Weather Forecast

Saturday, March 03rd 2018 (Everything Will Be Okay)


The clock change happens three weeks on Sunday and while this doesn't automatically mean that there will be a sudden and abrupt (but incredibly welcome) end to this despicable cold and snowy weather it certainly gives off that sense that it will be coming to an end soon. A sort of confidence that spring really is just around the corner. I love Christmas. Really, I do. But aside from that I cannot think of much I like to do with the winter months. As soon as Santa packs up his things and leaves it all becomes just a case of waiting for the first sight of a leaf on a tree. This hasn't happened yet but just wait until that magical day when the clock changes just that one tiny hour. . .

Next week at this time I will be sitting in a counselling room. I have had bedroom problems ever since sobering up and last summer was referred to a sex therapy clinic through Relationships Scotland. The referral has taken some time to come through but we are now to be attending sessions every second Saturday morning beginning next weekend. I'm looking forward to it a lot less than Lind. . . I mean – GF – as she's been pushing for sex for a while now but it will be another big stepping stone in my recovery and so I shall try to give it my all. Apparently things start off with a serious grilling of our past sex lives and some extremely personal questions (I am told to expect this therapy to be very difficult but extremely rewarding). I will, obviously, want to write about some of this stuff in these pages and so I would like to clear up before next weekend comes around that this does not mean that I will be discussing ''pornographic'' content and I will be very careful not to break the forum rules.

By mentioning this I am hoping to avoid some of the things that went on over on the My Way Out forum when people would jump at the opportunity to complain and have my posts removed. I would urge those who may be sensitive to the issues of sex and intimacy to remember the rules of the SoberRecovery website that state that if a rule is not being broken then there is no action taken and also to remind you of the Ignore List that you can add me to. Or you could always not read the posts every second Saturday from next week onwards. I don't have to mention anything to the folks over at Ryver WQD since they allow anything non-threatening to be posted and the other forum I started using (but will likely drop soon in favour of SR) – Addictionrecoveryguide.org – I am less sure of the rules and so don't know if next week's post will make it there or not. I don't know if I'll still be copying and pasting these writings onto that website come next week.

So the week just passed was bad. It sucked. The falling of the snow (which is still going on out there at the moment) has hampered my efforts at work and even managed to stop us from getting into the college on Wednesday. There's even talk about it being closed come Monday. As a result of this I have been forced to stay indoors and it has been pretty bad. I get bored easily, become restless. It's not as if it's been possible even to get out and walk these negative feelings out of me. There has been far too much time off for me this year. I don't know how the unemployed handle it. I still have work though. I'll get back to it again soon. College too. Everything will be okay.

I believe that now. That it will all be okay. I probably shouldn't as it goes against every grain of common sense one might have. I will end up dead regardless of what I do in this life and everyone I know will end up the same. We might see major war in our lifetimes. Things will definitely not be okay for the duration of my stay on this earth. But I guess I'm saying that that is okay. I ''like'' to think back to my drinking days fondly sometimes. I wonder how much time must pass before a period of our lives may be looked back upon nostalgically. Do we have to wait many years or can it occur almost immediately after an event? I know that when people break up with their partners they begin to think about the relationship and all of its past pretty much instantly. It hasn't been like this for alcohol, drugs and me (and I never really think about tobacco at all because there was nothing to be gained out of smoking – with booze and drugs there was a short-term pay-off at least but with nicotine there was nothing) but now that a little time has passes I think back to it fondly.

I'm not saying I want to go back there. Not at all. I'm just saying that sometimes I hear of the guys at college going home to relax with a joint and I think back to when I used to. I think that I can sense the warmer weather coming in and this is stirring memories. I don't know why but I tend to get nostalgic when summer time comes and the warmer weather arrives. Anyway – I'm getting sidetracked.

When I was drinking I figured that life was ****, had always been ****, and so was inevitably always going to be ****. Back then I figured that the way of life I had at that time was the only one possible for me. Like it was my destiny somehow. Like I was simply playing my designated part in the Lord's sick nativity play. I was so important that I had been specially selected by Him to be a forsaken one. Somewhere along the line things seem to have changed and I now see that things are not so set in stone, that there are choices, and that by making the right choices won't always mean I'll get to the right results. I now have a belief system, or am certainly working towards having one, that does not see the world through such black and white lenses.

So the weather has improved (it's still freezing though) and we have another weekend to be thankful for. The weeks are starting to rack up in 2018 and going into March the year seems to be starting to take shape. I look forward to seeing what happens next.

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Lunarer

It'll be okay. . .

1150

Weather Forecast

Sunday, March 04th 2018 (Being Rich)


Waking up three weeks from today and the clock change will have already happened signalling the end of the darkness and cold and the beginning of the spring and the coming of the warmer weather. By that I mean warm weather for Scotland, so around 18 degrees Fahrenheit / 65 Celsius. Anything would be better than what we've had here over the last few days. I often talk about how once we get to the end of February and into March we are safe from the crappy, snowy weather. You would think I would know better by now. When the clock change comes we are definitely safe. From now on that is my guideline. Until then, in Scotland, pretty much anything is possible.

That was quite the week of weather from hell. I was at the college on Monday and then the snow started to fall. The college was closed from Wednesday until the end of the week and there were no chances for me to get out to work. I've been pretty bored. Sometimes I feel trapped in a prison called 2018. This year just will not let me off my leash for a run, set me free to follow my dreams. There must be a reason for this, if I should choose to look at it that way. The reason is possibly just something as simple as gratitude. I am perhaps to use these quiet months to motivate me for the rest of the year, to make sure that I am grateful for having a job, being enrolled on a college course, having things to do with my time when the weather is good. So gratitude I have been searching for.

Yesterday I had to get out of the house and so went on a mission to find bread and milk. This turned out to be a difficult task – at least more difficult a task than it usually is. I managed to find both in the same shop on the eighth attempt. Seven stores I had tried around the town before I located these common household items. Some might say that it's the lack of deliveries. That's what store assistants were telling me anyway. There is no bread or milk because their deliveries haven't arrived yet, they've been delayed with the weather and so on. It's more likely people just buying more than they need. People are like this, I have noticed. We hate the thought of being without something they have become accustomed to and so feel it our right to have it. In this case milk and bread. I am sure that people will have bought more than they would have needed to but got all scared about possibly not having milk for a day or maybe two and so had to make sure.

I believe this is one of our problems in life in developed countries. We no longer ever really suffer and so we miss out on some of life's lessons that I feel we are supposed to learn all the time. Things like appreciating things we have and being strengthened through loss and struggle. I can remember the final months of my drinking when I lived in a cave that was most unkempt (not an actual cave – a council bungalow, but it was in such a state that some caves may have felt more comfortable and hospitable) when there was often nothing to eat. Sometimes it was tinned potatoes from the Food Bank eaten from the tin using a spoon and then back to smoking weed to keep me going. But often there was nothing to eat.

I think that this is why I feel us to be rich nowadays. If you ask anyone at random whether they consider themselves to be rich I am betting that they will tell you they are not. The truth is that I live in a country that means that, barring extreme weather such as we've been having this past week, we can walk into a store and buy a daily loaf for practically nothing really. Even those on benefits can afford it (I just chose not to be able to afford it by spending everything I had at the time on other things I needed much more than food) and so when you really think about it we in developed nations really have very ''glass half empty'' attitudes if we are to consider ourselves to be poor. People think of being rich as meaning that we are financially wealthy in that we can buy palaces and sports cars and so on. The truth is much more straightforward than that.

While it's true that I did make choices that essentially forced me into poverty when I was drinking (and even when I sobered up but still chose to buy weed every day from July of 2015 until my first sober anniversary the following February) and while you could also say that when I was in the throes of this alcohol and drug emotional dependence my body and brain probably didn't hold things like food and heat in as high regard as your average person making it a little easier for me to tolerate being without – I still think that those periods strengthened me to some degree. The thought of being without something or another doesn't fill me with fear as much as it might some other people. I think that once you've been through something it makes it easier to go through again in some cases.

Right now though? Right now I have milk in the fridge and bread in the cupboard. In this I believe myself to be rich. I got what I wanted out of the day. As a result I managed to rake in twelve miles of walking in the snow and so March is up and running with regards to my mile totals for the month. In January I walked 226 miles and in February I managed 169. These are decent little totals. With the weather being as it has been and with it looking as though it's going to get a little wet from now on I would like at this early stage the thought of getting somewhere between those totals come the month's end.

Right then – I'm off to church and then will be coming back to watch the Scottish Cup game between Motherwell and Hearts. Then I'll make dinner, have a warm bath, and head to my lovely warm bed for college tomorrow.

Sounds like the life of a rich person if you ask me.

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Lunarer

Feeling rich.

1118

Weather Forecast

Monday, March 05th 2018 (Ten Weeks Later)


Morning all! I can only hope that this week will be much more than last week was. Snowy and blizzarding(?) weather meant that the college was closed for much of the week and that work was a no-go on Thursday and Friday. Here I am again talking about how I hope that this week will signal the beginning of a new era, the proper start to the new year. How often on a Monday I have found myself saying this recently? The sky isn't as white this morning. For the last few days it's been almost like a mirror image of what's been happening on the ground, like they say that the sea is clear but looks blue as it is a reflection of the sky. This morning it (the sky I mean – not the sea) looks more like a Scottish sky. By that I mean that I can see rain clouds looming. This is what usually happens next: rainfall washes the snow away and we have flooding issues for a few days. College is on this morning though. It'll all be over soon and come next week at this time this weather will all be little more than memories. Temperatures are up to almost freezing from the minus ten we've been getting over the last couple of days.

Hard to believe that it's ten weeks since Christmas already. Hard to believe, but a fact nonetheless. Ten weeks. That means that it was ten weeks yesterday that I was in my last AA meeting. It also means that I haven't spoken with my mother, even on the very unfulfilling social media, for nine weeks and six days – me not seeing her since we sat around the Christmas dinner table on Boxing Day. It's the same every year. We'll make more of an effort this year. But we don't. Ever. And so another year will slip away. This is one thing I feel hasn't improved in the time I've been sober. My relationships with family. With regards to my brother and nieces things have actually managed to get worse as I see them less than ever in the last year or so. Even though I made my Step Nine AA amends with all of these guys I find myself in their lives less than when I was actively drinking and using. It's my sobriety's biggest disappointment.

My oldest niece had a birthday at the start of last month and I went to visit them without a present. Instead I arranged a follow-up meeting where we would go shopping and she could choose what she wanted herself. This was a way of me keeping my options open. Providing I can end each meeting with them with some idea of when we will be meeting again then I feel a little more connected with my family. I wasn't expecting the snow to fall as it has done and effectively close the roads for a few days around the time that we had arranged to meet up. I'll have to pick up the phone again and make that call. If I don't then it could be some months before I see any of them again.

At church yesterday morning the service was moved from the main hall to the room where we normally have tea and biscuits after the service. I say ''we'' but I usually just make for the exit door and walk back home as quickly as possible. Better that than all of these people starting to approach me and asking me about my business. With the service being in the small room there is a much more intimate feel to it. I don't know if I really like that. I enjoy things being all churchy and me sitting on my pew while others are kept at a safe distance. Here in this little room our chairs are so close together we are all buy touching each other. Yuck!

The service was short and afterwards there was the usual, ''We'll be having tea and biscuits after the service'' thing and with us already being in that little room I was caught before I had the chance to escape. Then followed twenty minutes where I had to put on my sociable cap and indulge in some small talk. It wasn't actually that bad to be honest. There are a couple of students at the college who don't understand why I go to church and one of the reasons I give (almost in a bid to defend myself and my decision to attend every Sunday) is that it gives me the sense of community, and yet, I barely ever actually interact with my church-going peers. So it was about time that I stayed behind and tried to soak up the sense of belonging that churches offer.

They are asking for people to put their names forward as Bible readers and since I came back from the service I have been wondering about whether my name should perhaps be on this list. All it would mean would be the possibility of me having to get up in front of everyone every now and then and reading a verse. I can read, and I can stand too, so I guess I am as qualified as anyone else. The only thing missing is nerve, desire, a willingness to put myself forward. I'm supposed to be taking risks, I remind myself – putting myself, Little Lunarer, if you like, into situations where he becomes emotionally vulnerable. This is perhaps an opportunity staring me in the face. I shall put my name forward next week if they are still looking for names.

So we're ten weeks on from Christmas. Ten weeks from now and we'll be into May already. People telling me that life is short and so we shouldn't waste any time we have may have had a point after all. I'll be in my forties come the end of next month and I while I do possess the insight to realise that age is a relative thing and so I am still fairly young (in that there are millions of people older than me still) I do think that it is natural to freak out a little about hitting this milestone, especially if, like me, you are emotionally immature for your age and are professionally miles behind your age and peer group. It gives life a sense of urgency I would do well to ignore and just get on with what I'm doing. I'm heading in a decent direction and I should try to remember that regardless of how far through a year or a decade we might be.

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Lunarer

Looking forward to the new week.

1137

Weather Forecast

Tuesday, March 06th 2018 (Bye, Bye, Beast from the East)


Heavy rain is forecast for later on today and so the snow will be on its way out soon. Flooding will likely follow (almost definitely follow) and so we shall have more problems but then after that we should be looking at spring. It's not really been a long time in coming although the temptation to put it that way feels strong. In truth it has been another extremely mild winter and if it does have to snow terribly at some point over the season then it is best that it happens at this time of year when the days are too long for it to lie for more than a few days. And that is all that we've really had here. A few days of snow and bad weather. November was mild and December was really mild. January and February were cold as always but nothing special. There were some days last month when the sun was really beautiful and temperatures were really comfortable and so when I hear people moaning and saying that the weather is getting much worse and that this is a result of global warming I don't really know what they're talking about. It's just likely something to moan about. The weather has been bad this last week, of course, but this winter was incredibly mild.

So bye and good riddance to the latest snow storms and bad weather. The Beast from the East, as it were. I hope not to see you again for a few years.

Hopefully Barry the Bullet and I will be working on Thursday and Friday but I'm definitely off this morning – the rain has already started and so by lunch time I expect most of the snow to have cleared up. This leaves me with a day of relative freedom. I'm thinking college stuff. Yesterday was a day of success where college work was concerned. Half of the class used the weather as an excuse not to come in which left the rest of us with use of the equipment. As a result we knuckled down and got some shows done. Now I feel more relaxed about the semester. I aim to have everything besides the Graded Unit done by the end of March. This will only be possible assuming that other classes run on schedule and there are times when the whole thing almost seems at the mercy of the slower students so I know not if this is a realistic plan I am formulating but at the moment this is the hope I have, and a man needs hope.

The Graded Unit is the one thing that's really ******* with me though. It isn't a huge project by any means (rather disappointingly) and the lecturers are very flexible when it comes to the content we can use. I just don't know what to base it around. One obvious choice might be to do a piece on recovery from addictions but there are one or two reasons I can think of for not doing this. One is that I don't think I'd be able to fully do it justice at the moment and would perhaps be better saving that idea for next year when I am doing the diploma. I think this because I feel as though I could get plenty of content and interviews from those in the field. I could possibly interview people from FASS (Fife Alcohol Support Service) and DAPL (Drug, Alcohol and Psychotherapies Limited) – both of which I am relatively well known as a former client. I could also possibly get the guys who run Restoration as I am known there too. Addiction Services; SMART Recovery; AA; Fife Council Homeless Service – all of these places I have used before many times and so if it is a case of it being who you know then I might be able to produce something of quality using that idea as a platform.

I really would be best saving the idea for next year when I am a better all-round student and have an assignment fit for the task. I also think that one further year down the line I will be better able to present such a show with genuine interest and less of a ''I've been here – it's all about me!!'' attitude. I'd be one further year away from each of these services and so would my knowledge and experience in each of them would be further outdated. I think it would make for a better show. This is one of my problems though – talking too much about what I'm not going to be doing and not enough on what I actually will be. For the time being I am stumped. We have a little over three months to complete the project in its entirety.

I was hoping to perhaps get the Lion to come into the studio during my sports show one Monday morning. Despite him being fifteen and us only just having met I was thinking it would be a good idea to get him in there and we could chat to him about the local ice hockey team which he is a season ticket holder. He's a shy boy (as you might expect given what his life has been like so far) but he really opens up a little when talking about the ice hockey. On a Monday morning he should be at school but he hasn't been in a classroom for months now, despite the social workers' best efforts, and so the main challenge in this idea is probably getting him out of bed and into the college at that time of the morning. I really wouldn't like him to go down the same road I did in life and for it to only start clicking for him as he approaches forty and so by having him in the studio talking about ice hockey I might be able to show him that education is not all about sitting in a classroom doing maths. You can actually have fun while you learn. It is but worth a try.

I am to be discussing college related stuff online with a couple of my peers this afternoon and I have the house to myself all day today. It's not all doom and gloom though. There are things I can be doing.

I think I'll go and get started on doing them.

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Lunarer

Waving goodbye to the horrible snow.

1101

Weather Forecast

Wednesday, March 07th 2018 (Day One Thousand, One Hundred and Twenty Four)


Or more simply known as thirty seven months away from a drink. This also means that it's been twenty five months since I smoked a joint and thirteen months since I last smoked a cigarette or took an antidepressant medication. Oh – and a month since I started closely monitoring my sugar intake. That's a few reasons to look upon today positively.

It also means that I've now been dating my girlfriend for more than half of the time I've been sober for (will actually be exactly eighty two weeks each way come the last day of March. I know – I'm a sad man for working things like this out) which is very interesting. I don't know why I find this interesting, I just do. Perhaps it's because it felt as though I was sober for ages before yet it doesn't feel all that long since I've been dating Lindsay. It also kind of makes me think about how well I've done and how far I've come since living in that cave surrounded by bags of rubbish and hiding in the bedroom, sleeping on the floor with no food and wondering when my heating was going to be cut off and on and on and on. These were very much issues of basic human needs. Those were the things I was struggling with in those days. Now I seem to take these things for granted (I actually think that writing sections of posts like this is my way of trying to remember those days and try not to get lazy when it comes to appreciating what it is I now have in life) and it is other things I am focusing my efforts on.

I'll be turning forty next month and am looking forward to it. By that I don't mean that I am looking forward to turning that age, to flipping the page on my thirties and peeking ahead to the next chapter, but more that Lindsay and I are going away for it. This is why the trip was planned in the first place. Had you told me back in 2014 when I joined the old WQD forum and I was drinking all the time that I would, within three years, be living with a woman I had yet to meet and that the two of us would be travelling abroad to celebrate my fortieth birthday, having already been to Barcelona last year, I don't really know what I would have thought. To be honest though – many of those guys DID tell me that things like this were possible.

I just couldn't see it being possible for ME. I had that thing we alkies so often have, that over-inflated sense of self where I thought that I was SO bad a person and SO screwed on the drink that I was completely irredeemable. Fancy that. It's true though. Talk about filters of reality. I was constantly looking at life through my schema modes. I just didn't know what they were at the time. So much has happened in the time since.

The differences between the first half of my sobriety from the second half is staggering. People on the old WQD forum used to always bang on about this huge internal change that would happen to each and every one of us if we worked hard and kept our eyes on the sober prize. They called it the ''Staggering Transformation'' and one of the reasons I decided to write my journal in the way I have been doing for almost four years now (long posts written every day with huge emphasis on personal development and self-exploration all while trying to be as honest and open as possible) was that I wanted to, assuming it would happen to me, document the full extent of this transformation. I think that because it has happened so gradually and over a period of time this has perhaps been lost in the writing.

It's also important to remind myself that this is by no means over. In fact – it's only really about to begin! Who knows what on earth happens next? I've been looking into this actually. Dr. Bacon got me thinking about this idea of me trying to find a new way of defining myself and shaping my identity. I'm sober, yes, and some people in recovery choose to define themselves in this way. I am sober and that is the most important piece of information you need know about me. That's not really what I would consider to be recovery if I'm being honest. I think more along the lines of not drinking not being a ''thing'' in my life at all. It'll always be in the background and I'll always be vigilant in social situations and when going through the highs and lows of life, but being ''in recovery'' is not how I want to design and define and shape my future. It has to be much more than that.

Other things Dr. Bacon would talk about during our sessions together was choosing a lifestyle that fits in with our values and belief systems. In other words – if I would like to get back into playing music again then I should do so less to be a great player and more to fulfil my value of being creative. I am advised to try to select hobbies and interests to attach myself to less in order to satisfy my self-seeking nature – looking to fill a hole inside me as I have been guilty of with hobbies in the past – and more because they are in tune with my values. In this way they are satisfying psychological needs and that it, after all is said and done, what this is all about. I think that there's much more to me than simply being a ''recovered alcoholic''. That would not be meeting my needs.

I'll be heading for the bus in a few minutes to get myself into the college. I'll be back at work again tomorrow with any luck and so this is now, I feel, the month, and year actually, starting for real. There hasn't been much happening up until now but it's routine I've been seeking. This year has started slowly, however, so that I could be reminded always to heed the lesson of gratitude. Be grateful to have a job, a college course to attend, and a home to come back to when all is said and done. It's been slow so that I could take the time to allow myself to see how lucky I have become.

Be well. . .

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Lunarer

A lucky man.

1134

Weather Forecast

Thursday, March 08th 2018 (Some Twelve Step Thoughts)


It's not very often that I type out posts in the evening (it's usually done when I get up in the morning, when the house is quiet save perhaps for the cat munching her breakfast) but I felt the need to this evening. I've already posted today so I will store this piece of writing somewhere and dump it online perhaps sometime through the week or next when I don't have time to write something out or when I can't be bothered. To be honest I have found myself more eager to write and more motivated to post since joining the SoberRecovery forum (a place I am quickly falling in love with and getting to know people) and the Addictionrecoveryguide.org site. I've always posted daily (and almost always it's within my word count guidelines of between 1100 and 1200 words) but there are times when I feel as though I am writing for the sake of it. Like I'm writing only to fulfil my routine of posting every day. At the moment I am going through a resurgence and feel as though I am writing because I want to and that I also have some things to say as I do.

Reading through some of the posts from members on the SoberRecovery website (and there are a metric **** tonne to choose from) I found myself wandering through threads dedicated to AA's Twelve Step program and how people work it in their lives, and how they went about going through them with a sponsor; tried doing them on their own (I wouldn't think it possible to be honest); and how people work them now that they have some sober time under their belts. There is a barrowload of information on the subjects on SoberRecovery. As I was reading it brought to mind my own experiences with this program. I only wish I had continued to tell my story on this forum from the beginning.

When I was banned from the My Way Out forum last week I signed up to a few other addiction based recovery sites and when I tried to sign up to this one (SoberRecovery) I was surprised to find that I already had a registered account under the name ''boysdoingwell'', which I think sucks as a username and would much have preferred my names on other forums ''Lunarer'' or ''Stevie'' as I was known on WQD. I noticed that I joined this place in June of 2014 – a month after I joined the old and now defunct WQD forum. For some reason I ditched the other forums and started to write exclusively for WQD and deleted all of my posts here. So I have actually been a member here for close to four years but can't remember joining or even seeing the site before.

But anyway – I'm wasting words. So I started on the Twelve Step program back in May of 2015 when I was around three months sober. Some might say that's a little early for someone who arrived at the meetings as hazy as I did but others would ask why one might want to wait any longer before getting well. I ''auditioned'' sponsors in a bid to find a suitable guy and then we got to work, meeting up once a week to work through the Book and talk about my homework assignments. I have mixed feelings about the whole thing.

I found all of the Steps to be helpful to me in the long term but since working with Dr. Bacon (my clinical psychologist) over recent months I have began to see how poorly qualified sponsors are in taking people through some of the program suggestions. With Dr. Bacon I have learned about myself that I am most likely to try to repair relationships where there is little promise of anything at the end of it. By that I mean that I tend to work harder to try to connect with people who are unlikely to be responsive. This is my Detached Protector at work and while a psychologist can spot this and stop me a sponsor just gets lost and can't rein it back in. I have this great knack of avoiding topics I feel to be possibly threatening by taking people on a scenic trip to other places. This way I avoid the subject. This also means I lose out on the opportunity to connect. My sponsor would often get trapped in these games of mine – games I wasn't even aware I played until last year.

By the end of 2015 I had worked through Steps One to Five. I had listed all of the people I was resentful towards, all of the fears I had, and my Sex Conduct Inventory, and my sponsor and I had discussed some of these lists. Rather than get all deep and personal in the way that psychologists do I found the quick and to-the-point manner in which we worked through the lists to be very helpful at the time. It forced me to look at how dysfunctional my thinking behind some of my resentments actually was. I noticed how I held onto grudges that just were not worth it. I realised that I resented most those closest to me. I began to realise that it was not so much failure I feared so much as it was success. Success would bring with it responsibility and I could not cope with responsibility. This is all good stuff and every bit of it I think I would have missed had I chosen to work through these Steps on my own.

By the end of 2015 I was smoking weed every day and my cave was a real dump. You would wipe your feet on the way out. Steps Six and Seven were asking me to look at removing my defects of character – these defects I had discovered in Steps Four and Five. So came responsibility again. If I was going to do these Steps properly (and there is no other way of doing them) then I would have to challenge my living conditions. So bad had they become by this point that I had little option but to quit the Steps. The lack of knowing how I would be able to clean up my house was enough to halt my Step work and AA participation. It wasn't until April of 2016 when a member of WQD contacted me to offer to come through to my town and aid me in cleaning out my cave that I was able to get my home liveable again and start working the Steps again.

My favourite part of the program (Steps Four and Five aside) is the part where we work on making amends. Step Nine requires that we go out there and actually physically, where possible, go out there and put the action in. I loved this at the time. Then I read a book called ''I Got Tired of Pretending'' by Rob Earll, and I started to get the impression that my motivation for working this amend Step so vigorously was rooted in sick behaviour more than it was in seeking solid recovery. I was trying to gain forgiveness from people I had wronged to that they would stop hurting me by removing the guilt I felt for my actions. This is known as false forgiveness. My belief systems at the time made sure that I did not make the most of this opportunity to make amends. With Dr. Bacon I have since learned that much of this seems to have been done with the best intentions from both myself and my sponsor but that the necessary due diligence might not have been carried out.

I quit midway through my Step Nine amends process. I started dated my partner and my sponsor was not happy with me doing anything like this (or going to college) until I had been through the whole of the Twelve Step program. After that I could do what I wanted to; until then I should put everything else on hold. I decided that the time for my sponsor and me to go our separate ways was upon us. Sometimes I think back on our time together fondly; other times I cringe.

So I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. Back in the 1930's and '40's – even 60's and 70's – I have no doubt that this program would have been invaluable to those struggling. It was invaluable to me here in the 2010's. I was new to being sober and this at least seemed like something I could actually be doing. It felt like I was putting action into my life and so effort into my recovery. But I do feel it also has its ideas rooted in a bygone era, an era totally ignorant of modern advancements in science and medicine. I do like the ideas behind Steps Four, Five, Eight and Nine (I can't comment on the final three as I didn't get that far) but feel that they are better done in a psychology session than over coffee in a sponsor's house or cafe.

There's this belief that professionals don't understand addiction like we who have lived through it do. I say that's bollocks. We're what they do. We're about as mysterious and unknown to them as a cat stuck up a tree is to a fireman/woman. They have a box ticking just like AA's program has a box ticking system. Psychology realises, though, that drinking and using is just a small sub-section of the problem. In my case the addictions were just one part of my Detached Protector coping mode; which is just one part of my bigger problems. AA never claims that the program will solve all your problems though. It just says it will help you stop drinking and it does this very well.

I can't imagine what life would have been like had I not tried this program when I joined AA. Now I am looking for a new identity – something away from the whole concept of ''admitted we were powerless over alcohol; that our lives had become unmanageable'' and suchlike. Overall I would say that the Twelve Step program is not the be all and end all but is an excellent ''stepping'' stone onto other things which do help bolster a strong recovery. I still go to church, which I started doing during Step Two, and I still try to put a little effort into my days, which I learned in other Steps. It got me into the idea of meditating.

I also know that I can never drink again, which I'm cool with, which I learned in Step One.

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Lunarer

Way over his word count this time, but it's a special occasion.

1823

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Friday, March 09th 2018 (Stevie Does Stand-Up)


All is good on the work front this week. Barry has been given a fright and he seems to be rising to it – afraid I might be true to my word this time and terminate our gentleman's agreement. This is something I would seriously consider now. I have relied on Barry these last couple of years. He single-handedly kept this company going for the best part of a year and a half and for this I will always be grateful. Still though – the time has now come for him to make the decision as to whether he wants to get up every morning (well – three times a week on the Tuesday, Thursday and Friday) and show up for work on time. If he continues to do this then all will be well on the working front for the both of us. Any more no-shows in the mornings and I shall have to make my mind up once and for all just what to do with our current situation.

Things don't look very good for my partner at the moment where her own work is concerned. She's had her issues with addictions in the past (let us remember that I met her in Alcoholics Anonymous) and so getting through this nursing degree has been an incredible challenge for her. She had to take a year out due to a nasty fall she had while drunk one night back in 2015 and she suffered a brain haemorrhage. This was finally the motivation she needed to stop drinking and she's been sober ever since waking up the morning after the night of the fall. I remember when she walked into the AA meeting after she was discharged from hospital. She walked into my old home group one town away in the opposite direction and had these huge bruises all over her face. I think we all jumped to the conclusion that she'd been beaten up.

So she took a year out to get herself sorted out and then went back for her third and final year for the 2016-17 term. There were problems with the work placement though and so things were dragged on a little. I went with her to the graduation party last August when she would have been finishing up and heading into the workplace but she has to complete the sign-off placement. It took until July to find her one and it didn't work out too well. So began a ten week spell where she was out of work while waiting for the university to find her a placement. On November 20th she started the placement she's currently at but there have been problems there too and she's been told that she won't be signed off for professionalism. This sucks. Usually students don't get signed off on their patient care but in this case it is her days off. It used to bother me until I decided it best just to support her. I know the shifts are long and hard going but sometimes I wonder why she can't just knuckle down and get it done.

There will now be an extension on her time and she now won't finish until after we come back from our holiday. This was supposed to be a joint celebration. Me turning forty and her graduating from university. It can still be both I guess.

I've never been to see a stand up comedian in my life. I've been to loads of gigs and things like that but never did I see any stand up. It wasn't my thing really. But things change when we get sober and already I have Russell Brand to look forward to next month and Kevin Bridges in September. On Wednesday the group at the college decided to book tickets for us all to go and see Frankie Boyle in August and so there will be a third stand-up comedian to see by the time 2018 is at a close. I like the idea of nine students heading to the capital for drinks, bonding, and some fun stand up comedy.

So the Lion. He who is my. . . what should I call him actually? What is his current relationship to me? I suppose he's my stepson but I've only met him once (despite dating his mother for more than eighteen months and living with her since November) and he doesn't live with me. But he will adopt this role at some point I think. Social workers tell me (through his mother) that he found me to be very likeable. This is good news. I was hoping to get him into the college studio on a Monday morning to take part in our sports show. The Lion is a very keen ice hockey fan and season ticket holder of our local team. It would be good for everyone involved if he was to come into the studio and take part. He'll get a look around the college and see that while school may not have worked for him the college is a very different environment. We have booked this in provisionally for one week on Monday. I really hope that this works. We'll see what happens.

I've been thinking about my Graded Unit. The lecturers are starting to put pressure on students to submit their pitch. I seem to be the only person who doesn't seem to know what the heck he's going to be doing for this. Let me point out that this is not because I suck as a student. It's just that nothing has really been jumping out to me shouting at me to get a pitch written. I have no doubt that when the time comes I will submit something of high quality.

I bumped into a guy I studied with last year and he got me thinking about maybe doing something along the lines of what it's like to study in the creative industries. What type of people want to study in these fields? It seems as though it is a big choice for people who are very non-academic. Perhaps I'll look into this. I'm not rushing things but, like I say, the lecturers are starting to breathe down the necks of those who have not handed in something yet.

But anyway – there is bread and milk in the shops again and almost no sign that there was ever an issue with snow and the chaos that was happening a week ago. Things look good for another day of cleaning windows.

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Lunarer

Going to three stand-up gigs this year. Count 'em – THREE!!

1121

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Saturday, March 10th 2018 (Motivation Finding Me)


So I'll be going to the sex therapy session this morning. My first of a series that will take place every second weekend. I don't think I'm going to risk writing about any of it here on the SoberRecovery website though. I just don't know the rules here well enough to know what would be considered appropriate and what would be deemed pushing it too far (not that pushing it too far would be my intention). I don't know any of the members here well enough to know how they might take a post on this subject. I did find a thread and so some people seem willing to talk about these issues a little. There are probably others but this one I found:

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...hatsoever.html (Absolutely ZERO sex drive whatsoever.)

But something tells me still to be wary about the subject, as well as some others, on this particular forum. I'll post it in full on the Ryver WQD forum but think that I'll edit out any parts of the post that mentions this ''sticky topic'' on SoberRecovery and just take the section out and replace it with the missing word count in parenthesis. I think it's a shame as it's a topic that even AA feels very strongly about regarding recovery, strongly enough to dedicate a Step Four inventory to the subject, but I'm not willing to take the risk here. And I'm not going to waste any more of these valuable words I have to make sense of my thoughts this morning. So moving on.

Barry the Bullet (my co-worker) had a hot date last night. I think that he went about things the right way this time. It's pretty typical for men these days, and women too for that matter, to go from one ''relationship'' to another without so much as a cooling off period in between. We just go from one to the other straight away. It's almost as if we can't bear to be ''alone'' for any length of time or even as though being ''single'' is in some way defective. What he's done this time is stay single and work on himself. He's spent the last eighteen months trying to figure out little things about himself. Rather than forcing a ''relationship'' by meeting everyone who will reply to him on some website he has waited. He's allowed it to happen naturally. I hope it works out fine. It's just one date but it could be the start of him getting back in the dating game because the time is right and not as some disturbing way to fill some void that he feels. All the best to Barry the Bullet.

I was quite lucky with my girlfriend in that I met her in the rooms of AA and so we knew each other's ******** and past problems and personality issues before we starting dating. I hadn't been with a woman in a few years before I went to AA and it wasn't anything I was looking for but happened more because the time was perhaps right. I couldn't have held down a relationship back in the last few years I was drinking as I was pretty troublesome. I was always drinking and using and spent most of my days and nights, especially in the last two years, in my cave on my own with the curtains shut and the lights out – just the way I liked it. Now I am learning that there are still some aspects of myself (such as the one I'm going to therapy regarding in just a couple of hours) but one the whole I am in a much better situation.

The Lion, my soon-to-adopt-the-role-of-stepson, will be paying us a visit tomorrow afternoon and so this will be the second time I'll have met him. A social worker will be there, as is the norm. According to them our last meeting went well and the lad thinks quite favourably of me. This second meeting will hopeful see both he and I come out of our shells a little more. We communicated a little during the first meeting but he was sitting next to his mum for the majority of the time while I was sitting next to the social worker – a social worker who understandably wanted to know some things about me and so I spent most of the time getting to know her, or letting her get to know me. When we went out for the meal in the afternoon (the social worker didn't come along for that, fortunately) I wasn't sitting directly next to him and so overall there wasn't a great deal of communication between us that day. This time I expect there to be a little more.

I have started painting the bedrooms in the flat in preparation for this coming transition when he will be coming to live with us. I don't know when this will be happening for sure but there is a child court hearing thing on Thursday this week and I'll definitely know more after that. It won't be happening immediately but it will be happening in 2018. All I can really do is move the rooms around and paint them like I said I would. We're going to be taking the big room and moving in there while he'll get the room we're in at the moment.

This is a good thing, having this extra room. I'll hopefully have some space in there to set up my guitar amplifier. Shaun from the college studied sound production with me last year and has been talking about getting himself an electric guitar since around the time I first met him. He's booked me in to go help him purchase one on April 07th and so I am hoping that this goes ahead this time and he actually buys one. He's been talking a lot about the instrument recently and I think that it is starting to take my interest once again. I would love at some point to get back into playing again but so far the motivation has not found me. I am hoping that by having this bigger room I can set out my instruments in one corner and visit there with headphones and computer to practise, write, and perhaps even try recording again. Maybe Shaun can get involved with this too.

I feel that what I'm doing at the moment with college and working isn't enough. I 'need' to get some of my old hobbies back as well as perhaps finding a couple of new ones.

I am hoping that this will be starting soon.

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Lunarer

Motivation finding him from all angles.

1128

Dee74

Its pretty simple really.

Anyone over the age of 13 can join up here; anyone at all can read the forums without joining.

The owners want this to be as family friendly a place, as far as topics allow, because we get a lot of youngsters here looking for help with family members.

We also want to be wary of triggering members.

A full list of our rules and policies are here:

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...ting-tips.html

Dee
Moderator
SR

Weather Forecast

Sunday, March 11th 2018 (Sex Therapy: Session One)


I was quite scared going into this if I'm honest. On one hand I was expecting something similar to a scene from Meet the Fockers while on the other I was at least expecting us to be given a female counsellor and have both women in the room gang up on me. None of this was the case. It was actually pretty relaxed.

The way it works will be like this:

Session 1: Introduction to therapy

Session 2: My partner will have a solo session to discuss her sexual history

Session 3: I will have a solo session to discuss my sexual history

Session 4: We start working on the problem

So yesterday was the introduction session, almost like a Step One, if you like. The next sessions seem like Step Five and then the final phase Step Nine. Putting action into it. I'd better do as I said I would and hide some of this for those reading on the SoberRecovery website.

(369)

Besides all of this we are asked about our relationship in general. We have our moments as any couple does but we've survived the transition from seeing each other to living together really well. With both of us being very new to relationships of this kind it has been difficult at times. My relationship history consists mainly of really unstable women, most of whom drank to excess and injected drugs (and sold them) in amphetamines and suchlike and so there hasn't been much in the way of real intimacy. Some of us aren't capable, at least not when we're using. I would say that this is the first real relationship I've had. It's not quite the same for me partner but this is the first she's had where drinking hasn't played a part and there hasn't been any kind of abuse.

It's really interesting though. I responded to a post on one of the forums asking what the toughest times during sobriety were. Now I find myself facing a new challenge and it will no doubt be very tough. I guess that every phase of sober development brings with it a new and interesting challenge. I think that this is the part of recovery that most people never really come to appreciate because they aren't starting from scratch. When people have with them from day one a secure home, partner, job, health, see their children or their children live with them still, a history of healthy relationships, and all of the other stuff most of us take for granted, then they lose the chance, through no fault of their own, to go about their recovery in the way I've had to: from the bottom up. I've had to start learning about things in my late thirties that most people learn in their teens. I'm in my first real relationship; I'm back at school studying; I've still never had a real job.

It's bad for life in general but it's great for recovery. People throw the word ''alcoholic'' around so much that it has almost lost its meaning these days. It seems as though anyone who drinks a little here and there falls under the umbrella of alcoholism.

Right then, moving on. This home of ours is a mess. We've been decorating the spare room so that we can move all of our things in there and use that room and then the Lion (he who will one day adopt the role of my stepson, of sorts) can have the room we are in at the moment, and so everything is lying all over the place. I will be continuing with this at some later stage of the day.

I was supposed to be going to church this morning for the usual Sunday service and also to put my name on the Bible Readers list but Rangers and Celtic kicks off at midday and so I have to get my priorities right. I'll be in the pub for half past eleven. Later this afternoon the social worker is paying us a visit with the Lion and so I'll get to meet this lad for the second time. We're hardly close but we are definitely being given the chance to bond in some way. I plan on making the most of it.

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Lunarer

Still hasn't had his name changed yet.

1107

Weather Forecast

Monday, March 12th 2018 (Happy Birthday, Dad)


He would have been sixty one today but he had to go and crash his car all those years ago and so only made it to twenty six. I remember when I turned twenty six it was incredibly anticlimactic. When I turned twenty seven it was more of the same. When I started to get into my thirties I looked at it a little differently. From then on I started to wonder why he was to be taken – him being such a wonderful guy and all that – yet I was spared and had to live through what was, in large part, a horrible existence. Where is the fairness in life?

When I started working with my AA sponsor back in 2015 when I was but a few months sober I was looking forward to getting through my Step Four and Five inventories and when I was asked one afternoon to take a look at my resentments when I got home and try to fill out the list as best I could for the following week there was no doubt in my mind who would be number one on the resentments list. Dad was the only real contender. There are/were plenty of people I resent(ed) but none were as obvious and prominent for so long in my life as dad. It was his fault that he crashed and so his fault that everything went down the way it did in my life and in the lives of those in my family.

So I thought that my sponsor would be in for a torrid time trying to help me out with this. What he did was quite surprising though and I came to accept that dad made a mistake. It was a mistake that cost himself and his family dearly but a mistake was pretty much all it was. Rather than continuing to look at how it affected me and fixate on this as an excuse to not have to take responsibility for things in my life I started to think about what he has lost. He died in October 1983.

Like a Virgin. The Madonna song. He never heard it. That's probably not a bad thing but think about it. Doesn't that song feel as though it's always been around. Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Gremlins. He never knew any of these movies were ever made. It's crazy and demonstrates quite well I think just how long he has been gone for given my age at nearly forty. Obviously he missed much more than a few silly films and songs in that he missed out on sharing his life with his family and getting to know his children. But I have come to realise that this was not his choosing. He missed out on all of this as a result of a mistake he made. That is all.

The interesting thing about all of this is that I had been to counselling before and we didn't really seem to know how to approach this subject. I have talked with Dr. Bacon about it in me length but we mainly have been working on how to get around the after-effects I am left with as a result of his passing and not really my feelings about the situation. What my sponsor did was make me look at the situation in a very different way. What is most striking about it was how simple it was. Dad made a mistake. This meant that my resentment towards him was completely meaningless. I was hurting only myself by keeping this resentment alive and as long as I continue with this then my father can never really be allowed to rest in peace. Perhaps now was the time?

And so his was the first name on my Step Eight amends list and when the time came I went to speak to his name in the Book of Remembrance at the crematorium and I haven't felt resentment towards him since. When I arrived in AA I don't think I knew just how full of hatred and unrest I was. I certainly had hope that their program of recovery might be able to help me but when we got started I began to wonder, or rather doubt, its potential. By the time I had worked through my Step Five I was feeling much better about life in general and by the time my I was on Step Nine and actually going out there physically and speaking to the many people I had hurt and wronged throughout my drinking life I was really feeling its power.

I find it very difficult to find situations and circumstances whereby people talk about their experiences of the Twelve Step program, be it in meetings of AA or on forums like this. I find this really interesting. I love sharing how counselling and psychology works for me and how the Twelve Steps played a part in my very early recovery but, try as I might, I find it very hard to find many others who seem to feel the same way, and can be bothered to write it all out. Some people in AA tell the rooms that their Step work is for them only, it's personal and so they don't talk about it. That's fair enough, I guess, but it's doing the exact opposite of what the fellowship is supposed to be doing. We are effectively AA members so that we can share our experiences of this program. I even find it tough at Step meetings and Big Book meetings to find people doing more than just paying lip service and actually telling each other their stories. It's what keeps me away from meetings these days I think.

I often wonder how my (ex)sponsor is doing these days. I have him as a friend on social media but he rarely posts and neither do I so communication is almost non-existent between us now. He became a father last February so he rarely turns up to meetings, I am told, other than his home-group, my old home-group where I learned all the sober tools of the recovery trade. Life is getting in the way. I think I made the right choice in asking him when I joined even if only for how he helped with my resentment with my dad. That allowed me to go on and take other forms of help a little more seriously and make the rest the history that it has now become.

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Lunarer

Off to college.

1106