The Sober Life

  Anyone who has watched Star Trek will know you can’t have your deflector shield on all the time as it will pull too much power from the main engine. Superheroes can’t keep force fields on for long as it weakens them. A castle’s ramparts will not withstand indefinite battering. The analogies go on and so it appears does urge to have a drink at Christmas. I had a drink on Christmas day. Dun dun dun der. I feel a little blasé about it now but at the time it was a defeat of sorts. I have no one to blame but myself and my overconfidence. If I had given up Alcohol because I was an Alcoholic it may be a different story. I may still be pissed right now but I gave up alcohol to seek and lead a better life for myself and those around me. I knew there would be pressures leading up to Christmas. This year there were less than normal. We were pretty much trapped in our houses and there was no Christmas party at work. However it is still the season of ethanol excuse engines, we even encou...

     You last found me prancing around topiary versions of giant smiling Pacman heads, throwing petals over my shoulder that transformed into butterflies before they hit the ground. I had spent a month and a half off booze and was convinced I would stay this happy forever in the pink cloud. Well you guessed it I didn’t look where I was going and ended up feeling like I had just walked off the side of a cliff. For no reason that I can pinpoint my mood changed and I was outflanked by sadness. The first day after posting th e last blog I felt a little numb. Things weren’t right but things weren’t bad. The second day three lots of exercise had only generated enough endorphin s to fill a gnat’s thimble. HITT training followed by an hour of yoga followed by a 25 mile bike ride. There was nothing. My superstition started to kick in and I thought by posting a Blog about how happy I was I had basically laid down the gauntlet to the universe to do its worse. And thank you the next ...

                                             “I knew have should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque”  Bugs Bunny I guess we all know what triggers are. They are like the flush of feeling you get when you come across an old photo you haven’t seen for a while. You get lost for a split second and are transported into the past. It is the same for me but triggers don’t just hang around in draws. They ride on people’s voices, they surf on arguments, they explode in party poppers and resonate in the bells of celebrations. In themselves these shadows of former feelings do not offer a direct threat to my sobriety. The problem is when they remind me of previous reactions and responses, this can lead to a manifestation in the here and now. Old responses quickly excuse current actions and future projections.  I know I need to tune in as in the distance the alarm bells ...

  Question: What is the next best thing to having a drinking problem? Answer: Knowing you have a drinking problem. Question What is the next best thing to doing anything about a drinking problem? Answer: Being aware of it. Awareness is the new frontier of humanity. It is the acceptable antechamber to the world of action.  So I have left the comfy confines of my mothership Apollo Drunknik, where I mindlessly guzzled anything put in front of me. I am acclimatising in the “still having the odd beer” airlock, looking through the porthole at the alcohol free world. I can’t quite make out if it is a blisteringly scorched desert with very thin oxygen levels or a land of plenty with an almost limitless horizon.  I am aware now the glass in my hand is my second or is my third? I really should be keeping count. I really should start paying attention. The trouble is it starts losing all its fun when you start to think about it. It is like when you start having sex for the first time...

I Drink Therefore I Am “I drank because I was happy and now I drink because I am sad” (Haydn Bradshaw) “If I had all the money I’d spent on drink, I’d spend it on drink" (Vivian Stanshall) When I drink it is pretty much all I do. From the moment the wine cascades into the bottom of a large glass and swirls around its glorious clear bottom that is it for me. The glass will be placed an arms length away and I stare at it for a few moments like the eyes of a cat on an absent minded mouse. It is mine and I can have it anytime I want. It is now game-over for thinking too much and game-over for achieving, game-over from self inspection or being a “productive” human being. Thank God I made it to this liquid full-stop. The trouble is that the craving gets worse and the time between the drinks gets shorter and at the end of one of these phases I could pretty much dispense of the pleasantries of the glass.  Like the line delivered in Apocalypse Now by Robert Duval to Lance the Surfer. “Son...