Awake at 4.45. Actually a nice night, I slept well although I got up a couple of times for a pee. I always thought stumbling around and crashing into things in the middle of the night was because I was pissed. Turns out after 2 or 3 hours deep sleep, it takes me a while to stand up straight. Maybe it's old age.
My ears don't hurt. Before I stopped, they were really itchy and scratchy and I was constantly attacking them with biro lids (the best) and cotton buds. Now they're fine.
Yesterday I went to the barber and had my beard trimmed. Ingrid should be pleased.
I thought I should try to go back to sleep (I'll only be tired, and therefore vulnerable, later, if I don't). But I went to bed before 10pm and fell asleep almost straight away. So I've got up. Tea, fag, crap. I'll meditate before walking the dogs. Breakfast. Mass, or St Michael's. CoOp for tonic and cranberry juice. Drive to Pol's via Sweffling to drop off the standard lamp. Ask Pol if she has a small table she can spare.
Yesterday was I think my toughest so far (although not very tough really, more sort of boring, once I was home and had done all the things I wanted to do). Started smoking weed too early ("it's Saturday, a day off"). I need things to do. What's wrong with Metanoia? Better than freecell, reversi, even go. Check out B's offerings. I've done a week, time to bring in the reinforcements. Check the bank (need enough for the party, and to survive to November 25, when my pension should arrive, and get a regular payment from Axa/Phoenix set up). Do a spreadsheet. That'll kill some time.
Bought sober jumpstart - 7 days. US$275 - 2 x 60, then $25 until October 29, I think. Definitely do a spreadsheet.
1st email from B (auto-response, she's taking the weekend off). Log into Chrome properly, forget whatever I had stored locally, time to move on. It's all pre-sobriety in any case. Do a proper cash flow spreadsheet from now to end November.
Walked the dogs around the Mere. A lovely cloudless morning, mist over the reeds. I started thinking about my motivation - the horrors of the last few weeks, months, years. Trouble is, they fade so quickly, I feel so much better (and therefore "worthier", "normal", "not an alcoholic") the power of those memories just dribbles away. Always before, the sober future looked uninviting. Worthy, healthy, dull, fundamentally not me. I need (and I think I do) to see my future as bright, inviting, full of possibilities and joy, and it does not contain alcohol (not because it doesn't - I am naturally joy filled, relaxed, loving, energetic, engaged - I do not owe alcohol anything). As B says, keep my eyes on the road ahead, don't waste time looking in the rear view mirror. Tried describing my demon to B (it's not a wolf) - a lounge lizard in a DJ dripping sensible, civilised, rational, normal suggestions quietly in my ear. That's not right. Not Gollum (any more), more the wicked uncle in the Screwtape Letters. Clever. No shouting or screaming, at least not so far.
Then meditation, packed up the car, breakfast, and off to church at St Michael's at 9.30. Very nice. Got healed, after communion. I touched my lip to the cup, no wine passed my lips. Nice hymns. Good crowd. Vicar rushed up to me after, and remembered me. I said I was thinking about the choir again now I'm retired (another thing for Pol to sneer at me about when I told her, because I would be the only man in the choir and how could I possibly manage - she is funny how she has to get at me and put me down so much. Her first response when I told her I'd left the CoOp was had I been sacked, which of course I had. ) Then popped in to the CoOp, gave Matt his invite, and bought some more cranberry and tonic and off to Pol. Got here about 12.30.
Nice lunch in the garden then cracked on and papered the ceiling by dark.
Richard Harvey rang - he and Mia will do music at my party. £50. Long chat with Jane, she seems OK, and somehow not so paranoid about Shires and the Chinese. She's repaid all but £110 of the £835 I lent her back in April.
Barely saw, never mind thought about, the booze in Pol's cupboard. And it was nice to spend the day with her, not drinking. We just chatted mostly and she read me 3 good poems she'd had included in a Wivenhoe poets anthology, "Freedom". Sales of Katherina cracking on, she's doing a radio play at Paycockes on Nov 2nd. I will come. I will be sober.
My ears don't hurt. Before I stopped, they were really itchy and scratchy and I was constantly attacking them with biro lids (the best) and cotton buds. Now they're fine.
Yesterday I went to the barber and had my beard trimmed. Ingrid should be pleased.
I thought I should try to go back to sleep (I'll only be tired, and therefore vulnerable, later, if I don't). But I went to bed before 10pm and fell asleep almost straight away. So I've got up. Tea, fag, crap. I'll meditate before walking the dogs. Breakfast. Mass, or St Michael's. CoOp for tonic and cranberry juice. Drive to Pol's via Sweffling to drop off the standard lamp. Ask Pol if she has a small table she can spare.
Yesterday was I think my toughest so far (although not very tough really, more sort of boring, once I was home and had done all the things I wanted to do). Started smoking weed too early ("it's Saturday, a day off"). I need things to do. What's wrong with Metanoia? Better than freecell, reversi, even go. Check out B's offerings. I've done a week, time to bring in the reinforcements. Check the bank (need enough for the party, and to survive to November 25, when my pension should arrive, and get a regular payment from Axa/Phoenix set up). Do a spreadsheet. That'll kill some time.
Bought sober jumpstart - 7 days. US$275 - 2 x 60, then $25 until October 29, I think. Definitely do a spreadsheet.
1st email from B (auto-response, she's taking the weekend off). Log into Chrome properly, forget whatever I had stored locally, time to move on. It's all pre-sobriety in any case. Do a proper cash flow spreadsheet from now to end November.
Walked the dogs around the Mere. A lovely cloudless morning, mist over the reeds. I started thinking about my motivation - the horrors of the last few weeks, months, years. Trouble is, they fade so quickly, I feel so much better (and therefore "worthier", "normal", "not an alcoholic") the power of those memories just dribbles away. Always before, the sober future looked uninviting. Worthy, healthy, dull, fundamentally not me. I need (and I think I do) to see my future as bright, inviting, full of possibilities and joy, and it does not contain alcohol (not because it doesn't - I am naturally joy filled, relaxed, loving, energetic, engaged - I do not owe alcohol anything). As B says, keep my eyes on the road ahead, don't waste time looking in the rear view mirror. Tried describing my demon to B (it's not a wolf) - a lounge lizard in a DJ dripping sensible, civilised, rational, normal suggestions quietly in my ear. That's not right. Not Gollum (any more), more the wicked uncle in the Screwtape Letters. Clever. No shouting or screaming, at least not so far.
Then meditation, packed up the car, breakfast, and off to church at St Michael's at 9.30. Very nice. Got healed, after communion. I touched my lip to the cup, no wine passed my lips. Nice hymns. Good crowd. Vicar rushed up to me after, and remembered me. I said I was thinking about the choir again now I'm retired (another thing for Pol to sneer at me about when I told her, because I would be the only man in the choir and how could I possibly manage - she is funny how she has to get at me and put me down so much. Her first response when I told her I'd left the CoOp was had I been sacked, which of course I had. ) Then popped in to the CoOp, gave Matt his invite, and bought some more cranberry and tonic and off to Pol. Got here about 12.30.
Nice lunch in the garden then cracked on and papered the ceiling by dark.
Richard Harvey rang - he and Mia will do music at my party. £50. Long chat with Jane, she seems OK, and somehow not so paranoid about Shires and the Chinese. She's repaid all but £110 of the £835 I lent her back in April.
Barely saw, never mind thought about, the booze in Pol's cupboard. And it was nice to spend the day with her, not drinking. We just chatted mostly and she read me 3 good poems she'd had included in a Wivenhoe poets anthology, "Freedom". Sales of Katherina cracking on, she's doing a radio play at Paycockes on Nov 2nd. I will come. I will be sober.
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