17th April 2015

'One day at a time' - ludicrous, ridiculous, patronising, bullshit.  Yet here I am, six years later, one day at a time, with not a drop of alcohol passing my lips.  Accepting sobriety, accepting alcoholism, accepting powerlessness, accepting self.  Grateful for sobriety, grateful for alcoholism, grateful for powerlessness, grateful for self.  Loving my sobriety, loving my alcoholism, loving my powerlessness, loving my self.

Last night, I put myself to bed, I did not fall into it.  I awoke this morning, as I have done for the last six years with no fear for the consequences of yesterday.  This is my today because of the AA programme and the support of my fellow members.  May God bless you all.

The tools of recovery are there if we are able to take them, to grasp them, to hold onto them as if they were life itself.  For they take us onto the path towards the life that we can have, that I can have.  I have been able to let go of the future by accepting my past and living in my present.  By handing my life over to the care of God 'as I understand him'.

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.  We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.  We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.  We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.  No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.  That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.  We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.  Self-seeking will slip away.  Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.  Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.  We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.  We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves
Are these extravagant promises?  We think not.  They are being fulfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.  They will always materialize if we work for them.

Alcoholics Anonymous p83-84

Week 36

Last week I watched the latest release in the Hunger Games series.  It was one of the last films that Philip Seymour Hoffman made before he died of a drug overdose.  For me, the death of an addict has particular significance.  With the still sober addict, it is a moment to celebrate their survival from this disease but for the addict in relapse, a terrifying reflection on the power that it has.  It was made all the more poignant by the fact that Woody Harrelson was in the film playing a known alcoholic living in a prohibition state.  I often wonder if society provides alcoholism with an acceptable face.  The 'heavy drinker' is a well used term, someone who likes a drink (or many) but, to all intense and purposes, isn't believed to be an alcoholic.  They are well known for long evenings at the bar, hangover fed mornings and wasted weekends.  Jokes are told of their latest antics, their smart retorts and even, the accepted gaps in memory.  Not knowing how they got home, where they left their phone, wallet, handbag; all told with smiles on faces.  They get sponsored through a dry October, friends and colleagues admiring them for their resilience.  They may be 'just' a heavy drinker but they may be an alcoholic in hiding, living on a knife-edge.  Their every waking moment looking forward to that first drink when they arrive home, when their day will wash over them, the woes will disappear, the turmoil in their head will calm and clear.  It's accepted as the norm, they think of it as the norm, they only know others who also consider it the norm.
The mental obsession doesn't have to be all day, it can time itself to kick.  In my later stages, I went to the supermarket every day on the way home to get a bottle of wine if there wasn't one waiting for me.  Often I would pick up something else, not to make it look better but just because I was there.  I have a lot of friends who would share their buying across various supermarkets and off licences, aware that they might attract dubious attention.  It never occurred to me that anyone would question why I would be there, it's not as if it was a bottle of vodka every day.   Woody's character carries a drink everywhere, strangely seems to be surviving prohibition very well, just waiting for it to be over.  An addict in relapse is a very different beast.  To have known recovery, to have lived in sobriety and to have lost it, absolutely terrifies me.   The idea of returning to a world that I now understand on a completely different level fills me with absolute dread and fear.  Fortunately, this doesn't have to be my journey and I can work on a different one.  The death of a famous addict brings the message into the media that there are ways of getting sober and gives recovery programmes a chance to be heard with the hope that this can save the life of others.   Through the sharing of experience, strength and hope, this is our way.

Week 31

Straight into the exercise this week, was lovely to hear a friend describe my posting gaps as a drought.  Please do prod me if at any time you feel I've been absent too long, nods to Mike and Matt who are doing that already.

Exercise 16.....
Go back to the material you spread across the floor and pick a gap. Write a description of what the weather is doing at the time in a way that might be relevant to the scene.... (Possibly more difficult to do when it's not printed and suggests that she may have been expecting more material than I have, but onward)

This one is quite difficult, I haven't found out what time of year Frankie is having her 'day' in and don't want that decision driven by today's fabulous winds.  I also don't have a gap between writings as I only have the beginning. So, I'll start and see where the weather appears......

Frankie looked through the window, watching the trees leaning in the wind.  Finn was running through the leaves having a ball, he loved this time of year.  He would happily spend hours making piles of leaves, sorting them into colours or shapes depending on his mood, and then running through all of them, giggling hysterically and throwing himself onto the ground.  Frankie loved it too.  The changing colours of the countryside.  She loved how some trees would take the lead and start to change while others clung onto the green of summer.  It was if they were striding off towards winter, bravely defiant, not worried about the loss of their clothing, while the others couldn't bear to go, wanted to stay where they were, fearful of what lay ahead.  The bushes along the lanes would join in, telling her which fields were colder, which felt the winds and where she would find shelter from them too.  The wind was up today, odd gusts taking Finn's piles away from him while others would bring extra bounty.  The arboretum was one of their favourite haunts, time and space for the two of them, to walk the dog, to clear her head.  Coffee and cake with no boundaries that would need effort to contain Finn.  The rain was beginning to join in now, an occasional shower passing over, the only sign of it the drops appearing on the glass in front of her.

Acupuncture was great today.  I feel re-energised, much like last week, ready for whatever's coming.  It has to be said it's making me a bit feisty, almost poky at times.  No longer taking what's thrown at me but starting to throw some of it back.  Possibly not so great for those nearest and dearest who do the most throwing and, therefore, receiving.  Hopefully for me it's an initial only point.  A first step into the ring of life, where previously I've been sat on the edge not knowing how to join in.  I have to come in now on the terms that I created before I can change the rules.  Step up to the plate and then learn how to drop my fists, how to say 'enough is enough', how to be peacemaker.  My acupuncture described it as lying on the track letting the trains roll over me not even aware that they were there.  Now I have developed an awareness of them, I need to learn how to roll away and then I can get up.  Maybe even climb onto the platform and leave the station.  He suggested that I could buy a ticket which I thought was a bit rash, especially for those souls still lying down out there.  We had a great discussion about the amount of energy it took to maintain anger in the body as well as the amount of energy to then contain it, which is apparently more than the same again.  It's fabulous to know that I'm finally processing mine, letting it go from its years of being boxed up in a very small, very well hidden box.  I am completely grateful for where it has brought me but its time is over, I'm ready to let it go and move on.  It has managed my life for long enough, there needs to be change.

Week 30

There's been a lot of loss around over the past few weeks.  I have been with friends who are grieving the passing away of a friend, a brother, a cousin and most recently a mother.  A stalwart of AA passed away a couple of weeks ago, several years after forecast by the medical profession, and was buried on what would have been his 33rd sobriety birthday.  I think I've mentioned before that we define a winner by those who carry their sobriety to their graves and he has become one of our great winners.   He was always putting out his hand to the newcomer, made a point of saying hello to everyone individually before a meeting and would always offer his experience if he felt it was of relevance.  It is thanks to many people like this that the rooms keep people sober, that the programme keeps working its magic and that we can celebrate and trust in the passing of a good friend.   We learn, through experience, how lives are changed and how families recover.  We face into this world with renewed hope and we can deal with emotional challenges through the support of the programme.
It has been a difficult week for me but nothing compared to what it would have been if I'd been drinking.  My head has been 'off on one', filling itself with noise so I've been to a new meeting and re gathered myself.  To be honest, I am struggling at the moment, elements of my life are feeling chaotic and unmanageable.  I am praying for support, praying for others, absorbing my emotions and giving them space.  What I'm not doing so well is handing them over to my higher power and trusting that the right thing will come.  My patience and tolerance are perhaps in need of more practice, the 'perhaps' would suggest they need a lot more practice.  There's a great line in a film that Morgan Freeman makes as God, he says "I don't bestow patience onto you but I will give you plenty of opportunities to practice patience".  There are many times when I look upwards and say that surely this is enough practice by now, it seems not.
Looking in my 'Novel in a Year' book, the ten weeks of writing has come to an end and I should be gathering my bits together.  It needs to be said that I haven't done much more than I've posted but I will gather it together and see what I do have.  I do have some additional scenes in my head that I haven't written down so I will see about working in them.
Love to all who have lost loved ones over the last few months, remember the special times.
RIP Peter, with much love.