One week sober and...

...all I want to do is go out and get a nice bottle or two of red wine.

Not to get bladdered.  Not because my body is craving booze.

But just to get some relief from all the greed, selfishness, vanity, savagery, bigotry, trash and plain stupidity I can't help noticing all around me!

I don't need to make a list.  It's everything from violence in Gaza and Derry, to desperate refugees being turned back out to sea by populist governments, to people leaving their crap everywhere, to pre-school kids of Generation Z with their heads stuck in their phones.

The human race is nuts.  It's doomed.

I've found myself sleeping much more now.  Over the weekend, I've napped at regular intervals.  I've tried reading, but can't focus on it for long enough.  Sleep gives me some reprieve.  Death's second self.

I just want to escape.

"Accident black spot?  These aren't accidents.  People are throwing themselves into the road willingly to escape all this hideousness.  Go ahead, darling!  Throw yourself into the road!"

Withnail - 'Withnail and I'

(now I'll shut up and go hide again...)

  • This seems pertinent...

    The Dangers of White Knuckle Sobriety

    The dangers of white knuckle sobriety include:

    * Such people are more at risk of relapse. There may come a day when there willpower is no longer enough to keep them away from alcohol. The lack of enjoyment they experience from recovery means that they have a lot less to lose by relapsing.
    * Those people who use just willpower to stay away from alcohol can be difficult to be around. They will tend to have a low tolerance for any type of irritation, and make life miserable for other people. Family and friends may be disappointed to find that they still suffer so much from the behavior of the individual even though there is no longer any alcohol involved.
    * People with white knuckle sobriety will find life away from alcohol a real challenge. Instead of enjoying the freedom of recovery, they just muddle through. These individuals fail to make the most of the possibilities offered by a life away from alcoholism.
    * It may lead to depression or other forms of substance abuse

  • I'm not sure about pride.  I'm really not sure.  I wouldn't call myself a 'proud' person.  Yet I suppose I'm proud of certain things I do, and have done.  I try not to wear it like a badge.

    I suppose pride is bound up a good deal with self-esteem - and that's always very fragile with me.

    Cash was a legend in so many ways.  The coroner who presents 'Autopsy' says it's a remarkable testament to the human body's resilience - and to the indomitable spirit of the man - that he lived until 71.  He was an old, old man at the end, though.

    My father was legendary in that way, too.  A heavy smoker of the strongest (untipped) cigarettes for almost seven decades.  A phenomenal drinker from his early teens - and I mean phenomenal.  And he made it to 77.  Am I trying to reassure myself again?

  • :) Bless you, your lucidity and humanity DC

  • if you remove something from your existence then it creates a hole, a gap that needs replacing.

    ...Me again. I must say, for goodness' sake, Thank The Stars for You, Miss Elephant-In-The-Room!  (And LW for voting me up.)

    I happen to think that this is of tantamount importance. The replacing-thing needs to be found before the the thing removed is removed. Sometimes Willpower IS enough, but in this case it is a Tangible Physical thing which must be replaced with anither Tangible Physical thing which achieves the same "psychological" (...) effect. 

    Good Luck, I say, in using "willpower", for this is possible as well. But I already posted other things - about the Threshold - and so should not need to reiterate.  ...?

    (As I type, there is a "new reply". Oh Boy...)

  • I suffer greatly from pride, do you? ... and Johnny Cash is quite a legend 

  • That's a heap of external circumstances. I hope it doesn't sound patronising if I say that you seem to self-scaffold remarkably well in the circumstances.

    I've spent the evening watching documentaries about the effect of drugs and alcohol on human health, seen through the prism of the final hours of George Michael and Johnny Cash.  There are mixed reasons for this, I admit.  Partly it's about showing myself the damage I might have already done.  Partly, too, it's about reassuring myself that there's plenty of room for more damage yet.  This isn't a good way of thinking.

    I'm still sober, though.  White-knuckling it, I guess.

    I suppose I don't need any more proof that I have a problem.

  • Did you see what I did there, I blamed external circumstances... as a reason not to modify my behaviour. 

  • I see a synergy with our relative situations. We are both dis-enabled. neither healthy and both challenge sustainability 

  • So a swervy answer meaning I have a glass close at hand. Ultimately the support I need is lacking, I am the rock, but self scaffold and badly. 

  • Alcohol as you know is a depressant so not a helpful friend..

    me..

    well, into the third month of my OH being in hospital following spinal surgery. He can no longer walk and is in a wheelchair. He has lost independent bowel and bladder function. He is recovering from three infections and today they have discovered he has a blood clot.

    uncertainty is an Aspie hell.

    He relies on the medical model - pills et al to cure him..but as I have just messaged him, self agency is key which applies to the both of us - I.e we are in control of our health and can both make things better by making the right choices.

    the key is support in identifying and dealing with the root issues 

  • How are you getting along on the booze front?

  • Yes, I have - and I realise I'm sitting on my pity-pot a bit.  I was once told in AA that it's a bit like grieving.  You've lost something that once meant so much to you.  And I used to say to myself 'Don't think of it as 'I can't drink any more', but more as 'I don't need to drink any more.''

    I've been drinking Coke and Dandelion and Burdock.  I'm going to try some CBD Oil. 

    Yes... I see the magic.  It's partly what prompts me to write poetry and fiction.  Maybe my head's been out of kilter for just too long now.  I see lots of negatives - I know this.  I have a fundamentally negative outlook on life.  Maybe age is having something to do with it, too - and a certain sense of disillusionment.  All too easy to drown that in booze, of course.

    I'll keep on with it.  I'm not sure what for yet - but it'll come to me.

  • Can you not see the magic of the world around you or just it’s mudanity? Or is that what the alcohol is for?

    The dear poster raises the very pertinent point that if you remove something from your existence then it creates a hole, a gap that needs replacing. Have you given this any thought? 

  • Sobriety sucks.  Eight days now - including these last three days off work, which have been the hottest of the summer so far.  And I'm ready to throw in the towel.  I'm back to a state of almost permanent low-level anxiety.  My inhibitions are backing up like so much mental constipation.  And I'm bored. I can't focus on anything for more than a few minutes.  I know it's early days, and I'm bound to feel this way for a while - just until I get properly used to being sober again.  But the world sober is driving me nuts.  I look at it and think 'So, this is it, eh?'

    I slept this afternoon, but I'm off now for an early night.  At least it'll take care of the next few hours.

  • ...I write this as a separate post, because it has nothing to do with the advice I just Posted and is not helpful...

    ...I am very sorry, but I cannot really help you much! If I were stuck in this way, for myself, GREAT relief would be found for me in having access to THE OCEAN. Swimming, diving, snorkelling... I would have no misery or sickness or need for "relief" at all...! However, as you say, you regularly dip in the sea, and so this is a perspective of which I have no concept. (!). Very sorry and Good Luck to you (both) anyway...    :-)   :-/

  • This is an interesting Thread completely nothing to do with the Title so far...?

    Glad Tidings, Mr.Tom (and Miss Daisy)... I delayed posting this upon your previous Thread, but I try to do so here. A common thing about "giving up" something ('kohol, drugs, whatever)... is that the something may be difficult to "give up" - unless some SUBSTITUTE is found for it. Meaning, that when that feeling occurs, something must fill it. Substitution is replacing something with something else - it may not be similar, but fills the "need"/replaces the "craving"... or whatever. I am trying to say that, if one has an unwanted need, then the need must be replaced with something else before it can be ignored completely. (The replacement can be tangible or intangible, it does not matter what - just so long as it fills the "need"!) ...

  • The anxiety tonight is horrendous.  I have no idea why.  I've just been down for another swim, which was lovely.  I thought it would help, and it has a bit.  But I can hardly focus on anything.  Going to try some meditation, then put a film on.  I just want this to pass.

  • Thanks, roper.  Yep.  I've been here before a few times.  I'll work it through somehow.  I'm now too late for the supermarkets, anyway - which is a bonus.  My options are more limited now, where I live.

    I'll try a book again, too...

  • It will take a while for the dust to settle. You will notice the call to the bottle more when you are tired, bored or stressed. It can be there but you don’t have to do what it says. The more you ignore it the easier it becomes.