A long chat with Aden at 3 in the morning (9am his time) and a poem, the first proper one for months, about my evening in Orford.* Unhappy with my conversation yesterday with Felicity. Is she unhappy with me for sharing this blog? How can I make it anonymous, when shared publicly? (I think I now have done. If you know who I am you should already know me. If you know who I am and you don't already know me, I think we may have just fallen down the rabbit hole).
I didn't turn my light off until 4am - stayed up drinking tea and reading Metanoia. Had I turned in before midnight (when I fell asleep watching some documentary) I would probably have slept until 7am, which is when I woke up anyway, after 3 hours sleep. Stupid boy, but nice to talk to Aden on the other side of the world.
My bit yesterday about feeling proud of myself. I started thinking about what made me unhappy and uncomfortable with AA. It seems to me that AA is essentially dis-empowering. It deprives us of agency, tells us we are unable to do anything about our drinking, relies on us diminishing ourselves in our own eyes. We need the group, meetings. We cannot trust our own judgement (if we could, why are we drinking?). AA (or the meetings that I went to) seemed full of people endlessly and repeatedly confessing their drinking stories and their humiliations (especially the guest speakers), always looking backwards to what we have escaped from, but somehow never looking at how our future without alcohol or drugs can be positive, life affirming, good for us. It's not that people and AA don't talk about this, but the focus always seems to be on our weakness and incapacity, our sinfulness and incapacity. If we achieve anything, succeed in beating the booze, it is not our qualities that helped us do that, but the higher power, the group, the meetings. AA confirms everything Nietzsche said about Christianity (a "slave" religion). I still think the 12 steps are great - the first time I came across them, I thought they should be for everyone, we should all go to AA meetings whether we are drinkers or not, and I still do. But whether it is because the model is fundamentally flawed, or because it is distorted by the people in the meetings,it ends up being unbalanced. I loved the compassion, acceptance, love, lack of judgement, in the meetings, and it's that I suspect that draws people in and keeps them coming back, if they do. But I wonder how many do, really (come back, that is). Of all the boozers who go to a meeting, what proportion stay with it, and get sober? You meet people in AA who have been sober for years, decades, yet still they come, feel they have to come, and whose whole lives seem to revolve around AA and being sober. And then there are those who have been coming for a while, a week, a month, a year. And those who appear once or twice, or for a few weeks, who then drift away (like me) - how many of those are there? In a sense it doesn't matter - if it works for 10%, that's good. But if it discourages the 90% from getting help somewhere else, if they leave believing this is the only way, and if you fail at this, you're doomed, and there's no escape from your alcohol problem except through AA - which is very much the way it is sold (I never heard anyone in a meeting suggest there might be a better way for someone to try) - how much damage are they doing, and to how many? It is a kind of religious fundamentalism and exclusivity, reflecting the worst aspects of Christianity, as well as, perhaps, some of the best. I refuse to be defined by the fact that I ended up drinking much more than was good for me, and that the only sensible response to that, is not to drink at all. Fine, now move on, get a life. Get back my life, the one I was meant to have.
These are two truly crap pics of a model I made yesterday using a birthday card, school protractor, compasses and a ruler, of my first sober project - I'm making an occasional table out of dismantled pallet wood - dismantled the pallets yesterday - it has a hexagonal top and tripod legs with a fantastically complicated joint where the three legs intersect, hence the model. I haven't played with compasses since I was at school, and yet sitting there, it was like yesterday - within 5 minutes I had drawn a circle, divided it into 6,which gave me both the shape for my table top and the spacing / angles for the legs. I haven't had such simple fun since I played hide and seek with my children on Mull.
and this is project number 2. It's an old curtain, hanging on my landlady's tailor's dummy. It's going to become a) a waistcoat b) a three piece suit c) a kaftan. Probably only a) as I don't go to enough fancy dress parties. I am going to see a band in London on Nov 23 - be nice to wear the waistcoat.
The material is a lovely pair of silk brocade curtains. I found them in my previous landlady's garage (she was a boozer too, but controlled - died last year aged 84, looked like a kipper - smoked as well). I put it in my caravan, but, being a boozer, never did anything about it. Kept thinking about it, planning to do something, but somehow, a drink or ten always intervened. I went to retrieve it a couple of days ago and disturbed a small family of mice. Actually they didn't look as disturbed as me. Not too much damage done - a bit smelly and a couple of holes. My current landlady is a dressmaker, so I'm hoping she'll show me how to use her sewing machine. I used to do a lot of hand sewing (converting old jeans into knickerbockers etc etc) but it's a pain, and takes a lot of time.
My new profession on google and fbook is "idling".
What this has to do with being sober for 26 days I leave you to ponder, dear reader.
------------------
Hungry? no. Angry? yes. Lonely? don't think so. Maybe. Tired? definitely.
Incredibly angry with Pippy, and the fucking cat. And Flost too a bit, I think. And B. Whacked Pippy twice for totally pointless whining and scraping the door, so hard I hurt my hand. And now the bloody cat's moaning. All Diana's fault. She's trained them to behave badly. I can't remember the last time I hit an animal. Laura said Pippy ran all the way up the drive and out onto the road yesterday. Take him for a walk this afternoon. Get my exercise quotient. Go and look at Paul's chair. And remember, it's not the poor chap's fault.
Which is a) oh dear, old sober and tired me b) worrying c) means it's past time to meditate.
And funny ironic, because I'm just reacting to B's sensitivity to criticism, by being just as sensitive myself. First her response to my comment on MY blog, that she wanted me to buy more stuff and a phone call cost $275 - she did try and sell me more stuff, she's always selling her stuff, I don't mind, but as I'd just paid her $275 for the 7-day sober jumpstart and year's penpal, I resented being asked to spend even more money, which I don't really have, on the second 30 day instalment. And I corrected my error about the cost of a phone call - it is only $75. And I've bought her book, her first year sober pdf, her novel instaLLments, her podcasts, given her a tiny present, and I'm going to her London lunch (you'll probably uninvite me now, if you're reading this). Good grief!
Second, to my feedback on her novel instaLLments. Pointing out spelling errors (no, she says that's Canadian, and this is anyway a first draft and RH will do a line edit for her - hope she has a better editor than Joe did). Seems like she just wants warm fuzzies from her girly fan club. I have fucking bought her fucking book, and I keep telling her how good it is (apart from the Canadian spelling) - and I mean it. Just frustrated at having to wait for the next batch of 20 instaLLments.
Hope I'm not driving her to drink. Mr.B must have the patience of a saint. Shame I never found a Mrs.B. Perhaps I did (she is/was, after all, Ms.B) - but maybe I just pushed her (Ms.B) too far. And Ms.B definitely does not have the patience of a saint, but it is a lot easier and more fun to be sober with her than I anticipated.
Feel a whole lot better getting that off my chest. No wonder B swears all the time. I know just what she means.
Don't like feeling constrained about what I write on my blog. Maybe I should remove / disguise all references to B. and totad. Which I have now done. And perhaps a few rules of engagement for B as well, such as, if she has a problem with my blog, leave a comment on my blog (or just don't read it).
* and here it is:
I didn't turn my light off until 4am - stayed up drinking tea and reading Metanoia. Had I turned in before midnight (when I fell asleep watching some documentary) I would probably have slept until 7am, which is when I woke up anyway, after 3 hours sleep. Stupid boy, but nice to talk to Aden on the other side of the world.
My bit yesterday about feeling proud of myself. I started thinking about what made me unhappy and uncomfortable with AA. It seems to me that AA is essentially dis-empowering. It deprives us of agency, tells us we are unable to do anything about our drinking, relies on us diminishing ourselves in our own eyes. We need the group, meetings. We cannot trust our own judgement (if we could, why are we drinking?). AA (or the meetings that I went to) seemed full of people endlessly and repeatedly confessing their drinking stories and their humiliations (especially the guest speakers), always looking backwards to what we have escaped from, but somehow never looking at how our future without alcohol or drugs can be positive, life affirming, good for us. It's not that people and AA don't talk about this, but the focus always seems to be on our weakness and incapacity, our sinfulness and incapacity. If we achieve anything, succeed in beating the booze, it is not our qualities that helped us do that, but the higher power, the group, the meetings. AA confirms everything Nietzsche said about Christianity (a "slave" religion). I still think the 12 steps are great - the first time I came across them, I thought they should be for everyone, we should all go to AA meetings whether we are drinkers or not, and I still do. But whether it is because the model is fundamentally flawed, or because it is distorted by the people in the meetings,it ends up being unbalanced. I loved the compassion, acceptance, love, lack of judgement, in the meetings, and it's that I suspect that draws people in and keeps them coming back, if they do. But I wonder how many do, really (come back, that is). Of all the boozers who go to a meeting, what proportion stay with it, and get sober? You meet people in AA who have been sober for years, decades, yet still they come, feel they have to come, and whose whole lives seem to revolve around AA and being sober. And then there are those who have been coming for a while, a week, a month, a year. And those who appear once or twice, or for a few weeks, who then drift away (like me) - how many of those are there? In a sense it doesn't matter - if it works for 10%, that's good. But if it discourages the 90% from getting help somewhere else, if they leave believing this is the only way, and if you fail at this, you're doomed, and there's no escape from your alcohol problem except through AA - which is very much the way it is sold (I never heard anyone in a meeting suggest there might be a better way for someone to try) - how much damage are they doing, and to how many? It is a kind of religious fundamentalism and exclusivity, reflecting the worst aspects of Christianity, as well as, perhaps, some of the best. I refuse to be defined by the fact that I ended up drinking much more than was good for me, and that the only sensible response to that, is not to drink at all. Fine, now move on, get a life. Get back my life, the one I was meant to have.
These are two truly crap pics of a model I made yesterday using a birthday card, school protractor, compasses and a ruler, of my first sober project - I'm making an occasional table out of dismantled pallet wood - dismantled the pallets yesterday - it has a hexagonal top and tripod legs with a fantastically complicated joint where the three legs intersect, hence the model. I haven't played with compasses since I was at school, and yet sitting there, it was like yesterday - within 5 minutes I had drawn a circle, divided it into 6,which gave me both the shape for my table top and the spacing / angles for the legs. I haven't had such simple fun since I played hide and seek with my children on Mull.
and this is project number 2. It's an old curtain, hanging on my landlady's tailor's dummy. It's going to become a) a waistcoat b) a three piece suit c) a kaftan. Probably only a) as I don't go to enough fancy dress parties. I am going to see a band in London on Nov 23 - be nice to wear the waistcoat.
The material is a lovely pair of silk brocade curtains. I found them in my previous landlady's garage (she was a boozer too, but controlled - died last year aged 84, looked like a kipper - smoked as well). I put it in my caravan, but, being a boozer, never did anything about it. Kept thinking about it, planning to do something, but somehow, a drink or ten always intervened. I went to retrieve it a couple of days ago and disturbed a small family of mice. Actually they didn't look as disturbed as me. Not too much damage done - a bit smelly and a couple of holes. My current landlady is a dressmaker, so I'm hoping she'll show me how to use her sewing machine. I used to do a lot of hand sewing (converting old jeans into knickerbockers etc etc) but it's a pain, and takes a lot of time.
My new profession on google and fbook is "idling".
What this has to do with being sober for 26 days I leave you to ponder, dear reader.
------------------
Hungry? no. Angry? yes. Lonely? don't think so. Maybe. Tired? definitely.
Incredibly angry with Pippy, and the fucking cat. And Flost too a bit, I think. And B. Whacked Pippy twice for totally pointless whining and scraping the door, so hard I hurt my hand. And now the bloody cat's moaning. All Diana's fault. She's trained them to behave badly. I can't remember the last time I hit an animal. Laura said Pippy ran all the way up the drive and out onto the road yesterday. Take him for a walk this afternoon. Get my exercise quotient. Go and look at Paul's chair. And remember, it's not the poor chap's fault.
Which is a) oh dear, old sober and tired me b) worrying c) means it's past time to meditate.
And funny ironic, because I'm just reacting to B's sensitivity to criticism, by being just as sensitive myself. First her response to my comment on MY blog, that she wanted me to buy more stuff and a phone call cost $275 - she did try and sell me more stuff, she's always selling her stuff, I don't mind, but as I'd just paid her $275 for the 7-day sober jumpstart and year's penpal, I resented being asked to spend even more money, which I don't really have, on the second 30 day instalment. And I corrected my error about the cost of a phone call - it is only $75. And I've bought her book, her first year sober pdf, her novel instaLLments, her podcasts, given her a tiny present, and I'm going to her London lunch (you'll probably uninvite me now, if you're reading this). Good grief!
Second, to my feedback on her novel instaLLments. Pointing out spelling errors (no, she says that's Canadian, and this is anyway a first draft and RH will do a line edit for her - hope she has a better editor than Joe did). Seems like she just wants warm fuzzies from her girly fan club. I have fucking bought her fucking book, and I keep telling her how good it is (apart from the Canadian spelling) - and I mean it. Just frustrated at having to wait for the next batch of 20 instaLLments.
Hope I'm not driving her to drink. Mr.B must have the patience of a saint. Shame I never found a Mrs.B. Perhaps I did (she is/was, after all, Ms.B) - but maybe I just pushed her (Ms.B) too far. And Ms.B definitely does not have the patience of a saint, but it is a lot easier and more fun to be sober with her than I anticipated.
Feel a whole lot better getting that off my chest. No wonder B swears all the time. I know just what she means.
Don't like feeling constrained about what I write on my blog. Maybe I should remove / disguise all references to B. and totad. Which I have now done. And perhaps a few rules of engagement for B as well, such as, if she has a problem with my blog, leave a comment on my blog (or just don't read it).
* and here it is:
A visit to OrfordI drive to Tunstall Forest, planning to walk through the pines and birches; but it was late, so I went on to Orford, promising to give the woods their proper due another day. Henry Plantagenet's castle stands, a proud and solitary keep, pale cream and orange, roman windows softening its vertiginous walls. rock doves wheel around the turrets, the ground below tumbled and ditched; a light in a window, the last of the staff, the end of their day. down Castle Hill and on to Broad Street, turn right for the Quay as the sun sets over Sizewell and the sky a gaudy orange curtain hanging above the sea wall and the Alde, the yachts on buoys, the dinghies on their trolleys, resting on the hard, waiting for the return of the tide. I walk back to the Jolly Sailor a quiet pint, a cigarette, and home to bed. For thirty years I've waited for this pleasant place's summons.
-----------------
So angry tonight - took Pippy for a walk and let him off the lead. He promptly disappeared. P texts me asking her to ring her. Why can't she ring me? Because I've dismantled my phone to extract my pics of Orford and my lovely walk this afternoon. Doh. Even B's audio podcast makes me angry. So angry I can't even remember what she was talking about. I really can't remember when I last felt like this - a row with Magda on Corfu in 2014, maybe. Or that bastard Clive at Jean's (although that was more than justified and I was terrified of him too). And I may be hungry, too. Got back from my walk and Jack, my fellow lodger (rigging at Sizewell) is doing a major cook. A ham sandwich didn't hack it. Too late to make my hotpot. Have an omelette and wedges and salad instead. I've bought the one man tent I saw on Sunday (£30 inc delivery). Next stop Tunstall. Walk there (it's about 3 hours according to Google) and camp.
And is all that anger just because I had 3 hours' sleep last night?
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