zerothehero

I was just reading through some journal entries from recent (Thanksgiving weekend) drunken days. This one seems worth reading when that alcoholic voice tries to convince me I can try drinking moderately again. I wrote it while waiting for pancakes in a restaurant at noon after days of partying - fun partying, I might add. Maybe it will help as a reminder in case your AV won't shut up:

sometimes I think about where I am
sometimes I don't think at all
sometimes I think about snow on burnt trees
like black hair on white skin
stumps for moles
earth maybe not as resilient as we'd like to believe

sometimes I think about who I am
sometimes I think about what I've become
older than expected
living a decade past the suspected end of the world
clinging to desperation
forced to keep on

sometimes I think about where I've been
Chile Canada Ireland Italy
heaven hell purgatory
sometimes I remember
sometimes I don't
sometimes I want to
sometimes I wish the memories
would lose themselves
like hikers in Patagonia
holding copies of the lost planet guide

sometimes I think about private jokes
when something has meaning unique to an individual
or pair or group of individuals
sometimes I think the world is everyone's private joke

the guy at the table next to me
in this quiet cafe
is speaking in rhythm
pauses between each gasp
of his oxygen tube
age

sometimes I think about what I've been
child friend husband brother
malcontent
I should be more grateful
I should be more adventurous
I should quit shoulding
no I shouldn't

sometimes I think about Lyme disease
ticks and chiggers and mosquitos
and west nile virus
and bacteria
sometimes I wash my hands 50 times a day
but sometimes I pick my nose like an idiot

If there ever was a time when I should be happy
it is now
I drink for fun
I drink to numb frustration
I drink to loosen the tongue
I drink to forget

sometimes I think about feeling trapped
my job is a joke
it's an embarrassing reality
that I'm afraid to shed
situations limit options
situations limit dreams
situations limit creativity
situations make me rethink
re
eval
u
ate

then again
sometimes I think about how lucky I am
a house with no mortgage
decent pay
sometimes I think it could be a lot worse
I'm not rich
I'm no longer young
I'm always in physical pain
but I'm not screaming

"alcoholics are really sweet people
but they just can't seem to handle life"
so says the old man with the oxygen tank
"they're ineffectual - they can't get anything done"
say his friend
"they're hiding"
she says
"I don't understand"
"it's a real curse"
"you bump into the damnedest things in life"

sometimes I think it's long past time to quit drinking
sometimes I think I can't
sometimes I think alcohol is my friend
sometimes I think it's satan's lure

I love the first moments when alcohol hits the system
I hate those first moments when I wake up sweating
sometimes I don't think it's worth it
sometimes I wish I could be more moderate
sometimes I wish I would die

Aellyce

It's great that you wrote a journal even in your drunken times. Wish I had done that instead of writing long and complicated, crazy emails to my friends... many of them enjoyed reading them though (not even knowing I was drunk while writing) and complained when I started to say I want to change my habits and the insanity. I think they liked reading them as they would enjoy horror or sci-fi... Wish I had written a journal during all those years, unfortunately I lost most of the emails because I would delete them from my mailbox on mornings waking up hangover, full of regrets and shame. I have written dream journals though periodically since I was a teen, those can also be interesting to re-read for a psychoanalytic expedition.

What you have posted here is pretty complex and has many details that could be topics for long discussions one-by-one, but the main pattern that stands out to me is simply how complicated and messy the addicted mind is. Shifting through a myriad ever-changing disturbing mental states, thoughts, and emotions all over the map.

I also like your signature here - totally agree. I think we often tend to exaggerate the importance of achievements and expect special rewards for them, and when they don't come (or we are unable to feel the rewarding effect from these), start looking for something more intense, like drugs or alcohol. I think in becoming sober, we need to relearn how to appreciate small and simple things like feeling good and at peace because we've completed a task or have done a job well.

Thanks for sharing this

zerothehero

I was bleary from drinking the night before. Just a free association rooted in a sentence stem. I shared it cuz it spoke to how down I would get the day after a binge, and a reminder when my AV starts romanticizing the whole experience.

Aellyce

Oh yes the romanticizing...

Aellyce

And yes I am sure you feel down after a binge... so do I myself and most of us.

I just wanted to give you a feedback: if this is your low - how is your high?! I mean, drug- and alcohol-free, natural "high" on life?

(I'm sure you posted this if you are truly sober because you also know it's not "low" in quality.)

zerothehero

It's a writing exercise, and it's intended to be poetry but a first draft. A lot of my journal entries are free association ignoring conventions like spelling and punctuation. I thought it my interest others in recovery. And yes, today makes 18. Thanks for your feedback.

Aellyce

I experimented with poetry and short stories in my teens and early twenties and was quite successful back then. Would love to try again now, but don't think that I have the level of vocabulary and general language skills in English (it's not my first language) to produce the quality I would want to with fiction writing and poetry. So I mainly write science (which is my profession); it requires technical vocabulary and knowledge of a certain field rather than a widespread expression of personal thoughts and feelings. I do tend to write science similarly to what you've described, though. First draft just let my ideas flow freely about hypotheses, data, interpretation of data... I write the first drafts to myself also as a free association looking at experimental evidences and reflecting on them. Then lots of polishing.

Good luck on your adventure with sobriety! Today I'm on day 7 from alcohol.

zerothehero

Congrats on Day 7. I have found non-native speakers to often write in interesting ways native speakers would not. But that's just me.

I've written some songs in Spanish, and I've been told my simple and direct use of language provides clarity originality. I'm a bit of an imagist (though not in any strict sense), so I kind of think if you can create the right image in the reader's mind, you've connected. Your writing in English is way past basic fluency if you ask me.

Aellyce

Yes I've also been told that some of the best features of my writings (any kind, I seem to see the same pattern in both my personal conversations and scientific writings) is clarity and the simplicity that probably derives from it.

Originality as well, yes
I personally have tended to experience this best from grant writing (=putting down your ideas and visions > make money). Ironically, the unfolding of these "original" ideas can be quite different from the unfolding of "reality"... if that makes sense to you. However, I have had quite good results with these so far, for some reason.

Thanks for your comment - I'm always looking to improve my grammar and general language skills in English

zerothehero

You changed your avatar, too. I liked the aurora cabin.

Are you saying the ideas don't necessarily come to fruition?

Aellyce

No no no...when I change avatar here, it never really reflects what I objectively think should be changed in the outside world, my work, etc.

I change avatars on personal websites like this based on my mood and imaginations
Will send this to you now and continue later

Aellyce

Yes the Aurora patterns.. One of my oldest passions, and I am determined nothing could hold me from having a vacation at a site where the Aurora lights can be observed and photographed...even any potential noises associated, recorded.

Let us analyze them later. This is my old craze.

Aellyce

I've just re-read your original post. You know... I personally don't think it really brings across the AV vs healthy self dialogue. The pattern I see in it very intensely (and I think this is why I responded in the first place to this particular post of yours): a seeker on a never ending "mission" to find explanations, solutions...

Do you know the Dark tower series by Stephen King? I got into them several years ago following the hints of someone I was very close with back then. I would have never thought about reading SK very much if he had not recommended, saying I actually reminded him of the writer all the time with my mental processes and "craziness".

So re-reading what you posted has reminded me of the Dark Tower concept in King's novels (and in my own life) a lot. I think this is deeper than just AV talking to us. Might be totally wrong of course, it's just an interpretation from me today.

Hope you're doing well

zerothehero

Not familiar with the Dark Tower series, so I'm not clear what you're getting at, but you've piqued my curiosity.

You're right that it's not really the AV talking. If anything it was a voice trying to emerge from the AV. My thinking when I posted it was that when my current AV tries to convince me going back to drinking will be okay, I can read this and remember that I was actually courting suicide the day after a really fun night of partying. The guy with the oxygen take was for real. He was sitting at the table next to me in the cafe with two other people, and while I was freewriting I heard them start talking about alcoholics. In retrospect, this was a seminal moment for me. Unbeknownst to them, I was writing those statements in quotes as they were saying them, and I was reflecting on the fact that I so often felt "ineffectual" due to having alcohol sap my energy and creativity. I wasn't getting anything done, and I really wasn't handling life well. From my perspective, they were speaking truth. They were eating lunch while I was eating breakfast. I did feel like I was hiding and I did feel cursed. It was the damnedest thing.

Aellyce

I think it can be very useful to keep writings or other reminders of your old days when you struggled and were feeling down and desperate. That would recall the emotional and even physical memories of the phases you had experienced back than and might provide a sharper contrast with the present (or any "future present"). Negative reinforcement. However, I think sometimes it can also serve as a cue to old states even if in the moment when you wrote it you were in a bad shape, via recalling a host of other associated memories of events that you experienced as pleasant (eg. the fun partying the night before). These kinds of things can really induce cravings and relapse in some people... You will see how it works for you in the longer run, from all I know it's quite unpredictable, although you will definitely learn what works for you with time and experience, trial and error.

Yes I can imagine how it was weird, uncomfortable, but probably also an eye opener to sit there and perceive the reality of addiction in a dual way: within yourself as well as hearing those statements from other people around, from whom one was even old and ill himself. I experience versions of this on a daily basis due to my job, which deals with drug abuse and addiction. Kinda strange that my whole reality revolves around the same thing, but it was my conscious choice several years ago and I am very happy with it. (And very unhappy how alcohol led me to neglect my job.) Yet sometimes I question whether it's not a little too much/deep into the same universe? But it feels like the right choice to me, especially now that I'm seriously attempting long term sobriety and am contemplating many different ideas how I could potentially use both my knowledge and personal experience to help others. I like this goal because until recently I've always been focus on acquiring information, studying how everything works, but have done very little for the direct benefit of others and for causes larger than my own immediate interests.

I'll write you about the Dark Tower idea another time, I think you will find it interesting. Hope you are having a good day today

Aellyce

I just played free copy-paste with your original post +
----

sometimes I think about where I am
sometimes I don't think at all
sometimes I think about snow on burnt trees
sometimes I think about who I am
sometimes I think about what I've become
sometimes I think about where I've been
sometimes I remember
sometimes I don't
sometimes I want to….
sometimes I wish the memories...
sometimes I think about private jokes
sometimes I think the world is everyone's private joke
sometimes I think about what I've been
sometimes I think about Lyme disease
sometimes I wash my hands 50 times a day
but sometimes I pick my nose like an idiot
sometimes I think about feeling trapped

sometimes I think about how lucky I am
sometimes I think it could be a lot worse
sometimes I think it's long past time to quit drinking
sometimes I think I can't….
sometimes I think alcohol is my friend
sometimes I think it's satan's lure
sometimes I don't think it's worth it
sometimes I wish I could be more moderate
sometimes I wish I would die

It's the world of illusions
and Zero the Hero
is up to his ears
in the mysteries ...
No solution to speak of ...
round & round & round & round & round

zerothehero

"Balance truth is the. Of truth however, a lie is, which may not the opposite be unbalance." Nusas Tonsag

Aellyce

You are skewing yin/yang. I'll run this by my Chinese girlfriend

Aellyce

Beyond playing with language...

How are you doing? I think you are a bit older than me and a few days more into sobriety based on our posts. I'm really struggling trying to stick with directions - my own or just general wisdom. This obsessiveness is crazy. And my cravings are insane

zerothehero

I'm in my early 50's and today makes exactly three weeks sober, tho I've been thru this before. On phone and busy but will return this evening.