The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Wednesday, September 06th 2017 (Back to Work)


I know that what we do at college could be considered work but since we are just starting out what we do in the classroom is nothing compared with what Barry the Bullet and I must do when we go out to clean windows. This is work as I have always known it. I've had my little skive for two days but now it's back to the grind. I have to admit to feeling a little tired this morning although I expect my mood to pick up as we get into the day. The thought of working for the next three days straight is a difficult one to take at this moment – this is why we have the old cliché ''One Day At A Time'' and so I plan to use it. At least the weather is decent although how long this will last is anyone's guess.

Lindsay is supposed to be at placement this morning, I'm pretty sure of it, yet she lies in bed. I've learned a lot about her through her handling of this sign-off and how she handles life under pressure and stress. I'd be amazed if she gets signed off now but she always seems to land on her feet. I half expect the carpet to be swept from beneath her at the very end though. That would be a total disaster and would mean that she wouldn't be able to graduate. She has a job waiting for her and everything. It all hinges on just getting up and working through the stress. Today will be another black mark against her. Personally I can't see her finishing this year. Four years won't be enough to get her degree.

In my own course we have some assignments already (which is a good thing – the sound production seemed to take ages to get into gear so I was hoping we'd get started with this soon) and they seem to be practical with us being no air starting from next week. Here is the first assignment:


''You must research an artist/ group of your own choice and create a short programme (minimum 5mins) featuring pre-recorded audio, your own voice and music. Your programme should comprise at least three tracks and should be free of unintended distortion while demonstrating good audio mixing between the tracks. Your programme must be suitable for Radio 2. To complete this task you must:
Edit & multi-track audio to the required technical and artistic standard and appropriate to the production brief.
Use appropriate equalisation and dynamic range controls.
Save in a format appropriate to the brief.
Provide a script of your finished programme formatted to industry standard.''


I think that this is an editing test more than anything else in which case I'll be more than fine. Can I blend the different sections together without any nasty bleed or unwanted noise? That sort of thing. I'm sure I can. While I believe Pro Tools to be the best in the business in terms of software for audio editing (and was the go-to program last year when we did the sound production) Adobe Audtion is what we are to be using and so I received a crash course on this earlier this morning. One thing I quickly noticed about this task is that we don't, as it says in the brief, get to choose our own artist, rather names are in a hat and picked out. I get Elvis Presley.

The idea is that we are forced to research acts we aren't currently aware of and so improve our research skills. Elvis isn't an issue for me but then none of the artists drawn out of the hat were. To most of the younger students though – this was something new and they were paired with an artist or act they had never heard of. Some of the younger ones didn't even know that All Along The Watchtower was a Bob Dylan original. Had never heard of Blondie. Or Aretha Franklin. Young people today (insert roll eyes emoji)....

Next week is something known as Fresher's Week and bearing in mind that this week has been a sort of introductory week to ease us into the course, to get to know each other as students and to meet all of the lecturers, the work doesn't actually begin until the following week. Next week for this Fresher's Week we are asked if we want to help out at some of the events being held throughout the week at the different campuses. I have no clue really what sort of things will be happening but I've volunteered myself for the Monday morning at a campus not far away. According to the Facebook group I will be, with my partner Steph, on air from midday until two in the afternoon of this week and then from ten until eleven on a Monday and a Tuesday morning every week after that. Spooky.

I don't know what we've to be covering but I'm glad that Steph, my co-presenter, has some experience with this sort of thing. We has a guy in from the main local radio station to do a talk with us in the morning yesterday and he was saying that these days they are looking for people who can do everything more than they are looking for people to carry out specific tasks. They want their staff to be able to present shows but also to carry out most of the elements of the production as well. People have to be all-rounders these days. Lots of work for us to do then.

I've also added myself to the Street Team for this local radio station so that whenever events and things turn up and they are looking for volunteers I will get a shout. It's apparently a good opportunity to meet the current staff in the industry.

You would think that with all this going on I would have been able to drop all thoughts of the past, the nostalgia and the looking back, but this hasn't altogether been the case. Since my trip to St. Andrews things have subsided a little but they are always still there. Maybe some of us are just nostalgic by nature. Maybe this is just because of the work I've been doing with Dr. Bacon and how we now have an extended break from therapy while he takes his annual leave. I don't have another appointment with him until the 28th of this month.

Right now, though, I need my head in the game. Work. Cleaning windows. That is the order of the day.

Not until I've had another coffee though.

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Stevie

Cleaning windows.

1134

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Thursday, September 07th 2017 (All Caught Up)


Another month down just like that making it now seven months since I last put some tobacco into a paper, licked the gum, rolled it, set it on fire, put it to my lips and inhaled the delicious smoke into my lungs. Seven months. That also means that it's been nineteen months since I did the same but adding a little cannabis in the paper as well; more than twenty months since I ingested any illegal pills; and thirty seven months since willingly took alcohol into my system. In some respects there have been many changes in my life during these times, and most of them good but not all, and in some ways life has got worse. I think that externally things look better for me but there are definitely parts of my personality that linger from those darker days. Parts of me I wish would just fuck off and stay fucked off but that seem to be here for the long haul. They've camped up in my mind so long, these malevolent personality traits, that they've had time to get to know the landscape, move all their possessions in, really make a home for themselves, and they seem highly unwilling to move out. Although there are new parts of me arriving all the time to reclaim my brain these old parts will not budge and are adamant about squatters' rights. They are here to stay for now.

Barry the Bullet and I will be giving it another go this morning and getting back out to work. Yesterday we hit an interesting problem and noticed that we actually caught up with our workload. We clean windows on a four-weekly cycle and so we had to finish up early so as not to clean any within twenty seven days. Might seem silly but some customers were already wondering if we had been the full four weeks. For so long they've been used to Barry going around the run himself or with Ian or whoever he's had out while I've been away all this time and so there has been at times ten weeks to three months between cleans. Now they are finding us coming around again just four weeks after the last time. It must seem a little weird. What a difference a motivated Stevie can make. It does mean that we are short on work at the moment but today we can do exactly what we did four weeks ago.

This worked out fine for me though as I took the opportunity to get the miles up and walked from where we finished up all the way to Lindsay's which took nearly two and a half hours. This is good for my mile total as already now I have twenty five miles for the week (starts on a Monday) and so I'm approaching sixty seven miles for the month already and we're not even a week in. I plan on adding to this total big style over the weekend but will also get the chance to add to it tonight after visiting English Sara. I probably won't be able to keep this up for much longer so am happy to go for it while I am motivated. I kind of do that. Go through spells where it's interesting for a while and then I tire of it. At the moment I am loving it.

I've been thinking about college for the last couple of days which is inevitable I guess. I have to get a good start here. I do feel a little under pressure in this as I did last year. I think that my personality really holds me back in situations like this. As the classes get underway my lacking in confidence begins to tell me that out of all the people studying in these rooms right now it is I who is most unlikely to get anywhere. The others, some of them anyway, seem bubbly and extroverted and surely they are better suited to working in the industry that I am? This is something I struggle with but then we get a shot of recording ourselves on Tuesday afternoon past and I did okay. I also remember that my podcast from last year I was told was the best podcast handed in by an NC student. These are things to try to keep my confidence higher than it might otherwise be. I'm not a complete beginner in some of this. I can be good too.

The software we used last year was Pro Tools and Ableton. I was already familiar with the former having an old copy in the cave which I used to record dozens of songs while I was a drinker and the latter I got used to eventually. The program we are going to be using for this class is Adobe Audition and so I'll have to get used to it. I don't want to wait though. It's something I'm going to have to get soon. I want to be able to use it as well as I can use Pro Tools and the sooner the better. Photoshop as well. It's something else I will have to get not just a little good at but pretty darn shit hot at using. For the next two years these will be a couple of the main tools of the trade and I would do well not to mess around here. Get them in and get them in soon.

There are also course books we are asked to locate from the college library. I had a look but couldn't find any of them so I went online and looked for the Portable Document Format for each. The ''Podcasting For Dummies'' one was easy to find but I had to fuck around for a while to get the others. I couldn't find the official user's manual for the very latest version of Audition but got one for the last version which will have to do. I'll learn the differences in class between the new one and this version. I can't find the accompanying disc but anything I need to know I am sure that Youtube will provide. The same can be said about the third book ''Radio Production: A Manual For Broadcasters''. I'll keep on hunting though and in the meantime make the best of what I can be doing.

I've signed into Office365 to download my free student versions of Office and the like and there are more links in the recommended websites and so on and so in terms of things to do there's plenty by the look of things.

Right now I have to get busy with getting to work.

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Stevie

Getting ready for work.

1137

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Friday, September 08th 2017 (Son Turning Seventeen)


My son turns seventeen today. I haven't seen him in years. Or so I would think. The truth is that since I started the college I've had to get myself a Facebook account and so I've done a fair bit of lurking. I can watch people like I watch them on Ryver WQD and My Way Out (among others) but on Facebook it's a little more interesting given that I can secretly follow my children. Why would I not contact them? Some might say. The truth is that things did not end all those years ago on great terms and so for now lurking is the best I can realistically hope for. It's something.

Although neither my son or my daughter seem to use it all that much they do enough posting and uploading of pictures that I can sort of work out what they are up to. Their half-sisters too. It makes for very interesting.....reading?....lurking?.....stalking? ....whatever the hell it is. It's not something I can see myself doing too much because it brings up those feelings of nostalgia and thinking about the past again and while these thoughts don't work in me to the extent that I can't go about my daily business I would do well to keep them to a minimum. Just because I never know when they're gonna start stopping me from going about my daily business.

To be seventeen though. Aye. It's some age. I notice this about my college peers. I am old enough to be many of their fathers (I don't know if that's worded right) and so this is what I'm competing against. I'm in an industry competing with people young enough to be my sons and daughters, most of them. In fact – my son is older than some of them. I just have to put this out of my head and try to focus on the positive aspects that being my age in this position can have. What are the benefits? What can I play to my advantage? I'll admit that I can't think of too much off the top of my head but I'm sure something will come if I think about it hard enough. I'm not going to though – I'm going to move on.

Last night I slept in the cave. I've started doing this again. Last Thursday night and this I have decided to stay there. I'll be doing the same next week too. I called the council this morning to reschedule the gas safety check and they can next make it out here on the 20th, which is two weeks away, so I've booked them in for then. This will be a weight off. I'll have heating in the cave for the rare occasions I am there. At the moment it seems to be on the rise. I was sleeping at Lindsay's for a full six weeks straight until recently when I've started sneaking the odd night in the cave. Trying to find a little solitude? Fretting over all this talk of me moving in with her and giving up my cave and home of four years (albeit a very unhappy one)? Fear of commitment or just giving me time to think about whether this move would be the best thing?

Sometimes I think about (and especially over the last couple of months as I've been looking back over my past frequently) my previous address history and it makes for quite remarkable patterns of never being in one place for long enough to make it a home and connect with it. I have been in the cave for four years but it's the least homely I've ever managed to turn a home into. Since leaving my seventeen year old son (back when he was five and his little sister three) I have had one address per year at least, often more than one, until 2013 when I moved into my council house, the cave I currently live. Now I am looking at another move?

I am kind of done with asking other people about it as they always seem so negative which I find strange given that no one really knows either of us all that well. I would speak to people in AA about it who might know Lindsay a little better but it's been so long since she's been to a meeting that I fear she has all but lost her place within the fellowship. I do dip my foot in every now and then, was even going to that Saturday night meeting every week for a couple of months there, but Lindsay doesn't seem to have the same interest at all and has only been to that one meeting in St. Andrews three or four weekends ago since March. Maybe others don't know her quite as well as all that. Plus – tell one person in AA something and you are pretty much telling them all, as disappointing as that might sound.

Last night English Sara asked me about it and I just told her I hadn't made up my mind yet, that there were many things still to consider, but I assured her that a move to another town does not spell the end of my visits. After all – I will still be in this town almost every day either for work or for college as both are through here. I will be spending most of my weekends through in Lindsay's town, yes, but my weeks will still be largely spent in this town – the town I have lived now for more than half my life. I stayed here last night and may even be staying here again tonight. I have to wait and see how I feel once Barry the Bullet and I finish up this evening with our debt-collecting mission. It will be dark by the time we finish around half eight this evening. Scary stuff.

Not quite as scary as the idea of me having a seventeen year old son though.

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Stevie

Wishes he was seventeen himself.

1029

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Saturday, September 09th 2017 (Pulling Thoughts Back)


These posts now seem to be divided into little sections these days. They seem to be structured around a few topics that appear to be at the forefront of my mind. I chat a little about work and the weather and then go on to mention a little about my walking mileage, college workload, and the potential move-in with Lindsay. There's little else occupies my thinking or writing time if I'm honest. Let's have a look over what's coming this weekend.

Firstly I'm going to head out for a walk. I'll be doing this almost as soon as this post is written. Yesterday I walked to the next town to meet with Barry the Bullet for a debt-collecting mission and then missed my bus back and with there being forty five minutes until another one I decided just to walk back as well. This total added seventeen miles onto my tally meaning that I have managed to hoof eighty five miles this month already. It's good going – especially since I fly out to Spain in a few weeks as I'm likely to indulge.

I noticed on the Restoration Facebook page (which I, as a member now for over a week, can access) that three guys are going to be running a 10k on October 01st and that there are training days on the calendar. I wish I had noticed this a little sooner as I would have been happy to sign up and join in. The event takes place the day before Lindsay and I fly out to Spain for a week and it would have been something positive to look forward to in the build up to that, make me feel a little more like I'd earned the week abroad. I would sign up as there is still time to train but I've been walking a lot recently, not running, and I know that there is a tremendous difference. Doing one does not mean that I can do the other. Training plans seem to be set at four weeks minimum. I missed the boat this time around.

In college terms I have been putting in a little work. I've been reading through much of the course materials and some sections of the recommended reading from the course handbook. Again – the more I read through all of this stuff the more I feel as though my personality will set me apart from the others in the group, and not at all in a good way. Perhaps I am not cut out for anything like this and would fare better if I just tried once more to rebuild the window cleaning business with Barry the Bullet. Get it back up and running to something close to what it was before. I find myself having to consciously stop myself from thinking along these lines often throughout the day and I can never be sure exactly how long I've been stressing about it before I catch myself. Hopefully not long enough for the seed of self-doubt to begin growing within me in the coming weeks and months as we get deeper into the coursework. I carry in my wallet a little Pause Button, which I got from a self-esteem building class I attended for six weeks in the summer last year, and I have been mindful to cast my mind in its direction several times over the past couple of days – the first time it's really ever been useful – but so far without actually having to take it out of the wallet. That time may come.

Another thing I talk regularly about, almost never get to the end of a post without referencing in one way or another (usually negative) is Alcoholics Anonymous. This fellowship will play a big part in my weekend since tomorrow I will be boarding a bus and having a Sunday very similar to my Sundays before I started seeing Lindsay and before I temporarily lost my concession bus pass. I would indulge in a double dose of AA: the hospital meeting in the mid-afternoon followed by the evening meeting at my home group one town away in the opposite direction. My brother would usually then pick me up at finishing time and I'd be on my way home by ten o'clock.

This time things will be a little different. I will have a longer time to kill between the meetings since I no longer have the keys to my old home group and so cannot just turn up to set up whenever it is convenient and with the format being altered last year in an attempt to lure more visitors meaning that the start time is now eight instead of half past seven I will have around ninety minutes more to pass than I used to. This will be straightforward in that I will just go on one of my long walks.

It'll have been fifty two weeks to the day since I last attended my old home group and I can't remember seeing too many of the other members at any other meetings since. I saw Stu (group ''leader'' – even though we're not supposed to have leaders and all are to be equal – and ex-sponsor) once or twice since but not for a long time and not since his wife gave birth to their child back in February, within a week of me turning two. I can imagine us being on better terms now. He'll likely have calmed down a little. I think he used to put on a strong persona of being completely calm and serene but inside I think it was a cover up for lots of suppressed aggression from his past – something he was, to his credit, attempting to deal with through therapy at the time. We'll be fine when I see him tomorrow. The others in the group? Only the God of my Understanding knows when I last saw them. Probably fifty two weeks ago.

This isn't talking about, or indeed living in, the day, and so today the football is back to league action after the international break. Every week between now and the beginning of October we'll have league football and this is something that should be celebrated. When the internationals return we will find out who will finish where in the world cup qualifying from all around the globe and this includes Scotland. It's unlikely, but not impossible, for us to qualify from where we are sitting at in fourth in the table of our group. Two wins and leave the rest to chance.

Again though – this isn't me living in the day.

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Stevie

Pulling his thoughts back to today.

1137

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Sunday, September 10th 2017 (Somewhat Structured)


While I wouldn't go as far as to say that I feel like a drowned rat I am definitely wet. Early morning walking without checking the weather forecast. It's easy to forget sometimes that we've just come off the back of what is surely the worst and wettest summer of my adult life and I'm taking for granted these September dry days. They have been so good that I've set some good new totals for my walking. Hopefully the rain will die down for a while and I'll get back out there but I've just thrown the towel in after just twenty minutes which takes my totals to:

Day – 1.33
Week (started Monday 04th) – 57.54
Month – 99.16
Year so far – 841

There are at least a couple of reasons I might want to get back out there and give it another go. Obviously when I get as close to a ''mile''stone as I have this month I'd want to do the extra one mile to take it over the one hundred. This would work out as an impressive average of ten miles per day for the month thus far. That's pretty good all things considered. The best week total I've managed was back in May when I reached 66.68 and so it would also be nice to get back out there and do at least another six miles to beat that since the week end tonight and a new one begins tomorrow morning. This is the best chance I've had to get close to it. That was at a time when I was following the training plan for the Moonwalk. Already the rain seems to be subsiding a little and while it's supposed to come back this afternoon with a vengeance I will take any window if it appears. It's still early yet.

We booked a hotel room in Barcelona for one night while we're in Spain next month. I think two would have been a bit better but even at this time of year it was difficult finding somewhere with available rooms two nights on the trot. One will have to do. I'm still not all that excited about it yet. Probably a good thing. It's not happening anytime soon (we don't fly out until the 03rd October – three weeks on Monday) and so maybe I'm getting better at compartmentalizing things and keeping things a day at a time. It's good to know that it's out there waiting though. Just get through these next three weeks and a flight out of here for the first time in years is waiting for me.

This afternoon's plans will not be affected even if the rain comes on really bad. Lindsay is coming with me and we're going to the AA hospital meeting I used to travel to myself almost every week last year. I haven't been since January so I'm quite looking forward to that. I suppose that one of the things I like about being on Facebook now after all this time of resisting it (I had to get an account for the college course) is that I have been able to communicate with members of the fellowship I haven't seen for a while and some of them attend this very meeting. It makes me feel a little less excluded. It's not something that they like to say to newcomers – ''Add people from AA to your Facebook friend's list'' – but it would perhaps help them feel more connected in what can often feel like a hostile new world to people coming through the doors for the first time. I suppose it brings up all the safety concerns again though.

After that Lindsay was to be heading home while I boarded a different bus heading for one town away in the opposite direction as this is where my old home group may be found and it's been fifty two weeks since I last attended. I thought I'd pop in and see how my old group members were getting on, including my ex-sponsor, Stu. It's not that the rain changes anything, but it kinda does, but I think I'd talked myself out of going last night when I was planning the journey. The group often wondered why it struggled for members and attendance and it's clear that getting to and from the meeting is difficult. Getting from it back to Lindsay's at that time of night on a Sunday is too difficult for me to want to be bothered and I can't bet on anyone wanting to give me a lift to the Park and Ride. The town is just too small and out-of-the-way for buses to take it seriously at this time of the week.

I have to be at a college campus I've never been to tomorrow morning and so I'd rather be back here planning for that than attending a meeting that is a part of my past. Maybe I'm just not ready to go back there yet after everything that happened. What would really be the point in going? I think it's just because it's been a year. While it would be nice to catch up with one or two it would also perhaps be best to stay away. There are reasons I left the group to begin with. Things were getting more than a little. . . creepy!?

I checked online and the group format can be found quite easily. We changed the format so as to try to attract people to the group but it wasn't working from what I could tell. We shortened it to an hour and took out the break. Now it looks as though they have changed it again, likely for the same reasons as before (Stu just will not let a sinking ship sink if it's on his doorstep), and have taken away altogether the share so the meeting goes through its readings and then is just thrown open for comment. It's seems very unstructured for Stu. This is what I can gather from the website anyway and it will have been the group itself that handed in the information. It's possible that I'm reading into it wrong but I won't be there this evening and so may never know.

I will be at the hospital this afternoon though and this will be my first meeting, as it will be Lindsay's, since we went to St. Andrews five weekends ago (I think it was five – or am I just trying to make it seem as though it's longer to make it out as though I need AA less than I maybe do? It was the 12th August: four weeks ago, oh well. . . ) which is totally fine.

Tomorrow, like I mentioned, I'll be heading to a different campus for whatever this Fresher's Week at the college is. I think we're only in from half past nine until two so that's cool. The following day I'm in college as normal and then I'm working with Barry the Bullet.

Structure. I like it.

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Stevie

Somewhat structured.

1201

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Monday, September 11th 2017 (Fresher's Week)


I'm still not exactly sure what it means. All I know is that I have to be at college for half past nine and I'll be helping out. Not the usual campus though. I've to make my way to a campus I've never been to before in another town and meet up with my peers there where I'll be shown what to do. I'll be part of the street team for the day. Tomorrow continues this Fresher's Week but this time I am to head to the usual class. I'm on air from twelve until two but again I'm not at all sure what will really be happening. There wasn't anything like this last year when I did the Level Six Sound Production so I'm not sure why we're doing it for Level Eight Radio. All will be revealed as the week unfolds. My classmates will be at various campuses throughout the week as things are running from this morning until five o'clock on Friday evening. I just gave up my time on the days I could make it – I'm hoping to get out to work with Barry the Bullet as usual on Wednesday, Thursday, and hopefully Friday as well.

Once this finished today – at two o'clock I think it ends – I will be making my way back to Lindsay's town for our next session with Donna, our Relationships Scotland counsellor. Last week we cancelled our session as Lindsay was working and there isn't much of a need to see just one of us at a time and so we rescheduled it for the later time of seven in the evening so that my college won't get in the way from now on. The week before that I think we also had to cancel for the same reasons as last week and the week before that Lindsay had her solo session (I had one a fortnight before that and so Lindsay was due one as they like to keep things equal). As a result it means that it has been a month since I was in that room. It seems like a long time actually.

As time has been passing and I've got to know Lindsay more and more I do feel that we are really good together. I think that when we first started seeing each other we were both very nervous and very unsure of what exactly we might be able to bring to a relationship, what we might have to offer. There was a whole load of confusion with us being two alkies in recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous too and, as always when it comes to relationships in AA, there were plenty of opinions to be heard from other members of the fellowship. The only way to know for sure if it would be worth pursuing was to enter into it slowly and try to see what happened. It's turned out to be a lot better than I ever could have expected to be honest despite us having one or two expected problems along the way.

I noticed it at the hospital AA meeting in the afternoon as she said her piece when asked. Listening to her is just. . . different, from listening to the others. They all seem to talk about all things irrelevant while Lindsay speaks sense. It's bias, of course, but it feels good.

As soon as we boarded the bus we spotted Vanessa and so sat next to her. She was one of my good AA pals in my first couple of years, Lindsay's too (although both girls have been in the fellowship for many years and have known each other a lot longer than I've known them), but since I stopped going to the Church of Spiders (well into last year) and the Tuesday night Step meeting (last time I was there was the night of my second sober birthday back on the 07th February) I haven't seen much of her. I added her as a friend on my Facebook account the other day but this is the first of me seeing her to talk to since my birthday. She's fourteen days sober today. The story continues.

It was a really good meeting too. One of those where you think that everyone actually does get something from it and so therefore there is fellowship and unity within the room. It doesn't happen often enough. I think that the main reason it works out so well this time is that the guy who's sharing from the top table isn't an old-timer and isn't a newcomer. He's somewhere in between. He's four months sober but has been in AA for ages, has been sober for five years before, but has slipped and slid for a while now but is back to four months. In some meetings he wouldn't be allowed to share as they would ask you to be a certain length but this just works against the meetings really. It makes them more like social clubs for old men and women who need to revisit past memories with one and other. Young people tend to feel a little awkward at such meetings, at least I did.

I managed to get back out for a bit more walking yesterday after the rain halted (although it did come back again later on and continued to be miserable for the evening and through the night) and took my total miles for the week to 68.06. This beats the previous record I had set for miles walked in one week back in May. It takes my total for the month to one hundred and ten. That's eleven miles per day on average. That's a pretty decent average considering that I have work and college and all the rest of it. I know that in preparation for the London Olympics Mo Farah was running one hundred and twenty five miles per week. It's a lot of running. I'm doing plenty walking.

When I was out and about I bumped into Robert from AA and he was saying we need to get together to write some guitar tunes together. I can't see it happening but he did say to give him a shout whenever I'm free and in the area (he lives down the town centre and so I'm in 'the area' quite a lot to be fair) to give him a shout and we'll go to Wetherspoon for a burger or something. I quite like that idea and will, as they say, take a rain check.

On the way back up the road I was in Ann's area and so decided to swing by and see what she's up to. She was another good AA pal for a while but can't stay sober for long at a time. She then goes A.W.O.L – sometimes for months at a time, this being one such time. No answer. I peer through the sitting room window and can see no one around. I can see in though and over in the corner where she usually sits there are two empty bottles of Miller and the ashtray. There's a jacket been tossed on the floor. Ann is very tidy normally. Doesn't mean she's been drinking though. Could have been her daughter having a weekend drink. She's eighteen. Hopefully all is well with them. I'll try again some other time.

Right then. Fresher's Week? What the fuck is it all about?

I'm going to go and find out.

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Stevie

Fresh.

1267

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Tuesday, September 12th 2017 (Relationships Scotland Part Eight: The Final Session???)


It could be. Donna, our Relationship Scotland counsellor, said that she'll leave a session open for us for in a fortnight's time but that she expects us to cancel. The option is there though. We can have as many sessions as we want. I think it's just a case of what we would talk about. She says that we've made tremendous progress since our first session around three months or so ago and while I am not completely sure about this statement while I am sitting in the appointment room with her and listening to it I have to admit that after having a night to think about it I do feel as though Lindsay and I are in a much better place than we were when we first arrived.

Donna says that she works with people all the time who have been together for years and have children together and everything, people stuck firmly in exactly the kind of position Lindsay and I were in when we came in for our first session and worse, and really struggle to make any real progress in counselling. I guess that because Lindsay and I didn't really resent one and other prior to coming for counselling has helped. Also the fact that neither of us are completely new to therapy and that both of us currently get help for our individual defects and shortcomings help us as well. We are more likely to try to work through things. Denial isn't really an option for two people both into their third year of recovery.

I feel that some of the tips we've been given by Donna have helped us in the last couple of months. Making sure that we spend ten minutes minimum per day cuddling up on the bed and chatting with no distractions whatsoever has been fantastic for us, as has making sure that we make time for our relationship at the weekends when Lindsay isn't all consumed with placement. If anything I think that the fact that Lindsay and I have both been very responsive to her suggestions and made sure that we put effort into having them realised showed us both that we are willing to put work in to make things work. That we view the relationship as something of value and importance in our lives. And that's what this is now and no mistake. I may be an alkie, and a commitment-phobe or commitophobe or whatever we're called but now I am in at the deep end. I'm in a relationship. Donna has helped me to realise and accept this and that there is no point in trying to fight it.

There is still one area of the relationship that needs attention though. Sex. We've been together for just over a year now but have not had sex. I'll admit that this is largely down to me but it's clear that Lindsay has issues there too. This might seem very strange to some people but to Donna I guess that everything is normal when it comes to couples. Donna had referred us to the psychosexual therapist and we have been on the waiting list for a few weeks now. We're told that it shouldn't be too much longer now. I am also aware that this is supposed to be extremely intense. We'll both get a comprehensive check-in to the service and it will be very probing. Donna does think that this will be an incredible thing to happen for us. Not so much the actual act of sex itself but the opening up, the learning to be vulnerable with one and other that will occur. This will be more meaningful than anything the world of sex has to offer.

I agree. We'll be getting a call to organise an appointment as soon as a space becomes free and we'll be good to go. It'll start off slowly and work on building intimacy from a base level and adding sexual elements gradually until we are comfortable enough to go the whole way. As for now – including the coming trip to Spain that we have booked – we should consider sex to be off the table. If, while we are in the sun, this happens naturally then we should go with it, don't deny it. But it is effectively off the table at the moment and should not be rushed or attempted to be forced. We'll get there through therapy. I have to say that I'm rather looking forward to it. Sobriety – the gift that keeps giving.

Right then – so what is Fresher's Week?

I thought that this was quite a fun way to spend a morning and early afternoon. Rather than attend class I met up with three of my fellow students and we spent a few hours in a different campus trying to help promote the launch of Boom Radio - the college's radio station, which is, from today, available online to anyone who happens to have a student ID and takes part in college education the length and breadth of the county.*

There were stall set up hosting anything from face-painting to games filmed and photographed for the station's social media pages, as well as free gym passes and the chance to win stationary such as pen drives and decent pens and so on and so forth.

It's not the largest campus in Fife - and it would be interesting to have seen what they might do in some of the bigger ones throughout the rest of the week - but I have to work later in the week and so this will have been my only taste of Fresher's Week as it stands.*

I don't know if I would say that the students we handed flyers out to seemed all that interested or not. People seemed to want to ask questions about the various animals at one of the stalls (turtles, snakes, funny looking gerbil things, and a few lizards) than they did anything about the actual launch of the station, which was a little disappointing but hopefully interest will pick up as the months go by.*

I know that the demographic for Boom Radio is college students, a little left of centre, and so we'll be playing popular music, but a little more guitar based (they took off the system Little Mix and Justin what's his name!?), eighteen to twenty four year olds and so if it fails. . . well, it can't really fail, can it!? I'm optimistic that we can help turn this into a successful project and so I guess that this is a really exciting time to be a radio student.*

I walked from the campus back to Lindsay's afterwards and this allowed me to get the week started off with a fourteen mile walk. That means that I have kept up with my, and actually improved upon, average of eleven miles walked per day for the month of September. This means that my total for the month isn't all that far away from last month's record-breaking total already and we're nowhere near half way there yet. It's all setting up for this month to be a really pivotal one in the grand scheme of things although I don't want to put any undue pressure on it.

I still struggle with patience and other character defects of mine. I still think about the past quite a lot which is something that's been going on for close to a couple of months now. I'm not perfect.

I'm certainly doing quite well though. I can't really deny it.

Lindsay certainly makes everything seem a little more rosy too.

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Stevie

Happy in many ways.

Thanks for reading.

1310

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Wednesday, September 13th 2017 (Stevie On Air)


It's getting a little darker and colder in the mornings. The scaffolding is down from the building and so our block is now insulated and ready for the coming shit storm that is the Scottish weather. This will all help in keeping us warm tonight. Tomorrow night there will be little to keep me warm. I'll be sleeping in my own cave for another night and there is no heating (council come out a week today to complete the gas safety check and turn on the boiler) and no insulation. It'll be a little reminder of what things were like for me prior to me quitting drinking and in the first year of sobriety when things like heating and food were way down the pecking order. Now I realise these things are essential to a stable and happy existence and that having these things does not make me a bad and selfish person, even though I do believe that the excess on show in society is disgusting to the core and the lack in which people are willing to suffer weakens us all considerably. We're less than we could be.

Despite Fresher's Week continuing for the entire week at different campus's classes are ongoing for those who are not busy helping set up and promote the college radio station and its launch this week. For one or two of us that means no classes at all this week but since my only involvement in the promotion process was on Monday I had classes as normal yesterday and we've been emailed the classwork from Monday that we missed as homework. Already I can feel a significant increase in workload in this first month than I remember of last year's sound production course which seemed to take weeks to actually get started and get past the ice-breaking stage. As homework I've to give examples of three existing job vacancies and write a personal statement and provide a CV (resume) and submit them to our lecturer. Straight away we are looking at employment options and how our experience ties in with what we want to do.

The lecturer does state in the email that this will be a difficult task for most of for exactly that reason – we won't have the skills and experience to back up our claims of wanting to work there. I guess it helps staff at the college work out what it is we want to be doing and what tools we have for getting there. It's a win-win thing and it does ask some of us, myself included, to be vulnerable in stating that we have very little useful experience in the industry. It's good though as suggestions on how to fast-track ourselves into relevant experience will surely follow. The diploma takes two years and the degree an extra one after that but this doesn't mean that nothing else can be done to look for employment in the meantime.

Yesterday I found out that being ''on air'' means exactly that. There was a bit of ambiguity surrounding the timetable for Fresher's Week as it had myself and college peer Steph on air from twelve until two yesterday afternoon. When twelve o'clock came I did indeed find myself live on the college airwaves. Our way of easing the pressure a little was to think – well who's really listening? The station only started up officially on Monday and the whole idea of this Fresher's Week is to help promote it and raise awareness of it and so no one at the moment will actually be tuning in. Then we discover that at campuses all across Fife they are playing it live through the speakers at the promotional events, as well as students in our class tuning in to check us out. If it was only us I might have freaked but around half the class get a turn at breaking their on-air duck.

I can feel it in the air. That slight change of atmosphere, the gradual changing of the season. I think it's important to try to take it in as it's happening so as to lessen the blow. When I was drinking I spent so much time worrying about the coming winter and doing next to nothing to actually prepare for it (probably thought that by worrying I actually was preparing for it) that despite all the fuss and commotion it seemed to spring on me from nowhere, almost as if it was something new and unexpected and not the annual occurrence it is and always will be. The morning air is a little fresher. The feel of the morning a little cooler and darker. More of a wintry presence can be felt. Just a little but it's me first warning sign. It's coming. It's just doing it, as everything in this world does, one day at a time.

Ah, what is the world, and indeed this journal, coming to when all I have to speak about are things like going live on student radio at the local college and so on. It feels as though the original point in this story has been long lost along the way. It's supposed to be about my rise from addictive drinking habits and into a better way of being and I haven't really mentioned much about the actual drinking or drug taking parts for so long now that it's almost as though they never existed. Gone are the days when a relapse felt inevitable, when I couldn't sleep or eat. It kind of makes this journal feel as though it's lost its way a little. Like it's less than it once was. Now it seems more superficial, like it's documenting a process, going through the motions, as opposed to really having a lot at stake and being a true reflection of perhaps a life or death struggle.

Never mind. In the same way I can't really condemn AA punters for not having a strong message to offer to other members (I can often still give it a good go though) I can't give away what I don't have and so today all that will be happening, assuming that the rain does indeed die down in the next hour or so (and I'm not realistically hopeful judging by the forecasts), is that I'll be heading out into the day to clean windows with Barry the Bullet, trying to raise some last minute cash for Lindsay and me to take on our holiday next fortnight.

If the rain stays on then I don't know what I'll be getting up to. What I was always told in sobriety though, when I asked what I was to do with my life now that there was no longer drink: all you can't do is drink; anything else you can do.

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Stevie

Off air

1157

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Thursday, September 14th 2017 (Preparing to Leave)


I'll be staying in the cave this evening. There are things to be doing there. For one there is the garden. When Barry the Bullet and I were last working in the area we stopped by the cave to drop off the ladders for the night and I knew then that there were things going to have to be done before I could realistically think about handing my keys into the council. One of them is to tidy up the garden. With all the changes in weather we've been having recently – rain one minute followed by sunshine the next and repeated over and over – will have added a little to my workload this evening. Also I will have to spend considerable time on the inside of the building. In the actual cave itself.

I would have liked a word with Donna, the Relationships Scotland counsellor that my partner and I had been visiting with for three months or so there, and asked her what she honestly thought about this as an idea. I wouldn't have wanted to offend Lindsay, or to put any doubt in her own mind about it, but it would have been nice just to ask Donna one to one. Is me handing in the keys to my council house – a property I had to go through homeless systems over a long period to actually get my hands on – and moving in with Lindsay the silliest thing I could be doing right now? Are we ready for this kind of step up?

After what she said on Monday night I am sure that she would have said that this is the natural next move. Besides the situation in the bedroom I have been rather surprised by the way Lindsay and I have managed to both grow into this situation. Considering our past experience of relationships it is good going for both of us but then I guess that this is one of the main reasons why this moving in together isn't as silly as parts of me might be trying to suggest. It's all been very natural and organic. It's not been seamless and without problems and doubts, as will be the case with any two people, but it hasn't had to be forced. Attending these sessions with Donna has been a good way of allowing me to look past my insecurities on the issue and think about what it is I actually want, and, more importantly, how to go about communicating this with Lindsay.

Perhaps one of the reasons this has been a difficult decision to make is that I've been speaking to people who have been quite negative about it from the start. Gillon, Ian, Barry the Bullet, Englsh Sara and Dennis – these are my friends and so the only people I could really talk with about this whole thing but they all have one thing in common: none of them have been in a successful relationship themselves. Gillon is still with his partner but it's a relationship built on loose friendship and convenience for me. They aren't close in the way that couples perhaps should be. Barry the Bullet and Ian have histories of failed marriages and relationships. English Sara hasn't been with anyone since she split with Logan's father years ago.

It would have been the perfect time to talk to a sponsor or AA old-timer about. I would think so anyway but then this is dreaming a little. This is me perhaps living in a world of make believe. Every time I spoke with an AA member of long term sobriety about anything they seemed almost incapable of relating to me. They went into father mode. They felt like it was a sponsor's duty to tell me what to do rather than it was to be a friend and to see me as a sentient being capable of making his own decisions but looking for a different angle on a situation. Then I have to wonder who I might actually talk to. Who are the old timers I might discuss the pros and cons about moving in with Lindsay with?

My mind can cast itself over a great many faces in the fellowship. Dozens of mid to long term sober members I could choose from but when it comes to the opposite sex is when it comes to one of the areas in life where alcoholics in Alcoholics Anonymous are very strange about, very weird indeed. I think that most of them are actually totally clueless when it comes to this kind of thing and so I wonder what their motivations would be for a suggestion to me one way or the other. Relationships is one of the things that most of us in AA arrive having little clue about, including myself, and this doesn't change throughout our sobriety. The other one is work. These are two areas I find it extremely tough to think of who I could approach to discuss them. Those already in successful relationships and employment already were when they came into the rooms. In terms of finding love or work they are equally at a loss.

What would Stu have said? I doubt he would have been able to approach it as a man, or as a friend, or as an advisor. Stu only had one way of looking at things and it was as an AA member and so he would have come across as quite patronising when he dropped little quotes from the Big Book into his chat with me. He always did. He would perhaps forget that the Book is not at all capable of giving the advice and suggestion it perhaps believes itself capable of. It is not a Bible, it is just a small book. I don't need to ask AA members about this. I can make up my own mind. I think it's been made ever since Monday night with our session with Donna.

So this evening when Barry the Bullet and I finish work and I head to the cave rather than back through here I will be starting a big clear out. I will have to figure out what I'm keeping to take to Lindsay's and what I'm getting rid of. I'll make a start on binning some stuff and I want everything that's up the attic brought down so that I can see exactly what's all there. I've never been able in four years to make this cave feel like anything close to resembling a home and so I am glad to feel the back of it approaching. It does feel as though it's an opportunity missed though. That's one thing I could sense Stu and the AA old-timers saying. To turn this into a home would have been a challenge which would have resulted in tremendous spiritual growth.

It's not going to happen though. At the moment the grass is definitely greener and if things are to one day take a turn for the worst (as Barry the Bullet, Ian, and so on would have me believe) then there will be another chapter that follows this one.

But it'll be going forward rather than back to the cave.

The week after we come back from Spain I'll be handing my keys in.

By that time the cave will simply be an empty shell.

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Stevie

Leaving the cave behind.

1253

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Friday, September 15th 2017 (House Swap)



The scaffolding has been taken down from Lindsay's and the workers have all left to go to the next block. This has left things feeling a little lighter in the mornings as there aren't big metal sections and wooden walkways blocking the light from coming through the windows in the mornings. It also means that Lindsay's cat hasn't been coming through to wake me for food at silly times of the morning. Although the sun is beginning to rise later so this might have something to do with it too. During peak summer time at the end of June and the start of July the cat would come through as early as half past four to tell me that it was time to get up. This was annoying. Then it was around six. This was a little better. Now she doesn't get the chance as it's too late. I have to be up already.

This is great. It means I am much better now at going to bed, getting sleep, and getting up in the morning. For so long this has been a problem for me and I've had to work quite hard on my sleeping habits while I've been sober – had to endure quite a bit where sleeping is concerned over the last two and a half – three years – but now it is all sorted. When I wake in the cave this morning it is so fucking cold that I am up long before any cats. The gas safety check gets carried out on Wednesday so after that heating will be an option, not that I'll necessarily be around to test it out.

One of my pals from my drinking/drug-taking days contacted me through Facebook yesterday and we got chatting. Since Lindsay is in my profile picture he asked about her and I got to mentioning that we are to be moving in together. I was half-expecting him to start with the whole, ''Are you mad!? You can't give up a council house!!'' and all that but instead he asked about the plausibility of a house swap. I think it's a pretty straightforward affair. You just apply online and let them know who is moving where and then let them know when it's a done deal. Then I'll just give up the keys to Fuzzy's flat rather than my own. He stays in the thick of it down in the block of flats above the Charity Shop Cafe and so he's dying for a move. Although I have never found the cave homely it definitely has the potential for someone to make a decent little home out of it.

The cave itself is going to take a hell of a lot of work to clear out. I've had a clean up and been up the attic where I've found old stashes of booze. Well – empty booze containers! There's no booze to be found in my cave. Up the attic though I can vaguely remember stashing empties when I'd run out of space in the main rooms of the property. I found loads of secret little spots where I'd ditched cans and bottles. Bud and Polish beers Tyskie. Nothing from the end of my drinking when it was the Frosty Jack's cider and not much else, maybe some cheap LIDL beers thrown in there to top things up, which means that these empties I'm finding were stashed before the end of my drinking. I reckon the Buds were put up there during the winter of 2013/14. Inside some of the kitchen cupboards are loads of empty crates of beers as well. The beers have been polished off and then put back into the crates they came in and stashed in the cupboards. I reckon that these are from either that same winter or the one after that. Either way these have been stashed for a while and I haven't noticed them since.

All of this will have to be thrown out before I go anywhere, whether Fuzzy moves in or someone else. I've looked into van rental and some of the prices are reasonable. I say that now only because I have a little cash to spare. I can recall trying to clean up this cave once before but with little to no expendable cash whatsoever everything seemed ludicrously expensive and bordering on impossible, unachievable. What a difference a little cash makes – something that was very difficult to communicate when I was going through it.

There was a woman came through to help me clean up this cave last year. She was a member of the old WQD Forum and she volunteered to come through here from where she lived in Glasgow to help me clean out the place. It had kind of taken over my life at the time and seemed like I would never be able to better my situation. She volunteered to come through and I accepted the offer. For a full day we slaved and by the end of it there was noticeable improvement. Ever since then I have never allowed things to return to that awful state but I have not been great at keeping my cave very homely.

Now I only have one huge effort at clearing it up and then it's all over. I won't ever have to worry about this place ever again. I noticed today how much I actually hate that place but at the same time I have to admit to enjoying my time by myself last night. I think I only enjoy it because I don't have anyone to answer to. I can waste as much time as I like and no one will call me on it. I can throw all responsibility out of the window and call it a night. I like all of this even though I know it's not good for me. What is good for me is having to be responsible.

I have to be responsible one last time where this cave is concerned. Get it cleared out by October 16th and then it's time to make a new life for myself.

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Stevie

One last big push.

1043

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Saturday, September 16th 2017 (Walking To and From the Cave)


This morning I left Lindsay to it and headed back to my abominable cave. Leaving my new life to return to my old. Leaving Lindsay in bed early and taking a trip (on foot, of course) back to where I feel I must be. I have to put some work into that place if I want to have it ready for the move and it makes sense that I use time on my days off to do it. The gas company comes out to complete the gas safety check on Wednesday morning and so I'll be sleeping there on Tuesday night. This will be one of my final nights there although I have planned to sleep every Thursday night in the cave so that I can put some extra work into the leaving plans. I'll likely stay a few extra nights but with the provisional moving date set for October 16th and with Lindsay and I being away in Spain from the 02nd to the 09th the clock is somewhat ticking. So I am there this morning.

Having no distractions is one of the main motivations for my returning there this morning. I'm still a little on the childish side when it comes to getting things done when I have distractions. I can feel the pull of the computer but this morning this is exactly the reason to leave it in the other town and so I don't have that distraction. I can get on with things I need to be getting on with and what I need to be getting on with is sorting out everything in there into one of either two piles: the ''Keeping'' pile or the ''Getting binned'' pile. There will likely be a lot more in the latter pile to be honest. There is much I can be doing to change the cave at the moment.

If there's one thing I can't change about it though it's the atmosphere. Or maybe I can but it's just too late. Who knows!? One thing I do know is that I have to accept the thoughts I am getting as I'm going about boxing things for the move as what they actually are: just thoughts of someone who is a little scared about moving out of here and away from his independence. As horrible as my time in this cave has often been it has been mine. When there it has been up to me what I do from one moment to the next. It's been my home, as cold and heartless as it has often felt. The memories I have from here are at the moment on the rather nasty side but once I put some distance between my time here and the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia start up I will look back on this place as that which offered me independence. I won't remember the bullshit, I'll just think back with regret to the loss of my free will.

Prior to setting off on my walking mission at half past seven this morning I had already beaten last month's walking total and was sitting at 171 miles walked for September. Six miles more than last month with us only halfway through September. I've been putting lots of work into walking it would seem. By the time I returned I had passed the highest week total since I started all this walking carry-on back in February when I quit smoking. It takes my total for the year, in the seven and a half months I've been doing this, to just over nine hundred miles. By the end of the months I expect to top the one thousand miles. This is a pretty decent wee achievement when I think about it but if you break it down it's not all that impressive. One thousand miles walked in around two hundred and thirty days. It works out just a little more than four miles per day. Not great actually when you think that some days have seen me march for thirty miles or more in a single outing.

That's the one thing that's been missing since the Moonwalk though. A proper decent long one. Today I managed twenty miles but that was split equally between the walk to the cave and the walk back from the cave (the walk back I was carrying a bag full of clothes from the cave and so it was a pretty difficult one). There have been multiple short distance and medium distance walks but nothing of the twenty mile or more variety for a while now, since ending the training for the Moonwalk. Perhaps I should plan for a longer one. Try to get two or three marathon distances done for the month of October. Since Lindsay and I are away for the first week it'll be difficult to reach a high mile total for that month so going out for a few longer walks might be just what's needed.

For now it is time to put thoughts of caves and moves somewhere outside of my mind. It's time to get all thoughts out of the mind and just watch some football. The season is now well underway and my team Raith Rovers are playing an away tie against Queen's Park which, despite the game being only a few minutes into, are already two goals to the good. I should get away from this screen.

So the cave is a little closer to being ready to evacuate. Not much was done today but at the same time a lot was done. Tonight we are both heading to the AA meeting a couple of miles down the road. It's been a few weeks for me since I was there but a few months since Lindsay was. Then we'll come home and watch a movie before bed.

Tomorrow I'll be having a full day away from the cave and I'm looking forward to it. Think we're going out for a roast dinner somewhere instead.

Happy days.

After college on Tuesday I'll be back in that cave and getting on with what must be done.

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Getting the cave good and ready for its next victim.

1051

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Sunday, September 17th 2017 (AA In Moderation)



It's my first trip to the Saturday night meeting for over a month and for Lindsay it's even longer. Much longer. I reckon around six months. She's been to the Sunday hospital and the St. Andrews Saturday morning, and maybe one or two others, but this meeting that we used to visit every week it has been a while. When we get back up the road she mentions that in terms of to members – Hamish and Main Man – it's like she heard them yesterday.

I do often comment about other members of the fellowship and I think I used to confuse it as criticism. I was slagging them off. I don't think so and I'm not at the moment. Not really. More I am looking at what they are doing and comparing it with what I am doing so that I can get a good feel as to how well, or not, I am and have been doing. What I think Lindsay means when she says that it is like she heard them yesterday is that despite her not being around for several months there has clearly been no change in either of those two. The thing is – I don't think there will have been much in the way of change in either of them since the days they walked in.

How does this reflect on me and allow me to see any progress or decline in myself? For one I think I've slowed down a lot. The top table sharer is someone I haven't seen for ages and we are chatting at the break. He mentions this – that I seem to have slowed down – and it has me thinking about my general feelings while in the meeting. I don't have that urgency about me. I feel calmer. I still feel largely disconnected but I don't feel as though my words are pouring out super fast in a bid to try to get them all out before I might be deemed as rambling. What I have to say doesn't matter so much anymore. I feel as though the ''Racing Heed'' has slowed somewhat.

People would always say to me when I arrived that I needed to slow my head down. Thoughts were running through me too quickly and I would do best to slow them down and find calm. This is trite, of course, and when I asked people how I was to go about doing this they seemed to have no suggestions. We're long term sober so just do it. I was at a loss. Stu, my sponsor at the time, said that we slow our heads down by working through the Twelve Step program for the first time and integrating it into our daily lives. This I tried but still the head would race. Now it seems to have slowed right down. I don't know when or how it happened but I can definitely feel it.

The thing is: there are times when I feel I no greater control of my thoughts and emotions than the day I entered the rooms for the first time. There have been a few instances this year where overreaction is the only way I've been capable of response. Although the head may have slowed down a lot there are still moments when it can bubble up to the boil and explode, usually when I'm near my mother or when someone does something that my Critical Parent mode feels is not of adequate standard. Last night's sharer only sees a part of it. The real Stevie is still very much a mixture of part calm and part monster and I'm still not all that great at approaching the monster parts of me sensibly and tactfully. Often I simply let it run free for a while before popping it back into the cage.

I think that the one main difference I now have with Hamish is that I no longer feel as though what I have to say is important. In fact – what I have to say to people in AA meetings, what I'd love to tell Hamish but never will, defies the whole AA philosophy. I would tell him that for me the process of growing and learning cannot be found in AA meetings, any AA meetings, but that it begins out in the world. People mention in every meeting I've ever been to the same thing and last night was no different. They say that they learned in the rooms how to be this and do that and blah blah blah. Hamish says it all last night. It's just utter nonsense.

What I feel is that I picked up many tips and hints, slices of experience from other members, while in the rooms of AA, sure, of course I did, and still on the rare occasion do, but it was only in the outside world where I could practice them and find out about me and what makes me tick. I've learned lots about myself and the world from the rooms of AA and the company I've kept there but I've learned perhaps more just from being with Lindsay and all that has come as a result of being with her. Amazing considering that my sponsor at the time didn't support the idea of us being together. I also learned a shit load from studying sound production and expect to learn even more throughout this radio course I am now two weeks into. Dr. Bacon and Donna – I learned as much about myself from my involvement with them as I did in the rooms of AA.

This is the things about poor Hamish though, the thing that I can see about him that makes me more grateful that I have gone about things the way I have. My attitudes and outlook are changing all the time. I'm becoming teachable but not just in AA rooms. I'm growing past the AA thing as a source of comfort and using it for what it was intended to be. I'm living in the outside world. I'm studying to better myself for the future but not afraid to get my hands dirty and clean some windows to get by in the meantime. I am looking after myself better than ever before with very regular exercise and being more mindful of what I eat. I've quit smoking. I have become a little more mature in terms of my thinking. I've sought professional help for my emotional problems rather than trusting a sponsor with my issues. I'm thinking things through and then acting on what I best feel the course of action to be. I'm taking the odd risk here and there too.

This is all living, and improving. It's what I once wished people like Hamish would try rather than sitting around in AA meetings every night of the week wasting their lives. I no longer really care though. Recovery was never about telling others what they should do so that I could figure out what I might do. In AA it's just about trying to get on with my life the way I feel I should and then going to the odd AA meeting and telling others what I did to get to where I am, sharing my experience, strength and hope.

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Stevie

Loving his AA in moderation these days.

1249

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Monday, September 18th 2017 (Perhaps Still Somewhat Insane)


I love waking at Lindsay's – what is soon to be my own home as well – but I have to admit to being drawn to my own cave at the moment. Today I will be off to college as is the Monday morning norm now and will return here later in the evening (I will decide on whether I'll be taking the bus or just walking back at some point throughout the day) but tomorrow I will be staying in my own town after the college day is done. The council are coming out on Wednesday morning to carry out the annual gas safety check and so I will be staying there tomorrow night so that I can be in for them arriving the next morning. I will be getting on with clearing the place up before I get down to having some me time. One of the final nights I'll be able to do such a thing.

I've worked out the nights when it will be possible for me to spend the night there, in my own little cave. After Tuesday night I will stay again on Thursday. This will then likely be it until the Thursday the following week and then Lindsay and I will be flying off to Spain on the Monday October 02nd. We won't return until late the following Monday and so by this time I hope to have just about everything I need to be done in the cave done. I will see how I feel that week but this will be, as things stand at the moment anyway, the final week of me renting this property from the council and with us planning to do the move itself on the Friday and Saturday of the weekend after we come back from Spain then this week (October 09th - 13th) will be my final week with access there. I can see me wishing to perhaps spend a couple of nights there during this last week.

While I will still be able to spend time with my friends there after I'm gone it will be different not having the choice as to where I might spend each evening. Since we've been going out I have seen the tendency to spend more time at Lindsay's than my own grow as the months have unfolded to the extent where there was a six week spell there where I never slept once in the cave. The first three or four months saw it grow to around half and half until over the Christmas period I spent two full weeks away from the cave. There were still times when I enjoyed spending a but of time there (I can remember spending quite a bit of time in the cave in April for some reason and towards the end of the college semester I also remember doing so) but since losing my benefits and having to pay for the rent myself Lindsay and I were asked by fate to look at our situation together and make a decision on what might be best to do.

I do resent the fact a little that it is finances that seem to have forced the situation a little. Would this be happening at all if I was not studying or working and was still claiming benefits and the right to have my property paid for me by the taxpayer? Probably not. I'd probably keep a hold of a property that was being paid for me as a safety net, somewhere to use as a base for if things go wrong with Lindsay further down the line. Somewhere I could run to if I couldn't any longer stand the heat. But, as I was talking about in yesterday's post – this would be a Hamish problem. It would be proof if ever it were needed that I wasn't doing things properly. I guess if I find myself stagnating for too long then I'm not playing sobriety by the rules of the game. When living outside of the AA rooms, or trying to, I am going to be asked to do things like this. To give up something so that I can have another. To say yes to one thing with the knowledge that I must say no to something else. To make choices, make decisions, to commit to them and then stand by them, live by them.

I will be trying to make the best of the evenings I have left with my cave. Lindsay and I will soon start on the spare room at her flat. Since she has lived there it has been little more than a place to dump all of the stuff she isn't sure whether to keep or get rid of but this move has asked her to start looking at things stagnating too. She's making decisions on what to keep and those things she wants rid of have been selling online. I think that when we were discussing whether or not it would be best for us to live together or in our separate pads she showed awareness of my needing my own space from time to time and the understanding that keeping my cave afforded me exactly that. She offered the spare room as a perfect replacement for that. If I want to be by myself for a while then we should sort out this room and turn it into something better than a storage space for unwanted, unsold possessions.

My entire cave feels much like Lindsay's spare room at the moment. It's full of stuff. Some of this stuff will be making its way through here (things like the musical equipment) whereas much of it will be thrown out. I have an almost new carpet up the attic which was bought for the property I stayed in before the cave but didn't get used much before I had to move on. It's in really good condition and there should be plenty of it to fill the spare room at Lindsay's. Things might not be too bad for me after all. I'll get the clear out I've always wanted and my possessions find a new home. Somewhere they might actually feel appreciated. They'll be coming with me to a new town.

I'll still be able to have a relationship with my old town. I'll still be able to visit Gillon and English Sara. I'll still be able to go to the Glenwood Centre. I'll be in that town almost every day still with college being there and my work with Barry the Bullet also. Just down the road is the home I kept with my own children. I'll be moving away from there for good now too. This is all really positive stuff.

For some reason I still feel sad about it though. I hated living in that cave yet I am starting to mourn it even though there is a month before I hand the keys in. Four weeks to the day. This nostalgia thing again?

I must still be insane.

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Stevie

Only four weeks left.

1201

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Tuesday, September 19th 2017 (Connected By Blood)


People really are walking about scared I feel. It's almost as if all of the doom-mongering and scaremongering that goes on in the news these days has us all thinking that everything and everyone is a threat. We're totally, utterly and completely unprepared for anything out of the ordinary. People saunter along the beaten track of life in a blissful haze. Head tilted south towards their phones and dragging their feet behind them. Suddely – WHOOSH!!!! - a Stevie comes flying past on a power-walking mission, desperately trying to get his September miles up, and sends the walkers into mini personalized tornadoes – something the Tazmanian Devil might be proud of.

They don't quite do this but they do often almost jump out of their skins. This fear is palpable. It comes shooting out of men and women of all ages almost as quickly as I pass them. There is no one out there pacing it as I am and I must either have the power-walking stealth of a power-walking ninja or these fellow walkers of mine are not trying to get their miles up for the month as the difference in urgency between us is quite staggering. They always seem so focused as to what is happening on their phones that they are totally caught off guard when I pass. On wider pathways it tends to not be as noticeable but on narrow walkways when I must squeeze past, decreasing proximity, it can be something of an ordeal for many of them. Sometimes they grumble something – their instant natural reaction to becoming frightened to lash out in anger – but more often than not they simply give a little jump and then continue walking while staring downwards towards their phones.

I like being on air. On the college radio I mean. Last week for an hour Steff and myself took to the microphones at the college radio station and this week we are doing the same. For an hour every day we are in class (Monday and Tuesday) we take to the control room and beam out live to the students from eleven until twelve. It was pretty nervous at first but I'm getting more confident all the time. This morning will be my third hour and I'm rearing to go. It's kind of without direction at the moment as we have been given very limited pointers and lessons – just make sure that we don't curse while live on air being the one main thing to be drummed into us at this early stage – but before long we will be structuring our shows in a more professional manner. We'll be writing and researching to make our hour entertaining. I'm quite lucky in that my partner is bubbly and eager to learn as well. She's happy to take to the microphone but equally as happy to let me take it. We'll work well through this I think.

Lindsay and I were having a Sunday roast at a local pub/restaurant and we were browsing through the Christmas menu. Then she suggested it. Perhaps not here exactly but somewhere. Should we say fuck it to our families and just book a dinner for Christmas at a restaurant? I have to admit that the idea seemed strange at first but now that I've had a couple of days to think about it I am getting all the more up for it. It doesn't matter what my motivations are really. It would be a nice change but it would also be a good way of letting my family know that I won't stand for this current way of things whereby we don't communicate unless it happens to be someone's birthday. Even that hasn't been enough to force one of us to get in contact with another.

That's a good word to describe it actually. Forced. I don't want Christmas this year to feel forced. Like it's only a case of us getting together because our culture expects it and capitalist ideology demands it. Maybe it would be better if things happened more naturally this time around. I spend Christmas day with the only person I don't have to fake being something I'm not so that they will care about me and accept me. That would be so much more natural and less forced feeling that spending it with people who I no longer seem to have anything at all in common with and who practically don't have a relationship with at all. That I wouldn't even know at all were we not connected by blood.

Mum will likely still have a dinner on Boxing Day as this is just what she does now and so if I think about how I might see my nieces over the festive period then this would perhaps be the best and only way of ensuring this. It would kind of be going against the point of my boycott on Christmas Day but I guess I'm still making a stand. That's not the only thing I'm doing here though. I'm trying something different. I've always spent Christmas doing either one of three things. I've spent it with my ''family.'' Failing that there were three years I didn't. One I spent with a friend's family and two I opted to spend by myself and drink. This way will be just another way I can spend the day.

Sometimes I think that the hardest thing I've had to do since sobering up is to try to accept that my family don't really give a fuck. I think about my brother and how we haven't spoken in months. Yet he asked me to be his Best Man last year. What was that all about? Why would he? Lindsay says that she doesn't think that it's a case of him not caring but that he's just an emotional vegetable. I guess she could be right about that. This is the kind of thing that my psychologist Dr. Bacon suggests all the time during our sessions but he uses different terminology. With my mum it could be the same thing. It's not as though she's spending lots of time with my brother and none with me. It's that she doesn't spend any time with either of us. I think she sees Gary more simply because of the nieces. I do wonder about Christmas this year though.

Let's get back to today though.

And quickly.

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Stevie

Getting in the mood for radio presenting.

1100

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Wednesday, September 20th 2017 (Spending Money)


The gas safety worker will be coming out this morning to carry out the inspection and turn the gas back on. Last night was particularly cold given that the sun is almost completely set come eight o'clock these days. Winter reminding us all that it's on its way and will be taking no prisoners. Be ready or suffer the consequences. Thankfully I am getting ready for it in all the best ways possible. Having a working gas supply to heat a home is one of the best ways to get in the mood for a wintry time.

Last night I arrived back here in the cave (for what, if my calculations turn out to be correct, will be my seventh last night of sleeping here) after college and got on the case, on it like a car bonnet, and continued my clearing up of things, arranging what I might want to keep and what I will definitely be getting rid of and sure to be taking with me to Lindsay's when I move through there in less than a month's time.

I've been spending money over the last few days like it's been going out of fashion. More will have to be shelled out very soon. With my no longer receiving assistance with my rent account I am liable for the full amount. Since this has not been paid for around a month to six weeks or so I am left with a balance I would very much like to clear before I move out of here. It's going to be expensive. Also I would like to try to pay off some of my outstanding balances to my two utility debts in my gas and electricity accounts. These two debts have haunted me since long before I sobered up and are still at large, always wrecking havoc in my life and reminding me that they exist, reminding me of where my responsibilities still lie.

It would be fairly easy for me to just bump these bills, run away from the cave and leave it as it is but I am trying to be sober here, not just someone who doesn't drink, and there's a big difference. I won't be able to pay everyone off but I'll be able to throw around a thousand pounds towards these bills when my student loan payment comes through in a couple of weeks. This way I won't have to keep looking over my shoulder as I start my new life with Lindsay. I won't always be in fear of these debts catching up with me further down the line.

There will be more money spent. The trip to Spain is taken care of. The cash I've saved through not smoking for seven months or so and while working with Barry the Bullet for the better part of ten weeks on and off throughout the summer break have made sure that there are plenty of notes with which to spend on our little trip. This is something of a relief. There are other financial demands that more than make up for this though. There are things I need to sort out for the college and to be fair this is what the student loan is for in the first place. The tools of the trade we can borrow for now but sooner rather than later the lecturers would like us to source out these tools for ourselves and this means spending some cash. I'll need a decent voice recorder in the Zoom model we use at college and this is around one hundred bucks. I'll also need to get the software we use but I can rent this (and all of the extras that come with it) for seventeen pounds per month while on the student discount. This'll give me everything I need to get on with class projects at home and, in the case of the decent digital recorder, on the street as well.

I was looking around online on Sunday night for Christmas presents for Lindsay. We'd been shopping a little after our Sunday roast and one of the high street stores had Christmas stuff out on display. Personally I could do without this type of desperation and greed for another six weeks at least but you know what sleazy little men and women who run these shops are like. They love money more than they love anything and they'll do anything to get it. But it got me thinking a little about getting ahead this year. I know that Lindsay loved the theatre version of Wicked when she went to see it a couple of years or so ago and I had heard that it was running again this year. I had a little look.

I managed to find tickets but with my Credit Union account I cannot buy anything online. I had to find a way of making the purchase without Lindsay knowing and without having the necessary means to go about it. Then came an idea. I spotted Opeth tickets. You won't have heard of them. No one has. They are a Swedish metal band and one of the few bands still on my list of bands to see before I die that I have yet to see. The tickets are a decent price and so Lindsay and I make a deal to get them for me as part of my Christmas. This will likely be my last chance to see them. They won't keep going for too much longer surely.

I think that if I can get Lindsay's card from her to book them then I could also add a couple of Wicked tickets too and worry about covering my tracks at a later date only something goes wrong with the confirmation of the Opeth tickets and so Lindsay needs to use her own account on the website and puts the details in herself. I will now have to find some other way. I could visit the Credit Union this morning if the gas boy comes out early enough. They would sort me out with a card that would allow me to make purchases online. Perhaps I could phone her dad and buy them through him. I'll find a way.

So there's plenty money to be spent but at the end of it all I will hopefully have some peace of mind to go along with the move from the cave to Lindsay's and a couple of Christmas presents sorted out long before the event itself. I'll also have all I need to make this year a successful one where the college is concerned.

Keep doing what you're doing, Stevie.

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Stevie

Spending money.

1131