Cold Turkey
In stark contrast to my drinking days I have been sleeping like a baby lately. During my days of excess I’d wake up at 4am precisely, my mind racing with nervous energy, my eyes bloodshot with fatigue. And yes the cliche is true. You really do wonder who you are and what you’re doing with your life at those moments.
When I cut back my drinking something else happened. I began to have nightmares and wake up drenched in sweat. On many occasions I woke up fighting with imaginary opponents. My fists would be flailing out above me as if an opponent was levitating above my bed. It strikes me that this is symptomatic of withdrawal. I’d have thought this is the sort of thing that only happens to junkies but apparently not.
Now I sleep 7 hours or so, dream pleasantly and wake refreshed. There really is a greener valley over the next peak.
A Social Drink
I noticed this weekend that I went from being a perfect gent to a bit of an arse. On Friday I was a moderate drinker & charming. On Saturday afternoon I was a ‘perfect gent’. From Saturday night onward (as the cumulative alcohol intake hit home) I became somewhat socailly inept, boorish & unelloquent.
There were moments where there was no talk, no dancing & so forth. In those moments I need to hold something in my hand & a drink it is. But it is self-defeating. I need to get comfortable in my own skin! Perhaps sometimes I just need to deal with awkward silences by staying awkward & not getting drunker.
It is another lesson on this road I am on.
But on the plus side I’m nowhere near as bad as I used to be.
Moderately Unmoderate
I seem to have moved from being a normal abnormal drinker to a moderately immoderate one. By which I mean I no longer drink like a drunken chaotic fool but rather get mildly smashed.
Progress? It doesn’t sound like much but my experience of life is much changed. I’m having new experiences like standing outside nightclubs fully compus mentus & able to make conversation. I even see people more drunk than me. Slavering aggressive drunken women mostly.
I deal with other drunks better now I’m less of one. I used to find them intimidating when I was too drunk to gauge the situation properly. I even used to think I had some how slighted them. Now I can see who has the moral force backing them up I know I’m steady enough to defend myself should it become necessary. Though now I can see far enough ahead to avoid those situations.
There is the new awareness of female body language. I’m so tuned in. No beer goggles either! Best of all I’ve refound the confidence & enthusiasm for talking to strangers. It helps when you haven’t got the black dog on your shoulder.
There are still some items on the to-do-list.
- Break the mental association between alcohol & socialising. Right now I can’t go for a night out without a drink because I see it as essential to socialising.
- Tail off the drinking toward the end of the night (I’ve tailed it off at the beginning & I drink slowly in the middle but I won’t stop till the lights go up)
- When holidaying have a couple of nights off the sauce (I’m breaking the 2 nights in a row rule in these situations)
The Interaction of Everything
I am 32 years old. In the last year my world has shrunk around me. There are now few friends, no colleagues & few reasons to leave the house. I’m on a break from the world partly because I’m a bit of a drinker & partly because I’d had enough of interacting. I’ve talked a lot about the former but little about the latter.
There is a phenomenon I have christened ‘The Interaction of Everything’. To explain this I will present to you the life of Man A & Man B.
Man A lives in 1960’s London. He has a house in the inner city with all the amenities. A telephone, a black & white TV (without remote) & a radio. In the morning his post arrives & he reads a letter from his brother in Sydney. The news is a few weeks old of course but it is nice to hear from him as he only writes every 3 months or so. Man A would love to see him but it is a once in a lifetime trip.
Man A leaves for work & boards a tube. There is one advert on the way in for Bovril. He reads his paper which has only tight concise articles on Britain & Britain’s interests in the world. He reads this without great worry as he largely agrees with all that is written. Who doesn’t? Perhaps those hippies at the Isle of Wight festival but he doesn’t move in those circles.
Man A arrives at the office & works methodically preparing a report. Interruptions are seldom. For lunch he has a ham sandwich as usual. In the afternoon he makes one call to a supplier, presents his report (the summation of a weeks work) & makes a couple of phone calls.
In the evening he goes home & watches one of the three TV channels. He goes to bed & sleeps soundly.
Man B lives in modern London. He has a house in the inner city with all the amenities. A telephone, a multi-media TV, a DVD, a laptop, a mobile & a games console. In the morning he checks his email. Just yesterday his Sister in Law in Australia gave birth to a son & he is looking at the digital pics. A man in Nigeria with a small fortune wants to give it to him in exchange for a small fee of 10 grand and someone thinks he needs viagra. At that moment his download of the latest 50 Cent track completes. Then he checks flight costs to Oz. How much is an air ticket he thinks. Mind you he just went last year.
Man B leaves for work & boards a tube. On the way down the escalator there are adverts every half a meter. Each minute the surface on which they are plastered rotates & a new advert is visible. By the time he alights at the bottom he has seen 3 different ads on each of the 15 rotatable hoardings. Many of the ads are for TV programmes he can watch later or music he can download at work.
He reads his paper which has a main body & three pull out sections on specialist areas. There is a wealth of colour photos, exciting fonts & graphics. There are not only the facts but results of the straw poll conducted on the interactive zone of the website. A semi-serious celebrity passes comment on the issue. He focuses on an article about one of the many woes in the world & how they are his fault for living in a former colonial power in the wealthy west. He starts to feel guilty but isn’t really sure why. Then he reads about some other horror 2000 miles away & starts to feel depressed. Then a murder close to home & he feels fear. The train arrives at his destination & he’s read about 5% of your vast newspaper. He’d throw it in the bin but he’d feel guilty about the rainforest.
Man B arrives at the office & begins to clear his 50 emails. Interruptions are constant. Whether via email, mobile, landline or blackberry but hardly ever in person. He has time to react but none to act. For lunch he can choose from all the foods of the world. London is after all a very multicultural place. In the afternoon it is more of the same & work drags on late in the evening
In the evening he goes home & flicks through one of the three 300 channels. Nothing is on so he opts for some interactive gaming. When he goes to bed he is exhausted but he can’t sleep. It’s as if his brain refuses to stop thinking. It is waiting for stimulus.
This is the ‘Interaction of Everything’. The constant non solicited stimulus plus the incredible complexity of a globalised techno savvy world. A phenomenon which snowballs with each new change.
I have enjoyed the travel, the cuisine, the internet, the knowledge of the world & its issues but all at once & all the time is exhausting. Where is the peace & serenity that the brain requires for recovery from day to day grind?
Truffle Shuffle
Like a lardy Peacock I donned my state of the art running gear. Resplendent in my brilliant white running trainers and Mediterranean blue breathable top I ate up the miles. Binmen stared in awe as I sped <ahem> by.
Behold my mighty works ye fatties & despair!
Lard
I went to a specialist running shop yesterday & picked up some shoes & clothing. I stopped short of the lycra running bottoms you’ll be glad to know.
So tomorrow I have drag my lardy self running or I’ll have wasted £170. There is a set of stairs at the local high school I’m going to have a Rocky moment on. This being Glasgow I may then have to fight some delinquents which is good anerobic work.
Rocky Rocky Rocky!
On Standby
When you need a break from yourself & life alcohol is a good friend. I’m not talking about hard life event. Sometimes the day to day gets wearing and I want a break from thinking, feeling……operating. I drink wine till I only function at a low level. Like a TV in standby. Relaxing doesn’t come easily so assistance is required.
However regular drinking is habit forming so I’ve largely stopped doing this. I miss it though.
