radio station's perspective in trying to make money and get as many listeners as possible (and with most people so distracted these days that they can't smell bullshit even when it comes along and whacks them in the face like it has done here) then it is good business.

Later in the day Barry and I saw the first house to be covered in decorations.

I am usually on air with my radio partner Stephanie on both Monday and Tuesday afternoons and we normally divide the duties in half with her taking the presenting role one day while I am just a backup and then reversing these roles the next day. This week will be a little different though as I have completed the four assessed shows that require airtime to do. Well – the Assessed Show 2 Pre-recorded Show doesn't really need you to be on air but the others do: Assessed Show 1 was demonstrating that we can use the equipment; Assessed Show 3 was showing that we could present a show while interacting with social media; and Assessed Show 4 was proving that we had recorded our three interviews (studio, telephone, and on location) and that we could integrate them into a live show; and I have managed to do them all – I just need last week's Assessed Show 4 to be graded which will happen this morning in class.

My radio presenting partner has, unfortunately, not done any of her assessed shows and so we are going to be dedicating this week to her. Rather than having us swap duties she will just take up the presenting role on both days this week (and next if necessary) and I will simply act as a backup presenter while we try to get her through at least Assessed Shows 1 and 3 this week. The interviews will have to wait until she's actually recorded them but the other two shows can be done easily enough if she's put a little work into them over the weekend which, going by our communications on Facebook over the last couple of days, she seems to have done.

While I was doing my Assessed Show 4 on Tuesday last week a few of the other students came into the studio. Usually I lock the door but o this occasion we left it unlocked for some reason and so other students were walking in and out. Not ideal, but I turned them into part of the show and asked them about the NHS and their experiences since this show revolved around the interviews I carried out with mum, Lindsay, and Gillon last week. This gave me both content I could use for the show and extra interviews for my podcast series which will soon be the only thing this semester I have to work on.

I was surprised by some of the comments I received about my presenting style. They were very complimentary. One guy was saying how it never ceases to surprise him how some of the louder people in the class clam up and don't have much to say when the microphone goes live whereas quiet people in class come out of their shells and seem really upbeat and confident in front of the live microphone. I come out of my shell when in front of the radio desk, just like I used to when I had an electric guitar in my hands. General feedback from both lecturers and students this year has been really positive and this is one of the reasons I feel better able to work effectively while in the studio – even when there are other students walking in and out while I am recording an assessed show. I'd love to tell this to Hamish from AA, and a few others, and show to them that confidence grows faster and more genuinely when you are challenging yourself outside of the AA rooms.

This week will be all about trying to get my radio partner across the line where a couple of assessed shows are concerned.

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Stevie

Helping others.

1159

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Tuesday, November 21st 2017 (Somewhere Closer to Respectable)


Towards the end of the day I popped in to help someone else with their radio show. I was later joined by two others and so was involved in the first ever Fife College Radio four-man broadcast. The host was asking us questions to get us all involved and one of them, the final question of the day, was: ''What is it that makes us Scots so damn likeable?''

This comes off the back of him creating his podcasts about our country. Answers fly in thick and fast but I have to say that I completely disagree with everything these guys are saying. I remember when we had our independence referendum three years ago and all of the bullshit that it caused. I learned how such a huge decision could not be left to our people. We voted with only selfishness in our heads and hearts. We showed ourselves to be truly appalling people. Even though this all happened only three years ago these guys I am broadcasting with this afternoon are young (twenty six, twenty, and eighteen) and so I don't know if maybe they are too young still to have seen much of what Scotland's people are really like. They will vote with only how much money they can make in mind and screw the rest.

There have been many good things happen this month but if there could be one complaint (and let's face it there always is with me) then it would be my walking totals. They have not been up to scratch. Since I quit smoking this is how it has gone on the walking front:

February: 88.4 miles
March: 142 miles
April: 11 miles
May: 140 miles
June: 61.25 miles
July: 33.49 miles
August: 166 miles
September: 373 miles
October: 99.24 miles
November: 60 miles

You can see what I mean. It hasn't been good. I haven't really gone out of my way at any point to get some miles in. I went the long way to the Fife Ice Arena the other weekend to go watch Lindsay's brother in action in the league and then went back by the hospital but that's the only time I can really think of in the month of November where I actually made a conscious effort to get the miles up. Apart from that it has just been standard. Not even standard actually – given what standard has become this year. For a while there we were getting some really good monthly totals in. It doesn't help that it's cold and dark out there now either. We'll see if I can give it a good bash over the next two weeks, try to get the total for the month somewhere closer to what might be considered respectable. Even if I can get it to one hundred miles for the month then I would consider this adequate.

I was thinking a little about the Christmas decorations Barry the Bullet and I saw when we were working last week. I haven't seen too many more homes in this state (nor have I heard any more songs played on the radio but then I haven't been listening so who knows – November 17th???? Not impressed!!) but then I wonder if it is anything to do with what type of housing scheme this is. The scheme Barry and me were working in last week (and will be again this week) was the one that the BBC dedicated their first episode of The Council television documentary last year and this was because of the terrible employment rate in the area. I wonder if this is anything to do with the early decorations. Maybe Christmas is something to look forward to more for people who don't have all that much of anything else going on. I am lucky. I still have things going for me that must be done before Christmas burrows its way to the forefront of my mind. Others maybe don't have the same. Christmas offers them some hope, as it eventually does for us all.

Lindsay started her new placement yesterday. This will be the last one. After endless problems with placements in the past we are hopeful that this will be the one that finally gets her hours up to the level where she can pass the course and get her degree. Things have started off well, as I suppose you'd expect, and she won't be doing the twelve hour shifts at this one. It'll be nine until five (sometimes eight until four), five days per week. This week, however, she is only in four days and the same next week. Interestingly she also only has four weeks to go before they break off for the Christmas holidays when the rest of us have five, or at least I mean that this is the fifth to last week, there are four after this week and Lindsay has only three.

The rest of this week will go a little something like this:

Today: college.

I'll be getting on with my podcast as much as I can although there isn't all that much I can really be doing. I'll make sure that some others in the class know that I am available to help if they need something. I'll also be hoping that I can assist my broadcasting partner get through another assessed show this afternoon.

Tomorrow: A day off.

Barry the Bullet and I are almost up to date with work again already and so this week will be a slow one. This way we can make the others between now and the Christmas break relatively fast ones. I'll be working on things for my podcast that I can't do at the college including visits to the hospital and my GP surgery. I also have to visit the council with evidence I am staying here now and not in the cave.

Thursday: Work.

We'll be back on it in the morning but I have my next session with Dr. Bacon in the afternoon. We're getting places now and I feel that we are about to reach a turning point in my therapy. We're starting to climb out of the pit now.

Friday: Work.

The Bullet will be off signing his name on the government's dotted line and so I will be solo. That's okay. It is a bit colder now though. We might even be off again if we do well yesterday. We'll see.

Saturday: Christmas Lights.

The weekend will see the beginning of the Christmas celebrations this year with the lights in this town and its neighbouring one being turned on this afternoon. The market is already going strong in Edinburgh but we'll not be heading there until the weekend before Christmas again this year.

Let's stop thinking about the future though.

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Stevie

Thinking about the present.

1153

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Wednesday, November 22nd 2017 (Tina and the Groove)


A day off! Not just that but Lindsay is actually working as well. I have the house to myself and can do whatever I please. It's like Christmas in November. There are a couple of things I have to do today though that take the idea of me being able to do whatever I want to and slap it but this isn't an issue. They are better done than not. I like being busy. I'll get to them in due course. I've also a survey thing to do for Dr. Bacon for tomorrow afternoon's session which we'll also hopefully cover in this post, tomorrow morning's if there isn't time.

I no longer have to go into the college on a Monday and Tuesday morning if I don't want to – the reward for getting all of the work done in that class two months early. Of course I'll be in though. I want to hone my skills and my craft and get as good at this as I possibly can. Quitting now and relaxing just because I've done a little bit of hard work would be like quitting drinking for a year and then celebrating by throwing a booze-filled party. Not quite, but they both have a similar feel to them, a similar essence. The lecturer yesterday used me as an example for the class as people were asking about, and even complaining about, the time left to carry out these assessments. If Stevie can have them all done by mid-November then the rest of you should be able to do them no problem by the middle of January. That was what was said. Stevie – still kicking ass as a student!

Much of what I have to do today is related to the college. Lindsay will be getting up in a while for her placement (she's loving it, I am thrilled to say. She's been told that this is her last chance and she seems rejuvenated and has reclaimed her love for the profession) and I'll be taking the bus trip with her to the hospital. We'll part company at the front door. She'll make way for her ward; I'll be heading to Accident and Emergency. I know that it might seem like I'm taking the piss a little in using this service for the benefit of my podcast when there's nothing actually wrong with me but at this time of morning I am hoping that it will be really quiet so that I am not wasting the time of any nurses or doctors.

After this I will be visiting two GP surgeries. One will be so that I can try to register with a new practice despite me knowing that this is not how it works anymore but again for the benefit of the podcast and the other is to make an appointment with my current surgery to see how far down the line we have to wait to be seen. On all occasions I will be armed with my little digital recorder which will be constantly picking up material and content for my podcast series.

Besides this I have one or two non-podcast things to do. I have to pay two hundred pounds towards our holiday fund for next year's trip to the Canaries as well as getting some shopping in. I also have to find a way of posting something for Lindsay, handing some evidence of my change of address into the council office in the next town, and picking up two deliveries from the Royal Mail depot. If I have time after all of this I would like to begin trawling through the content I have recorded and start shaping my podcast series. I want as much of it done by the time I am back in class on Monday morning as possible.

So that's my day off!!

I walked back from the college tomorrow. I have to get my stats up a little for the month of November. I can't see me walking much next month.

On Friday there is someone from Sunderland University coming into the college to talk about life at the university and city. Is is worth us shifting south to England to get our degrees? They are coming to talk to the second year students but we are allowed in if we want to come in on our day off. I am going to. I've already accepted that this is going to be a pretty lame week for work. It's fine though. We are up to date and so can afford to take a little time off. This way will also be keeping Barry the Bullet keen as I know he is feeling the Christmas pressure and wants to get out working as much as he can. This week we'll be out tomorrow and that will be our only day of work for the week.

I actually feel pretty busy still. Take away work and college and I would likely not have an awful lot to be getting on with but these two things mean that I am never short on something to be doing. This is the way I like it. Not that I have anything against it (even though I know it must always seem like I'm having a go at it) I do feel as though anything I can do to keep myself out of the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous is a good thing. If I am bored and with little to keep me occupied then I know that the temptation to visit arrives. This isn't really why I should be going. I notice big differences in those who go all the time and those who attend only their home group and maybe one or two others intermittently. I want to belong to the latter. The former like to make it out as though they are doing the fellowship a good turn, like they are doing it a favour, but the reality is that they have little else going on in their lives.

This is fine when we are newly sober, I get it, but I am no longer there. Into the fourth quarter of my third year off the drink it is for the benefit of everyone that I find other things to do. This is the way I become a better example when I do decide that I should get to a meeting.

There wouldn't be enough time today though even if I wanted to go.

So it begins: hospital, GP surgery, another GP surgery, post office depot, travel agents, shops, council office, eh. . . what else was there? I can't remember. I'll figure it all out though.

Oh yeah – the title of the post!

It refers to a band that has got in contact with me asking if I'd like to meet up to do a little playing. They are a covers band but they are currently doing the live circuit around local towns. I'll have a listen to the videos on their Facebook page at some point today and have a little think about that too.

For now I had better get moving.

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Stevie

Busy little bee.

1214

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Thursday, November 23rd 2017 (Questions for Bacon)


My plant is doing well. I bought her in June last year (June 30th) and managed to keep her alive in accordance with a suggestion from Narcotics Anonymous. I was to try to keep a house plant alive for one full year to teach me about responsibility. I have now done so and she turned one in the summer. She now has a second home. She came with Kung Fu Pandis and me in the hire van the other weekend when we moved all of my stuff to Lindsay's flat. She now sits out on the balcony with Lindsay's plants and is enjoying her new home. I notice how much better I am at caring for things now that I am here, as opposed to when I was in that cave. This is now the twelfth day I have been out of that place (the 09th was my last night there and we've been putting down the 10th as my official moving date on all of the council paperwork). That feels about right. I haven't started to miss the place yet. Maybe I never will. My house plant certainly doesn't appear to be.

I'm still a little on the fence regarding Tina and the Groove. The are a local band in need of a guitar player and I would have jumped at the chance a year ago. I certainly would have jumped at the chance two years ago when I was playing with Rob the Drummer and friends at the Lot and Mr. Wilson's band. That was a time when my instrument still meant very much to me. Now I don't know if I can be arsed with it. The hassle of meeting up with the guys and practising all of the music and so on and so forth. I don't think I'll be meeting up with them. We'll see. It would be a lot of work.

Yesterday I had a busy day which started with a trip to Accident and Emergency. This was not because I will ill – it was so that I could get information for my podcast. It was not busy and I was seen within ten minutes of entering the building. Less than three hours later I am out into the rain and knowing that I am in completely wonderful health. My pulse beats at around fifty six when I am still. I have no issues with my blood and my blood pressure is fine. I also got to speak with a couple of students and so grilled them for information. They tell me that it has been a busy night. I was quite lucky. A couple of hours earlier and I would have been in for much longer. This isn't strictly true as I would not have bothered had it been so busy. I only wanted some tasty content for my podcast series – not to help bring the hospital to a standstill!

As I'm heading back up the road the rain starts to get a little heavier and I notice my mind trying to put me into a pissed off kind of state. I used to spend a lot of my time pissed off. For a long time, most of my life actually, being pissed off seemed to be my default setting. It's different now though, at least it takes much more to get me into a pissed off state and to keep me there. When I was learning to be sober I had to often stop what I was doing when my mood was threatened and work through what I'd learned, what would help calm me down. It was a very conscious thing. I was fully aware of the process I was going through in a bid to help settle my mood. I still go through the same process these days but it's not as conscious an effort. I don't have to stop myself and go through the tools, the mental hammer and nails to repair my mood, but rather it just seems to happen. The process is becoming more automatic, like a sort of second nature. Not freaking out is becoming the norm.

I'll be meeting with Dr. Bacon this afternoon at half past three. He's asked me to fill out a form that contains one hundred and fifty questions. I did one of these when I joined this forum (My Way Out – I've been on Ryver since it started) and feel that these forms and questionnaires are asked of me when we are getting ready to move onto another phase of my therapy. Here are some of the questions, as well as some of the answers I put down for each, one from each section. Answers are given on a scale: 1 = Completely untrue of me, to 6 = Describes me perfectly. Here we go!

7) For much of my life, I haven't that I am special to someone.
For this I answered the maximum of six points, that this scenario fits me perfectly, which is a shame.

19) I become upset when someone leaves me alone, even for a short period of time.

I answered the complete opposite for this one and gave the lowest score possible. I don't get enough time on my own. At college I would love some more time away from the class where I could work undisturbed and get things done. At home I know that soon I will start to miss those little one and two night breaks I used to like taking from Lindsay.

32) Most people only think about themselves.

Most of my answers are between three and five but this is another one I gave an extreme score and gave it the maximum – it sums me up to a tee. This question pretty much sums up one of my life's most firmly held beliefs.

49) I always feel on the outside of groups.

This one gets a five. I am aware that I am doing okay at the college though. I feel as though I've found a place in that group, like it wouldn't be the same without me in the same way that it would lose something no matter who was to leave. You can feel it when someone doesn't come in one day. It has an effect on the whole group dynamic.

64) I have inner defects that I don't want people close to me finding out.

This is a strange one as I'm sure most people could say that this is true. I talked about some of mine during my revealing of the Sex Conduct Inventory I wrote on the old WQD forum. I didn't mind telling a bunch of strangers online about some of that stuff but I wouldn't want ''real'' people finding out. I answered with the highest score of six.

76) I often compare my accomplishments with others and feel that they are more successful.

I answered just a three for this. Had you asked me back when I was drinking it would have been very different. Now I accept that I have done well considering my lifestyle and life events.

87) I lack common sense.

Sometimes I still feel the Dexter Morgan syndrome popping into my head. I do lack some common sense. I ranked this four.

104) I feel that the world is a dangerous place.

I gave this one a score of four. It is pretty dangerous. Anywhere humans are always will be.

113) I have trouble separating my point of view from that of my partner or parents.

I scored just one here. I think that I am pretty aware of who I am and what my opinions are about most things in life.

138) I'm more comfortable giving a present than receiving one.

I gave this almost the top score of five. I hate my own birthdays because I hate the idea of having fuss made over me. I've always been that way.

143) It is important to be liked by almost everyone I know.

This only received a score of one. My sense of self and well-being has, thankfully, never been dependant upon everyone else thinking highly of me. I can see why others might score those questions in this final section much higher but for me having others like me, those I have no interest in, is not something I can be arsed wasting my time on.

And that concludes the questions.

And the post.

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Stevie

Concluding the post.

1432

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Friday, November 24th 2017 (Booking Bridges)


When will there be an AA weekend between now and Christmas? I was at the Saturday night meeting every Saturday in December (and most of them in October and November as well) last year but this time I'm struggling to find ways of making it there. This weekend we have the Christmas lights thingy; in two weeks we have the college night out; in three weeks I am going to watch the Fife Flyers ice hockey team with Lindsay's brother and his wife; in four weeks Lindsay and I are going to Edinburgh for the Christmas Market. That leaves next weekend as the only available Saturday night where I could get to that meeting. I am aware that there are other meetings, sure, but this has become my unofficial home group. It's the place I feel most comfortable.

Tina and the Groove are holding auditions the week after next. I don't know how many guys are going for the part but I don't think I'm going to be one of them. They want to know which of the guitarists they've contacted would be interested in turning up and trying out. I don't think I can see myself playing the live circuit in a couple of months and I know the band have gigs in the pipeline over the festive period. It's another pop/pup classic cover band situation – continuing to water down the musical tastes and talents in the local area – and so not really my thing. There will be other bands! Somehow I don't believe myself quite so much anymore when I say things like that.

Turns out that the guy from Sunderland University comes to speak to us next Friday and not this one as I had been led to believe and so I will have to get my skates on and decide what it is I am going to do today. I would like to hand in my money to Restoration for my Christmas lunch that they are going for on the. . . 14th I think it is. . . and today would be the ideal time to do that. It's ironic how I gave a high score to that question on Dr. Bacon's questionnaire the other night – whether or not I feel constantly on the outside of groups – yet I have never felt more on the outside of the Restoration group. I guess it's because I no longer really attend. How many times have I written about Restoration this year? It's just not something I do much anymore. I think that's the way it is for me at the moment. I don't really take part in recovery activities much now.

I saw that there were tickets to see Scottish comedian Kevin Bridges in stand-up at the Edinburgh Playhouse next year. I fancy it but thought I'd run it past Lindsay first. I would have just got them and thrown them in with her Christmas but if they arrived when I was out she might open them. Also it would show up on her bank statements. Fuck it – I just asked her, and the minute she said it was cool to go ahead and book them I did so. We're now going to see Kevin. We already have a couple of trips to the Playhouse next year in Russell Brand and Wicked. There are already a bunch of things to look forward to in 2018. This is the kind of stuff I am more interested in doing now. Rather than spend a lot of time going to meetings and Restoration activities I am trying to do all those things that ''normal'' people do. I'm in a way trying to make up for lost time.

I contacted Relationships Scotland the other day and have received an email back from them. I was getting a little worried that we might have been dropped from the list somehow, or forgotten about entirely, or maybe we received a letter through the post but it somehow found its way to the paper recycling without actually being read, but I am told that we are still on the waiting list and not to worry. The wait for this service is often a little longer than usual since there are only two workers involved. We are currently second from top so it shouldn't be too much longer. It's a sex therapy service that they run. I can't remember what it's proper name is but they work with couples having problems in the bedroom. Lindsay and I definitely qualify as one such couple.

Reasons for this are largely down to me. It's been such a long time for me and only the God of my Understanding knows why I've shrivelled up so often in all circumstances since I've been sober. I think that drinking just beat me. Those last ten years, my thirties basically, saw a massive gradual decline in all things Stevie. Dr. Bacon and I are working all the time on building my confidence and I feel as though I am starting to make big progress. I have to get rid of things that are holding me back though. One of these is my ''sickness'' that I used to talk about in the old forum. I've decided that on February 07th, the day I celebrate three years off the booze, two years off the drugs, one year off the cigarettes and antidepressants, and start my sugar quit – I will also be cleaning my laptop of everything that relates to this problem as well as trying my hardest to change my ways in this respect.

Today I am heading to my old town (that's two weeks now since I gave up my house there, or cave, as it were) but not for work. We're just going to leave it until next week now, give it a good bash then, we're up to date just about anyway. I'm going to pop into the college and sort out all things podcasty before heading to Restoration to pay my money for the Christmas meal which takes place on December 14th – three weeks from yesterday. I don't know if there will be any need to go on a debt-collecting mission this evening so I might just jump aboard the Loser's Bus once I'm done at Restoration and have a nice night in with Lindsay, the cat, and the heating. That sounds quite nice actually.

I'll talk about the Dr. Bacon session from yesterday when I write tomorrow morning.

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Stevie

Going to see Kevin Bridges (happy face).

But it's not until September next year (sad face).

1118

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Saturday, November 25th 2017 (Year of Risks)


I want to get into the Dr. Bacon session from Thursday afternoon this morning. There are things to be happening today a little later on. I will be paying the last of the money to the holiday fund so we don't have to worry about that and I will also be getting my haircut at a little barber's I found down the town – the town we'll be at this afternoon for the switching on of the Christmas lights. After today I have no problem in hearing Christmas music or seeing trees and decorations although I still think we should be slowly weaning into it over the next fortnight rather than overdoing it now before we even get into December. I walked back from my session with Dr. Bacon on Thursday – all twelve miles of it – and I noticed a few extra decorations here and there. Scottish Sarah's work was filled with decorations and a tree and one or two houses are into the festive spirit a little on the early side as well. I'm glad it's not us. From this afternoon there will be no denying it has started though. I'll get into it eventually.

So I was correct with my assumption that the questionnaire Dr. Bacon gave me the last session signalled a shift in our therapy. We are starting to move away from me trying to identify and spot patterns of behaviour and more into challenging them and beginning to do something about them. We're moving onto trying to build up the Healthy Adult part of me. This is the part that Little Stevie must go to now for guidance rather than bringing out the Detached Protector, Bully and Attack, or any other destructive coping modes. We're getting into the part of the process where I start to work on getting better. The impatient parts of me were starting to wonder if this might ever happen but I know now that we cannot move onto the solution based phases until I have become confident and comfortable in spotting my defective patterns of behaviour. I am better at this now. Not perfect, you understand, but good enough at it that we can work on improving my Healthy Adult. It's an exciting time now.

From now on we are going to be looking at improving my life and we'll be doing this, according to Dr. Bacon, in three ways. We'll be continuing to do some of the imagery and chair work we've been doing on and off for a few months now; we'll be continuing to spot behaviour patterns and talking about them; and we'll be looking at the way I think about things and trying to alter that somewhat. One of the things we did on Thursday was more chair work. When we do this there are chairs set out and one is allocated to each part of me that we feel will be relevant to the session. In this case we had Little Stevie (who is always present as it is he we are always trying to get these messages through to); my Detached Protector defensive mode (who is also mostly around since I use him as a way of coping with any threatening and difficult situations, I can split off from my feelings and responsibilities by putting him in charge; and the Healthy Adult part of me – the part I've always denied existed.

The idea is that Bacon leads and I am to try my best to stay in the mode that fits the chair I am sitting in. This it fine when I am sitting in the Detached Protector chair as I can just avoid everything that we are talking about. It's the most comfortable chair to sit in for sure, which does in itself perhaps tell us something. The other chairs are a little more difficult. The Little Stevie chair is the toughest of them all. This is the chair that when I am sitting in Dr. Bacon will try to connect with that vulnerable part of me. The part of me that was hurt all those years ago and has created these coping modes in the time since. The part of me that we have to communicate with if we want me to get better at connecting with people.

One of the things we discuss is the roles we play in social situations. My role is often very passive. The more people there are in the group the more passive my role will become. In certain social situations where I am stuck with other people – like the college or AA, where we are thrust together and have little option but to get to know one and other – I notice that I can, eventually, find a place within the group. It's almost as if I wait on everyone else to determine their own roles first so that I can make sense of my own. Like they set the scene and I adapt accordingly. I guess this makes it feel a little safer for me.

In AA the roles are very much determined by the old-timers. They run the show and the old fashioned and closed-minded approach to recovery that they have means that the dynamic is fixed. It's a power struggle between old men. Still, though, I have found myself at times trying to stand up against this, most notably when it came to last year's run-in with an old-timer who has essentially been grooming women under his sponsorship care into feeling something sexual towards him. My role is often confused in the rooms and this is perhaps one of the reasons I don't participate much these days. In college my role is becoming more evident as the weeks go by. First finished his work for the semester in the morning classes I now have free reign to go and do as I please, in and out of the college, on a Monday and Tuesday morning. This coming Tuesday I am taking my free sight test with Specsavers. It's great to be able to miss a bit of college knowing that it will not affect my attendance.

But when I am in situations where there is not this huge amount of time for people to get to know me, and me them, then I tend to close up and some people might view this as me being disinterested and aloof. They could be right. My social awkwardness kicks in, my Detached Protector, and this creates my Dexter Morgan Syndrome, which doesn't help anyone, least of all Little Stevie. What we're now trying to do, or will be once a few more sessions go by and we get into the thick of it, is to turn to my Healthy Adult more when these situations arise. For a start – it's great that these situations arise at all for this means that I am out there, putting myself out there and this means that I am not hiding in my cave, not daring to reveal myself to the scary world so that it can not hurt me.

It's important to remember how far I've already come. Dr. Bacon says that I should be trying to, the Healthy Adult part of me, I mean, trying to let Little Stevie know that it is great that he takes these risks, that he risks being vulnerable, which for him seems to be synonymous with being ''stupid'', and that he is rewarded emotionally for taking such risks. 2017 could be seen as being the year of taking risks. It's good.

Lindsay and I will be going to watch the turning on of the Christmas lights down the town centre later on. The Christmas mood will be rising after that. I can't really get into yet. I feel that it is still a week or two early and so do my best to avoid places where there may be premature reminders of what is on its way. Despite having done most of my shopping already I still don't feel the need to get into the festive spirit. I'm not a retailer so I guess there's little to gain from getting there too early.

Anyway – on with the day. It looks really cold out there.

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Stevie

Taking risks.

1395

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Sunday, November 26th 2017 (Watching the Christmas Lights)


Ten days already since the Opeth gig. One full month since the Metallica gig we sold our tickets of. Wow. We're gliding through the year now.

Last night Lindsay and I were down the high street to watch the Christmas lights get turned on and all that palaver. It was actually a shit-load more successful than I had ever imagined it might be. The pictures on the internet which showed the same event from last year made it look as though a couple of thousand people turned up and that there was a decent little firework show. I know how these things can be made to look much bigger than they are using simple, basic editing, but it was pretty much as advertised. There actually were a couple of thousand people joined in the parade and there was a pretty decent firework display. It's been enough to get Lindsay into the Christmas spirit as she's now talking about putting up our tree and decorations next weekend. I would rather wait until the following weekend but it makes little difference to me really.

With four weeks to do until what is ultimately always the most disappointing day of any year I would prefer one week of very mild Christmas mood and spirit before ramping it up a little for a week. Then we could have two weeks of build up where I don't mind hearing Christmas music all day and seeing decorations wherever I go.

This morning I think that Lindsay and I will be trying out another church. We've been to different ones in recent weeks, just testing the waters, to see if there might be one we'd consider taking regular part in. Five weeks ago I went with Robert from AA to a church in the town I used to live and it was good. Three weekends ago Lindsay and I went to our local church. It was not so good. It was a little too serious for me. Last week we tried out something a little different still and went to a church almost as close to our front door as that last time but in another direction. If there's one thing we are spoiled for in this community it is churches to choose from. I just hope it isn't like AA where you have dozens of options but very little quality. We shall see. So far it has been an indifferent experience. And why am I comparing churches to Alcoholics Anonymous? They share little in common.

So I've continued to work on the podcast series that I have to do for the college and I've been finding it quite fun. What I have noticed though, and I'm not too happy about it if I'm bring totally honest, is that I have found myself a little restless and have been trying to rush through the process. It's as if I want to just have this all done so that I can tick it off the list of things I need to do and be done with it. This may have come at a slight reduction in quality. I could probably have done a better job than I have done. It's not that it's just been lazily thrown together, not at all, but I also don't think that this podcast series will be as good as I could have made it had I been trying my best.

Possible reasons for this – and I don't want to over-think it – could be that I am aware we are approaching the end of the year and a little break, a sort of hibernation over the winter, where we get to stay indoors with the heating on and all wrapped up warm (and outside there is now some serious cold and frost to contend with), and not worry about what is going on either at college or with work. This could be seen as a concern though. This is what I used to do when I was drinking. I would look forward to this time of year, not so that I could spend it with my loved ones, but so that I could spend it alone and with only drink and maybe a few grams of weed to keep me company. In essence the holiday season could be seen as an opportunity to avoid responsibilities that are present throughout the rest of the year. When all of the college work is done then I can feel as though the holidays are starting early. It's possible that I could be thinking along those lines but, like I said, I don't want to go over-thinking it too much.

Aside from all of this I can't think of anything else I could be updating you with. There are four weeks left until Christmas now and so that's four weeks I'll be trying to make the most of – especially at work. We've had our week off now and I'm glad that Barry the Bullet contacted me during this time to ask what was going on. He's keen. Time off is now making him restless. This (hopefully) means that he'll be up for getting back on it come Wednesday morning. There is still time for us to get around the whole run again one more time.

I noticed a letter from me yesterday morning. This is rare. Most aren't aware of my change of address yet. The council do obviously know though and so my first debt letter has arrived. Three thousand pounds due in unpaid council tax from my time in the cave. I made a dent in some of my debts but recently there hasn't been much activity. If this letter has found its way to me then there could well be others winging there way here soon. I'll have to come to some sort of payment plan to pay back this three grand or this could end up becoming a problem.

And I'm trying to keep problems away from the door these days.

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Stevie

Surprised by how busy the Christmas lights parade and fireworks display was.

1030

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Monday, November 27th 2017 (Healthy Adult Coaching)


Going in to class this morning has become optional for me. I have done all of the work for the first semester already for these morning classes and so going in this morning and tomorrow morning is completely up to me. Striving to be a student who is ready for the next level when it comes I will of course be in class both this morning and tomorrow morning (but tomorrow morning only once I have been for my eyesight test – it's great to not have to book these appointments on mornings when I am to be window cleaning with Barry the Bullet).

On Friday I was in the college and managed to get one podcast done. Locked away in the vocal booth at the bottom of the corridor I worked for around three hours making sure that I got something constructive done. I hadn't expected to finish one of the series but I left thinking that this course is actually pretty easy. We still have two months of this first semester to go which is quite incredible. Over the weekend I continued to work on the other two parts of the series and when I go in this morning to the college I am confident that I will be able to finish off what needs to be done and that this will also be ticked off the list of things to do in the first semester. I'll only have the Monday afternoon class to actually attend, which is a theory class that is taught to us week by week and so there is no chance really in getting finished early. Tomorrow afternoon we have a podcast theory assignment. Boxes are being ticked off though. There can't be much still to do.

Dr. Bacon and I were working on some things during our session on Thursday and one of them was in making sure that the Healthy Adult part of me congratulates Little Stevie when he takes a risk and allows himself to be vulnerable. It makes sense. For most of his life Little Stevie has clammed up during times when risks must be made and tends not to ''risk'' making them. This has largely been his problem while growing up – a total lack of willingness to appear to be vulnerable in any way at the risk of appearing aloof instead – and so it is now up to the Healthy Adult part of me to do the parenting in this way, teach Little Stevie some things about life. This is where the challenge lies and the importance of having someone like Dr. Bacon with me while I go about these types of changes. When my Healthy Adult is as limited in knowledge and experience as mine is then it can be difficult to know what to say. Dr. Bacon acts as a healthy adult when need be and so he is coaching me on what is healthy adult behaviour and then I am to act accordingly with Little Stevie, the part of me that often needs encouraging not to activate his defensive modes to protect himself.

One of the things I could congratulate myself on this week would be, assuming I get it handed in and that it passes (which I just know that it will) would be getting through the coursework for the first semester at college. This is not exactly what Dr. Bacon was asking of me though. He was asking me, or at least my Healthy Adult, to congratulate Little Stevie when he takes risks that leave him exposed and vulnerable and so I don't know if this would qualify. It's a good thing that I have done this, yes, but there was little risk involved. It was more just my personality at work, preferring to get the head down and work on my tasks than to get involved with what is mostly just idle chit-chat in class time.

I think that there could actually be risks involved now that I have finished though. The lecturer had said that I don't have to come in for the Monday and Tuesday morning classes if I don't want to but that if I want something to do he will find something for me no problems. I'm thinking that I should ask him about this tomorrow morning and then it will be up to me to come good on whatever it is I am asked to do. It could be anything really. Anything that asks of me practice in Healthy Adult coaching is worthwhile.

This was another things that Dr. Bacon was pretty specific on as well though: making sure that I know exactly why it is that I am doing something. By that I mean knowing what my own motivations are. For a while now, especially since I've been sober and all of this living has appeared so new to me, I have been doing things for little reason other than because they tested me, because they were hard, because they were things I was frightened to do. I am told that this is perhaps not the best way of going about things. That I am doing hard things just for the sake of it essentially. This is perhaps not very good parenting. There needs to be a clear outline of why it is I decide to do certain things when I decide to do them. I don't know yet where I stand with this. Sometimes something will just feel right. Sometimes I just know that I should be doing something without actually knowing the reasons for it. This must be a healthy adult technique I am still at novice level with.

It's just about time to get going. It's looking pretty cold out there again this morning. We've been getting frost over the weekend and so this is time to get the hat and gloves on and get ready to grin and bear it. I'll be fine today and tomorrow but I'll have to do more on Wednesday morning when it's time to go meet Barry the Bullet for a shift out there on the window cleaning. It'll be a little on the chilly side. We'll have each other, I guess.

Lindsay will be starting her second week of the new placement in a couple of hours and that has started well. She only has to do four weeks before breaking off for the Christmas period so she'll finish up on the 15th December. I'll finish college on the 19th – when we finish work will be up to us but if the chance is there we should probably work all the way up to the Friday, the 22nd. Then we'll both have two weeks off.

So I'd better get out there and earn it.

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Stevie

Learning how to be a Healthy Adult.

1153

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Tuesday, November 28th 2017 (The Town Centre Apocalypse)


I'm walking through the town centre yesterday afternoon and notice a couple of things. For one: it's getting busier. Since the Christmas lights got switched on in my town on Saturday and my old town on Sunday people have now got into the mood. Either that or this extended Black Friday has them out for what they see as deals, savings. People have been so incredibly brainwashed that there is almost a zombie quality about them.

The other thing I notice is something I often think about. It's just more apparent when there are greater numbers of us walking around. People seem to have some kind of spring in their steps these days. There's a definite arrogance about us. We are constantly competing for power over one and other. Not just in the way each of us thinks that we must dress to survive or in other status tools that we wield, although this is a very popular way of people trying to compete with one and other, but also in the way that each of us will refuse to give the other any room. When walking down the same stretch of path we tend not to want to give each other the courtesy. It reminds me of those high school American trash movies when the rebel teen bloke, usually the footballer type, is trying to show his masculinity off to his passengers and refuses to turn the wheel and steer his vehicle out of the way of the oncoming lorry but waits until the last minute.

People seem to have this idea in their heads all the time now. That they should remain on a collision course with the next guy – it's up to them to move for I will not. Women are as bad at this as the men. It's some sort of power trip each of us seems to be on these days. We won't give the other guy an inch. If we move out of their way then we are somehow inferior? I get it, but I don't like it. It's almost as though people have forgotten how weak they actually are, how fragile. Like they seem painfully unaware that just even the sound of a single gunshot or explosion would send everyone in this place into a state of total fear and panic and have them cowering, huddled in the corners and crevices of the town like the cowards that each of us is.

It's almost as though we've all forgotten that it is only together that we can come good and all feel that connection we each strive for. We are here a town centre of individuals and where there are a bunch of individuals there can never be a team. I would say that Everton Football Club were right now playing like a bunch of individuals, neither player knowing quite what the bigger picture is nor fighting for the greater good, and you can see what has happened to them in recent weeks (if you happen to be either British or a fan of the soccer) whereas Manchester City are possibly the best example right now of a team. Individual personalities of course, but there's a togetherness, a unity about them, that is working to a tee and they are comfortable at the top of the league and unbeaten this season so far. It's quite telling.

With only greed from Black Friday to guide us we are bustling around the town centre each day hoping to get to the deal we want before the next guy. Everyone is an enemy at this time of year. We've totally marketed Christmas in the wrong way. We promote selfishness disguised as love. This is the time when retailers should be thanking us for supporting them over the last year and going out of their way to offer us the best deals possible. Some of these ''huge savings'' I have seen have been pretty poor but I can see how someone, if they were constantly distracted throughout their lives, could fall for the advertising and marketing strategies that are behind these ''savings'' and ''offers.''

I think what is really happening as people just about walk into each other for refusal to give the other what they see as the power in their own little high school car/lorry collisions (and some of the people do seem as big as lorries, let me tell you) is that people are genuinely terrified. We seem frightened of everything these days. Frightened of each other, that the other guy might be better than us in some way and so frightened that we might have to look at and think about our shortcomings. We're frightened of walking down the high street. Frightened of Christmas. I'm with Spider Jerusalem when he says that he doesn't think that people are stupid. Distracted, yes. Frightened and weak, yes. But not stupid. Each of us probably knows what is going on better than we let on, it's just that we're too weak and frightened to either admit it or do anything about it.

I've been in ''recovery'' (although, to be completely honest, I don't like referring to myself in this way at all these days. I don't feel as though I am in recovery from anything these days – I'm just a normal person now with a few issues he's working through with his therapist) now for almost three years and in this time I have learned one sad but sure truth about people. We don't change. Not really. In extreme situations like when we are trying to give up drinking alcohol or taking drugs we can often be forced into having to make some big changes we can change slightly, sometimes possibly even greatly – it's just that I've never witnessed it – but out there, ''out there'', where the non-addicts and alkies dwell. . .there isn't much in the way of change, individual change, and so collective change – the change that we are all hoping for I think and, in some way, just waiting around and hoping that someone will come along and lead us into, do all the change for us – is the one that is really needed.

Anyway – that's quite enough rambling and social commentary from me for one morning. I have to go and ''see'' what my eyesight is like these days with an eye test before sauntering into the college an hour late. I'm running out of things to be doing when I get there though. I'd rather be bypassing college and getting straight to tomorrow morning when I can get out to work.

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Stevie

Thinking of work. . .

1131

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Wednesday, November 29th 2017 (Confronting the Sugar Monster)


It seems like there's a lot to happen between now and then but there are only actually ten weeks to go until I reach my third year of being alcohol free. This will also tie in with a couple of other things. It'll be the end of my second year being free from illegal substances of any kind and it will also be one full year I'll have been off the antidepressants and the cigarettes (which of those two are actually worse for your health I have no idea). This will also be the day that I am set to embark on my next little quest and perhaps my toughest yet – quitting sugar!

It's probably time I started thinking about planing for this. Like smoking I think that the biggest planning for it has already been done, is being done every time I mention it or even think about it. I am constantly telling myself, reminding myself, that this quit will be happening. This is why it was so easy, I think, for me to quit smoking when it seems so difficult for so many others. People tend to tell themselves that their quit date is something that should be feared and delayed, as I have done so many times in the past, whereas I looked forward to it, mentally got myself into the position, the mindset, of a non-smoker. This sugar quit will be approached in the same way.

I'm not saying that quitting sugar will be the most difficult thing I've had to quit in terms of setting the ball rolling. That was drinking. I found just getting some days in a row without the alcohol very difficult indeed and it wasn't until I reached the ninety days that I felt as though the likelihood of me having a relapse had passed. This feeling has only strengthened as time has gone by. With the sugar there isn't nearly as much at stake. My weight and general health is pretty good. My teeth are starting to give me problems (I'll find out more about this on Friday when I go for my first dentist check up in a year or so) but there is no serious health risks like there was with the boozing. While drinking, particularly towards the end, I felt as though my health was always at a tremendous risk, especially my mental health, and my brain and body were under constant stress and pressure. I wasn't very well. To go back to daily drinking would be to ask to have all of that back.

I don't have a real problem with sugar until you actually analyse it. Then you can easily see how we all have a problem with it. With the smoking quit I did exactly that – I analysed it. I monitored how much I was smoking. Thirty roll ups without any filters every day, a little more than this when I was smoking weed. It didn't seem like a crazy amount until I look at the number of cigarettes I now haven't smoked, which is, from today, which is day 294, meaning that I have not smoked 8850 cigarettes, give or take, which is a tremendous amount! This has, going by the cost of them at the time of my quit (£5.05 for 12.5 grams of Amber Leaf) saved me £1484.7 – which would actually be more than this total given the price rises since. To be honest though it is the total cigs not smoked that keeps me from going back and not the money saved. This will be the same with the sugar – it'll be the grams I haven't consumed over time that does it.

Something else I did close to my quit date was change brand. I ''liked'' Amber Leaf tobacco but swapped it in my final month for a brand I did not like. I may have to consider doing this soon too. Swap sugar for sweeteners in the morning coffees before removing them when the quit date arrives. It's likely to be the most difficult quit in terms of chances of a relapse. Not just will it be more likely I cave at the temptation, telling myself that I don't really need to quit this one, but also I am quite aware of which products contain nicotine and alcohol. Sugars a much more subtle. As a result I will have to be more vigilant. It's amazing how many products and foodstuffs contain the sugar. It's bewildering actually. I'll really have to change up my diet. Most of the things I eat and drink at the moment will have to go.

Ten weeks might seem like an awfully long time away but we are about to hit the holiday season and so there will be plenty to occupy my mind. It'll feel as though things are moving quickly since my mind will be concentrating on many different things. This will, if I'm not careful, throw me off my stride where sugar quitting is concerned. I should enjoy this one. Christmas is the time for overeating and binging on sugar and, assuming all goes well (and I now trust myself enough to feel as though it will) this will be my last festive sugar binge. I should make the most of it.

Whatever happens I am hoping today that the weather won't be making a meal of Barry the Bullet and me. Four weeks ago today I went on my solo mission for three days and did fantastically well at work – the best I've done since starting the business nearly ten years ago. That week was one of those times when you realise that I'm actually getting better with all this not drinking and not drugging as I could never have managed to do that earlier in my journey. I always needed someone with me for some reason. Now I know that if need be I can march on myself. To be honest though I don't know if the time for this is now coming to an end. It would be really difficult to get motivated to get myself out there on mornings like this one. It is cold and a mixture of dark from the sky and white from the pavements and roads. Winter is fast approaching and bringing with it a blanket of frost. I am glad that Barry the Bullet will be joining me on my travels this morning.

Just three days to go and then I get to stay in with the heating on.

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Stevie

Thinking about the sugar monster.

1113

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Thursday, November 30th 2017 (Knowing Our Stuff)


With just one month to go I have to say that I think I'm closing in on the end of the best year of my life. It's not that it's been amazing constantly, I don't know why I think and feel so highly of it, I just think that when I look back next year I will find this one extremely tough to beat. It's had almost everything.

I've learned to live a little (or perhaps even a lot?) outside of Alcoholics Anonymous (which some people in the fellowship never get the balls to go and try) which all came about after I decided to try ninety days without a meeting. I haven't looked back. I finished a college course at Level Six and started another one at Level Seven. I moved in with my girlfriend making this now the first time I've lived with a woman in eight years. I got back into working on the old window cleaning. I swapped AA sponsorship with psychology services and have enjoyed this change of direction. On top of all that I managed to get myself a passport and went on my first ever trip with a partner out of the British Isles. In terms of achievement it has been pretty good.

It's also calmed me down a lot. I'm still not as calm as I would like to be but I do notice a significant reduction in stress levels now that I have a little bit more sober time under my belt. I'm less quick to anger and eager to get my point across. I'm a little more relaxed. I can definitely say that I notice improvements in my life now, internally and externally, and that everyone was right: life can be worth living without drinking and there is an alternative! I wouldn't listen before, in the same way that someone in their own version of my circumstances then wouldn't listen were I to tell them the same thing now, but I guess we each of us have to find our own way out and for what it's worth I seem to have found mine.

If you want to see how totally dependent we've become on technology then you should have been in college on Monday. The systems were down for the first couple of hours and so nothing could get done. There is an assessment that we'll be doing at some point between now and Christmas and we need to be taught some of the theory for it but this couldn't be done either. Lecturers are not what they used to be. By that I mean that I don't think that they actually know their stuff like teachers of the past had to. In order to take the class and teach us this theory we need to be able to access the Student Portal so that the lecturer can get a look at what must be taught. I don't think he'd be able to teach us without these tools – days like Monday, when we have no teaching materials whatsoever because we cannot log onto computers.

Imagine a maths teacher having this issue. From my experience they are the one breed of teacher that always knows their stuff. I've never met a math teacher who I haven't been in awe of. English too. Every other subject and I don't feel there to be the same level of knowledge. Creative Industries – probably the worst level of knowledge given what I've seen in the last two years. It's quite frightening how we've managed to regress in this way yet fool ourselves into somehow thinking that we are more advanced and knowledgeable than we were in the days before all of this technology. Actually I don't know if frightening is the right word I'd use to describe it. It's more disturbing than anything else.

Barry the Bullet and I will be working again this morning (which requires little in the way of technology and so should actually go ahead no problems) and I have to say that it has become something of the negative experience. It might not seem incredibly cold out there if you're just passing through, going from front door to car, and suchlike, but when you are out in it and know that you will be out in it for the whole day, it can be quite a difficult thing to accept. We get on with it though, and, I have to admit, it does actually get a little easier as the day goes on. It's like you realise that there's nothing you can actually do about it and so you switch the cold off somehow. It's strange, but I'm glad it happens. Then it gets to around three in the afternoon and the last hour gets pretty difficult again, just as the first ten minutes or so after the cosy lunch stop does. This will continue to get worse for the next couple of weeks as the temperature slowly decreases.

I don't have to look too far to see just how worthwhile it all is though. The money I've brought in from cleaning windows this summer and into the winter has come in handy for Lindsay and I. We saved up money for the trip to Spain and we've only one hundred bucks to pay for next year's trip. This will be getting paid on Saturday from the wages brought in from tomorrow night's debt-collecting mission. I've also noticed it come in handy for Christmas preparations and have never in my life been ready for the festive period like I am this year. I have most of my shopping in and time and money to spare.

I guess that when it comes to Christmas I still feel as though it's just too early to get into the mood. I notice myself trying to avoid places that would attempt to spread its ''cheer'' onto me and plan on doing this for another few days yet. I do worry that I might not get into the spirit of things at all, the way things are going, but I am sure it's just because it's too soon still, November still. Against my better judgement we are to be putting up the tree and decorations this weekend and so we'll take it from there.

The draw for next summer's world cup will take place tomorrow so when I get home from work I'll know who's playing who in the group stage. I don't know why that's worth pointing out.

Maybe it's word count related.

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Stevie

Depends upon technology to post this.

1115

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Friday, December 01st 2017 (World Cup Draw)


So there was supposed to be some guy from the University of Sunderland come to the college last Friday to give us all a little talk on what life is like studying broadcasting media and radio down south. This didn't happen. This is because he actually comes today. With me working I have had to give it some thought. It's scheduled for ''sometime around midday'' – whenever that is – which is fine when you are working on things in the college, but with this being a day off and with me having little to be doing these days I fear that there may be much standing around while we wait for this to all get started. I am told that it is really worthwhile attending and so I had said to Barry the Bullet that we'll leave it for the day but that I'd meet up with him this evening for the debt-collecting session. I have the dentist this morning anyway so to go out would just be a frustration trying to get anything done. He kept at it though, kept pushing me, and so we are meeting after I've been to the dentist and I'll just nip away for a while to do my thing at the college and then meet back up with him. It'll all be fine.

Four weeks ago I was out on my own for the week cleaning windows. It turned out to be my most successful week of solo work ever and something I was proud of for a while. This is what we are competing with this week and so with two men you would expect us to move through the work a bit quicker and so in this way we are doing fine for work just now but couldn't support ourselves were we out too much more, if you know what I mean!? We have limited working possibilities and while we are doing well at the moment we would run out of work were we to blitz through it this week and next. In this way I am cool to take today off. It means that we likely have a good little run to see us through the final three weeks of the working year without having to worry about running out of work. I hope I'm making myself clear, but it makes no odds if I'm not.

We went to the Charity Shop Cafe for lunch yesterday. It was freezing and we were looking for shelter. It was our only option. The 'feels like' temperature for the morning had been -5 degrees and so the ladder and the constant ringing out of a cloth full of cold water had taken its toll on both Barry and me come lunchtime. The fingertips become so cold that it is actually impossible to move them. I think back to wintertimes when I was a drinker. Is it any wonder I just about gave up with life when all I really had was the drinking and the hopelessness and this was the way I had to go about getting it? It all seems like such a long time ago now. I'm supposed to be trying all the time to connect with Little Stevie and I think that a part of him might be hiding in the recent winters of my past.

So we sought refuge in the cafe where I once volunteered in a bid to give a little back to the community and to raise my confidence a little. I left a few months ago when new staff came in and tore it to shreds and went about trying to turn it into a profit-making machine. It's been nearly four months since I set foot in there. Barry took one look at the slice of haggis on his plate and said that he's had thicker slices of ham. While I think that he is sprinkling his description with a pinch from the hyperbole cannister I can see what he is trying to say. The place stinks of business and rip off. Poor Elsa. She spent years trying to build this cafe into something that serves the community, and she did manage this as project manager for fourteen years, but now someone wants a profit, someone who thinks about little else other than money, someone who has killed this cafe. It used to be quick and cheerful yet it took more than half an hour to get out plates on the table. Over and over I had to try to get clean knives and forks. They looked as though they hadn't been washed properly. I won't ever be back.

So what's to look forward to in this world cup draw?

As a Scot I am supposed to share this sort of racist view where I want England to get the toughest draw possible and so have the smallest chance of progressing beyond the group. While I don't want England to win the world cup, nor do I believe there is any chance of that, I wouldn't wish for them to go out at the earliest possible stage. I think that when there are no British teams in the competition then it tends to lose its feel a little, makes it seem more distant, like it really is being played miles away in Russia and not through our television screens and into our homes. I'd like to see them get out of the group and I'm sure that whoever they draw they will have a good chance of doing this.

Remember that this is the last ''proper'' world cup we will ever see as in 2022 we will be going to Qatar and having the first ever winter world cup and then after that the tournament extends to an unnecessary forty teams and so the group stage is altered to be much like the women's world cup which is a much poorer format. After that only the God of my Understanding knows what FIFA will think up next. Whatever makes them the most money, I suppose. They love money, so they do.

Four years ago England had a particularly terrible world cup after being beaten by both Italy and Uruguay and playing out a 0-0 draw with Costa Rica and I can see the same thing happening if they get drawn in a group with. . . say. . . Brazil from Pot 1, Denmark from Pot 3, and Australia from Pot 4. They'd also likely struggle if they draw this same group but with Morocco from Pot 4. Or what about Sweden from Pot 3? Germany, Sweden, and Morocco. That would be tough.

Whatever happens there will be a lot of deadweight. Many of the groups will be predictable from the moment they are drawn. It's the way it goes when there are so many teams and so many of the bigger nations missing. The world cup is essentially just a corporate event and no one can deny that since the 1990's there has been a slow but steady decline in the overall quality and delivery of these tournaments.

It'll be better than not having one though.

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Stevie

Looking forward to seeing who England get.

1216

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Saturday, December 02nd 2017 (Two on the Borderline)


I managed to somewhat salvage November and in the end walked one hundred and eleven miles over the course of the month, which is nothing at all impressive, but makes it my fifth best month of the ten since I quit smoking and started putting the miles in. It takes my total of the year to a little over thirteen hundred. It's okay, I guess. With the cold and dark out there these days I can't see December being much better. I'll get out of it what I can though. . .

So England ended up with a very favourable draw for next summer's world cup in Tunisia (easy 2-0 win), Panama in their first world cup, and the overrated Belgians. I can't see them not making it out of that group but then I've said that before. In the next round they would avoid all of the Spains and the Germanys and the Brazils and wouldn't start playing against other potential favourites until the quarter finals or later. It's set up nicely for them to do well. I wonder how they will fuck it up. The WILL fuck it up though, they always manage to find a way.

I seemed to have been paced in charge of booking the college Christmas night out and so went with what was the top selection and booked two rooms at Styx. Hopefully everyone from the class will turn up, plus partners. Lindsay is to be working that day but the good thing for us is that the night out will be happening in our town. Because the campus local to us is where all of the creative industry classes are it tends to pull in students from all surrounding areas and so where we live is actually really central for the course I'm doing. It means that there are no issues for us getting home afterwards and if everyone wants to go on clubbing into the night then we can sneak away early and be done with it. This will be happening on December 09th – a week today.

Browsing through a post from this day one year ago on the old WQD site I read about how I have just completed a week at work with Barry the Bullet for the first time in a year and how I'll be starting my Christmas shopping this coming weekend. In comparison I have much of my shopping already done and have worked a lot more than just the one week recently. Last year on this day I was debating whether I should take out a small loan of two hundred and fifty quid from the Credit Union, which I eventually did, but there is nothing like that needed this time around. There is evidence of progress to be found in these pages.

I notice some similarities about last year's post and what I've been writing about this winter though, and they make for slightly concerning reading. There always seems to be, even when I am in humorous mood and writing lightly, a dark undercurrent of cynicism and, dare I say, hatred, for humankind, and it isn't difficult to spot in any post of mine chosen at random. It's something that is always there. It's one of those where I think about the Serenity Prayer and wonder. Is this something that I can change or something I need to accept? I can only keep working on it with Dr. Bacon and see but may have to accept that it will always be there to some degree.

Last year at this time I was also still on the lookout a little for signs of Lindsay's Borderline Personality Disorder. She is supposed to have this and a year ago I had done a little research and was taken aback by what I had found. Should I run a mile? I decided to give it time and take it slow. In the end I have been shown little bits here and there but there have certainly been no psychotic episodes. Given my track record she is the mildest, calmest, least psychopathic woman I've even been with. Borderline Personality Disorder indeed. . .

She does see a psychologist though and on Thursday had been for an appointment. I was brought up for some reason and the conversation went something like this:

Lindsay – ''He gets Schema Therapy.''

Psychologist – ''Ah, so he's been given a diagnosis!?''

Lindsay - ''. . .''

Psychologist – ''Schema Therapy is usually for the Borderline patient. . .''

I had discovered this during my research as well actually but when I brought it up with Dr. Bacon he said that he didn't feel as though giving people labels in any way helped them and that it was much more worthwhile looking instead at methods of treatment, ways of correcting behaviours that don't work for the patient rather than concentrating on what isn't working, which is pretty much a way of saying that I meet the requirements to join the Borderline Club but that he doesn't want me going home and consulting Dr. Google, which I get. And he's right. The AA members that concentrate on the problem all the time are the weakest in any group; the strongest are those who talk about what they've done to conquer problems faced in sobriety (there just aren't very many of the latter group, unfortunately).

So it's quite possible that, according to psychology, both Lindsay and I are ''Borderlines''. I am totally cool with that. The main difference between us is that she has a record of this on her medical file and I don't meaning that she received £50 per week as part of the Personal Independence Payments scheme and I don't. She is also pretty sure of getting her bus pass renewed every year for the foreseeable whereas I will have to see Dr. Bacon about it again closer to the time. It doesn't run out until March but it'll be quick in coming.

So this is the fourth last weekend before Christmas. The others are spoken for but this one seems like it might be quite busy also. Errands to run this morning(including paying off the last one hundred bucks of next year's holiday) before meeting Lindsay's dad for lunch (he's buying, which is decent). Then there is the usual football in the afternoon and then tonight I am going to the AA meeting. It's been over a month since I was at a meeting and I don't know where I'll get the time to go to another one between now and Christmas. Lindsay isn't going. She's going to her pal Kerry's instead. Living a little.

I'll be living too as after the meeting I'll pop in to see them and have a game of darts with Kerry's partner.

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Stevie

The Borderline that throws darts. . .

1162

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Sunday, December 03rd 2017 (Twenty Years From Now)


On Friday there was a guy came from Sunderland University to speak to us students about life after the college. What do we want to be doing one year from now? It's an interesting question but I have to admit that when I was making my course choices over the summer the chance of going to study at university down south was one of the factors involved. Restless, irritable, and discontent in my cave at the time I sought something different, a way of getting out of this part of the world and to somewhere different. Some might think that moving from here to Sunderland, even if temporarily, would be like jumping from a chip pan and into a fire (Stu would perhaps even say that it was self-seeking as I was looking for something external to make me feel better about myself, which is not the recovery way – we look inwards) but I was always going to nip along to this meeting to listen to what the professor there has to say.

I quite like the fact that the Level Eight group (the level above my group in studying terms according to the UK's educational hierarchy) seemed to have a much higher average age than those I study with on a Monday and Tuesday when I'm not working with Barry the Bullet. I hear that the year after that – the Level Nine we are talking about, third year university – has a more mature student body generally. Perhaps not in terms of chronological age as such but more in the way that students have to quickly learn to be independent learners and so the ones who drop the bullshit and get on with it tend to be around a lot more whereas those who fuck around usually find themselves falling behind very quickly and move back home.

One thing that was slightly concerning was the advice given about staying in student accommodation. Even at my crazy age of thirty nine (will be forty one by the time this takes place, if it does) they would not recommend anything other than staying in student digs. One of the reasons being that your only alternative is private landlords and we all know that many of them are real scum and there's nothing the university can do to support you. He rattles off some horror stories including students going all winter without a working boiler and some having a rat problem to contend with while they are trying to study.

If we stay in student accommodation then the university can help us with any of our housing needs the duration of the year. It does make sense. I learned a lot about how the university works and how it is run, as well as one or two things about the city of Sunderland itself but it's a long way off. There were only two of us from my year bothered to show up for it. I guess it doesn't really apply to us much. This is mainly for second years but it certainly didn't hurt turning up and if nothing else it shows I am keen.

I think that we are supposed to be putting up the decorations around the house this afternoon. Getting into the spirit of things. It's perhaps a week too soon for me but there were times not long ago when I wouldn't have wallpaper on the walls at this time of year, let alone the luxury of decorating these walls with tinsel. I think I'll put a little tinsel on my house plant. She is doing well and will be eighteen months old come the end of the month. She'll be coming from her new home on the balcony inside the flat and sitting beside the Christmas tree soon.

Last night I met with Lindsay at her friend's house after I had been to the AA meeting, my first meeting in over a month and probably my last one until after Christmas although it would be nice to try to get another one in before then. Or would it? I arrive not long before we get started but the meeting is nowhere near ready. I am asked to share but point blank refuse. I don't even give it any thought. I just say no, such is my right. Turns out that someone else has already been asked and they have refused too. It takes another to refuse before we find our fourth choice and he takes to the top table with Hamish as the chairperson.

The sharer starts off as though he has something on his mind and wants to share it with us but then he notices and brings to our attention something written on a little card on the table that is telling us that will we please keep what we share here related to our problems with alcohol. Then he starts to struggle. Why would he not? He's been here a million times or more. Sitting in a meeting at the top table and talking about his past. Once he gets going he switches into AA mode and pays lip service and throws in every cliché he can think of, anything and everything that he feels is what an AA share is supposed to be about.

The meeting goes on in the same way in the second half. It turns out to be really boring. As I am listening to the same people talk the same stuff they always do whenever I have heard them I wonder where the new guys are. There were one or two had come in recently and one of them had managed even to get to four months. Neither he nor his newcomer fellows are here tonight. They won't be drinking, won't be ''back out there!'', or they might be, but it's more likely that they have just become bored. They've realised quickly that there is a set routine to what happens in this room and nothing ever changes.

Then I look around at my fellows and realise that AA will most definitely change. Twenty years from now almost all of these guys will be dead. One or two of them will still be going but they will not be of sound health. Then there will be just the two of us who will be in our fifties, assuming we make it. Where will the newcomers be? Will anyone still be around who has come in since I came in two and a half years ago?

Both from the top table say the same thing. They say that they don't give any thought as to why they come to meetings anymore, they just come. Dr. Bacon has me thinking differently. He has me questioning my motives and asking myself why I am doing something like this. What is it I need from it? What is the psychological need not being met that has me feeling as though I need a meeting? What else might I be doing in its place?

I was wondering all of that myself for ninety minutes last night.
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Stevie

Wondering where the newcomers are.

1205

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Monday, December 04th 2017 (Preparing a Sports' Show)


This is it. From now on the time is going to pass by quite quickly and so I had better be ready for it. If Christmas Day was tomorrow then everyone would have gifts to receive of some sort. None of them would be wrapped, fair enough, but everyone would be in receipt of something again this year. I don't know what Lindsay and I would be eating as we've certainly no plans as of yet but Christmas is not tomorrow and so let's get back to today.

On this fine winter's morning I am to be taking to the airwaves earlier than I usually do. I am normally one air from two until three but this morning myself and three other students are going to be trying something different. Rather than keeping going with the same repetitive tasks we are going to try to do a sports' show live this morning. This will be a challenge but something we would like to give a try. If all fails we can simply resort to playing music. The thing is – to make demos to hand into radio stations is all good and well but given the limited material we are faced with using in the college (quick links between songs, mainly) it is a struggle to find anything we have recorded that makes for anything good enough to send to anyone other than your main commercial stations and everyone will be sending their stuff to them. This morning's show will give us something a little different to be editing for demo purposes, potentially.

So I'll be presenting and we have three other guys who will be coming in with their thoughts and opinions on a range of topics, mainly football (actually – exclusively football!!) from this weekend. The lecturer has shown faith in us that we can be left to go and do this but I have no doubt that he will be slightly concerned and so will be listening in at points throughout the hour. That is fine with me. I don't have any issues with that. At least then there might be the chance of feedback. He had said to us that we need to be careful with this kind of thing as it might sound straightforward enough to just go into the studio and talk for an hour but the reality is very different. Even getting ten minutes out of live conversation is trickier than it might seem. What we should plan to do is have longer links between songs. Play music but chat for five minutes in between rather than the thirty seconds or so we are doing in our shows at the moment.

I think that this has come at the right time. I've finished all of my class work and so this is something a little different to get me buzzing about coming into class on a Monday morning where it is completely optional for me. I don't have to attend from now until the end of the first semester at the end of January if I don't want to. If I plan on taking myself to the University of Sunderland then I should be trying to push things along a little quicker, hone my skills and try new things. One of the things that the guy from the university said to us during the talk on Friday afternoon was that we have to quickly learn to be independent learners. Things won't be handed to us at university so we had better learn to take the initiative. This is one area I feel that I have an advantage being an adult and with personal development being high on my list of priorities.

So the initiative is being taken and I have been planning what we might talk about this morning when we go live on air. Since it will be football related the big talking point will be Friday's world cup draw. I am happy for us to largely free associate, and there are one or two students joining me who are very knowledgable regarding the sport of football and so I have no doubt we will be able to chalk up some serious air miles, but I have with me a plan for presenting. This plan will act as a guide for the show. We'll be using this to stick to the time allocated for each subject. It's a way of gauging how well we are doing in terms of keeping to a schedule – something hugely important for a presenter of a show.

The first half will be completely taken up by the world cup draw. We'll look at England's group and some of the other key groups. We'll also talk a little about the teams that didn't make it and the USA and its sour grapes looking to start up a secondary tournament for teams who didn't make the cut, which seems to be money orientated to me.

The second half will have topics gradually decreasing in importance. These include the results of the local teams. There are a bunch of teams from Fife (Raith Rovers, Dunfermline, East Fife, Cowdenbeath) and so we shall be looking at each of them. We'll then be expanding to the rest of Scottish football and looking at champions Celtic, who have played Motherwell three times over the last week (once in the cup final last weekend and twice since in the league), and these matches resulted in two wins for Celtic and a controversial draw midweek which looked like Motherwell might win but a debatable late penalty saw Celtic salvage a draw. We'll be looking at that. We'll look ahead to the last fixtures of the Champion's League group stage matches which take place on Tuesday and Wednesday this week as well as Thursday's Europa League games. Finally we'll touch on women's football and how, if they are supposed to be gearing us up to get into this version of the sport, why have they been so poor at scheduling and promoting it? Last weekend saw the women's FA Cup final, in which Hibs beat Glasgow City 3-0, kicking off while the men's League Cup final was being played. Is this poor promotion of the women's game? Does anyone really care about women's football?

If I have planned this well, and I feel as though I have, there will be enough material for us to get the whole hour out of and keep things engaging. If at any time I feel as though we are struggling there will be the usual playlist of tracks on the screen in front of me that will be available at the touch of a button and we will go straight to the music. Hopefully we will not need to do this though. Nine in the morning is the only slot that we can get to do this kind of thing as after that the station gears up to cater for what it believes to be its key demographic (17-24 year old students) and so reverts to music-driven shows throughout the day, returning to niche shows in the evenings if any of us want to take part in one of them, which I do.

I want to do a three hour niche show on progressive rock and metal.

That's another post's worth though.

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Stevie

Presenting a sporting debate show on a Monday morning.

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