Drink-free!!!

No drink for about three weeks now and feeling pretty good about it too. No drink means no drunk so it's a double bonus. I'm going to carry on for as long as I can because I want to beat my longest time, thirteen months sober. We'll see what happens at the end of that, perhaps the choice to do another thirteen months. Now, that would be good, wouldn't it!!!

The Alcoholic

This is a poem called The Alcoholic. It was written by Elizabeth Johnson and it tells a lot of truth about the problems and the life that come with alcoholism. I hope that you can read it and think about the truths within it.

Every morning I wake up and must decide what to do.

Yes it’s early and I have to work, but a drink sure sounds good.

I make it through my job and hold out until I get home.

Then I pour myself a drink and I drink it all alone.

The cares of the day melt like ice within my glass.

I have not time to consider pain or bother with my past.

Eventually I am lonely and wish someone was around.

Drink until I pass out, black out, or fall down.

Sometimes I throw up just so I can drink a little longer.

If a little feels this good more has to feel even stronger.

Yet it never comes back, that initial feeling of ease.

Just eventually get sick and finally fall asleep.

Sounds pretty pathetic huh, why would anyone want this life?

Yet I wake up each day to a new high and create for myself more strife.

I’ve seen where it has led me in the past and swore never to go there again.

Yet as one complete circle back where I started I am .

I see why we are so hopeless what kind of life is this?

Will I ever know normalcy with these chemicals I ingest?

Guess I know the answer, The tools have been given to me before.

Just have to reach out and grab them and know there is no cure.

Yet still I struggle, fighting for breath in what seems a useless existence.

I drink more and more every day not able to stop or resist it.

47 hours I’ve gone in the last three months without a drink at all.

On hour 48 I began my continued and expected fall.

If I could just stop I would have a chance, maybe I could be free.

I laugh as I write these words--- finally free—me?

A slave I am and a slave I will remain—self fulfilling prophesy I know.

How can I make it through this --- where should I go?

AA, yeah, been there before – it worked for a while.

Yet every time I would run away just another case in a file.

Let them help you- go to meetings, get out of yourself.

Maybe I’m just selfish and beyond AA’s help.

Can’t they see that I don’t belong- not there, not anywhere?

Guess we all feel that way—but does anybody really care?

Afraid… I am so tired of that emotion in my life.

I would trade it in at any time- yet I’m sure it’s replaced with strife.

Self pity, whoa is me, I know I am there right now.

Don’t want to exist here forever- somebody show me how!

How to stop the struggle and just surrender to God

It should be easy, I know---- don’t fight it so hard.

It's really quite strange

It's really quite strange. A number of years ago I was told by someone in my life, (I won't mention who.) that I was an alcoholic. I accepted that because I believed everything that this person said and eventually stopped drinking because of what I had been told.

I gave up drinking for thirteen months. I gave up purely and simply because I wanted to. In retrospect, if I was an alcoholic then it wouldn't have been quite as easy as that.

So now I'm left a little confused. I am supposedly an alcoholic but I chose to stop drinking and I stopped for over a year, without any problem at all. Since then, I've been off and on a number of times, ranging from one month off to six months off.

When I fall off the horse it's really not a problem, it is purely my choice. No more and no less, that's it, my choice. When I think about it, I'm not falling off the horse because in reality, I'm only choosing to have a drink or not have a drink. I'm not going through hell to stay away from alcohol, never have.

So, today I'm asking myself the question, “Do I want a drink, perhaps a large whisky?”

And the answer?

“Nah, think that I'll put the kettle on instead!!!”

I'm doing OK

I've not had a drink for eleven days today and I'm feeling pretty good about it too. No shakes, no desperation and no great problems having a good nights sleep either.

These things might change tomorrow, they might change tonight, in fact they may well change in a couple of minutes time. That's how difficult alcohol can be, one moment you feel alright and the next it's all changed and you're desperate for a drink. That's where you get caught out and fall in your own face.

Hopefully, that won't happen for a good length of time. It has happened so many times before and I've had to pick myself up, shake off the dust and start again but fingers crossed, eh!?!?

So I'm aiming for no sight of booze. That means no visiting the pub etc, etc. Out of sight, out of mind and all that.

Fingers crossed :))

He says it all!!!

Tom Petty says it all regarding my attitude to staying off that bastard, alcohol.

The drink won't win now, 'cause I'm in the mood to beat it this time around.

Another drunken weekend at Costa Fortune

Yet another weekend where drink was more important than anything else. Pissed as a newt for around about forty-eight hours, unsure of what all went down my throat and less sure of what all came back up. Only sure of one thing and that is - today is day one, again.

Don't want no more!!!

When I first gave up drinking it was easy, I made the decision to stop and walked the walk for over a year. Since then though, it's been different, unfortunately. A month off here, two or three months there, even six months once but then I trip up again.

Promises all too often made to myself, like "I'll need to go to the pub to see who's there!!!", only to wake up the next day with no memory of who was there. Or, "I'll get a couple of cans in for tonight." and find out the next day that I've poured twenty quid down my throat. The rubbish and lies that I can wind myself up with are really amazing and I fall for it all.

So, the question has to be, "When will the next day one turn up?" Tomorrow perhaps, possibly next week or even next month?

Why is it so difficult to do again what I did in the first place. Why, when it wasn't a problem then? Why did I fall of my bike after so long? What reason was there for me to trip up then and continue to trip up again and again ever since?

I spent over a year walking the walk, thirteen months in fact, about three years ago.

Will I ever be talking the talk?

A large coke - and don't get cheeky!!!

I'm in Lerwick, the big toon as it were here in Shetland, to pick up a couple of messages and I've been left with three and a half hours to waste. Right now I'm in the library, doing what people do in libraries without getting arrested but soon I'm going to go down to Da Wheel Bar and drink large amounts of stiff cokes - don't get wide now, what else does a man like me drink in a bar without getting pissed, eh?

Then I'll get on the bus and go home again after having had a good blether to whoever is standing beside me and willing to talk shite to a sober man. You never know, there might be one or two of them, in for the same reason, that be to get rid of and learn to cope with alcoholism. They're not in every night but usually.

I have fallen off the horse once or twice and I will do it again and again but it gets to be rarer and rarer, less often in a month or a year, whichever, but it gets rarer so it's going the right way and one day soon I'll be able to say that I am a sober man.

I hope that it doesn't take too long to get over the alcohol problem. I hate asking for "A large coke." 

No booze for me......

I drank on christmas eve and on the day itself but have remained dry since then. I will do my very best to stay off the demon too. Considering that I was off the drink for thirteen months when I first gave it up, I reckon that I can do it and more, again. This time around I have every intention to stay off it for life because it does you no favours at all. Lets face it, you get nothing other than an empty wallet and a hangover.

So, I'm in my second week of no alcohol, all the way through the New Year and it's working out quite well. No great difficulty, no sweats or shakes and the best one - no hangovers either, so it's hopefully going to be continued for a long, long time. I haven't been to the pub and let's face it, tea and coffee work out cheaper, both physically and mentally, not to mention financially.

I do intend to stay away from the demon drink for a long time. I do not see any point in going back to it, the main reason being that I'm an alcoholic. I can never get away from that, I always will be an alki but I can die a sober one and I can spend more money on food in the run up to that, if I stay off the demon.

So it's cheers to no alcoholic drink and cheers to as much tea and coffee, orange juice and lemonade that I can pour down my throat.

Sobriety rules for me now :))

I hope that you all enjoy yourselves

It's only a few days until Christmas now and I hope that you all enjoy yourselves, Santa is very generous to you and you can remain at least relatively sober throughout.

Personally, I don't like Christmas. It revolves around two things. Christmas is firstly an excuse to spend vast amounts of money in the so-called sales and secondly, a very large festival in a dying religion. Firstly, I no longer have any interest in the sales and secondly, I'm a practicing atheist so sod religion.

This makes it a pretty boring period for me and that tends to encourage drinking alcohol, which I do not want to do. When I do drink it, I drink far too much and considering that I am coming to the end of my third week totally sober, no alcoholic drink has passed my lips in this time and it would be good to keep this up for a year or two - or perhaps a lifetime - and this period that was, a long time ago, primarily a religious celebration means nothing but boredom to me. Therefore, it's a difficult time for me to stay sober.

I will certainly keep my computer on, allowing me to stay in touch with humanity. I will ensure that I am well fed throughout the period as that does help to keep me away from drink and I hope that it snows all the way through as I love snow.

And finally, if we all stay sober over the Christmas period then we will realise what a gross waste of money it really is.

Merry Christmas :))

Another day without drink or violence

It’s yet another day after the disaster that I mentioned yesterday, last Friday morning when she assaulted me. She was drunk at the time, very drunk and had been since the previous evening. I don’t know if the drink made her do it or if it just allowed her to do it as there is a difference but I don’t care because she just did it with hate in her eyes. That’s enough for me.

I’m an alcoholic, as I have said many times before but I do not lose control when I’m drunk. I’m not perfect but I have the sense to retain control but she apparently doesn’t. Was that the true self for me to see at last. If so, it could have come out sooner and a little less painfully. I don’t mean physically, I mean painfully emotionally, right in the heart.

I have a different view of alcohol now. I see what it can release in us, what it can allow to happen, for whatever reason and the damage that it can create, that it can cause to take place.

I still hope that she can remember what she did and why she did it. I hope that she can deal with the problems that the drink either allowed or caused to happen.

I continue to do my best to stay off the drink. Now I have another good reason to stay sober.

I can only hope for her!!!

Taken away

She got drunk, she struck me, she got taken away by the police. That happened a few days ago and is as good a reason that I can think of to stay off the drink.

Drink does that to some people. Not all, admittedly but too many to make it worthwhile. It gets people into trouble for no reason other than their loss of sense and that is because they have consumed too much alcohol for them to cope with. Why have they drunk so much? Because they are, like me, what is known as an alcoholic.

When I think about it, when I look back and consider what has happened due to alcohol in my life, I wonder why people drink it, why it is seen as a social drink and why it remains legal. Possibly because there are that many alcoholics that remain in denial just like she does.

I do not remain in denial. I fight it. I still cannot cope with drink but I fight it. Not all of us do that, do we?

Off the drink

It's twenty days now since the last alcoholic drink was swallowed by me. No problem, no sweats or shakes and no big deal so no fuss.

Do I still have the problem, both social and medical, that I had before? I don't think that I do but I know that I have to consider myself as an alcoholic until my dying day. If I don't then I will insist on behaving like one whether I choose to or not and I would rather stay away from that sort of caper from now on :))

Five days alcohol-free

I've been at the drink again since I wrote last time. Incredible just how stupid I can be at times, isn't it. Having said that, I'm on drink-free day five at the moment, with no intention of falling by the wayside again. I know that I've said things like this before but I like to think that this time around there is a lot of determination to win at it.

There are annoying bits in my drink-free history though. I did thirteen months without alcohol between 2009 and 2010, six months in 2011 and a month here and three months there this year. The bit that gets to me is the fact that I managed thirteen painless months and then fell off the horse. Since then I've not even managed half as much but that's so far. This time I like to think that I'm on a winner (fingers crossed) for good. If it doesn't last then it's just an everlasting problem and there are enough of them already.

The longer that I'm off the demon the easier it gets and when you think of the number of people that you know who don't drink alcohol and never have, it makes you realise that it shouldn't be that difficult.

It isn't for them, they're not addicted, now are they?

Who thought that they'd conquered the drink?

I had been doing so well in staying away from the drink, in not wanting any, not having any problem with it. Yesterday I got out of the hospital after landing there on Tuesday evening because I was pissed, yet again.

All these hopes, all these beliefs and then the truth comes out. I got well and truly pissed as a fart again. Not too good, eh. Perhaps I do have a problem here after all, perhaps I am a raging alcoholic after all.

Now it’s time to really do something about it. I’m not sure exactly what yet but I’ll find out and take action. Can’t let this continue because if I do it will just get worse and worse.

That would be no good, now would it. Dr Unsworth would give up on me!!!

Home brew and swallowing the pressure-fed lies

Some time ago I fancied making some cider and perhaps some beer but was concerned what the outcome of  around eighty pints of home brew would be. It was rather surprising, to say the least.

I was worried that having so much drink in the house would be almost fatal as I believed that I am an alcoholic and would get stuck right into it all immediately it was ready. Luckily, it didn't go this way though. I actually behaved sensibly, having a pint here and there but nothing excessive. This made me question my roots as an alcoholic.

Some years ago, the woman that I am separated from convinced me that I was suffering from alcoholism. It was easier for me to accept this and join Alcoholics Anonymous as instructed by her than to dispute it, so off to A.A. I went and gave up for a while. I must admit that it bored me so I only went for a short while then gave up the A.A, going back to the odd drink.

After we split up I stopped drinking for over a year without any problem but then slipped back to the whisky and the cider. Since then I have been off and on the drink without any problem, without drinking too much at any time, only taking a drink when I fancied one, generally being pretty well behaved, without any effort at all.

A bit of thought on my part showed me where the alcoholism came from. It was fed to me by the wife, for what reason I don't know but it was fed to me and to keep the peace I accepted it, even carrying it on beyond my marriage. What a lot of crap. I should have behaved sensibly and stood up for myself instead of swallowing the pressure-fed lies that were inflicted upon me.

I enjoy the ginger beer that I brew up and my girlfriend likes it too. We also like the other things that I brew so it's time to get some more on the go.

Cheers :))