NEOMARXIST

Picture the scene... You're sitting outside the beer garden with your boys on your 4th pint of beer and the sun beating down on your neck. You know you've got a gram of Coke in your pocket. You go to the toilet and rack up a fat line and glee-fully sniff it up. You walk out to your bench and continue to drink your booze and kick back and smile to yourself and comment how great life is. Spark up a ciggie and your sorted. For a couple of minutes. watching the cars drive past and the people walking past. You don' want to be anywhere else.

Back in the toilet again racking up two lines this time and you buy a double vodka and lemon and lime (it's summer afterall) and are just living in the second as you know it can' get much better but you're gonna try anyway.

This will go on for the next few hours and then the scrambling around for somebodies house to go back to to get properly on the sesh. Stop off at the shop to buy another 8 cans of beer and another pack of ciggies. Pick up some acid if there is any going or some E's or whatever else is knocking around at the time. Cue a messy a sesh at some kids house. Never really reached the pinnacal that was hoped for. It never did.

This is how typical summer nights arond the pub for a few beers would go for me on nights like tonight in the past.

I am really pleased that I know exactly how drinking would turn out for me. It was good back in the day but now it really just isn' worth it. I see many people drinking and talking about drinking, especially peers as it's pretty much what any 24 year old does to some extent when it's actually sunny in England.

I know that I'm an alcoholic and addict so this really helps me. I've said it many times but what keeps me gratefully sober on nights like these is the
total acceptance that I'm an alcoholic Most other people aren;t and that's OK with me. I am glad that I had the experinces that I had and I am also glad that I know what the score is for me. Euphoric recall and any other slight memories get nothing but a laugh from me now.

It truly is great having no reservations about my path. Something which couldn' be said when I was living in the second on drink and drugs.

It's a different kind of buzz in sobriety. It isn't a buzz at all really but more of a warm, contented peace of mind and total gratitude for seeing the light when darkness had swallowed up so much. It's great.

Grateful for being a recovering alcoholic. Life on Lifes terms 'one day at a time'.

peace. Happy Sober Friday night.

Ronan

Ouch that description is frighteningly accurate. Maybe switch a few of the drugs around or put them in a different order! ...lol. You can almost taste that drink and you're so right about that whole "4th pint" kind of buzz. The thing is that buzz lasts for minutes and then like you said you're ordering something stronger (surely if 4 pints is making me feel good, 4 double vodkas will make me feel even better!). Because that buzz is never enough for us. It's back to a house to sit around and say "man, I'm so ******" over and over and *think* you're having a good time.

A friend of mine texted me the other day who is in Australia and told me "Man, this is so good we're all doing ketamine it's like 'Fear and Loathing'!". The thing is, I've been there. It's just a few people sitting around a house off their faces and not making any sense. Ever been around people like that when you're sober? Jeeze..

It was rare that I had a drink or drug experience that made me think "man this 4 day comedown is so worth it".


Great post Neo

StevenD

Wow Neo and Ronan, you both sure hit the nail on the head for me. I have been there so so many times. I could actually feel myself enjoying the drink and the drugs and then feel myself going through the HORRIBLE days afterward and needing to do it all again in order to cope. Then I'm broke and in absolute despair. 'Fear and Loathing' indeed.....I am grateful that today I have no desire to ever return to fear and loathing again.

Thanks for your posts - you've helped me to remember that what I'm fighting for is so worth it.

Kjell

Yeah but what about the times you couldn't get any coke? What about the times after a bender, you are crawling around your house looking for spilled coke on the carpet, mistakening paint chips for rocks?

Remember how awful the feeling was when you ran out, but you couldn't fall asleep yet? ...and then those darn birds chirping just to remind you you're supposed to be a work in two hours? ...and how much $ was just spent?

...and how often it turned out to be a bunch of losers, sitting in an apt, shoving drugs up their faces.

I always wanted and expected drinking and doing coke to end up like a rap video. A handful of times it did, most of the time is was something as described in Neo's post, but then sometimes it's like I described it. Pathetic.

wichitalineman

Neo, man... amazing post!

Your post was so fitting today. Super sunny, lovely people out and about, and proper foreign country hot (ha!). As I was walking home from work this evening, I saw the usual blobs of people clamouring on the sidewalks, pints in hand, speaking at excessive volume about this and that, world cup or the other. I was really glad that my plan involved going home and resting.

Your post was an excellent fit for this beautiful Friday. I plan on waking up early tomorrow and going for a run. I wonder how many peeps down the pub about now have that on their itinerary!? GREAT POST, Neo. Loved it!

And Kjell...

"I always wanted and expected drinking and doing coke to end up like a rap video."

Dude, I almost pissed myself laughing out loud when I read that! That was a CHOICE quote, my friend. Hope you don't mind, but I am going to be stealing that one... !

NEOMARXIST

1 year today exactly since I lost my 37 days sober after my first proper attempt to stay sober. I had my medical to get my driving license back and I went out and sat with some 'mates' and was drinking in the town centre and generally chilling. The booze wasn't really buzzing me like I hoped for really. Went back to someones flat as usual and blacked-out and woke up in my bed. Cracked open a can of lager as soon as my eyes opend and downed another 3. Staggered round the house slurring and went round the shop and was drinking super-strength at 9.00am. Proceeded to get totally wasted and posted on SR I think.

Turns out I had got kicked out of the flat I was in. My drinking and incoherent behaviour was even too much for dole-dossing ex con layabouts! LOL. That's how you know you're an alcoholic. They even felt sorry for me apparently so i found out a month later though. I had to 'apologise' to get in the flat and I behaved myself as I was just full of Cocaine and cannabis + booze spread out over a long period of time rather than a mad binge in 5 hours. It was apparent that I am a Jekyl and hyde where alcohol is concerned. I knew I was an alcoholic and so did everybody else.

Went back drinking a few more times untill I finally had enough.

Grateful to be sober.

Peace

HideorSeek

Neo, your post was insightful, as always. Somewhere along the way, the reality didn't match the expectation and all I was left with was despair and self-loathing. We're a quick fix society...we want things instantly, we want to feel good, we want to be always riding the crest of the wave. Sobriety gives me all of those things now and the beauty of it is that it just keeps getting better. That's the honest-to-God truth. I had and have to work at it, but the rewards are so much more meaningful and lasting.

intention

Looking back with hindsight many of us can see that those relapses, however awful they were at the time, served a purpose - to get us where we are today into recovery.

I remember reading your posts when you went back out drinking. You've come a long way since then. Well done.

Kmber2010

Good share Neo. Made me reflect on how good that first one always felt. The booze hitting me and I lit up a smoke and feeling some warm and tingly and great. Felt so good from the first two I began chasing that feeling, afraid it would end. Drinking more and more to the point I would be weaving to the multiple trips to the potty. To the point that I would go behind a bush because I was too lazy. Waking up feeling sick, beyond depressed at my behavior (of what parts I could remember) and then quickly pouring another bright and early and hoping no one saw me as I guzzled it. Leave me alone was the attitude since I hated myself.

Feels like I have a gift in sobriety. I no longer fear, hate nor loathe. I don't have to live that horrid life and I know now after my relapse exactly what to do.

Its funny but I don't even think of drinking anymore. I know what I do and what I am with the booze. Not anything I want to be again.

Like you, I became something sooooooo different then me. Like another person took over my body.

Thx for the post as it allowed me to reflect.