Hodd

N9 Edmonton, that’s the London Edmonton and not the Canadian one.

I doubt I’ll ever go again. I found a lot of the fans just drunk and loud. It’s a shame as a lot of nice normal people go too.

Be123

Hey Tap - I will PM you the name of my team, there are so few supporters it will identify me for sure But yes, its a local club thing, my son is fourth generation of males who I have been to a game with!

fini

tap, you have mentioned a couple of times that your drinking is just a symptom.
AA agrees with you: “Our liquor was but a symptom....” (quoted from BB)

and you talk of replacing yourself with someone else; again, this is up AA’s alley.

oddly, i think you’d hate it, but my suggestion is to check that all out.
not that you asked ;-)

Delilah1

Hi Taplow,

I am gladness to see you posting, and sorry to see you drinking. The seizures are definitely concerning, and may be worth a trip to the doctor. Would it be possible to use some of your money toward rehab? Maybe that’s what you need to get some sober time back.

I’m thinking about you, and I know you can do this.

❤️ Delilah

taplow

You wouldn't believe the attention seeking post I was just writing but luckily saw sense and deleted.

Thanks fini that's interesting. I don't know what BB is though. Those two points you mentioned make a lot of sense. I wouldn't hate it looking into it though. It's a shame I give the impression I'm that kind of person. But maybe I give the impression I'm that kind of person because I am that kind of person. Thanks again.

Hi Delilah1, yes the seizures are a problem. I am undergoing treatment for them. I'm going to alter medication if they get seriously worse. Much thanks for your concern and I hope you're good.

I'm going to try to stay off here today for various reasons. Look after yourselves everyone.

taplow

I said I'd stay off here today but I just noticed one of my favorite films is on YouTube and want to share it. I don't know if this is allowed. I just want to do something cheerful.
Anyway I'm going out to find my inner self. Sorry everyone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNWrjlPnfU4

Fusion

Is your other thread defunct now, Tap? I hope not, because Venuscat wrote to you, over there.

taplow

Hi Tatsy, yes, I think that thread's over. I did read it actually. Hope you're okay.

Obladi

Hi tap,

The BB is the "big book" of Alcoholics Anonymous, aptly named "Alcoholics Anonymous."
You can pick it up for about $10 a number of places via online shopping. You can also read it for free if you go to just about any regional AA website. If you can't find it, let me know and I'll send you a link.

I was one of those who had contempt prior to investigation, but once I read the first 164 pages to gain an understanding of the program, my mind started to change. It wasn't an all at once sudden aha for me, but more a matter of being willing to give it a shot. Kicking and screaming along the way because my experience didn't seem to align with that of the majority, because there are grammatical and punctuation errors, because I had to disentangle the God of my upbringing from spirituality. I think you should give it a read. Personally, I don't care much for the stories in the second half of the book, but that's just me and my stubborn insistence on seeing things how I see them and gaining confidence in that.

Another influential read for me was "Rational Recovery; A New Cure." The guy who wrote the book (Jack Trimpey) is adamantly opposed to recovery groups, particularly AA, but I actually don't find the two to be incompatible at all. I posted links to you previously but don't know if you checked them out. I'm happy to send them again if you like.

I don't know if you think I'm one of the ones you pissed off, but I'm not. Hopefully I didn't **** you off by seeming to post gobbledygook a few days back. Stripedy tigers have to hang together.

O

Fusion

OK Tap, thanks for letting me know. I'm as alright as I can be, outside circumstances prevailing. I'm trying to adopt a positive demeanour, in the hope it will influence external future events, LOL. One day I'll realise I can only, truly, influence myself, but that's a positive, for me. Please don't call me Pollyanna, it's been done already!

How goes things with you on the drinking and life front, today?

taplow

Thanks Obladi. I'll have a look. I read a lot and always welcome something for nothing. I've not read today as I started drinking straight away as there was still 2 cans in the fridge. I didn't even go to bed last night, just passed out on the sofa. I've been up 8 hours and I've only eaten 1 slice of bread but drank a fair amount of lager. I don't know why I'm saying that. I don't want to post here when I'm in the process of drinking anymore. Soon I'll start to go over the edge. I have to be okay tomorrow as I've got something to do.
As for the books I'll have a look at them. I know haven't read them before. Please send me the links.
Are you one of the people I pissed off? Why, what did I say? I think I **** everyone off. I've got a reputation on here for reacting badly as well. I didn't know that but I now notice that a lot of people before they say something to me preface it by saying that they know I won't like it. I think that shows I'm narrow minded and that's not good.
I can't remember you posting gobbledygook. Now you mention it I do remember reading something you posted that I didn't understand but I would have put that down to my limitations.
Is it stripedy? I prefer stripey now I think of it. Whatever, we've earned our stripes. Yes we'll stick together. Look after yourself.

taplow

Hi Tatsy, I'm a bit all over the shop. I've just eaten my 2nd slice of bread though. I've just started watching this film again - I love it. Come on, "I'm a poached egg, without a piece of toast. Yorkshire pudding, without a beef to roast, I'm a haunted house that hasn't got a ghost when I'm without you." Surely the best song ever written.
Yes I agree with what you're doing; make yourself good and you will make your world good. Are you Pollyanna? Is she the one who had plaits or the one who worked in the slaughterhouse? I can never remember.
Thanks for everything Tats. (Did you notice I've gone down to one syllable.)

fini

BB is Big Book of AA, freely available on internet or cheaply bought at any AA meeting or any AA office, which most bigger towns have.
nah, it's not so much about the impression you give of what "kind of person" you are, though that does play into it, but more about how i hated it. hated it though i didn't know it. but was certain i knew more than enough to hate it.
cause that's the person i was.
and also, because you seem to have decided, from the sounds of it, that you don't want help nor could anyone help you.
AA has what it calls a suggested program, one which leads to recovery from alcoholism, of which liquor is but a symptom.

Delilah1

How are you doing Taplow? Thinking about you.

Obladi

No, tap, you didn't tick me off. I know you can get pretty curmudgeonly when you're drinking and for some reason that doesn't put me off at all. I think all of that crustiness and cutting wit is a front for someone who is afraid that he really is so different that he can't be helped. I guess because I once was one of those people and sometimes still am. But not about drinking anymore - I know there is help if I'm willing to figure out what I need and verbalize what that is. I'm learning.

Here's a link to where you can read a PDF version of the "Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous: https://www.aa.org/pages/en_US/read-...lve-traditions
linked with the permission of AA World Services Inc

Here's the Rational Recovery (AVRT) crash course: https://rational.org/index.php?id=155

Here's the start of a very long discussion about AVRT right here on SR: https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...-part-1-a.html (Addictive Voice Recognition Technique (AVRT) Discussion-Part 1)

taplow

Thanks Delilah and Obladi. I'm on a train. I don't like typing on my phone so apologies if there's any untoward wobbliness and not composed with my telltale mighty vigour. There's a man sitting opposite who looks strangely familiar, he, reminds me of country and western star Kenny Roger's only half the size- maybe the result of medical negligence or maybe a futuristic scientific experiment gone wrong, it does happen.
Normally id delete that but it's taken me so long. Delilah, I'm ok thanks. Likewise Obladi. I hope you're both good. Look I'm going to have to come back and post again to answer you because I'm nearly at my station.
speak Later.

taplow

Hi Delilah, I'm back home now. I'm feeling a lot better today thanks. I don't think I drank that much yesterday. it seemed like a lot more than it was - it struggled to go down. It's one way of saving money I suppose. I felt very strange in the night, like sort of overcome. I mean physically, like something bigger than me was going to overwhelm me. It was like being engulfed in a great pudding. These aren't really the sort of terms they learn at medical school. "Tell me, do you ever get the feeling that you're being engulfed in a great pudding?" "Well now you come to mention it doctor."
Thank you for showing an interest in me Delilah. I hope you're doing okay. I suppose no news is good news, or more likely it's bad journalism.

Thanks for your post Obladi. I've had it tatooed on my chest, but only the other way round so I can read it in the mirror. Thanks for those suggestions and links - maybe tomorrow, I hope. I'm not sure I am afraid of being different as my view of a lot of other people isn't the highest lately. But then being so different I can't be helped, maybe you're right yes. I am different but I often feel like I'm in a military procession thinking that I'm the only one in step. And I've absolutely no reason why I should think good about myself. But I don't feel good; I've just stopped feeling bad. Why assess myself? What purpose does it serve? It's just a needless word accumulation. It doesn't alter anything. I think this or that about me. What good does that do I ask you.
So knowing what help I need and verbalising it sounds very difficult I think. But I'm going to go all out. It's now or never. I really must escape before the great pudding engulfs me. I hope you're good Obladi. You always seem to be.

taplow

I think that drinking is just a symptom of something bigger. In fact all that stuff is - drugs, gambling, obsessive behavior and all the rest of that palaver. Just a diversion, an itch we need to scratch. Why fight the AV when the core of it lives on. Why worry about, I don't know, tapering or cold turkey or this method or that method or whatever, when really what causes it - the essence of what we are - lives on. Really it's a question of what drives us. Isn't the same drive in all of us only finding different degrees and directions?
My showing off function seems to be playing up lately. I've lost my sense of humour or rather it's just mutated. Yes seeing the fact that you can't be any different leads to the understanding that any attempt to change is taking you down the wrong path because any path is the wrong path. You are just where you are. That sounds a bit Eastern mystical but it makes sense to me - but then it would as I was dropped on my head when I was a baby.
I'm starting to think that whatever I want to be is just a story I've made up somewhere along the line. I see that the wish to be different to what I am is just carrying a fantasy around in my head. This goal is a self created fiction that doesn't correspond with the reality out there. Also I'm becoming aware that other people are just me but with different trousers on. Probably nicer trousers but that's the limit of it.
We all create the world in the head, but some have to work harder to compensate for the reality they've found themselves in - I'm referring to nutcases and oddballs (and there's a lot of us about.) All they've done is move farther away from the reality as seen by other people. The outsider has become even more isolated.
I think "outsiders" when emerging into the harsh light of self awareness compensate for the horror by over developing their internal world. They recreate their own version or the world outside and then thinking it's real, use all the usual avenues to escape from it. But that's impossible to do because they're only trying to escape from themselves.
Maybe I've got to work it out a bit more.
Today I was arrested for vandalism. I was in Nottingham, you know where Robin Hood lived. He wasn't real so know why the Sheriff of Nottingham kept hunting him down I don't know. I loved RH when I was a kid and it's given me a lifelong love of medieval history. Anyway I spray painted on the wall, "Marie I love you and Diego come home." Now I don't know a Marie or a Diego but wouldn't it be wonderful if by pure chance a Marie who had never been loved and a Diego who had runaway from his family happened to pass by and see it. She would feel wanted and Diego would return to his stupid family - "Quiero ir a casa" or something. I'm in court on Monday.

Obladi

I'm glad you're going to go all out, tap. It really is the hardest thing EVER, but it seems to be worth it - just to be rid of the vast greyness of my life is a relief. Now I've got some vast emptiness, but you know that was there all along - I was just filling it up with vodka.

Yeah, that's a pretty serious concern, the pudding expanding from your pants to engulfing you.

You know, I am doing well. Which is astounding. I've been trying to beat this thing for years and it's only now that I feel like I "got it." In three weeks, I will have been sober for six months for the first time in I can't remember how long. That's not to say I don't have my moments or hours or days. I do. Had a panic attack hit me last night out of the clear starry sky and I've honestly got no idea what that was about. Writing this reminds me that I need to do some forensic examination of what I might have thinking/feeling yesterday. For me, that's the ticket out: figure out what's bugging me, where it came from and why it's bugging me. Ignoring symptoms like a panic attack is good for my beast but highly destructive to me.

So I guess that's what's good about assessing myself, and it might be true for you also. It's not a judgement thing. There's no good/bad to my feelings, there just are feelings that signal something that needs examination. That investigation does alter things, in my experience. But withholding judgement is pretty important to make that work.

I hope that wasn't too opaque.

O

Obladi

I agree with you that drinking for many of us is a symptom of something bigger. It certainly was for me. You're gonna need to get reading now, because I'm compiling a whole list of assignments for you. What you just wrote put me in mind of Lance Dodes' "Heart of Addiction." He contends that drinking is a subset of compulsive behavior used to try to establish some form of control. Something like that, anyhow. It's a good read. I'll remind you later after you get through the other stuff.