Newborn

Day 260

Early in sobriety it seems much of our time is spent trying to explain to non-addicts (family, friends, loved ones, work-mates, partners) what addiction is, because they don’t get it. I totally understand, it must be so frustrating for them.

But we are so busy saving our own lives daily and getting on with our recovery, we don’t have spare brain-space to explain to everyone who doesn’t get it. We are teaching by example simply by living as well as we can. Also, we don’t get it. We just had to live it.

We are as newborns in recovery, seeing the world for the first time. We stumble out our first terrifying baby steps.

Staying sober and holding it all together is a twenty-four-hour job. It’s stunningly hard. It’s impossible to try and explain the never ending can of worms that is addiction to everyone we meet. Most people ask the usual questions, ‘why didn’t you just stop? Why can’t you just drink normally?’

Professionals have been struggling for decades to define, pin-point, track down, research, treat, and explain addiction. How the hell are we supposed to do it?

I mean, how do you explain wishing the next drink would kill you? Your hygiene is so bad but you don’t care. Running out of hiding space for bottles and cans until the floors are rolling in glass and tin. Wearing the same clothes for days, weeks or months. All control of bodily functions is lost; it’s ok just because that’s the way it is. Sobbing your heart out for no apparent reason. You’re in pain and seeing your own blood so often you could identify it in a line-up. But it’s inconvenient to go to the doctor because waiting rooms cut into your drinking time. The phones are unplugged or switched off. The doors are locked and the curtains are never open.

Anything to do with the people you love are cancelled because they can’t get hold of you – nobody can. You’ll stop drinking tomorrow, but you don’t: it’s Christmas, new year, my birthday, your birthday, week off work, holiday – eventually you run out of excuses and it’s simply just another day. Tomorrow. But tomorrow never comes. Ever! Hell is the norm.

Eventually you don’t/can’t even try to stop because your body is so chemically dependent that it won’t let you anymore. But your daily prayer is that the next drink kills you. But it doesn’t. But you still pray for it and you still pick up that bottle or the can, praying at the altar of alcohol, because all other gods have failed. Nothing else matters.

That’s just a mere fraction of what was my daily life. My addiction/your addiction/our addiction! Everyone’s addiction! Alcohol, drugs, whatever the substance.

How can you explain all that to someone who doesn’t get it? Life’s too short to even try.

So, why/how did we survive and stay alive?

Luck. Pure luck.

I’ve seen many people pushed back into active addiction by constantly trying to explain and justify past actions. If people don’t get it that’s their problem – not yours! You just stay busy living with addiction and ripping its throat out! keep doing that! Every day.

Baby steps. The biggest steps you’ll ever take!

Stay safe and amazing!

None of my business

Station to station

Day 246

Just because we’re in recovery, doesn’t mean that we’re not allowed to get angry at the injustices around us, especially when it negatively impacts the important services that we use daily to help us get on with our lives. Some things make the top of my head volcanic, particularly the misuse and waste of public money. I wrote the words below a few months back. My anger hasn’t diminished. I’ve tweaked it a little as my claws and teeth have sharpened over time.

*          *          *

When I first returned home for good last year, our town centre had a perfectly good bus station. You waited for a bus, you got on the bus, you went home or wherever. Job done! Then one day, the powers that be, ripped it all down for no apparent reason whatsoever. Today I used the brand-new station. Again, it’s perfectly good – you wait for a bus, you get on the bus, you go home or wherever. Job done! Exactly the same. The only difference being – it cost over fifteen million pounds to build!

In 2019 we still have homeless human beings freezing to death in shop doorways. This morning, I saw two shivering souls asleep in the entrance of a bank. The irony in that scene is a humanitarian blasphemy.

Alcohol and drug abuse continue to kill, tearing families apart in ever growing numbers as addiction rips through society like a plague. Our recovery services have no money to employ enough staff and no resources to cope with the growing demand. The workload increases daily as workers try to bend and warp time to accommodate every client. There aren’t enough hours in the day!

Domestic violence and rape victims struggle to be heard, treated, and stay safe because of massive cuts. Single mothers struggle to pay childcare just to earn a living every day. Mental health services and the NHS get kicked in the teeth, daily.

Everything seems to rely on the public kindness of charity donations. Seemingly nothing at all runs without the goodwill, time and effort of unpaid volunteers.

Everyone around us suffers and goes through daily hell as a way of life because that’s just the way it is. Everything is run on a shoestring so frayed; it barely exists anymore. People are literally dying on their feet because money can’t be found – anywhere!

Really? Anywhere?

But hey! Nice, brand-new, shiny bus station that nobody wanted or asked for, that does exactly the same as the old one did, which everyone was happy with in the first place!

Hope those millions were worth it eh!

It makes my head volcanic!

‘We Hide our Scars’

Day 241

One of the many, many benefits of recovery is rediscovering old passions. One of mine is creative writing. Here’s a little something I wrote when I was bored on a bus journey.

The picture below is one of a growing series of recovery memes I write for myself as backgrounds for my phone. I call them Word Noodles.

‘We all hide our scars, pain and shocking darkness with the thinnest of fragile skin. But sometimes they bleed through as life catches us out. As the architects and artists of our own souls we build and paint with the only tools we have at hand. Our palettes may vary and the way in which we re-build and re-paint ourselves. But we are all one as we repair a worn and tattered spirit with striking new colours and washes of a new and stunning life. We are all so very the same and all so very strong in our fight. The world can be frightening. But the world is only a canvas and together, we will paint it with pride and love and joy and awe!’

Tomorrow doesn’t matter

An Odd Duck . . .

Day 237

This sobriety lark. It’s a bit of an odd duck. The world feels strange. It’s confusing, frustrating, frightening, and nonsensical. My newly rewired brain now has a memory that is both a blessing and a curse. Emotions and feelings can no longer be fogged-out by the constant waking blackout at the bottom of every single bottle. You get a whole lot of life (past, present and future) to deal with all at once.

In recovery you discover to your amazement that after all these years of thinking you were an unlovable monster, you’re quite a nice person. But now you’re all sensitive and emotional. You now navigate a world full of shitty, insensitive people (be they sober or not). Newly discovered feelings get smacked about as you weed out the good people to see if they are the lifers that you can rely on. These new souls tend to be also in recovery. They too are also tentatively going through their own version of your new life.

Recovery is a terrifying but exciting ballet performed on the most public of stages, rather akin to dancing Swan Lake in Afghanistan. We all know the routine but one wrong pirouette and a landmine turns you to roadkill. A distant sniper can turn your new brain into a wall decoration, and turning your tights red. It’s a bizarre life-dance we all do – but recovering souls must do it.

We are all winging it. From the moment we open our eyes until we crash into bed. ‘How the fuck did I manage that?’ we ask ourselves; staring at the ceiling with another day sober under our belts. All tentatively micro-managed but we did it.

Television – that box of triggers in the corner. Reality shows, soaps, documentaries, advertisements, and food programmes – everyone seems to be getting royally slaughtered on booze and having a fine old time. We watch grudgingly as we sip our tea/coffee/juice through gritted teeth. Mentally, we spray bullets through every celeb and reality star as we smile and wave boys. Smile and wave. ‘Nobody dies today,’ we gently whisper to ourselves. See! We’re nice.

People often try and shock us with their version of shock. But we’ve seen it, pinched it, spent it. We used ambulances like Uber. The doctors and nurses in A&E knew us by name. Those insane drunken YouTube clips and CCTV footage? Yep, that was us! You’ve already seen the mortifying Facebook posts and drunken texts. All us. We lost control of every bodily function and didn’t care a jot. We’ve seen enough of our own blood we could identify it in a line up. We would never treat an animal like we treated ourselves. Nobody would.

The daily luggage we carry comprises of: sorrow, shame, and the unbelievable weight of guilt for all the above and much, much more. But we are now taught to let go of damaging thoughts and put the past into the past. But do we? Can we?

Can I?

Give me a short time alone with a crate of wine and I’ll put everything behind me and forget the lot! That, I can guarantee. But that is not an option anymore. I’ve treated people I love like dirt. So, I live with and micro-manage the shame, sorrow, and guilt.  But I can’t forget or put it all behind me. Not yet. I may be a new version of me but I’m a frightened version. I’m only human. I still carry my luggage but it gets a little lighter with time.

So yeah, sobriety. It’s an odd duck. And in the scheme of things, I’ve only just been born. I’ve got lots of growing up to do yet. Is it worth all the effort?

Yes.

To be continued . . . and continued . . . and . . .

Take care, all xx

Finish every day

Borg?

Day 236

It was April 2017 when I started my recovery.  One of the few things I had left from the ruins of my own destruction was choice. The choice to carry on with my addiction to its inevitable and painful end, or the choice fight with absolutely everything I had left and see how far I get. Whatever happens, happens. I had literally already lost everything. I had nothing to lose. So, I got in the ring with everyone else, put on my gloves and fought. I fought bloody hard! But I needed help.

I was given mental tools and had my brain pulled apart by amazing experts. Peers and brand-new friends helped me to re-wire the damaged, frazzled sponge which was slopping around in my head. It still sputters, sparks and slops now and again but the damage is reduced. The harm has been minimised and monitored to carry on the constant sober war.

Sadly, as we all learn very quickly, the fight is life-long. We can’t take eyes off our opponent (addiction) for any amount of time or we are screwed. I found this out to my cost with two relapses.

But things do ease and calm with time and effort. Nowadays I’m lightly but constantly sparring with one hand whilst getting on with life with the other. I have focus and I have a plan. But most of all – I want to live. So, although I can never get out of the ring, I can fill it with hopes, dreams, friendship, love, and the little miracles that happen along the way.

It’s my new normal.

Understandably, it’s very frustrating for non-addicts to stand by and watch helplessly as they try to comprehend what we do and how we do it. But it’s just another day in the office for the rest of us. It’s something we simply must do.

If you ever see me about and I’m looking calm, cool, happy, and contented – don’t be fooled! It’s bullshit. Inside I’m ducking, dodging, weaving, and kicking the living crap out of my lifelong and mortal enemy. You’ll know what I mean if you’re fighting your own addiction.

In recovery, we are like The Borg from Star Trek. We are the collective, interconnected, the same – we are one! Whatever the country, language, gender, class, or status. But unlike the characters from Star Trek, we always try to be nice to our fellow humans.

In short, life is finally getting shall we say . . . interesting, to say the least! I’m getting there.

If you are reading this and you are struggling in your own recovery – keep going! Just keep going! Don’t ever give up! Who knows where it may lead? But wherever it goes, surely it must better than the hell you have come from. What have you got to lose?

Stay safe everyone xx

The mother ship

Off Facebook

Day 233.

I’ve decided to come off Facebook for six months to get on with my writing. I’m finding it hideously distracting. Below is the last post I wrote there. I’ve left it unedited and as it was. Apologies to the grammar Nazis:

My son bought me a phone case for my birthday two years ago. My phone has been in it ever since. A bit like me, the case is worn and tattered around the edges. I took the phone out of the case last night and realised it’s the first time I’ve seen my it in the buff since I bought it. Again, like me, it’s surprisingly thin and a little grubby and quiet. So, I cleaned it up and it looks as new as the day i bought it. Because my case has kept it safe.

When my son bought this present for me, things were bad, really bad. He chose a case with these words on it to remind me every day that the past is the past and it’s time to look forward. He was trying to help his dad. He never judged me then and still doesn’t.

I look at these words every day and see my son in my head. I’m safe. The words and my son’s image are ‘my’ case – I feel his baby breath on my skin, his hugs, hear his giggles and he holds my hand. Wonderful memories. They stop me getting scuffed, scratched, and damaged, or worse. I’m simply, safe. I’m in ‘my’ case. It’s a nice place to be, considering present circumstances. A time that I need every tool in the box to stay strong and keep moving forward.

This is my last day on Facebook for a while. So, I can follow my hopes and dreams without the screaming distraction of the internet.

I will always have the words on my phone case. It’s time to write some new ones. Lots of them. Tomorrow my presence won’t be here. It’ll be busy creating my future. All is good.

Thank you, Oz

Dad xxx

Stumbling Towards 2019

So, I’ve been sober from alcohol now for 230 days (7 months and 16 days). I’ve decided it’s time to knuckle down and write about it.

Write a lot!

I’ve started this blog as an experiment to upload blogs, non-fiction, essays and maybe some fiction.

I’m not exactly sure when I’m going to kick all this off here, but no doubt very soon during 2019.

I’m still working out this site and what it can and can’t do. But I thought I’d at least kick it off with something.

See you on the other side. This could be quite a ride!