Thanks for stumbling in. I started this blog in 2018, attempting to document my journey in recovery after many years of alcoholism.
If you don’t see a recovery post, you’ll see my babble about books and writing. The book reviews are actually reminders to my future self that my brain finally worked again.
Day 2,604
Well, so much for posting here on a regular basis, especially after making such a big deal about the irregularity and pitiful state of my old posts. But with 7 solid sober years under my belt this month, I thought I should at the very least show up where it all began and write, if only to remind myself on here.
* * *
I didn’t show up. I wrote the above paragraph on May 4th, with the honest intention of posting a lengthy piece of positivity-filled writing on my sober anniversary day (14th May). It’s now almost July. That’s as far as I got. Simply acknowledging it to myself on my hard drive. Sometimes that’s enough. God knows what you’ll get here by the time this is posted. If it ever gets posted. Good luck.
Anyway, the sober anniversary came and went, as all other types of days come and go. They start, things happen here and there, and then they end, until the next one begins. My day was pretty much the same as yours (unless you’re a serial killer or the fly on your screen that’s reading this). You get the picture. The anniversary is a metaphorical notch on my bedpost, minus the grunting, sweating, back ache and mess. I’m sure there are much better analogies than that but, hey-ho. Luckily nobody pays to read my literary incompetence, which lets me off the clarity and sanity hook.
I do feel a little disingenuous in celebrating the stopping of something (knowingly diluting my blood with alcohol) that I shouldn’t have been doing in the first place. Especially when the world is spinning out of control like a trash fire and seemingly heading towards its own oblivion. Men, women, and children are having bombs raining down on them whilst snipers pick them off as they are starving to death. AI is being trained to steal the work of authors, musicians, and artists without having to bother with those pesky little details such as permission, copyright or the law. The climate is turning into an MRI machine, bombarding the burning earth and seas with this and that, and none of it good. Seasons are slowly going out of sequence. Countless people are living (dying) in debt, without being able to afford even the bare minimum to sustain themselves. They can’t afford to live. They can’t afford die.
As all the above biblical darkness and so much more continues; metal birds filled with breathing human life are falling from the skies, seemingly on a daily basis, creating non-breathing human non-life. Flooding, burning, infecting, shooting, stabbing, quaking, erupting, slaughtering, warring, dictator-ing, starving: dying-dying-dying.
End times? Near the end times? Or have times already ended without us knowing as we stare zombie-like with anaesthetised empathy at our phones? At least we’re not over there. At least we’re not them. At least it’s not my kids. At least it’s not me! Oh, a new TikTok with a cat!
Anyway! Happy thoughts, eh?
So, yours truly celebrating being a good boy for seven years doesn’t quite feel the same these days as it once did, especially after a few minutes of scrolling through the news. Maybe stop scrolling the doom? Reading the paper? Watching the news? Just pretend it’s not there?
In the old days my carpet bulged with all the things I’d swept underneath it. All the hidden life in-between floorboard and carpet made it hard to walk across the room, but at least I didn’t see or hear what I didn’t need to. It was worth the inconvenience. Or at least, that’s what alcohol told me. But now it’s no longer there to give me bad advice. It left (was kicked out) 7 years ago. My bad advice to myself is now completely my own and self-inflicted. Hey, let’s celebrate?
Well, I am. I’m simply not shouting it from the rooftops, phoning and emailing everybody I know. Gone are the days of posting my yearly joy on multiple social platforms and waiting for the ‘likes’ and congratulations to roll in (and they kindly did, because most people are nice and want to see others doing well). When my trusty sober app notified me last month of my achievement, pinging me awake in the morning, I may have given a little internal yay! before getting up, having breakfast, brushing my teeth, and beginning the day. I didn’t make anyone aware of the significance of the day.
In other words, I didn’t tell anybody. I’ve only told you, but I don’t know who you are, and that’s ok. Yay! Actually, I may have quietly told one or two people in passing that the date was arriving at some point, and they will have told me they were happy, maybe even proud. That’s enough.
I suppose the reality of getting on with my day, and living a life is quiet celebration enough. I’m making it sound like a silent disco – minus the dancing, and the people, and the music. Yep, another crap analogy. It sounded good at the time. But it’s free of charge.
Am I embarrassed about my recovery and it coming around every year? Is that why I’m not making a big deal about it?
Absolutely not.
But I am embarrassed that I haven’t achieved more with my sobriety. I’ve achieved a lot, much more than I thought I would ever do. But I’ve always been cursed with a brain that has placed a bar way too high for everything I do. I’m embarrassed by my internal procrastination and laziness. I’m embarrassed that I’ve lost control of my future, and I’m not exactly where I envisioned to be in my present. Maybe I’ve achieved enough (my mind gives the middle finger as I wrote that).
Facing the days head-on and tackling life’s shenanigans without the aid of my old liquid invisibility cloak, doesn’t make me want to sing it from the rooftops as I once did. Life without alcohol, and getting on with it no matter what, is simply, life. It’s what everybody does every day. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s a shitshow. The self-delusion was simpler with alcohol until that option had to be deleted. I can still delude myself, but it’s harder and wears off quicker.
Don’t get me wrong. If you’re reading this and your knuckles are white from being one day/week/month/year – clean and sober, you shout it from the fucking rooftops as loud as you can. Get on social media and tell everyone your amazing achievements. Post the screen captures of sobriety anniversaries. Go and visit your IRL (yes I can netspeak) friends and let them hug you with pride. Have some well-deserved LOL’s together. If you still have any family left, repeat all the above. Anything that makes you feel good, confident, motivated, and alive – do that. You completely and absolutely deserve it. You’re making the impossible, possible. You will make it if you want to make it. It’s the want bit that’s important. Being clean and sober is the most important and life-affirming thing you will ever do! Some people liken it to being a warrior. Be a warrior! Be the warrior in the army of yourself. In time, maybe you’ll help others in the fight. But it’s not obligatory. Do what you need to do, not what other people think you should do.
So, why haven’t I made my 7-year sober anniversary sound as amazing as you beginning your sober journey?
It is amazing. Firstly, it’s amazing I’m alive. It’s amazing I have retained enough brain cells to write all this stuff online to complete strangers. It’s amazing this account exists. It exists because I exist. It’s amazing I can hear birdsong in the rain. It’s amazing I witness the sun in the day and the moon at night. It’s amazing I have people who still want to be my friend. It’s amazing I can read all the books I want to read and listen to all the music I want to listen to. It’s amazing that my mum’s passing last year didn’t bring alcohol back into my life. It’s amazing that I’m employed and still employable. It’s amazing I can smile and laugh, sometimes when I don’t want to, but to make others smile and laugh. But the most amazing thing of all . . .
A card arriving with a present. The card said this:
Dad, HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!! Hope you take it easy and read a ton!
You’re an inspiration, thanks for being amazing and I’m proud of you every single day. Keep doing what you’re doing, you’re the best!
From your favourite son, love you loads xxx
If my sober anniversary didn’t come around every year – if my sober anniversary wasn’t amazing – if my sober anniversary didn’t exist – I would never get to read these stunning words from my son. I would never get to ever see or talk to him. I would never get to tell him how proud I am of him and how much I love him. I would never get to hear how proud he is of me and how much he loves me.
I would never get to feel how proud I am of myself.
I just never need to shout about it anymore. Or maybe, in a way, I just have. Shhh . . .
Take care everyone x
Another great great novel for you. I’ve been reading the books of Bill Bailey (the writer not the comedian) for many years now. A prolific, talented, and engaging storyteller that should definitely have a bigger audience. His non fiction is also worth your time, also. Anyway, here’s Xeno’s Paradox.
University lecturers, Luca and Max are brother and sister. Although they are genetic twins they don’t come from the same parents. They don’t understand it either, but they will. They are unsure that they are even human, but that is the very least of their problems.
We are in London, 800 years in the future. The only progress making great strides is greed, corruption, and surveillance. Innovation in technology, along with hope for humanity, ground to a halt many years ago and nobody knows why. Nobody questions the huge population drop. If fact nobody questions anything. The Re-ed process makes sure of that. Max and Luca suspect that history has been tampered with by their corrupt government.
Their plan to break into The Mint, an impenetrable government complex that houses the data they need, is put to the test by the deadliest of security. They need to retrieve the information they suspect has been compromised, to see how much of humanity’s past has been stolen from their lives. It’s never been attempted before, because it’s impossible. But something is pushing and urging them on, to take the chance – to risk everything. In an explosive, lethal, and otherworldly battle, they achieve their goal and discover much more than data – they are being helped by an unseen force.
This is only the beginning.
In Xeno’s Paradox, Bill Bailey has written a mind-weaving novel that reveals many levels and layers within its pages. You could be forgiven for reading it as a bullet-paced, sci-fi, and political thriller, but it’s so much more than that.
The book takes on philosophies of consciousness, the self, the universe, love, and how ‘good’ affects and works in tandem with its rotten twin, ‘evil’ (and vice-versa). It explores what is really pulling the invisible strings behind the too-big-to-fail corporations and governments, and offers some possible answers of hope along the way. It’s a literary MRI on the human condition.
The book is impeccably written by a talented author in charge of devastating wit, political awareness, and philosophical thought. He’s the architect of characters that live and breathe with us in our world and others. He skewers realism with the mind-blowing paradoxes we live with on a daily basis.
If you like the metaphysical intertwining’s of The Matrix, you’ll adore this book. If you like past-faced sci-fi thriller action, this book has you covered. It has everything you need, and more.
Highly recommended.
Also by the author:
THE HAUG QUINTET:
Taping Whores, Split Infinities, Oceans Apart, Comedians of Violence, Times Two.
Is Alice?
Stone the Crows
Xeno’s Paradox
The Ouroboros Ate the Tale
NON FICTION:
The Ghost Society
Day 2,450
Among the many that I cherish, there are two quotes that have always stuck in my mind. I’ve always remembered them but never fully taken them in, until now. But with the creaking grind of time, they have taken on a more saddening and darker significance in my brain. The first is by David Bowie:
“I’ve got a library that I keep the ones I really really like. I look around my library some nights and I do these terrible things to myself – I count up the books and think, how long I might have to live and think, ‘F@#%k, I can’t read two-thirds of these books.’ It overwhelms me with sadness.”
The second is by the actor who played (amongst many other roles) the original and definitive Eric Draven character from The Crow, Brandon Lee:
“Because we do not know when we die, we get to think of life as an exhaustible well. And yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon so deeply a part of your being that you cannot conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, or five times more? Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.”
I actually heard Brandon Lee saying these words in an interview in the 90s; it was one of the extra features on The Crow DVD. I remember thinking even then, they were extremely wise words for somebody so young. But when your dad is Bruce Lee, wisdom, deep thinking, and talent (and unfortunately, a mysterious and premature death) trickles through the DNA. But it wasn’t until I read his words in black and white that the sentiments resonated so much.
Reading both quotes again at 58 years old, (as Bowie with his books) overwhelms me with sadness. The deep thoughts of two extremely talented human beings whose careers in music, film, and art I followed for a big chunk of my life. Both thinking about their own mortality amidst their successful careers. Both are now gone. Bowie died of cancer at 69 years old. Lee was shot and killed by a dummy bullet during the filming of The Crow – he was only 28 years old. Life is very short.
Fun fact. Did you know that the title and lyrics of David Bowie’s song, The Jean Genie from his album Aladdin Sane, were inspired by one of his literary heroes, the novelist, poet and activist, Jean Genet? No? Now you do.
Before I read the Bowie quote, I was also guilty of working out how many of my books I could possibly read before my breath runs out. No doubt my tiny library of around 300 or so books is nothing compared to Mr Bowie. I plough through them at a rate of approximately 20 to 30 per year. That is nothing compared to other devourers of books, but it’s enough for me. If I do live to a good old age I will reach my goal, but . . .
The problem is, new or second-hand, I buy more books. I’m lessening my chances with every book haul. It could be much worse; I could be spending all my money on alcohol. The irony being that my book problem would no longer be a problem, because it wouldn’t exist. I wouldn’t be able to read. I wouldn’t be able to write. You wouldn’t be reading this because it wouldn’t exist and eventually, neither would I. And the cherry to top it all off, I wouldn’t give a flying camel’s fanny about any of it.
But I don’t drink alcohol, and (airborne dromedaries genitalia aside) I do care. Hence the brain wonderings (and wanderings) on mortality. My life is far from perfect but it’s ok. At the moment it’s calm and pain-free enough to do the things I want to do. I try not to worry as much as I once did but it (like my book-grabs) is a hard habit to break. My sleeping patterns are a little haywire, but I do sleep. So, for anything to get in the way of all the things I’m now able to do; medical, financial or otherwise, worries me. I mean, I’m not naïve, it will happen, but at least give me 5 or 10 years of peace. I know it’s a stretch but . . . Please? I don’t believe in a god, so who the hell am I pleading to?
Universe! You’ll do! Give me another 5 to 10 years and I’ll hug all the trees you want and be a good boy. I’ll go vegetarian. I’ll wipe the seat after I pee. But let me do stuff in peace for a few more years. Pretty please!
As I write these words, I’m still waiting for the results of a bowel cancer test. It’s not because I have signs or symptoms, but because I’m of a certain age, I have to (voluntarily) get tested every two years. The results won’t tell me if I do or don’t have cancer. They will either say that further tests are needed, or not. Two years ago, no further tests were needed. But that was two years ago. A lot can change in 730 days.
And it has.
Within those 730 days I’ve been put on blood pressure tablets because my readings were dangerously high (in the 180s). I now have a lovely little umbilical hernia. Tinnitus screams constantly in my ears these days, making simple pleasures such as listening to music, not simple or pleasurable. The pressures in my eyes have become much higher over 730 days, happily winging their way to Glaucoma, macular degeneration, and eventual blindness. The only thing that’s improved over two years is my teeth. No alcohol or cigarettes and having to pay for private dentistry has kept the ones I have left, in pretty good condition, firmly jammed in my gums. No doubt many years of drinking, smoking and loud music have contributed to things wearing out, tearing, blocking, and snapping off. Nothing has actually snapped off, by the way – but give it time, something will.
Well, that was a bit of a Debbie Downer. Maybe I need to be a little more positive and show some gratitude.
My blood pressure is now at normal levels thanks to the medication. My hernia is tiny and painless at the moment; not significant enough to warrant surgery. But if it grows and tears through my stomach, forcing my guts plop onto the floor into a steaming, bloody mess, surgery may apparently be considered. The tinnitus is annoying and maybe badly affecting my hearing but I can still hear. Eh, what? Obviously, I’ve taken no action to get my hearing looked at, diagnosed, and possibly treated. Maybe do that eh? What? Instead of complaining. My eyes are monitored every year and my eyesight is pretty decent. I read 30 books last year without any problems so I’m not doing too bad. I have teeth in my mouth and I can eat without pain. I don’t deserve them after years of abuse, but there they are like a little enamel graveyard in my mouth. And as far as I’m aware, nothing on my body has actually snapped off. I’m pretty sure of that.
There, that sounds a little better. A bit of gratitude and positivity never hurts anyone. Unless you happen to be ungrateful and negative, then being a miserable little shit is quite normal.
I’ve actually forgotten what the point of this post was. Ah, mortality!
Universe? You ain’t off the hook! Trees/good boy/pee-free seats. Don’t forget!
Serendipity (or the universe) is bizarre. As I was writing all the above, a letter from the hospital has just (right now) been handed to me by my dad. It will be the results of my test because I’m not expecting anything else. I haven’t opened it yet. It could go either way. Here goes.
‘No further tests are needed at this time.’ Phew! Two years until the next. 730 days to do stuff. Knowing my luck, on my morning bus, the driver will have to slam his, or her brakes on and I’ll go merrily flying down the stairs from the top deck; hernia exploding, teeth smashed, my glasses slicing into my eyes as sombody’s umbrella stabs into my ear, piercing my brain. But happy thoughts, eh?
“Dear Universe. Two years grace in the space of one post ain’t too shabby. Keep that up and we’ll both be ok. Many thanks my swirly, gassy, black-hole friend. By the way, just in case; if God really did create you, please can you give me a head’s-up. I don’t want to be rooting for the wrong team and hugging trees for no reason. Cheers.
P.S. I’m not entirely sure I can forgive you for taking away David Lynch from us this month. But I’ll try.”
This post didn’t go the way I planned. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing. If you spent precious time getting this far when you could have been doing something else more constructive – thanks. You did good.
Take care everyone x
A book review this week.
I’m working on my next addiction/recovery/whatever-it-may-be post for next week. I’ll probably keep alternating like this for a while. It seems to work – for me anyway.
Nicola Barker is a bit nuts. She is also funny, insightful, engaging, philosophical, and probably (maybe definitely) a genius. Maybe. But she is nuts. Small Holdings is her second novel and was published in 1995.
The park is not only their workplace, it’s the heart and pulse of their lives. But something isn’t right. It’s coming up to Friday and the very important meeting with the council.
Douglas is in charge of the park and wants to show the council his big idea. But something is wrong with Douglas. Driving a tractor into a greenhouse and destroying it, maybe a bit of a red flag.
Saleem used to work at the park until she lost one of her legs. She’s still there, she shouldn’t be, but she is. She’s terrorising the workforce (such as it is), especially Phil. Saleem wants Douglas out of the way so he doesn’t screw up Friday’s big meeting. She wants Phil to go in his place. Saleem does not work there anymore. But there she is, hassling poor Phil.
Phil doesn’t do meetings, or responsibility, or anything involving pain or responsibility. Phil does plants, trees, flowers, soil, and grass. He is beaten-up, drugged, terrorised, abused, and worst of all, shaved. Phil isn’t happy.
Nancy is the park’s glamorous driver. She has been crashing the van too often lately and Douglas isn’t happy about it. He doesn’t know about her eye, or the gun she keeps in her glove compartment, just in case. Doug wants her gone.
Ray hasn’t many thoughts on anything much. He’s not big on thinking.
Why does Phil keep seeing an old Chinese man stealing onions and dancing in the park? One day, Phil gets a bit too close. Way too close.
This is such a fantastic little novel (or novella, whatever). Nicola Barker writes about loners, eccentrics, and marginalised people in ways that are compelling, witty, and philosophical. This is the best of her work that I’ve read so far. Her style is wonderfully odd and unconventional which adds to her skewed characters and their strange lives.
If you need to engage your brain about the big stuff whilst smiling at the same time, this will help it all happen. Nicola Barker is the mad scientist of British literature. She is brilliant. But nuts.
I wish this review was better, but it’s not. I wish I was hung like a stallion instead of a hamster, but I’m not. I wish I was an extraordinarily talented, mad genius like Nicola Barker, but I’m not. There ya go, them’s the breaks.
This fabulous author has written 13 novels and 2 collections of short stories. Her novel Darkmans was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2007. She has a brand-new novel out this year, Tony Interrupter. I’ll be waiting.
Day 2,429
Although addiction and recovery were the catalysts for this blog ever existing way back in 2018, I want to try and vary things this year and attempt to write about other things. It may or may not happen.
But today is not that day. This one was inspired by something thought-provoking that I found recently in a box at home. It got me thinking, as interesting things do. Especially when you start snooping around on yourself.
As I was tidying out some drawers last month, I found something that I’d completely forgotten about. It was a black, hardback A5 notebook from the end of February 2018. I vaguely recall writing in it, but I can definitely remember being unbearably cold. I was taking shelter in the local library to get warm. I had ridiculous amounts of clothing layers on, and a huge, thick coat. But the icy air had already gripped my bones and I couldn’t get warm. Remnants from a storm called, The Beast from the East was whipping everything around outside. This particular storm and it’s after-effects seemed to be going on forever.
I had only been out of rehab for around two months, after twelve weeks of intense, recovery-filled days there. I think I was doing some course or another at the time.
My mind was still a cocktail of excited, proud, overconfident, and terrified, which when mixed together produces its own version of brain fog. This is probably why my memory of writing in this notebook is very unclear, but I can remember the weather, what I was wearing, and the place I was defrosting myself in. It’s akin (I guess) to some form of alcoholic dementia, which of course is self-inflicted.
Anyway.
This notebook was thick with lined pages inside but unfortunately for me, only one page (both sides) was filled in. It was strange seeing my old handwriting again from that period. It was still pretty neat considering the recent past chaos of my life, and the arctic pandemonium outside the library. Apart from that one page, the only other words written are on the inside cover. It reads:
Novels, short stories, non-fiction, etc. Anything goes. Don’t stress. It’s not that important. It really isn’t.
Don’t stress. It’s not that important. It really isn’t. When it comes to writing again after so many years of being away from it, that’s actually good advice. It takes the pressure off those daunting blank pages. Perhaps the reason that the rest of the notebook was blank is because I didn’t take my own advice.
Or was it?
I did some snooping on myself in the 2018 part of my journal, in which I’ve been writing doggedly since 2005. It told me exactly why all those pages were blank. Did my pen run out? Did some part of my body freeze and snap off? Did God tell me ‘not’ to do it?
Read what was written in the notebook first, and I’ll spill what my informant (me) unearthed. I’ve copied-out the writing and kept the punctuation as it is. No changes. Good luck.
* * *
28-2-18
My finger wipes a lens into the steam on the window. The world flickers by, as it always has. In the time I’ve been away, nothing and everything has changed within the blink of an eye. The death and life game, as always, remain in constant flux. People, traffic, and coffee – wired people turn red for a second. I’ve bitten my nails too close again as I gulp at the bloody taste. The world comes to a halt as the bus doors open and the sick, malty smell of beer hits me. It’s seven-thirty in the morning, but nothing surprises me anymore. Or so I thought.
Rock-bottom.
A place you read about, look-up or hear about. Even when you think you are there and other people look down on you, and tell you to pull yourself together – the floorboards creak and break, and you fall further downwards into the darkness.
There are many levels to this rock-bottom, the hell that never ends. Some people keep falling, never to be seen again, most find a floor and crawl away, into the light like Lazarus. Rock-bottom is an open house, anyone is welcome. There are two ways to vacate your room – in a body bag or on your hands and knees. I’m not sure what level I’m on, but the floorboards are creaking again and something snaps.
* * *
There you go! Not a bad start for a bit of raw, rough, stream of conscious type scribbling. It shows a little bit of promise. Book idea? Short story? Flash fiction? Who knows! The most probable thing going on here is I was scraping the cobwebs from the inside of my creative brain to kickstart it again, to get some ideas going. Learning how to write again.
Or maybe I was planning something.
It’s such a shame I didn’t fill those empty pages. It could have led to something productive and soul-filling. But the words already written in there, did lead to something. It definitely was not soul-filling or productive. My snitching journal told me so. Here’s what it told me:
* * *
19 May 2018
I drank. I did 233 days. Was I sitting on my laurels after all? Thinking I was invincible? As of the 14th May, I’m now six days sober. Back to the drawing board. Back to rehab.
The only way I can describe it is that my head went into hell-mode, then I fell through the floorboards into Hell’s basement. Everything went black and went into chaos! But are they all excuses. Probably. When it comes down to it – I drank! Simple.
It started last Wednesday and went on until Sunday. On the Monday I woke up with every intention of carrying on drinking. But something clicked in my head and I got myself to the rehab where I was welcomed with open arms. It was hell, but at least I was in a safe place with safe people. They are letting me attend every day. I can’t write much more yet. Hopefully I’ll be here (in the journal) later. My head’s an absolute mess. But one positive – six days sober now. Rehab again tomorrow.
* * *
There you go! That was my second relapse (or lapse, as it were). It has never happened again. I hope it never will. It was the first time I had ever stopped myself. Usually, it was because I’d run out of money, my job was on the line, or some friends had swooped in. But I had never stopped myself before. It was a first. God knows where I would be now if I hadn’t.
So, I was writing completely sober in the notebook on Wednesday, February 28th 2018. I fell off the wagon on Wednesday, May 9th 2018. Just over two months gap in-between. My notebook and my journal seem to agree; the floorboards were very much creaking, and through them I fell.
And yes, it was all my fault, there were no excuses. Thankfully, the lapse only went on for four days. I had enough recovery tools in my head to stop myself and have the sense get back to rehab again.
If only I had carried on writing in those notebook pages. Maybe I could have worked things through in my head by continuing with something productive. Writing was one of the weapons I could always shoot the screaming demons down with, and carry on. Instead, after reading those words again and again, it looks as if I was planning my downfall. I mention rock-bottom three times but there are no positives to offset them. And . . . There are two ways to vacate your room – in a body bag or on your hands and knees. I’m not sure what level I’m on, but the floorboards are creaking again and something snaps. There’s a lot of self-fulfilling prophecy in there, which doesn’t help matters when you’re newly sober. Thankfully the body bag option didn’t happen. I probably frightened myself, writing words that were revealing too much of what was going on inside. No doubt I didn’t want to carry on confronting myself in black and white, not wanting to admit I was planning my own downfall.
Eventually I got back on track again: volunteer, part-time recovery worker, full-time recovery worker, learning support assistant. Not long after that lapse, I began this blog; that really helped. I read, I write, I listen to music, I do some art – I live.
It was interesting going to the 2018 part of my journal and seeing what was going on, and how it tied into that notebook. What if I went back to 2005? Now that would be interesting. That would be me, documenting my full-blown alcoholism in real-time. Maybe that could be something I could share snippets of here bit by bit? Maybe. Who knows.
Again, I often wonder what would have happened if I would have carried on writing in that old notebook.
Well. There are actually fewer blank pages now. Why? Because I’ve begun writing in it again. Novels, short stories, non-fiction, etc? Well, anything goes. I won’t stress, because as we know, it’s not that important. It really isn’t. The only thing I’ll be confronting, working out and planning this time – is my writing.
I hope you all had a great and safe Christmas. I also hope 2025 is kind to you all.
Take care everyone x
Amazingly, considering all the chaos and sadness that has happened here over the last 12 months, My Year of Rest and Relaxation is the 30th book I’ve managed to read this year. I might just sneak one more in before 2025 if I possibly can. I’m working on a post for next week so I thought I’d share this wonderful book by an author I’d never read before.
By the way. WordPress has just sent me a happy anniversary notification telling me I did my first ever post here, 6 years today! Time flies and all that. Anyway . . .
First published in 2018, this book was (and deservedly still is) an incredible global success.
Stubbornly I didn’t buy it at the time because everyone was all over it (and I was also probably furiously attempting to begin blogging in WordPress for the first time). Also, I hated the original cover with a passion. But things change, just like life, taste, underwear, and book covers.
It’s the year 2000. Our unnamed narrator is blessed with the physical DNA of the gods: young, impossibly beautiful and adored by men and women alike. She’s intelligent, street-wise, smart, and lives in her expensive apartment in Manhattan. Everything is paid for by the inheritance from her dead parents. She has everything a human could possibly desire, apart from happiness. She wants out. She wants to sleep.
She decides to opt out of the everyday facade of life – the mindless chatter of Smalltalk, the fake veneer of the rich and wannabe rich, the dating, the bad sex, the good sex, the inconvenient deaths, and shitty lives of everyone around her. She wants to pull the plug for a year, then she can reevaluate her life.
Enter the very off-kilter and shamanic quack, Dr Tuttle. She offers terrible medical advice but is willing to offer every drug under the sun for cash. Our narrator decides she will never find another ‘professional’ as irresponsible and weird as the drug-pushy Dr Tuttle, and sees her as the only hope to her year-long oblivion.
She loses her job at the art gallery because of all the naps taken in the utility cupboard. She leaves her crappy boss a ‘present’ like no other.
Pills are popped like toxic candy. Drifting in and out of consciousness, she watches VHS tapes of terrible films. She idolises Whoopi Goldberg. Her long-suffering friend, Reva is her only visitor. Bulimic, materialistic and stuck in a bad relationship, Reva babbles away about her terrible life. Although our narrator treats her like garbage, she is oddly soothed by her whining, sisterly presence.
Eventually, Dr Tuttle prescribes the drug Infermiterol, and the rest and Relaxation descends into a zombified, blackout chaos of not knowing what went on: the night, the day, or the week before. But eventually, the sleep finally comes.
If you took the murders out of Brett Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, you wouldn’t be a million miles away from the satirical nihilism of this book. The sarcasm, cruelty and the black humour are high here. Oddly, I found the last chapter quite heartbreaking.
Ottessa Moshfegh is an incredibly engaging and gifted writer. She renders her off-the-wall and unlikable characters beautifully on the page. Razor sharp and biting. Moshfegh does gallows humour exceptionally well (actually, she’s hilarious). Now I need to read more of her work. Highly recommended!
Day 2,415
It’s been a while. Two years! That’s a hell of a long time to be away from here. A lot has happened – plenty hasn’t. But I guess the main thing, the whole reason I started all this random rambling here in the first place many moons ago, is . . .
I’m now 6 years, 7 months, and 9 days sober (I don’t count the days, I prod my trusty sober app). So, that happened. Yep, still hanging in there.
The last actual post I wrote in here (aside from the more recent book rambles) was 17th November 2022. I’ve totalled fifty-one posts in six years. Hardly prolific by any stretch of the imagination. It could have been a lot more but poof! I disappeared. So why the gap when everything seemed to be going so well here?
The honest answer is the same as always, I let life get in the way. It’s still getting in the way and it always will, but I may as well be here, in good company and write about how, when, where, and why it’s getting in the way. It’s kind of the whole point of blogging, isn’t it? I need to remember that. So why come back to WordPress, babbling into the ether again?
I missed it. Thinking, writing, creating graphics, uploading, sharing, and commenting were a big part of my life here for a while.
I would have been back much sooner but for two reasons:
1: The trusty WordPress app I was using for these posts was informing me to change to the new Jetpack app. When I was considering coming back, not only had I completely forgotten how to use the original WordPress software that I once confidently navigated in my sleep, I had to move over to another software and not know how to use that either. Of course, there were conflicts, issues, glitches, missing images, missing this–that–and–the other. Slowly, I finally got my head around everything and began finding my way around again. Things began to make sense. I’m still blindly navigating my way around, but it’s getting better.
I began reading and checking through all my old posts again. Holy shit!
2: So yeah, the old posts. That was an eye-opener. Reading through them again had me tempted to delete the whole site and begin again from scratch. To say I winced, squirmed, and cringed is a huge understatement. I didn’t recognise the person writing it. Seemingly arrogant statements began revealing themselves as I scrolled. Declarations such as ‘I never give advice on this site but . . .’ Then I give advice. Onward to the rushed and ridiculous attempts at poetry – sheesh. The recovery memes (word noodles as I called them) Jesus. The anger, the frustration, the overconfidence, the self-deprecation, all wrapped around an annoying cockiness that I was finding hard to bear as I reread it all. But I stayed away from the delete button and slept on it for a night or two.
I began to think back to who I was, where I had come from, what I had lost. The few hopes and dreams I still had, and the extremely low expectations that I could ever get (let alone stay) sober. What I was actually reading were the words of a terrified little human who was trying everything in his power to make amends with a ragged life. A person trying desperately to fight his addiction with everything he had. The (not so poetic) poetry, the self-made recovery memes, the overconfidence, and self-deprecation was all he had at the time. All in the hope that it would work out and eventually come good.
Well, it worked out!
At the time, every single word of every post was a lifesaver. I had somewhere to go in my head, something to do. They helped get me through some crisis/event or other: a minute, a day, a week, a month – birthdays, bank holidays and the very dreaded Christmas period. Blogging in here helped me. Most were written on a bus either going to, or coming back from a recovery meeting, group, or rehab. Every word at the time was important – to me. So, rereading everything in here brought me back down to earth. Instead of judging my old self, wincing and squirming in my seat, I was proud of myself.
But! Before I could even contemplate starting this all again with the aim of people reading my new posts and possibly scrolling through older ones, there was another huge hurdle to overcome. The horrific, unfathomable, and indecipherable writing needed sorting out. Wow! That isn’t me judging myself, it was awful.
You don’t need to be a literary genius to write a decent blog post, and I’m no literary gymnast. But you do, at the very least, have to make sense. You know, so people can read and understand what the hell you’re talking about. I took a big breath and began repairing, deleting, adding, rearranging, editing, and re-editing every single post, right from the very beginning. Also, many images had to be resized because they were enormous data vacuums that slowed the site down. Some were replaced. Most of the posts didn’t have a featured image, so I created new ones from scratch – I don’t know if I needed to but I enjoyed the process and carried on anyway.
I started all that in the beginning of August this year. It took some time. Right at the end of all that, when I finally finished editing the last post, my mum sadly passed away. But that’s a subject for another time – maybe. Maybe not. But I’m finally back here.
I haven’t done a total hatchet job to the old posts. In fact, if anyone who has read them before and has the energy to reread them again, the only difference I’d hope they would notice is that they are now coherent and make sense. I’ve taken many things out, but also left a lot in. I didn’t want to ruin the spirit of the original posts. Things are left in there because that’s what came out at the time (as tempting as it is to hit delete now in 2024). Me and my older self, compromised. It seems to have worked out well.
But I completely understand why the posts were chaotic at times. They were written in a cycle of excitement, hope and terror. I was taking my sobriety seriously for the first time in my life. If I had an idea for a post, it came out with enthusiastic urgency. They were written in hurried spurts, maybe checked once or twice (without really checking), a flick through my phone for a graphic and Bam! Uploaded and published online. Onto the next post or idea. I simply wanted to move forward as fast as I could with what I had at the time. Everything seemed urgent, demanding to come out there and then. It felt good, achieving something in tandem with my sobriety. Also, (as if getting sober isn’t enough), obviously I wanted to save every addict in the world because I was doing well. I had words of wisdom, and obviously every addict in the world was reading my wobbly WordPress blog of insightful genius, right? It’s a lovely, deluded thought but . . .
Yeah. Anyway. Time and tide calm most things down. Sometimes to a complete halt, poof!
So those are some of the rhymes and reasons for why I disappeared and returned, that you never asked, thought, or cared about in the first place.
But there they are and here I am, again. Sorry about that.
So, what now? Will this continue be an addiction/recovery/writing blog with some book reviews and possibly some of my fiction thrown in now and again? It’s why it all began in the first place. I guess the answer is yes, for now. Will I still be asking myself annoying, rhetorical questions throughout every post and answering them? What do you think? Yes, I think I will.
But I promise not to inflict any more poetry attempts or recovery memes on you. Feel free to sigh with relief, whoever you are.
Who are you? Maybe you are actually me, and all my old and new words are actually yours truly, sorting things out and making sense of things – talking to myself again. Possibly that is the real reason why I’m back – just another place to ramble, question, and argue with myself. I’ll take that.
But if you are actually, you and not actually me – hello! Feel free to join in, or not.
To anyone who said nice things way-back-when, regarding my old posts – thank you so much. You were very kind, and made a quaking, hopeful wreck very happy. I can’t promise a massive improvement from now on, but hopefully from 2024 onward my nonsense will make sense (if that makes sense).
I’ll be here next week with either a book review or a post. But I’ll be here, saying something about something, or other. Sorry about that.
Take care everyone xx
They say: never judge a book by its cover. I say: never judge a book by its title, or you’ll miss a beautiful gem.
I knew absolutely nothing at all about this book before now. I’d always seen it about on the shelves in bookshops but never bothered to check it out. I bypassed it as a book about drug culture, and I already had Brett Easton Ellis and Hunter. S. Thompson for that. But I was wrong. Dead wrong!
Firstly, it is not a book about drugs.
Secondly, this is quite possibly the most dazzling work of fiction I have ever read in my life!
Thirdly, you must definitely, definitely read it while your heart still pumps blood around your body. It’ll be too late if you’re dead, apparently.
Describing the book may possibly make this wonder of words sound wholly unremarkable, passive and pedestrian (boring?). And in a way, that’s what makes the whole thing a life-altering joy. It’s the story of a very human life without frills or glamour. A story of awkwardly dealing with the major and minor struggles, and sieving out the wonder in life. A story of you and me.
William Stoner grows up on a farm with his parents. He leaves for university in 1910, aged 19. He studies agricultural science until he discovers the beauty of literature via an eccentric and cranky lecturer. He changes his courses; he doesn’t tell his parents. He finds his pulse and heart in academia, a protective bubble from his past and the pressures of the real and terrible world that wants to swallow him with the rest of us.
He earns a PHD and begins to teach at the University. He falls for the wrong woman. They marry and have a daughter. He has a life, not as he’d like but it exists. He exists. He lives his life the best way he can, then eventually, as we all do, he dies (not a spoiler, don’t worry. We all die).
He teaches through both world wars. His students go to be slaughtered on the front lines, only to be replenished with new blood. His friend dies. His other friend lives. His marriage is as frail as ashes, his wife a stranger in his own home. His bright, wonderful daughter sours like milk in the sun, mirroring the rotten mess of her mother. Stoner writes a book that probably nobody will ever read.
But he does the right thing by everyone and everything. He carries on, and he lives until life tells him he can’t.
Beauty, unbelievable heartbreak, regret and glimmers of joy walk hand in hand through every page. The reader is guided by kindness and hope through the whole thing. The novel is a silent scream that we see but never hear.
I’ve told you a lot here but I’ve told you nothing. I’ve spoiled nothing. The genius of John Williams’ writing will tell you everything I’ve missed. I don’t possess the mental or academic tools to give it justice.
If this is a review, it’s a ridiculous and muddled mess – a bit like life. I know. I don’t care. It’s all I have while I still process what I’ve read. I may never finish processing. It doesn’t matter.
I just wanted to tell you. I’ve told you. It’s your turn.
This is the first book that I have read in a long while that I can truly say is addictive. Sarah Rose Etter has written a piece of work that I literally struggled to put down.
Cassie has a knot for a stomach. Not ‘in’ her stomach but born, body-tied at the centre where her belly should be. Just like her mother and grandmother. Sounds surreal? It is. But that’s nothing.
She helps her father and brother mining in the family meat quarry. She walks down corridors of wet walls, glistening red and marbled with fat. Cassie plunges her arms, elbow-deep to pull out bloodied meat the size of boulders for her father to sell.
She has visions: fields of throats and rivers of thighs. Heads are removed to watch their own bodies. Her jealousy is taken away in a removal shop, cut out like a cancerous tumour. She buys half a man because she doesn’t have enough money for a full one.
The men she meets in her real life are not good to her when they discover her knot. She’s treated like a freak, abused and left mentally dead. She’s does eventually fall in love, but things are far from perfect.
Everything in this book is disturbing and off-kilter, as if Cassie has been dropped into a Salvador Dali painting.
It’s a wonderfully layered and brutally surreal book. It takes on the agonies and trials of a young woman growing up; it could also be seen as the struggle of chronic illness.
Split into 4 parts, and rather than chapters, it’s written in very readable chunks of narrative, dreams, visions and fact lists. This format only adds to its addictive and waking-nightmare quality.
Highly recommended if you like your fiction surreal, dark and experimental. If you’re easily disturbed then this may not be for you. But Sarah Rose Etter nails it all perfectly in her wonderful debut novel.
Her next book Ripe is available soon. I can’t wait.
After reading the glorious Ask the Dust as part of The Bandini Quartet many moons ago, I was hooked on John Fante’s writing.
West of Rome was published posthumously in 1986. It comprises of one novella and a short story: My Dog Stupid, and The Orgy.
The novella My Dog Stupid is set in the late 60s/early 70s California. Italian American, Henry Molise is an out-of-work screenwriter and novelist. He lives with his wife and 4 grown-up children, and has countless chips on his angry and weary, 55 year-old shoulders.
Henry is rude, loud, cantankerous and bitter. If he has a filter, it’s buried in dust, unused. He has racist views (his son’s new girlfriend is black), and he says terrible things to his wife who has left him more than once.
Henry comes home one night to find a dog asleep in his garden; a huge Japanese Akita. The dog decides to take over the house (he doesn’t give them a choice) and they very grudgingly take him in. One of the children decide to name him ‘Stupid’ due to his . . . well, because he’s stupid.
It doesn’t help the already festering family unease that he mounts every male dog that he encounters. He doesn’t just stop at dogs; human males get the same, messy treatment too!
The dog acts as a catalyst and is blamed for everything that goes wrong with the family, as the children slowly fly the nest. Henry and his wife are alone in a home suddenly too big, and full of loving memories.
Is it the dog or Henry that’s at fault?
This is one of the best short works I’ve ever read. As with most of Fante’s writing it’s autobiographical; the author and Henry Molise pretty much share the same life and views. The racist remarks grate as you read. As an Italian American, Fante experienced much prejudice against himself as he grew up in America, and it’s obviously left a scar. But it still stings to read Henry ‘s (and surpringly, his wife’s) casual racism.
I don’t think I would have liked to have met Fante in person. He was notoriously bitter, angry, and confrontational. But he was a wonderful storyteller and writer.
Stupid did finally meet the love of his life but . . right sex, wrong species. Fantastic story.
The Orgy for the record, is the most misleading title ever. It’s the story of a young boy growing up in 1920s America, working for his father in his building business. The boy meets his father’s best friend who his deeply Catholic mother despises, sprinkling him with holy water whenever he comes near the house. The boy eventually sees another side to his beloved father as his ungodly friend leads him into the ways of Sodom and Gomorrah. It’s a sad, sweet tale of betrayal and growing up too quickly. Brilliantly written and full of Fante’s trademark Catholic guilt in hard times.
If you ever only read one book by John Fante, read his novel Ask the Dust. It’s wonderful. The film adaptation with Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek is stunning.
Stumbling Towards Hindsight 