The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Thursday, September 21st 2017 (Increasing My Skill Set)


Ahhh... Another night in my own cave but with heating this time. It's been a long time, or feels that way at least. The problem is: there is no heating in the cave!! Yesterday morning I woke early and figured I'd have time to nip to the local burger van for some breakfast before the gas worker had time to knock on my door. I was wrong and he came while I was out. I must have been first on the list for the day and now I am without heating in there until the 11th October. It sucks. I feel a little childish about the whole thing and I guess that this fits in with my personality and the ways that things have gone for me while I've ''lived'' there, the decisions I've made, the reasons I struggle to see myself not having it to call a base. When I leave there for good I will be asked to be more responsible and less childish and these are things I still struggle with. I like being irresponsible and I like being childish. I just know now that they have to come to an end. I have to find other ways of living. I'm sitting there on Tuesday night and thinking that while I do like this cave, or at least the idea of it being there for me as an escape, the right thing to do is to give it up.

I think that by the looks of things I will only be spending four or five more nights there after this one. I'll be there next Thursday. The week after that Lindsay and I will be in Spain from Monday to Monday and so I am hoping to get back to the cave for Tuesday and Wednesday night with the option of keeping Thursday open as well as I make some last minute mental adjustments to giving up my home. Not much of a home, true, but the one place I could go to lay my head down at the end of the day where I would always be welcome, even when I was welcome nowhere else. I have neglected the cave something terrible in the years I have been there but to be fair to it it has always been there for me when I've needed it most. It was where I got sober. Whatever way you look at it I am giving up an important ally of mine. Parting company with a friend who helped me out when I was unable to find help elsewhere.

Now that the move to Lindsay's is in the pipeline I don't feel that horror about the cave anymore. In many ways I would like to be able to keep it. It has been cleaned up a lot this last couple of weeks and with the gas back on it feels a lot more homely than I am used to it being. Yes – I am having doubts. Of course I am. But it would be silly to spend money each and every week for a property that some weeks will be used for nothing more than storage for my possessions. Expensive storage considering that Lindsay's spare room isn't charging anything yet provides the same service. With rent split between the two of us and bills and so on coming out of a band account monthly rather than the way I've been having to pay bills for a few years now using PayPoints at local shops with cards and so on the whole situation seems much more manageable. Affording to split everything down the middle makes the cost of living seem much less than before. Paying rent on another house would make things pretty tight. This way we're a few hundred quid up every month.

At college on Tuesday I was approached by Bill, one of the lecturers I had last year on the sound production, and we got to chatting for five minutes or so. I mentioned that I still look across to the rooms from last year and wonder if I've made the right choice. He says that what I am doing right now is expanding my skill set. What does the marketplace look like and what can I offer to it? With sound production skills mixed with radio skills I am learning a wide range of things that make me employable in the workplace. Think about it. The industry now demands a whole manner of skills where one guy is expected to complete work that ten years ago would have been done by two or three or more. Presenters are expected to also know how to operate software such as Audition and Photoshop but I also know how to work desks in recording studios and know my way around Ableton and Pro Tools as well as Adobe Audition. I bring sound design to the table and can mix more complex sessions than the guys I'm currently studying with. I should look on the bright side of things.
I'm still a little pessimistic about things to be honest. I look around at some of the others in the class and think to myself that they seem more outgoing, more passionate, more employable. It is they that the industry seeks. Then there are times I wonder. Times like Tuesday morning when I get to hear some of the guys' work so far and how lame it is, how far some of my peers are from handing in a good first project. Mine will be finished on Monday morning and I'll be the first one done. It's also shaping up to be the best of those I've heard. I guess that Bill is right. My experience in working with more complex programs than the one we are using in this class makes this first task of ours seem very straightforward and so I've managed to work quickly and efficiently.

I guess it's the social side of the radio course I don't fancy myself at though, or at least feel as though there are those all around me far better suited, and I would do well to listen to my own advice here. This way I can give anything that comes up a good go but also know where my strengths and weaknesses lie and play to them. I will be on the Street Team for one of the local radio stations' events in early November (the week before what is sure to be an awesome Opeth gig) and so this will give me some more experience in areas away from the computer screen which is where I definitely do better.

I should probably get away from this particular computer screen if I want to make a good go of this day.

It's started off wet but there's always that little bit of hope.

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Stevie

Hoping that it brightens up a bit. And soon.

1169

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Friday, September 22nd 2017 (Podcasting Brainstorms)


This is the first post I've written outside of Lindsay's for some weeks. This morning I am writing from my cave although will not be able to post it until much later on this evening. How late will depend upon whether Barry the Bullet and I decide to go on a debt-collecting mission this evening. There haven't been many windows cleaned this week and last and so there isn't exactly a lot of money sitting out there. It's a nightmare so close to a time when much money will be needed. The trip to Spain; the move in with Lindsay – all will require cash and so hopefully we will make the right choice and get out there this evening. It'll be dark by the time we finish. It's dark by eight o'clock now. Soon it'll be seven. Then six. Then five. Then four.

My favourite of my new classes at college is definitely the podcasting one on a Tuesday afternoon. On Monday mornings we tend not to do very much. There tends to be the same lack of organisation from the lecturers as there was on last year's sound production course and so we have to show initiative. This is the time when we each have a choice. We can knuckle down and do what we've been asked to do or we can work on building our friendships with other members of the class. I think that this year I feel a little left out of things in this way. Last year one of the big things for me was trying to learn to bond with other students, particularly make ones, and to practice friendship building. I was relatively successful in this I thought although there was still much in the way of scope for improvement. This year I find that I am leaning more towards the more mature students in the group and they tend to be women. I am finding all of the younger ones on this course to be extremely superficial.

In the afternoon on a Monday we have a theory class which, again, can tend to be run more by the louder young students than than it is run by the lecturer. She does have work for us to do every week though and so I try to get done each week what I must. I wouldn't want to fall behind with the workload in this particular class.

On Tuesday mornings we are scheduled to have interviewing techniques classes but they haven't really started yet and we've been filling the time by listening to visitors from the local radio station Kingdom FM. This week it was someone from marketing and advertising – more of a sales based talk – and I think that next week we have one (or maybe even both, I can't really remember) of the breakfast show presenters coming in to offer advice and insight on presenting skills and tips on how to get ahead in the industry. It's all good fun.

Then we come to Tuesday afternoons and this is when we have the podcasting. Each of us is scheduled an hour time slot during the days when we go on air to practice our skills and I am quite lucky I feel in that I am on one of the morning slots from ten until eleven. It gives me the rest of the day without having to worry about leaving class for a while. I get to concentrate on the rest of the day.

The thing I like most about the podcasting classes is the potential scope of it all. There really ar eno limits to what we might be able to do. The broadcasting parts of the course offer the listener a spontaneous feel where live shows go out constantly throughout the day. This suits the banter style. The podcasts will be prerecorded and edited to standards before going out on air, probably in the evenings, and we've been asked to think of ideas as to what we might do. We have been asked to come up with a mini-series of a minimum of three connected podcasts.

One of the big ideas I've had is a look into the world of recovery from addictions. This is too big a task for this early in the game though. I am going to save this for when I get a little more experienced at interviewing, writing and producing. I am pretty sure I could get interviews with someone from every walk of recovery life. Louise from addiction services; Nikki from Restoration; Susan (Super-Zoe's less than super sidekick) from Drug, Alcohol and Psychotherapies Limited; someone from Fife Alcohol Support Service, either Margaret that used to counsel me or perhaps even big Jim Bett who runs things down there. Perhaps even Dr. Bacon could add a clinical psychologist's take on it. All of these are options I could pursue once I have built up my experience and skills a little. I could maybe even try the local psychiatric hospital for their insights. SMART Recovery. There are connections I could utilise there too, as well as the shit load of people I know from the addicts side rather than the professional side.

I could make up a series no problems I'm sure. I could look into what causes the addictions in some cases; the differences between genuine addictions and people who just drink a lot for a transient period of time and both the benefits and disasters that come from having non-addicts in the recovery world. I could look into personal stories of people early in recovery to the mid and late stages, those with years of not drinking in their belts. There's potential to be able to sit in on a SMART meeting (obviously with permission – we won't be taught at college how to go about things illegally and immorally). I could take a recorder to recovery events such as the Scottish Recovery Walk.

I would have to check the AA Traditions in detail to see exactly what I would have to refer to them as. Could I call them Twelve Step Fellowships as I have heard many times? The Alcohol Fellowship? I'll find a way of including us but respecting the Traditions. Then I could look into everything that happens within AA from the Twelve Step program itself and the gazillion success stories to the possible reasons why AA suits the moderate drinker more than it does the genuine alcoholic right down to their acceptance of sober men preying sexually on young female newcomers. Tremendous scope for a project.

That is for later though. For this first series I am simply going to promote some music from three of my ex-peers from last year. I'll get Rory into the studio one week and we'll play some of his music and I'll interview him. The following episode I'll do it on Darren's music and then the third and final week I'll have another guy set up.

Start off easy and improve with time and practice.

Aiming for the addiction in Fife podcast as the ultimate project for my graded unit.

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Stevie

Thinking big from the comfort of his cave.

1215

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Saturday, September 23rd 2017 (The Old Firm)


The change in the temperature in the night air as I approach the entrance to my cave for one of the last times I am struck with reminders, triggers, insights into how things used to be. I'm being taken back to times best forgotten. In thirty years I'll be sitting at the top table of some AA meeting somewhere telling anyone who'll listen to me that I can remember exactly what it was like, that I can recall vividly and as though it were yesterday the true horrors of my final days of drinking in the cave. I will be, of course, full of shit. Already I am forgetting. When I leave here next month to move in with Lindsay on a permanent basis many memories will be left here inside the cave. It's just the way our minds work.

The times in the cave are a distant memory at the moment though as I sit in the warmth of Lindsay's sitting room. I notice changes in the light in the mornings too, it taking longer for the sun to come up. Summer seemed really short this year, likely because of the constant rainfall we've endured. It'll be better once I'm living here permanently. Not long to go until that happens. She will be designated a new placement within five weeks and so that should keep her busy for at the moment there is little going on in her world. It's been so long in the making that she won't graduate this November and so will have to wait until next year now. She'll still be able to work, although whether or not her job will remain open for her at the moment is unknown, but she'll not officially graduate until the following November. There's no rush for this though.

My brother was married last year on this day. Sixteen thousand pounds of fake glitz and glamour ended with everything that could have gone wrong going wrong. In the end they took the event hosts to court and got the money back for what was supposed to be a meal and bought a car with it and so I guess everything ended up good and well. They say that being married changes everything. It has definitely changed everything for them where I'm concerned now that I am breaking records left, right, and centre with what has easily become the longest spell in our lives without us communicating. There have been one or two text messages and Facebook comments but nothing meaningful. Our relationship has pretty much died. That's maybe a little unfair. It's changed, only not in the way I would have liked.

I guess it's gone the way that things have with my mother. I think that one of the more difficult parts to my sobering up has been the way things have gone with family. There aren't many of us left and those that are still there don't seem to get on or even see each other much. When I mentioned this to my mum, that we don't see each other as much as I'd like, she simply pointed out that this is just the way families are and that my auntie hadn't seen her son for eleven months until the other week. That hurt but if anything needed to be said to wake me up from this little fantasy of mine, to finally let Little Stephen know for sure that things are never going to be as he perhaps wants them to, it was perhaps that. Weddings, funerals, and Christmas's. That's where we're at now. This Christmas Lindsay and I are thinking about booking a table at some restaurant for just the two of us and so this is one way of coming to accept that what little family I have left isn't interested. I can still enjoy these times without them.

I have to admit though – I could do with keeping friendships I have, and perhaps adding one or two more. I find people so incredibly awkward to deal with. I visited with English Sara (Dennis wasn't there for once, he was out checking on his bets) and was thinking about how I won't really miss being here all that much once I leave town and move in with Lindsay. There would be nothing stopping me from still visiting, and I will likely still visit, since I'll be in my town on week days for college and work anyway, but that I can feel my soul and Sara's parting. We are no longer perhaps where we once were. This is sad but again I must not shy away from it, pretend it's not there. When I move things will be different. It is a fresh start, the attempts to build a new life for myself in another part of the county.

Friendships. Dr. Bacon and I (who I'll see again this coming Thursday afternoon for the first time in five and a half weeks) are always trying to work on my connections with other people, or lack of, and we've still not really started the proper work yet, still floating around the preparation stages, and so I am still without tools I might one day soon have in my possession. The college class has a very young average age and so I shouldn't be too hard on myself for not being able to seamlessly and effortlessly jump into the middle of the bed where friendships there are concerned. Last year was a little tighter group since we had all of those people drop out by Christmas and while I can't see all of us managing to stick around for the whole year I would imagine that most of these guys will be in it to win it and will finish the course.

I think that one of the more difficult aspects to making friends and building connections is to do with my age. It's difficult when you are a bit older. If it weren't then loneliness among the aged and retired would not be the issue it is. When approaching forty it might not be such a limiting life but people are definitely more worn out and less likely to want to do things spontaneously. They are a little more set in their ways. With me being notoriously difficult to get to know and to spend time with it really does leave me in an unenviable position whereby I move through here next month and find my existing connections reducing in their meaningfulness and facing isolation again but in a different form. I'll be more isolated in some ways despite living with someone for the first time since my last stint in homeless accommodation back in early 2012.

Rangers and Celtic are the lunchtime kick-off this weekend and so I'm thinking about heading to the pub for it. Starts at twelve so Lindsay is meeting me there for some late breakfast and then she's heading up the road while I stick around. We won't be arriving together because I'm going to head out for my walk soon and it's going to be a three hour one I think. I'm sitting at just under 250 for the month of September and so I am eager to get this over 300 as quickly as possible with the month fast running out of remaining days.

There is so much more to be discussing but it's better said tomorrow morning.

See you then.

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Stevie

Watching football in pubs.

1266

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Sunday, September 24th 2017 (The Last Ninety Nine Days)


One of our AA members has died. He was only forty two. It was nothing to do with drinking that killed him. Epilepsy. He was approaching the end of his second sober year from what I remember. I didn't know him awfully well and since he had recently started dating what was his first girlfriend I hadn't seen him at meetings but then I haven't been to many meetings at all this year. R.I.P. Gavin. He was one of the younger generation coming through.

My brother's wedding signified the one hundredth-to-last day of the year I figured out in 2016 so we now have only ninety nine days remaining in 2017. It's plenty time. There are still enough days left to make something of this year. My first year in sobering up brought me many challenges and I wasn't up to facing most of them. There were problems at work; the whole Jenna thing; trying to work through the Twelve Step program with my sponsor Stu. My relationships with my brother and sister-in-law (and so automatically my nieces too) were better and so I felt better supported in this way. I was in regular contact with Gillon. English Sara lived in the flats right next to my cave. The cave itself was in a complete state and I felt totally unable, incapable, of turning things around. In many ways it was an exciting year, one that I'll look back upon as being the time I got sober, but nothing at all good happened in the last ninety nine days. It was then that all the shit happened. It wasn't much better than the two winters that had gone before in many ways.

Last year was much better. I wasn't working and so there was a great pressure off me. Barry the Bullet started working on the window cleaning on his own, with help from my brother when he wasn't at university. I went for a government health assessment (the one I recently failed) and passed and so there was weight off in that respect. I wouldn't have to go hunting for jobs like a madman. I could relax a little. I allowed me time to spend on myself. It meant that I could do things like go to plenty of AA meetings, sit in the local library to get some peace and quiet, join up in things like the Starter for Ten project and volunteer at the Charity Shop Cafe. It gave me time to really think about where I wanted to be heading now that I had put some time between myself and my last drink. I attended Restoration regularly and got involved in community education, taking part in self-esteem building classes and Seven Habits courses.

When the year was at the stage where there were only ninety nine days to go I feel as though they took a turn for the better. My brother had just married Scottish Sarah (and this was before I knew that we would then pretty much not be seeing each other since); I had been dating Lindsay for about a month; I had started my sound production level six course. I was relatively happy with my AA meetings too. While not exactly homely my cave was of a standard where I didn't hide from myself in shame whenever I was there. In complete contrast to the previous year I would say that the last ninety nine days of 2016 were where all the highlights might be found.

So I'm optimistic about these next three months. I still feel as though I am struggling to find my place in the college group this year. So many of the students do that thing where they look as though they've known each other for years when in fact it's been little over three weeks but I'm just getting on with what I'm supposed to be doing. It's about work first and friendships second, I guess, but I suppose friendships are a part of the work I must be doing so we'll just have to watch this space.

Lindsay and I will be looking over our financial situation this afternoon and I'm looking forward to it. Let's get things sorted before next month's big move where I am scheduled to give up the cave and come live here with her. When I'm in the cave I worry about this situation but when I'm here I shudder at the thought of not moving. It's a constant back and forth tug-of-war with wherever I happen to be thinking from at the time being the place I favour the most at that particular time. The student loan went into the bank (Lindsay's bank – they couldn't pay it into a Credit Union account and so I gave them her details) and she then put it into her savings account. There's roughly two thousand pounds in there, one thousand or so in my Credit Union, and around six hundred saved up to convert to Euros for the coming trip to Spain or to get in some Christmas presents to make a good start on that before we get into December. It's more money than I'm used to being involved in planning to budget and spend.

Deciding how much of this should be spent on my old problems will be one of the things up for debate. I would like to clear off some of my debts from that cave. There is a rent account building up a debt every week I have it under my name. I have no idea what my current balance is sitting at but I think anything less than five hundred bucks won't do it any justice. I also have those blasted gas and electricity bills that have been following me around ever since I moved in there more than four years ago now. The electricity bill isn't too severe but the gas one is still almost a thousand pounds. They won't be getting cleared but they'll be having significant dents thumped into each of them. Sixteen hundred pounds was the first instalment of the student loan and so it's not as if by doing this I am spending Lindsay's money. I'll have to get out to work with Barry the Bullet as much as I can in the coming weeks and months.

There are, of course, things I need to be buying for the college and so this will be factored into our talks this afternoon as well. For now though I am going to make my second coffee of the day and then head out for a walk. I have eighteen miles to do today (somehow) if I want to keep going this run of each week bettering the distance walked the previous one, which, for some unknown reason, I do.

Eighteen miles!

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Stevie

Ninety Nine days to go.

1163

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Monday, September 25th 2017 (The First Practical Project)


I had to walk forty miles over the weekend to equal last week's total of eighty seven and found it pretty time consuming. It was because I didn't walk anywhere when I was at mine, in the cave, as I didn't have to. Last week I walked every day and had reasons too. I walked to and from college even though it's in another town eight miles away. Last week there were two days where I didn't have to do this and so tended to walk much less. This had an effect on my totals needed for the weekend. I managed to do it though and so now when I add up my totals, type them into Endomondo, it makes for interesting reading.

My previous best total miles walked since starting all this back in February when I quit smoking was last month's 166, which was twenty two miles up on my previous best which was back in May when I was training for that Moonwalk thing in Edinburgh. I was following their training plan and managed to get my total for May up to 144. It wasn't until August that I beat this. Now, in September, I look at my new totals (and still with a week of the month to go) and can't quite believe it. I'll likely more than double that best total from last month. I won't be far off it anyway. Already I am about to break the three hundred miles for the month mark and we still have a week to go. The weather plays a significant part I think. For most of July and August is rained (and I really mean that – it rained at some point during twenty five of August's thirty one days and July wasn't much better. The radio said that this year's June was also the wettest on record) but September has been a little drier although it has still had its fair share of wet days. Nothing seems set to even try to stop me getting a quite brilliant miles total for this month though.

One of the reasons that Scotland's premier football match (Rangers Vs. Celtic) is such an early kick off each time it is on is so that it can be televised. No channels will ever (hopefully) be able to screen live three o'clock Saturday afternoon fixtures and so they tend to have games like Saturday's match on either earlier or later, or even on the Sunday. In Scotland, given our drinking culture and typically violent nature, a deal has been made to make these games start during the earlier slot. Midday. When our national team plays the fixtures are rounded up and decided using certain criteria that mean we cannot have home internationals contested during the Friday evening/Saturday evening slots. We're not the only ones but it's still pretty embarrassing really. To not be seen as responsible enough to host games whenever a slot turns up. Our final home game of this world cup qualifying campaign takes place on the Thursday evening.

Still though, despite it being not even two o'clock in the afternoon by the time Saturday's game is finished there are plenty of drunk people kicking around the pub I am in. Some people can do that – drink their fill for the game in the afternoon and then head home and not think any more of it, perhaps even pick it back up again later in the evening. I was never one of these types of people. For some very antisocial reasons I tended to get a taste for it early on after just a few sips and then would have to drink really quickly and until the day ended with me passing out. Most aren't like this but some of these people in this pub getting pissed up for the football midday kick-off will not be able to stop here and will continue to drink all day and into the evening. One or two may well end up in the cells for the night, and if so, will still be in there as I type here early on Monday morning. I don't miss it.

So what's on the cards for today then? Well, I'm taking the bus to college this morning as there's only so much walking a Stevie feels inclined to do. I'll be there for half past eight. Shaun was in Barcelona with his girlfriend last week so I'll be asking him a little about that since Lindsay and I will be leaving to go there a week from today. With Lindsay being off placement just now it is pretty handy as she'll be sorting out travel insurance and getting us some Euros and so I don't have to worry about any of that. I just go to college and do my thing.

That is not to say that there aren't any worries. Shaun will be back from Barcelona and so he'll likely want to chat. Paige will be sitting next to me and she'll want to spend time chatting as well. Everyone will want to. That's one of the problems with studying. On the college website there are many pictures of students studying away, looking as if they are all deep in thought and getting their heads down, eager to make the most of their time in the classroom. The reality is far from this and sometimes I feel as though the lecturers have little to no control over their students. It often makes for a difficult learning environment but tomorrow I think I'll vanish to one of the little booths and lock myself in. I won't come out until I am finished the first practical project and that will be the first thing ticked off.

I will soon enough have the software we use in class on my laptop and when this happens and I can sort out the spare room at Lindsay's once the move has happened and all of that has died down and when I do I know for sure that my weekends will be different. These little class projects will become something of homework assignments and I can see me putting a bit of effort into them.

Even writing about it is getting me in the mood for working on this first project.

In the private booth, of course.

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Stevie

Still works best as the lone wolf.

1087

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Tuesday, September 26th 2017 (The Never-Ending Cycle)



Lindsay and I were discussing finances on Sunday afternoon and I've made some progress in thinking about this. I know – it's action that gets things done, not thought, but there isn't enough money to go around (when is there ever?) and so decisions must be made. Being the King of Lame Decision-Making for most of my adult life I thought that I could think my way into a better decision-making process this time. How can I lessen the pressures on me at the moment? How can I make this coming move into Lindsay's fair on both of us while still making sure that I clear off much of my outstanding debt?

The first instalment of the student loan went into the bank the other day and so I'm good to go. This is it. The future starts now. Things are looking so unbelievably up at the moment that it seems as though any minute now things could take a monumental turn for the worst. There I go again – catastrophising. I'm expecting the sky to begin falling at any moment. Only I'm not. Things are going well, yes, but I feel as though my feet are firmly on the ground still.

I explained to Lindsay that I would likely be a bit weird in the days leading up to this move. Next week we are going to be in Spain and the following week will be my last week while having a place to call my cave. Things will be very different after that and I mentioned that I don't know quite how to take this. In the days building up to me handing the keys back to the council I may come across as distant and may want to spend a little more time in the cave than I have been doing in recent weeks. She gets this I think. Better than I might have given her credit for before I mentioned it to her.

Stevie – ''It's just that when I'm through there I find myself thinking about whether I'd be able to afford keeping the cave as an option, as somewhere to go to be by myself once or twice per week.''

Lindsay – ''I see.''

Stevie – ''And then I come through here and I know that this move is the right thing I should be doing. Then I go back through there for a night and I start wondering again. It's confusing.''

Lindsay – ''I get it too.''

Stevie – ''You do?''

Lindsay – ''Of course. I'll be sitting here by myself thinking about how nice this is and then you come through and it's even better. Then you go back to the cave and I think about how much better it is being on my own. It's a never-ending cycle.''

We'll be fine. I know what she's saying though. Good to hear her mention it too. Sometimes the self-obsessed part of me can fool me into thinking that this is as big a move for Lindsay as it is for me. We are both very similar in that we like our own space and she is being brave in letting someone into her own little private bubble on a much more permanent basis. She had a boyfriend she broke up with not long before we started seeing each other but I know that they weren't close and he didn't spend much time at the house. They were miles away from ever considering a move like this. It's been a long time since either of us lived with a partner. My last would be Elaine, the psycho-bitch, Lindsay's I am not too sure about. Perhaps I'll ask her.

Stevie – ''Just expect me to be a little on the. . . weird side the week we come back from Spain. We'll have been together all week and. . .''

Lindsay – ''And you'll be wanting some time to digest everything that's just happened as well as getting some down time in your cave for its last week. I know. That's completely understandable.''

If there's one thing I feel was worth the one hundred and sixty quid we spent on Donna's help at Relationships Scotland couple's counselling alone that we have managed to take from these sessions it's the cuddling without screens. That would have been a good alternative title to this post actually. Cuddling Without Screens. But it's something that we still do and hopefully will keep doing. We are to cuddle on the bed, even if just for five to ten minutes, with no distractions at all. We can use this time to talk or to connect in other ways (just not THAT way) as long as there is nothing to get in the way. No screens, no music, no nothing. Just Lindsay and Stevie. It works wonders for us at the moment and if the time ever comes when we don't make time for this for any reason I will begin to worry.

Stevie – ''I do like my time by myself at times, don't I!?''

Lindsay – ''Which is why you get that spare room for exactly that. For when you don't have the cave to go to any longer.''

The spare room isn't a dinky little place either. It's bigger than our bedroom, the widest and longest of the two rooms. The reasons Lindsay chose the smaller bedroom when she moved in here the month before I put down my last drink was twofold: she likes the walk-in wardrobes, and her son was to be staying with her and so he was to be getting the bigger room since he'd likely be spending more time in there. Probably mainly the walk-in wardrobes though. In the end her son never came here and opted to live with his late father's mother for fear of his mum and her drinking. Lindsay now has that same wondering if she'll ever have a relationship with her child as I have with mine.

I only recently set up a Facebook account for the first time since we are required to have one for the college and so I have been slowly adding friends and checking out what people have been getting up to. It's not really my thing though and I can't see me using it much. Makes me wonder what sort of mental state those who get addicted to its use must be in but I can definitely see a great many uses for it as a medium. I am now a member of the Facebook community and every time I log on (usually to check something because I am tagged in the college group chat thing and get the notifications even if I am not logged in to Facebook) I am shown suggestions of people I may know so that I can grow my contacts and thus the likelihood of the site getting money from my being there.

The other day one of these ''people I may know'' was my son. If he's being suggested to me then why not me to him? Now I can see the dangers of this website as well.

Thank the God of my Understanding I am not drinking at the moment.

But then, if I was, none of what is currently happening would be anyway.

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Stevie

Ending the cycle.

1240

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Wednesday, September 27th 2017 (Never See Me Doing)


Virgin Media Previews are supposed to be showing the Celtic game tonight even if you don't subscribe to BT Sports. It must be some sort of promotional thing to give you a taste of what we're missing so as to tempt you into making that call. It won't be happening but I'll certainly be taking in a Champions League match for free if I can get it, especially if it is the Scottish champions taking the kick-off. After the humiliation that was the 5-0 drubbing at the hands of Paris (with two hundred million pounds Neymar leading the strike force) maybe this is all that Richard Branson thinks he can do to get anyone to tune in but it'll be different this time. I'm going to just 4-0 to the Belgian champions. If you can count on the Scots to do anything well it's lose, and embarrass themselves, or do both.

The moving day is pretty much official now with us renting the van on October 13th (Friday morning) and handing it back to them on October 16th (Monday afternoon) after returning the keys to the council. This is only costing ninety quid (plus a HUGE deposit) and so we'll have our own transport for a full weekend. The free bus passes are all good and well but nothing beats the freedom of actually being able to drive around under my own steam. It'll be a decent weekend I am sure. So the date is set. From the 16th of next month I will be living with Lindsay. Scary but exciting. Two weeks on Monday and I'll be saying goodbye to my cave. I don't need to get into the whole thing again about how I never managed to turn that cold place into any kind of home for myself despite having four years to do it as I've mentioned all that before. I'll just say that I am still torn between wanting to leave and wanting to stay. I can't have the best of both worlds with this and so I am making a decision and sticking to it. I'm choosing a commitment and committing to it.

At the moment I am starting to actually allow myself the opportunity of looking forward to next week's trip out of Scotland, out of the British Isles. A first for me in many a year. A first for me without my mother and brother period. I'm feeling all grown up now. A trip with a girlfriend? Was just never the sort of thing I would have seen me doing and certainly not within the first three years of sober living. I also could not have seen me continuing to be capable of cleaning windows with Barry the Bullet this far into the sober life. I had figured that this business would have been all over by now, long before now actually, but onwards and upwards it now seems to be heading again. Finding my educational route to be relatively stress free I could perhaps have anticipated but the other things I've mentioned are surprises for me and pleasant ones at that.

But yeah – I am looking forward to going away. Anything to not see rain for a week or so. Sure thing – it might rain in Spain – but I can't see it being accompanied with such horrible feelings of cold and greyness as it is when it rains here in Scotland. It's starting to feel dark here too. When we come back here on October 09th there will only be a couple of weeks until the clock change signifies the coming of the winter. From then on I imagine some things to become a little more difficult. Most things will remain no different of course – I'll still be warm inside the college and so on, but my walks might be a little more tricky and going out to clean windows with Barry the Bullet will begin to get a little tougher. I don't know why I am even thinking of this stuff at the moment though. Talk about putting a dampner on things!!

I had another night spent in the cave last night and I'll be there again tomorrow night. After this there will be no nights there until the final week of my stay there. Many things have yet to be sorted out but I am now in a position where I know that I'll be fine for moving out on the scheduled date. One full week upon returning from Spain. It's plenty time and the time is definitely right. After moving in I'll be working on getting Lindsay's spare room decorated and getting what few things I have moved in there. My new cave will be a shared one.

I find that when I sleep in the cave I wake earlier (due to their being no heating there at the moment and with it being such a cold place to be – Lindsay doesn't have the heating on much at hers but still it is nowhere near as cold as my own cave. Lack of life perhaps?) but get up later. If I'm working or at college the following day I can easily make it on time every time when I am waking at Lindsay's even though I am in a different town when I get out of bed. When in the cave I am but a few minutes' walk from either the college or meeting point for work but consistently struggle to make it on time.

While I will still be spending most of my weekdays in my old town I can still see my relationships with my friends begin to suffer. I can't see myself visiting Gillon and English Sara as much as I have been doing while I've been living here. I don't know why I think this, it's just a feeling. I find that when I visit with them things seem more distant than before, like we have less to talk about, like we have less in common somehow, like we're heading in different directions now. It's a little worrying as I think about how I might build up new friendships in this new town I'll be living in from next month as the only place I really go to that has any social aspect to it is AA and I can't really see any meaningful connections being established with members there. Everyone wants to be a teacher in AA and so no one ever feels as though they are equal. It's a constant power struggle. Not the basis for good, meaningful connections.

Anyway. Gotta get going. Celtic seem to be live on the telly this evening even though I don't pay for the channel they're on. I'm going to watch that.

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Stevie

Watching football.

1153

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Thursday, September 28th 2017 (Not Part of My Life)



Looks like Lindsay and I are heading to Edinburgh on Saturday to get in any last minute holiday shorts and socks or whatever else we might be needing. I'm always on the prowl for Christmas presents too and so will have my eyes peeled when we go shopping. Paige at the college helped me out with this big style on Tuesday and as we headed for an early lunch we got talking about the coming festivities. I got thinking about presents. Lindsay always gets a pair of theatre tickets from her dad and last year we went to see Billy Elliot at the Edinburgh play house, the year before it was Wicked, which Lindsay has always maintained was her favourite. I noticed they are on tour again and so thought it would be a good start to her Christmas. I can't order anything online though due to my struggles in getting a bank account. Paige jumps to the rescue here and says that if I put the money her her bank account I can order them this afternoon in class and get them delivered to her address. When they arrive she'll bring them into college. Now I have made a start to Lindsay's Christmas. We got some things for the nieces the other week and I plan on getting some things for Christmas next week when we're in Spain. Things are looking more prepared than I have ever known. We're not even done with September yet.

Lindsay asks if I've seen Facebook recently as there's another post up from my mum of the nieces cleaning up in the garden so she must have been babysitting them again. I think mum likes to make a fuss of these two young girls and show them off to the world every chance she gets as it helps her make up for never being there when my brother and I were growing up. That's what I like to think anyway. Perhaps she does it for nothing more than the attention she thinks it gets her. The bottom line is that I haven't seen it. I am aware that there is a video posted by my mother and that on this video are my nieces but I haven't actually watched the footage. It feels too much like I'm intruding on their lives now. Lindsay says that as long as she has posted it then she has intended for the world to see and so I'm not intruding on anything. I suppose so, but I still feel as though I am watching uninvited. If I was wanted in their lives then I'd be contacted by now.

I won't watch this video because, for all intents and purposes, I am not a part of my nieces' lives anymore.

I don't know if this is my Detached Protector in action. I guess I'll find out later on this afternoon when I see Dr. Bacon for the first time in thirty eight days. I'm looking forward to it but think that we should start to move away from the whole brother/mother/nieces thing now and onto something a little more relevant to my life and future. I think that it's quite a sobering fact that one of the more difficult parts about getting sober is learning to accept that I don't really mean anything to my family. The moment I stopped trying was the moment that all contact seemed to be broken. Makes me really see things more clearly. For so long I thought that it was them trying and me just holding them back or getting in the way with my drunken bullshit but now that the dust has settled on all of that I can see that the reason we spoke to begin with was only because I kept showing up at the door. Now that I don't do that I have been amazed by the reaction of my brother and sister-in-law. They have made no attempts to contact me whatsoever. Talk about feeling unloved.

I think I could waste several more sessions with Dr. Bacon discussing this and how it might be best to try to reconnect with these family members of mine but in the end I think that I have to recite the Serenity Prayer. What can I really change here? I am perhaps not a part of their plans and so I would do well to accept this now and to move on. I won't be watching videos on Facebook that have my nieces on them because I have to accept that they aren't really a part of my life anymore. This I can do without wasting session time with my psychologist. What we'll end up talking about this afternoon is up to him really but I certainly won't be pushing the family thing on him. I'm Detached Protectoring my way through that situation as it is.

Anyway – enough negative shit!! This morning I will be hoping to get a hold of Barry the Bullet after failing to do so yesterday. If I am successful then I'll be working today, at least until my session with Dr. Bacon. If I can't get a hold of him then I'll have to find other ways of amusing myself. One thing I have to do is book a van rental for the big move. For this I will need a DVLA driver's code so that I can share my driving information with whichever company I choose to rent a van from. This will have to be done over the phone and so I could do that when they open at eight o'clock. Anything that makes a little headway with something helps me to get that feeling as though I'm being productive. I hate those days when nothing seems to get done, when it feels as though the day existed for no good reason. There have been so many of those types of day in my life.

The air outside is cooler in the mornings and I have to say I quite like it. There are other signs of autumn in the lingering dark and the leaves that have started to fall from the trees. It's almost as if it's pointless them growing to begin with if they are just going to fall off again within six months. We have four weeks until the clock change comes which will plunge the whole of the country into darkness for six to eight months but I'm looking forward to it this year.

I'm going to head to the AA meeting tonight after I've visited English Sara. This is the plan anyway although the session with Dr. Bacon may change this. Big change is just around the corner for me with this move in with Lindsay happening within a week of us coming back from Spanish sunshine.

I'll love it when it's all said and done but the initial transition may not be all that smooth. I still struggle with being adaptable.

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Stevie

Not all that adaptable.

1187

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Friday, September 29th 2017 (Parts of My Morning Ritual)


I'll get to yesterday's session with Dr. Bacon in a little moment. I've figured out how to override the gas meter in the cave and so I can get heating on. It's only for an hour at a time, and I can't program it so won't wake to a heated home but instead still a freezing cave, but the boiler is good and the radiators large (this is a pensioner's bungalow I am living in really and so they like good heating systems) and at this time of year when things are still very mild it doesn't take long in heating up and reaching an agreeable temperature. It also means that I can run a bath. I bet I've had more baths now in the two and a half years since I last took a drink than I did in the previous ten years. It's possible. But anyway – the heating is back on, if only for an hour at a time.

Another thing I wanted to quickly mention was about Lindsay's son. He's fifteen and has had a pretty rough time of it while growing up. His father was absent for most of the time and then decided that he did want a relationship with his son after all but died within weeks of initiating contact. This was when her son was seven. It was a drug overdose. By her own admission Lindsay was at times an emotionally unavailable mother and he had no siblings. He was in the house when she was beaten by the boyfriend she met in AA and knows all about the fall and consequent brain haemorrhage and was present one time when she decided to threaten to harm herself with a blade if she didn't get the drink she craved. Psycho-bitch, one might think, but I know how chequered my past can look through words as well. None of us are saints.

Now his school attendance is suffering and for his last school year he sat at a rather low forty per cent. He stays with his father's mother – a seventy six year old obese woman in poor health and who is obviously totally incapable of looking after herself let alone a child as well – and social work has been involved for some time, a crisis team was called in to help her help him to get to school. I notice that there was nothing really done to train the lad himself to be responsible for his own life and actions, this must come only when they reach a certain birthday and so he has been allowed to learn quite well to play the victim, a role he seems to have taken in his stride, and latest news is that he has not been to school at all this year, has an attendance of zero per cent for this, his fourth year of high school, I think Americans just refer to it as ''Year Eleven'' and so now he will be going into care for the weekdays and residing at his grandmother's on the weekends. The courts feel that this will get him to school. Personally I think he is doomed. It would seem that here in Scotland we have social systems in place that all but ensure troubled children become less than they could be. I am another such example.

But part of my getting over this, which Lindsay's son will have to go through at some point sooner or later himself, and that I only began to learn at the age of thirty six when I joined the WQD forum in 2014, is that I myself and no one else is responsible for my ''illness'' and it is up to each and every one of us, alkies or not, to manage this throughout our lives. Lindsay's son is being taught at the moment that if he just sits with the X-Box on that everyone else will manage his life for him but one time he's gonna have to do what we all do. I like to think that this refers to each and every one of us having to manage our illness of the human condition. With this we all have a nastiness inside and each of us must learn to suppress it if we are to live in harmony.

But I was at Dr. Bacon's, my clinical psychologist's, for half past one yesterday afternoon. What a truly horrible session. It reminded me of being sponsored by Stu back when I was new to AA. I felt completely ridiculous throughout the entire sixty minutes I was sitting in that room. If there's one thing I am eager to hear it is that some progress is being made and while he says that he believes there to be improvements all the time (my Healthy Adult is strengthening and my coping modes are reducing in their frequency and intensity as a result of my heightened awareness) I really wonder sometimes. I felt like we were right back at the beginning again. I had promised myself that after this session I would be heading to English Sara's and then hitting the AA meeting on the way back to the cave but after that session I swore I'd be returning to the cave instantly and not leaving until sometime tomorrow. So horrible was that session.

We talked about my morning ritual and so I talked about how I got up early every morning and made sure I was washed properly and ready for the day, that I always ate a good breakfast, that I sometimes walk into college or work even though I often wake in another town eight miles away, and how I tend to write my one hundred words on the forums before setting off. My reasons for this were brought into question. Why do I continue to write on these forums? At first it was for the same reasons I attend therapy in the first place – to connect with people – but now he wonders why I keep it up, and, if I never interact with anyone, if my reasons for writing might be hindering me. I wonder what he might suggest as an alternative but there seems to be no ideas. I feel silly again, ridiculous. Should I stop writing? Does what he says carry any weight? Does writing here cause me any problems? Is it not just harmless gathering of one's thoughts in the morning? A part of my morning ritual?

We talk about Lindsay for a little bit as well and find myself feeling incredibly judged. I vow to give him as little information as possible and I end up not saying much during the session. The whole thing rather ruined my day. The idea is that we can discuss things going on in the outside world whenever the chance arises but if there is something notable going on inside the therapy room then this must be dealt with first. We cannot connect when one of our coping modes is running the show and this is my Detached Protector's playground at the moment.

It's going to be difficult for us to get anywhere from now on as my reluctance to be judged by him and asked to stop doing things I think are good for me will see that I withdraw information. I won't lie, I just won't give him some information unless he asks outright. This might be my Detached Protector getting to do whatever it wants to but those terrible silences when I'm asked a question and cannot think of a way to answer it. How I detest those silences.

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Stevie

Detests the silences.

1296

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Saturday, September 30th 2017 (A Meeting Of Five)


I only have today to add to the mile total for what has been a ludicrous month of walking. At the moment I am sitting at nearly three hundred and fifty miles walked for September which is almost double what I managed last month. Which was a shit load more than my previous best. As a result of all this I weighed myself this morning and am sitting at eleven stone and three pounds. This puts me under my Slimming World target but, according to most websites I check, at a pretty much perfect weight for my age and height. All this walking has its perks. Makes the Proclaimers' promise for love seem a little less impressive actually, but I'll throw more about that in at the end of the post.

I notice that stable weight is just one of the perks to keeping this walking going. Paige, Shaun and I are walking down town on Tuesday and we are running out of time before the Credit Union closes for the day (it's only open ten until one) and so we have to up the pace. This goes well for a while but in the end they agree to just meet me there. They are teenagers but the pace is far too much for either of them. With me now walking daily, and averaging more than ten mile walked per day in September, at an average of around four and a half miles per hour, I am finding myself much less out of breath than my peers. Hills are not the issues they once were, distances feel comfortable. I'm no athlete but I'm fit now for approaching forty. Not super fit – just fit enough and that's as fit as I'm aiming for. Quitting smoking and taking up walking was a partnership made in heaven for me.

I still can't think back to that session on Thursday with my psychologist as anything other than a horrible experience. I am really not looking forward to the next one on the nineteenth of next month. It's kind of flipped on its head, this psychology. For a time it was something to cling onto but now that the time to put the work in has arrived I find myself wanting, frightened and exposed, unable to do the work. Comparisons with going through some parts of the Twelve Step program with Stu are uncanny. There were times when I sat on his couch unable to find the words to say, to find something to take the focus off me and stop me from feeling like a complete moron. Now those times are back only in the name of psychology services rather than AA sponsorship and Big Book nonsense.

I didn't want Dr. Bacon to win though and so did actually go to the AA meeting on Thursday evening after knocking on English Sara's door. To say that I was going to go and then not go due to a shitty session with him would make no sense. It would actually make perfect sense in a negative way, feeding a rather large bone to my Detached Protector – the part of me that likes to sit in and do fuck all, to shy away and hide from the world on my own – and I had to show myself capable of being stronger than that. If there was one shining light in an otherwise dark session it was Dr. Bacon saying that he does believe there has been some progress since we started working together back in January. If this was to continue to be true then I would have to bite the bullet at times (not Barry the Bullet, you understand, although there have been times recently where I would have liked to have drawn his blood, a bite perhaps not being the best way of going about it) and show myself of being able to brush what I saw as criticisms aside and still do the things I set out to do.

So I am at the AA meeting on Thursday night for it starting at eight o'clock. Before I arrived I popped in to see English Sara and Dennis and she was saying that there's a real shortage of staff at the charity shop. I noticed yesterday when I was in the area that they have a new sign up on the wall outside advertising for volunteers. I am hoping that this means others have followed my lead and decided that enough is enough. I also discover that Dennis has quite a pressing health issue. Something has been found in his stomach that shouldn't be there and so he has a follow up appointment on Tuesday. He'll never admit it but he's scared shitless. A few of the old codgers from down the pub have dropped off in recent months and I think Dennis is wondering if he might be next.

The meeting is interesting though. Not starting until ten minutes after it's scheduled in the hope that some others might show up late as there are only five of us. After the session with Dr. Bacon that I had a few hours before I am delighted to hear them talking about how it is best to Keep It Simple and that This Too Shall Pass, and all the rest of it. This is good advice and I am glad to hear about it, to be reminded of these trite little sayings. Why should I not be? They conform with my current bias. The thing is: I won't be able to keep it simple AND work through all this Detached Protectors shit with my psychologist. It's one or the other, I'm afraid. Also – This Too Shall Pass is all well and good saying but unless some real change happens for the better then whatever I am praying for to pass will simply keep on coming back. It WILL pass, on this AA is right, but I will spend my life forever looking over my shoulder. To become fully rid of these things I have to try something different, something more.

I'll be there again in a fortnight for what will be one of my last nights in that town. Assuming that things go well with the DVLA I will be able to rent the removal van the next day and so I will do my best to get to this meeting in two weeks. For today I will concentrate only on what is in front of me and on the menu this morning is a trip to Edinburgh to do a little last minute holiday shopping followed by eating out for dinner. I don't know if we'll get back in time to go to the meeting this evening, or if I'll even be arsed after a day out, but it would be nice to get to another one before heading to the airport on Monday.

I will track down a meeting in Spain, or at least try to, and will try to leave all thoughts of psychologist sessions firmly here in Scotland, where they belong.

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Stevie

Confused over where he's at.

Here is the Proclaimers singing the song mentioned at the top of the show, just in case anyone is wondering who the hell the might be. Here in Scotland they are played every new year with the celebrations. Harmless Scottish musical fun.

1234

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Sunday, October 01st 2017 (The AA Police)


I sit here this morning feeling a little guilty. Dr. Bacon has mentioned that he wonders if me writing here actually does serve any positive purpose for me. At first he has no doubt that it did, it may have been an essential tool in getting sober in the way of finding information and trying my hand at connection building but that now, more than two and a half years down the line, there is a lot of ambiguity surrounding my decision to continue writing. Makes me wonder if I should bother.

Loads of people write diaries and journals. Loads of people blog. Is Bacon trying to say that all of us are wrong for doing so? Or does he just think that I am, because of my troubles in connecting with people in real life? I know what he's saying in many respects. In a world of Facebook and other types of social media we are creating a world whereby the children of the future are growing up with less meaningful relationships than might be deemed healthy. Online friendships seem to be the way forward and I can see how this might be devastating for the new generations coming through.

Apparently young people nowadays have less sexual partners than their mothers and fathers had due to them being out and about less. This will surely count for real friends too at some point along the line. I see kids all the time on my way to college and they seem positively terrified of the world around them and hide behind their phones. I wonder if this is similar to what Dr. Bacon is saying to me in that I use this journal to hide behind. Am I one of these friendless, frightened teens? When asked about possible alternatives to how I might spend some time in the morning to writing this journal he wasn't forthcoming and so I would simply be left with a gap, a huge, gaping chasm of time to be filled each day. It would seem that way at least.

I am at the meeting last night for two minutes after it starting. I would have been there on time but had to take a little detour to the recycling plant to ditch some things from Lindsay's place on the way and this took some time. She's spent time this week searching through her spare room and putting what she can on ebay to sell, bagging into charity shop donations things that cannot be sold, and binning what cannot be donated, all in readiness for the big move in a couple of weeks. And the move looks as though it will be happening now. I made a few phone calls yesterday morning and one of them was to book the rental van. We now have it (a van) from Friday 13th (not a good Omen) until the following Monday morning.

I also called my electricity provider. I don't have any way of paying them at the moment. With most of my bills I have a payment card I simply take to a Paypoint and they throw the money on the card but Scottish power haven't provided me with this. I tried twice to call them but couldn't get through to someone to explain to them that I will be moving address and that I will not be letting them know to where, but, if they are quick in sending out one of these payment cards to my current address, then I will put some money towards my debt onto it whenever the inclination takes me. They won't get their money as quickly as they might want it but at least they'll get it. Tomorrow morning I will try them one last time. Failing that I will have an outlying debt with them for years to come.

There is only one seat left at the meeting and so I plonk my ass there. I haven't been to work with Barry the Bullet for a couple of weeks now but we were out working for most of the summer. Enough for us to have completed the entire run twice through. We bumped into our nemesis a couple of times during the summer months. Tam. He used to work for us but went his own way after a while, shortly after I joined the old WQD site and began writing this diary. We share the work in town. Tam has recently moved into a council house directly in the middle of one of the schemes we consider to be our bread and butter. He's our main competitor, although still not much competition, it has to be said. You have Barry the Bullet and me on one side; Tam and Mark on the other.

I take of my glasses as they are steaming up. The hot air in the room confusing the glass that has just come from a chilly night and with me having stopped walking I am developing a light sweat. I quickly run the lens as the chairperson begins to talk about the past and how his drinking used to be. When I stick the glasses back on my ears and focus on the room I can see right in front of me is Mark. It's a good thing he's made it in here. When I used to go around to Tam's for a drinking and weed smoking session he always liked to indulge. They all did. It's a good thing that he's made it into the rooms. This is apparently his second meeting. He was here a month ago but I wasn't. This is definitely my first time seeing him in a meeting. He looks more shocked than I feel as though I do.

The meeting goes fine and well and I chat with Mark at the break for a little moment or two but when all have spoken and the meeting is about to close I don't hear any mention of the Yellow Card. This is the thing that reminds us all that who we see here and what we hear here should be treated respectfully and in confidence and without it being mentioned at the meeting's close I wonder how Mark might deal with seeing me here. I decide to ask to interrupt the meeting briefly just to remind us all and to ensure Mark that I will not mention to anyone that I have seen him here (and then I go and ruin it all by telling you guys) and that a part of the discipline is that he now does not mention to Tam, or anyone else for that matter, about seeing me in a meeting this evening. Everyone is quite decent about it, despite the fact that it wasn't going to be mentioned. The Yellow Card is often overlooked yet is one of the most important things about AA.

Apparently this makes me a member of the AA Police – members who like meetings to be carried out properly. If something isn't happening that perhaps should be then a gentle reminder is needed.

Right then – I can feel Dr. Bacon breathing down my neck, telling me that I'm just intellectualising everything (even though it feels as though most of the time I am just telling a story) and so I had better get on with the day. There isn't much to be doing at this time of the morning though.

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Stevie

Part of the AA Police.

1264

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Monday, October 02nd 2017 (Flying High)


I'm getting all excited now. It's not long until I head off for the airport to go on my first holiday in many a year. It's what getting sober is all about. I mean that getting sober is all about living, getting out and about, doing all of the things that were impossible, or seemed so anyway, when active in the addictive cycle, or as close to be in an addictive cycle as I was in any case. Going to foreign places I've never been to with a girlfriend I'd never met before sobering up is definitely one thing that could have been deemed impossible three years ago and not something that I might have taken you seriously should you have mentioned to me when I started writing this journal that this is what I would be doing. First thing I might have asked you is how I managed to get the money together. But this is exactly what will be happening a few hours from now.

It's pretty early but I like this hour. I'd normally be up by now. It's interesting wondering what Dr. Bacon might think I'd be better served doing at this time of the morning instead of writing my thoughts down in these virtual pages. So far there hasn't been a suggestion, only a seed planted in that this is not a good idea and that writing every day is something I should reconsider, perhaps replace with something else now that it has served its purpose and become less than healthy. It was during our session on Thursday that he mentioned this yet still now, on Monday morning, I think about it. Quite how he thinks he can give an opinion as to whether or not I treat this journal in a healthy way or not is strange. It's incredibly ambitious of him to assume what it is I talk about when he hasn't seen a single written word or read a single post. Is he saying that he now knows me so well that he can accurately give a guess as to how I might treat a medium such as this? It's my one boggle with him in the time we've been working together.

He said that there have been studies carried out about schema therapy – the kind of work we are doing in our psychology sessions – that suggest it takes around a year to get through the Detached Protector. This is having one session per week. At the moment Dr. Bacon and I are lucky to be having one session every two to three weeks and I wonder about our progress. He says that my Detached Protector is quite ingrained into my personality and so I wonder just how long I might be working on this for. I don't think there has been much progress but Dr. Bacon says that he feels as though there are little changes all the time. My Healthy Adult is growing a little bit with each passing month; my awareness is growing of my modes such as the Detached Protector and this will be vital in future sessions. Working against the Critical Parent mode will take some work, he assures me – the part that sets the standards for everything I see in the world – but we'll worry about that a little later on.

I would do well to leave thinking about this and other alcohol and self help stuff in Scotland. I want to have some fun on this trip away and look forward to seeing a bit of Spain. I don't know when the opportunity to get away like this again might turn up. In saying that – I still would like to catch an AA meeting outside of my home country and so hope to source on at some point while I'm away. I've been online having a little look and there are plenty of English speaking AA meetings every week in Spain it would seem. Besides this I hope to get away from all of the recovery stuff.

In saying all that I was having a little look online (where else do people have a look for anything these days?) at the oros and cons of journaling on the Psychology Today website and it threw up some ideas which might shed some light on Dr. Bacon's perspective. I think I'm long past some of the reasons that might seem destructive when taking part on social media and suchlike. Things like my mood depending on notifications and view counts. These are all, if they were ever there to begin with, long gone. I do pity the teenager who gets out of bed in the morning and checks their phone before doing anything else. They see that they have no notifications on any of their accounts and so are instantly plunged into a depression for the day based around self-loathing. My days are never controlled by what is happening on Facebook, Twitter, WQD on Ryver, or My Way Out. This is not one of the possible reasons I should reconsider writing here every morning.

Some of the negative aspects of journaling, according to Psychology Today website, are:

''Makes you live too much in your head
Makes you a passive observer of your life (thinking about how you’ll record it instead of experiencing what is happening)
Makes you self-obsessed
Becomes a vehicle of blame instead of solutions
Wallows in negative things that have happened to you.''

I suppose that I can relate to one or two of these reasons. I used to definitely use this place to wallow in the bad and to blame instead of find solutions. Now, though, I feel it to be more solutions based, more just explaining my process of getting and staying sober. While I may be living in my head for the duration of my stay here every morning I tend to leave the journal in the morning after writing and not return to it until the following morning. At the foot of the post are the usual comments sections and I found this one from an anonymous member:

''psychologists are at their wits end when they have to come up with: "ReINvent yourself - you can change your personality" blogs. I think this advice is for people who don't know who they are, or uncomfortable with who they are. I have none of those issues. lol. I just need very little contact to zero contact with ESTP or even ISTP personalities. These types lack respect for your boundaries...if you are in a position of lower power -- they take advantage of that. ''

Got me wondering about what he or she is talking about when they mention ESTP and ISTP personalities and so I started another little research project. Turns out that they are referring to the sixteen personality types. Which am I, I wonder?

No!!!!

I don't have time this morning to be getting all distracted by things like this and taking part in some internet quiz to determine which category of person I fit into. I have to be getting ready for this holiday more than anything else.

I shall begin by emailing my lecturers to remind them I won't be in this week so that these absences don't affect my student loan payments. I shall work from there.

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Stevie

Gonna be flying outta here real soon.

1251

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Tuesday, October 03rd 2017 (Hola, Cómo Estás?)


It might not be the warmest time of year to be booking a trip to Spain but it was pissing down with rain when we left shitty Scotland and it is certainly not pissing down with rain here. It's actually really pleasant. With us arriving in the evening and it currently being before sunrise there has not yet been the opportunity to test out the full daytime temperature. If attempts to sleep last night are anything to go by then it's going to be pretty warm.

I had worried about a whole load of things prior to arrival here but it has been a pretty easy going time so far. My thoughts had been allowed to roam a little in the days building up to this trip and yesterday was the one day I was freaking out about a little, especially after hearing about all of the problems Shaun at the college had when he came here with his girlfriend a fortnight ago. I am happy to say that noting had gone wrong whatsoever. There have been no long waits, no problems at the hotel, no problems period. My catastrophising was all for nothing it would seem.

I'll be heading out for a little walk in a moment or two. The best way to investigate a new place and get to know it is to go either walking or running. I am, for whatever reason, totally shocking at running and so walking is the best I can offer myself at the moment. Lindsay likes to lie in a bit later and I'm cool with this. The fact that breakfast finishes at quarter to ten will ensure that there is at least a little structure build into the day from the offset. I will have to keep my morning exploration to a minimum and Lindsay will have to be up and about a little earlier than she might have liked.

I enjoy the thought of not being at all likely to bump into someone that I know. Not at least for a full week. This is one of the ways in which this could be called a ''break'' for me. It's a break from people. In saying that: this resort is full of Brits and so the likelihood of meeting someone from my part of the world is not altogether inconcievable it's just a little out of season and so not something I'm worried about. I can walk around at any time of day or night here and not have to worry about anyone knowing me.

I don't know why this is such an issue for me. I guess in life if you make as many mistakes as I have made then you tend to carry the evidence around with you. People know and while it shouldn't matter now – what I did when I was drinking was done when I was a different person, someone who was spiritually sick and didn't know any better, someone who was doing what he believed he needed to do in order simply to survive – it kinda still does. Not out here where I am a complete unknown and can, especially given the sheer number of Brits here, blend in and remain completely anonymous, a total no one, but back home the things I have done are known to people and it's not up to me who I bump into while on my travels.

I don't know if you ever feel this way but there are times when I wonder what it might be like were I to live to one hundred. This way everyone who knows me would likely have died and so I would have this freedom from my past in that no one would know. I guess that this is what AA is trying to teach us in its Twelve Step program with the amends in Steps Eight and Nine. This is the part of the program where it's all about clearing up the wreckage of our past and making it so that we can walk about the streets with our heads held high. Not in an arrogant manner, just without having to face the ground in embarrasment or in shame. For whatever reason I don't quite feel as though I'm there yet.

In saying all that I think that one of the benefits of joining Facebook last month (not really through choice as it was a requirement for the college – they want us to learn to use social media in our radio broadcasts and so everyone has to have an account with which to sign in with) that I have been put in contact with many people. Every one of them I have interacted with has been fine with me and anyone I have sent a friend request to has added me without any problems. It goes back to that whole idea of forgiving yourself. They all seem to have. None of the past seems to be standing in my way where Facebook is concerned. Maybe this is innacurate reflection of people and their powers of forgiveness and 'water under the bridge' mentality. Perhaps were I to cross paths at random in a real world setting then things would be different but as it stands I am finding people not to hold grudges in the ways that I might have expected them to.

Anyway – I only have one hundred words left and this word processor eats up the words quickly. Before I know it I'll be over my limit. I'll go get dressed and then get myself out of this resort and into Spain to see what it's all about. I'll then phone Lindsay to get her up and we'll head for breakfast before deciding what we might get up to today. Wednesday and Thursday are supposed to be the hottest days of this week so they are our likely tanning days but I'm hoping that it's going to be pleasant the whole time. It's good to know that Barry the Bullet has been out to work a few times since I last saw him and that the violence regarding the referendum here, near Barcelona, has died down.

Right – that's my word count reached so I'm off!!

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Stevie

Off to explore Spain.

1063

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Wednesday, October 04th 2017 (Día Soleado)


The Scotland game isn't until tomorrow evening but already it feels as though it's beginning to loom. Here in Spain they have no such worries when it comes to football. Their biggest issue at the moment seems to be whether Pique should play any further matches for the national team after expressing his views on all things happening in Barcelona recently. Back home things are all about if we can actually qualify and the general consensus from everyone I've spoken to is a resounding NO!! That we can get three points from the two games is possible but getting the six we surely need is asking for far too much. In forty eight hours I could well be sitting here knowing that we still won't be going to our first major football tournament in twenty years.

The weather here wasn't the best yesterday but got a bit better in the afternoon. It's expected to be better still today and then reach its peak tomorrow. I say it hasn't been ''the best'' but temperatures are currently around two to two-and-a-half times what they are back home in Scotland and here in Spain we don't have either the wind or the rain to accompany it and so I have been more than pleased with weather while we've been here. I'm not the only one.

From our balcony we can look down onto the main outdoor area of the resort and while it would be very quiet at this time of the morning it will soon get busy. By ten this morning there will be plenty of people out here enjoying themselves, many of them children. We fine people who take their kids on holidays during school terms but I think that I can see clearly just how little these fines work to deter people from taking their kids out of school. I hadn't actually given any thought as to what I might be missing at the college this week but when Shaun was in Spain a couple of weeks ago I remember thinking that he was missing out on quite a lot. I will be too. It's not that I'm not put off by this but it's just a case of when we booked this trip in the early summer we weren't sure when would be the best time, what I'd be studying and when, we just figured that it would be around this time that Lindsay would complete her sign-off placement and finally have graduated as a practicing nurse. Things haven't quite happened in this way just yet but a break is always welcome.

Sitting on sun loungers in various spots all around the pool area are a great many Brits (you can spot them easily – large bellies, tattoos, alcoholic drinks in one or both hands, look like they are in really poor health. Hey – I'm not kidding!! Lindsay and I must be one of the very few couples here who don't have at least one half totally tipping the scales. It's motivation to never let myself slip too far into the easy lifestyle but it's not really our fault in many ways. Apparently around thirty per cent of British people are now overweight and so our government will have to look and think again about its strategy on allowing shitty foods to be sold at cheap prices all over the country) and there's lots of fun to be had. I've been having fun just watching them at times. I haven't been in the water yet for it looks brass monkeys cold but I will be going in there later on this afternoon when things hopefully heat up again. The kids here don't seem to mind the temperature of the water but by watching the adults who jump in I can tell that it is far less than boiling hot.

I'm going to go on another little exploration walk this morning like I did yesterday. It's a good but later than it was when I did so yesterday but with all the lounging around that has been getting done, combined with all of the eating, these morning walks are pretty much the only exercise opportunities I get and so I have to take them, Just because I am on holiday does not mean that I should begin to develop habits of neglect. If so then should I not just drink? I'm on holiday after all and so I could just start being sober again when I get back to the UK. Is that not just how it starts? One little bit of neglect leading to another? I'm really not joking about the size of my fellow Brits out here. We are mostly enormous. That all started somewhere.

Lindsay said yesterday, as we sat on the beach, that she had contacted Ann through the week to see how she was. Eleven days sober or something was the response. She's just plodding along and trying to make it work with SMART and Addiction Services. Last year we seemed to be doing a little better with friendships than we are this year and I don't really know why. I know that Andy and his partner have pulled out of the gig later in the month so it will just be Lindsay and I with my brother and Scottish Sarah although this has nothing to do with us. I bump into Harry from Restoration often and he mentions for me to get my ass back there. When Nikki went off on maternity leave things dropped in quality and as a result I have only been to Restoration once in the last few months. I never did much with anyone outside of the Restoration hall but at least when I was there I had some people I could call friends. It's some random thoughts for this time of the morning but something to think about when I get back to the freezing home shores.

I had better get a move on since it's half past seven already and so I am likely only to get an hour of walking in which is not at all the best. Sometimes I wonder why I go on these walks and if there is much more to it than simply trying to stay in shape and improve lung quality after twenty years of smoking weed and cigarettes. I'm not going to ponder over that now.

Or maybe I will. It's just that I'll do it when I'm out there walking and not here typing.

Putting one foot in front of the other rather than one letter.

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Stevie

Still walking away.

1117

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Thursday, October 05th 2017 (Super Caliente)


Fuck, this little trip is passing by at a frightening rate! We'll be back in Scotland in no time and I have absolutely no wish to be doing that. I'm nowhere near ready for the cold and the rain and that way of life yet. A day at a time I still have half a holiday to take advantage of. This must mean that I am actually having a good time. I have to say that I am. While it seems as though I must be an awfully hard man to please in most areas of my life (my Critical Parent mode has incredibly high expectations of humanity, and that includes me) but when it comes to taking a little trip away I seem to be very easily pleased. I don't hate on anyone in particular. It's all seemed a little too easy actually.

Apologies to the writers of comments in this journal on WQD on Ryver. It's not the first time I haven't noticed notifications (I think it's a really weird website to be honest and haven't managed to get used to it at all) but stumbled across them this morning. I stumble across most things in the mornings here actually as it is totally pitch black until around half past seven. After that the day comes in pretty quickly but it really is dark when I get up. Even darker than when back home for the time of day. I've been following your road to recovery, Little Miss Sunshine, and you're right – sometimes I find that some of my posts don't seem as though they've had as much effort put into them as I might once have done. I used to take this journal quite seriously but now it's more of an irritation than anything else. Writing in it is annoying and time consuming yet if I don't do it I find myself getting wound up. It's something Dr. Bacon and I will likely be looking at over the coming weeks. Should I now be writing it at all? I am firmly under the impression that he thinks I should not be.

Lindsay and I will be heading to Barcelona later on this morning and won't be returning until tomorrow night and I'm looking forward to this. We don't really have anything planned to do while we're through there but I can't imagine it'll be all that difficult to amuse ourselves in a city we've never been to when we have loads of available cash. Today is supposed to be the hottest day of our time here (although Saturday and Sunday are also meant to be really hot as well) and so this adds to the anticipation. For the two days we've been staying at the resort now we've hung around the poolside catching the sort of sun that while perhaps seems poor to the locals here is beyond what we get in Scotland in all but the warmest of days and spent some time in town. Today we were at the beach and went out last night for a while to watch a band. It's all been rather different from the normal hum-drum of life.

I did think that this would be a good bonding experience for Lindsay and me. A chance to get to see what she's like in a different setting and in different circumstances than we might usually find ourselves in. We have spent quite a lot of time together these last few months and especially since her placement broke down and she's been in a lot more but we've spent more time together in the last three days than at any time during our relationship. We haven't fallen out either. I think that the time will come in my sessions with Dr. Bacon when he's gonna want to talk about her and how we are together and I am not sure how this will play out. At the moment our work is all about trying to figure out how situations pan out in my life based on the information I give him in the sessions. In this I don't just mean the spoken words I tell him. Much of the information he gets from me is by gauging my reactions and using this as evidence of how things happen for me outside of the room.

I am aware that one of the things psychologists study, especially when looking at schema modes and suchlike, is the idea that people, particularly those as under the spell of their modes as I am, select partners based on their modes. Essentially it is not Lindsay and I who have chosen to be together. It is a combination of each of our modes seeing in the other person someone who will allow us to continue with our dysfunctional behaviours. This might seem a little harsh but I know that it's coming in our sessions, or, at the very least, I am really expecting this kind of thing to come up. It's not for me to say but it is highly likely that Lindsay has a pretty developed Detached Protector herself and so he might say that my own one loves this. I also believe that he could then say that, had she different modes and not a Detached Protector, that my own Detached Protector selected Lindsay so that I could remain the passive member while she took charge.

This is just one of the ways that I feel Lindsay pushes me a little. She is quite passive at times and so I have to lead. Interestingly this kind of contradicts anything that Dr. Bacon might wish to say on the subject but then I have to admit that he's been doing this a long time and is very clued up when it comes to Schema Therapy and so that session, assuming it does indeed at some point come, will be a very long and tough one. Thank goodness I'm in Spain at the moment. I wonder if he would suggest that. I came to Spain to run away from my problems for a while? We all do. I'm running away from my problems by being here but it's not why I'm here.

I'm gonna explore the other end of the promenade this morning and then come back here, wake Lindsay up, go to breakfast, then sit by the pool on what is to be the hottest day of the year for me and laze around until we have to leave for our train to take us to Barcelona.

Life is goooooood......

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Stevie

Loving his trip away.

1116