Woke at 6. Good night. Got my occasional table (round, tripod legs, pallet wood) off the ground - cardboard mockup. Worked out the geometry for the legs. Need a pallet. Retrieved curtain brocade for waistcoat. Laura intrigued.
Carry on with Metanoia. Talk to F tonight. All good so far (6:21)!
Trying to track down Terry and / or Craig from Top Trucks - a van to help move the chairs on Thursday. No trace. Terry's old aol email doesn't work. Try facebook? Be nice to check in with them (and find out what's happened to Nick). Try ringing Top Trucks?
Definitely going to have a go at 7 days of no smoking when I've finished my tobacco. Cough / throat / chest seems to get worse every day. Also my "dislocated" right upper jaw is still very painful. Maybe I have an abcess. Teeth (what's left of them!) all feel fine.
Lunch yesterday was interesting. Eamon doesn't drink (at all) or smoke. Don't think David K drank much. Johnny says he's only drinking 2 or 3 days a week (self diagnosed pancreatitis - whatever it is from his description it sounds very like what I had before I stopped - pain in side and feeling bloated). Camilla made a couple of spliffs. We all laughed and shouted and talked and had a great time, and I don't think that had much to do with the spliffs (Eamon doesn't do that either). Started at 1.30, and we didn't finish up until nearly 6. Just goes to show. Nobody got boring or stupid or shouty.
B - month 8 - the mystery book
ADD - do I have it? my speediness and restlessness and inability to stick at anything, desperation for something all consuming to focus on (gliding, skiing, love, danger, risk). my OCD like behaviour. my response to fear, stress, anxiety, paranoia.
guilt / shame - gave this up 4 years ago. Embarrassed or ashamed about individual events, actions, but I abandoned guilt and just let my drinking et al rip. As in, OK, so I'm a drunk. So what? AA sort of functions on guilt and remorse. Hence my attraction to "bored of thinking about drinking / not drinking" - I just didn't want to spend the rest of my life, drunk or sober, beating myself up for being me.
addiction - immediate gratification. fags. junk tv. freecell
craving - it does come and go. it passes. I suspect fags will be a bigger challenge.
How do I stop one addiction /dependency being replaced by another?
I finally stopped (or accepted the 30/100 day challenge) because I just got fed up with feeling ill all the time, and doing nothing, going nowhere. Hangovers pass, alcoholic depression passes, but 24 hours / 7 days a week feeling shit (as in Naxos) is something else. And being out of it for most of my waking leisure hours. I've sort of done a lot of the AA 12 steps stuff over the last 15 years. What I hadn't done was decide that I do not want to drink / escape into oblivion ever again. And also get to a point (7 days, a month, a year) where alcohol no longer affects me physically or mentally. And hopefully, then, see clearly (. . . now the rain has gone).
B not sure about my giving up the fags. I think she's right, too much pressure and distraction from the main aim at this point. And upset that I said she was telling me to "buy more support" and got the price of a phone call wrong - it's $75 for a call, not $275. Tone is very difficult with emails and blogs - especially if you've not met the person you're writing to. I at least have the advantage of hearing her podcasts. Perhaps $75 would be money well spent. Anyway her lunch is going ahead on November 12, although we won't know where until the day before (security / privacy concerns).
Spent most of the day working on Metanoia, then took the car back to Ingrid, and cycled home in the cold and gloom. I've found two pallets, so I can make my little coffee table. And I've draped Laura's tailor's dummy with my material. Could make a complete suit, or a kaftan. It is lovely material, and not too smelly, despite the mice.
Talk to Felicity this evening, hopefully. (In the event not. When I texted her, she was just sitting down to supper - she suggested we try again tomorrow).
Posted this to B's blog tonight. And mean every word of it.
Carry on with Metanoia. Talk to F tonight. All good so far (6:21)!
Trying to track down Terry and / or Craig from Top Trucks - a van to help move the chairs on Thursday. No trace. Terry's old aol email doesn't work. Try facebook? Be nice to check in with them (and find out what's happened to Nick). Try ringing Top Trucks?
Definitely going to have a go at 7 days of no smoking when I've finished my tobacco. Cough / throat / chest seems to get worse every day. Also my "dislocated" right upper jaw is still very painful. Maybe I have an abcess. Teeth (what's left of them!) all feel fine.
Lunch yesterday was interesting. Eamon doesn't drink (at all) or smoke. Don't think David K drank much. Johnny says he's only drinking 2 or 3 days a week (self diagnosed pancreatitis - whatever it is from his description it sounds very like what I had before I stopped - pain in side and feeling bloated). Camilla made a couple of spliffs. We all laughed and shouted and talked and had a great time, and I don't think that had much to do with the spliffs (Eamon doesn't do that either). Started at 1.30, and we didn't finish up until nearly 6. Just goes to show. Nobody got boring or stupid or shouty.
B - month 8 - the mystery book
ADD - do I have it? my speediness and restlessness and inability to stick at anything, desperation for something all consuming to focus on (gliding, skiing, love, danger, risk). my OCD like behaviour. my response to fear, stress, anxiety, paranoia.
guilt / shame - gave this up 4 years ago. Embarrassed or ashamed about individual events, actions, but I abandoned guilt and just let my drinking et al rip. As in, OK, so I'm a drunk. So what? AA sort of functions on guilt and remorse. Hence my attraction to "bored of thinking about drinking / not drinking" - I just didn't want to spend the rest of my life, drunk or sober, beating myself up for being me.
addiction - immediate gratification. fags. junk tv. freecell
craving - it does come and go. it passes. I suspect fags will be a bigger challenge.
How do I stop one addiction /dependency being replaced by another?
I finally stopped (or accepted the 30/100 day challenge) because I just got fed up with feeling ill all the time, and doing nothing, going nowhere. Hangovers pass, alcoholic depression passes, but 24 hours / 7 days a week feeling shit (as in Naxos) is something else. And being out of it for most of my waking leisure hours. I've sort of done a lot of the AA 12 steps stuff over the last 15 years. What I hadn't done was decide that I do not want to drink / escape into oblivion ever again. And also get to a point (7 days, a month, a year) where alcohol no longer affects me physically or mentally. And hopefully, then, see clearly (. . . now the rain has gone).
B not sure about my giving up the fags. I think she's right, too much pressure and distraction from the main aim at this point. And upset that I said she was telling me to "buy more support" and got the price of a phone call wrong - it's $75 for a call, not $275. Tone is very difficult with emails and blogs - especially if you've not met the person you're writing to. I at least have the advantage of hearing her podcasts. Perhaps $75 would be money well spent. Anyway her lunch is going ahead on November 12, although we won't know where until the day before (security / privacy concerns).
Spent most of the day working on Metanoia, then took the car back to Ingrid, and cycled home in the cold and gloom. I've found two pallets, so I can make my little coffee table. And I've draped Laura's tailor's dummy with my material. Could make a complete suit, or a kaftan. It is lovely material, and not too smelly, despite the mice.
Talk to Felicity this evening, hopefully. (In the event not. When I texted her, she was just sitting down to supper - she suggested we try again tomorrow).
Posted this to B's blog tonight. And mean every word of it.
Day 24 today. When I started this I was very reluctant to sign B’s 100 day challenge. I was here because I felt I could manage to commit to 7 days, and then 30. 100 days seemed way too far and high and wide, almost like forever. Funny old B kept bugging me though, and each day sober I felt a bit more confident. So when I got to Day 19, which was my 65th birthday, I felt ready. Enough momentum, the little sober car rolling down the hill just fast enough, to sign up for the 100-day challenge and feel like I meant it. I just didn’t want to promise something that I didn’t really mean. I had to believe not only that I can do it, but more importantly, that I deep down really want to do it. The fact that it’s 100-days, and not forever, is very important to me. It’s another weapon to use against drinking me, who has gone oddly quiet. If he wakes up, when he wakes up, I can just say – “you have had the run of my life for at least 15 years. I reckon you owe me 100 days. And then we can discuss it.” I’m hoping, if I reach that day, that whoever or whatever drinking me is, will look like even more of a sham than he does now. Reading everyone else’s comments here is very salutary. Some of us are having a much harder time than I am. That may just be because someone knows that if it was any tougher for me, I’d have chucked in the towel by now. So reading comments from people who have tried, and relapsed, and tried again, and are clearly fighting very hard to stick with it, makes me feel very humble, and lucky, and frankly nervous. I don’t want to fail (I’ve done that so many times in the last 15 years) so I don’t want to feel smug, or complacent, or even safe – I have to stay alert, and keep my eyes on the road ahead, and not let anything, however trivial, distract me from just staying sober for 100 days. Actually my real goal right now is to stay sober for 42 days, which would be the longest continuous period of sobriety since my early twenties, but that bully B won’t give me that option. And the subjunctive is important – take nothing for granted, least of all another sober day. Thanks B, so much, seriously. x fatgit