The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Saturday, October 21st 2017 (Boxes of Treats)


This morning we're heading to the city of Dundee to find out where the OHSAS office is so that Lindsay can go next week to find out where her final placement will be. It'll be good for our household to have her back in the game and getting on with putting the finishing touches on this degree of hers. It's been a long time in coming but there are now only around twelve weeks to go. Given that we are now into the latter stages (or is this still the middle stage?) of October (definitely the latter stages when the appointment comes around next week) this final placement is all but certain to continue into 2018. That'll be the first milestone reached of next year.

It was good to wake up this morning in a proper bed and with Lindsay sleeping next to me. Yesterday I woke up alone and on the floor of (what is still – until the 08th of next month) my cave. All there was to lie on was a towel and another towel to cover myself with. I used my backpack as a pillow and kept the heating on at a comfortable temperature ongoing through the night. It was a timely reminder of what used to be but what no longer is. There will be, at some point in the future, nostalgic reflections upon this place. I think I might just be nostalgic by nature. I like looking back as well as forward. It's the best way of discovering where I am at the present. I'll likely reflect upon my four years there as being the time I sobered up, joined online forums to start journaling my journey into sobriety, became an AA member, and so on, while much of the horrors, the sleeping on the floor for months on end and the shrinking my world into just one corner of the smallest room, remain in my thoughts they will inevitably lose their emotional punch as I forget the parts I don't need to remember and remember the parts I don't want to forget. Minds are funny things.

I expect to be able to look back upon my four years (the longest time I've stayed anywhere by some distance since my family broke down twelve years ago) in ''The Cave'' and smile fondly. I'll be able to see the funny side. Others in AA see the funny side of things as they talk about their past lives and so why not me? If you'd told me I'd be giggling to myself about my living conditions in the cave three years ago I would not have been able to believe you.

There were a few things happened during the week but I rambled on so much that I didn't have the time to talk about them. One of them was the session with Dr. Bacon which I'll get to in a moment. Another thing that's been happening is the clearing out of Lindsay's spare room. A few weeks ago it was full of her things. Things that hadn't yet, nor would perhaps ever be, promoted to having an actual belonging space within the apartment. The scourge of society. These things are the alcoholics of this flat. Now they have been rearranged (or sold on ebay – I think she's pulled in a few quid with her recent sales actually) and last weekend replaced by much of my things. During the week I began the painful and unenviable process of rearranging all of this stuff since Kung Fu Pandis and I dumped it on Saturday morning.

One of the first things I found while looking through the unmarked boxes were piles of compact discs. Lindsay has a small CD player and she was out for the afternoon so I had my own little private party. I used to collect these things since I stayed at home until around the time my son was born in 2000. This six year spell saw me purchase around four hundred discs and while many of them have not survived the great many moves and relocations I've had to do over the last decade there are at least a couple of hundred that have. Listening options seemingly endless. How much more satisfying it is to load a disc into a player and locate the desired track than it is to type it into a Youtube search bar. How much greater the quality of sound is between the disc and the low level Youtube medium. With technology it is amazing in how many ways we've regressed. Our pursuit of looking good and feeling modern getting in the way of what our eyes, and in this case – our ears – are actually telling us. Three hours literally feels like one.

As I'm looking through my things I come across some interesting things. Loads of usable window cleaning tools Barry the Bullet and I have just gone and bought a few weeks ago. Oh well. Debt letters from car and van insurance companies from years ago. A letter from the council about my five thousand pounds arrears from a scatter flat I was dumped in for the best part of 2011. I also found a few weeks worth of drinking diaries that my old counsellor Margaret had me fill in every week. I don't know if you've ever done these yourself but you put into the box for the day the (usually estimated in most cases) alcoholic units you've had for the day and then add up the week.

From the diaries I can find the lowest unit total is sixty nine and the highest is one hundred and seventy. On both weeks, as is the case in all of them, the weekends are the worst times with ''30 +'' written in both the Saturday and Sunday boxes and so the unit totals for the weeks are approximations. There are spaces in the comments below each where you are asked to put any comments and while it's a little difficult to read any of my writing there is talk of using cannabis on most days, especially the days where the unit total is smaller, likely to get through the day, to ease the headaches and general shame, and comments about going to work, not going to work, going to college and not going to college. They are not dated but it must have been when I was studying last time round – when I was doing Social Care, which I dropped out of a few months into it.

These boxes contain myriad memories of my recent past. Debt and regret. Boozing and losing. Smoking cannabis and opportunities missed. Like I mentioned above – these times were brutal as they were happening but now I can look back at them without any of the emotional impact. I'm not living with these fears now. New fears, perhaps, and the time for looking back upon them with the fondness they will at that time deserve will come, but for now I can look back at the last five years or so of what was a pretty chaotic time in my life and put it all into some kind of realistic context.

Despite Lindsay's CD player being old and of poor quality I look forward to many more hours of listening enjoyment as the spare room becomes my study space. The place Lindsay sends me when she's pissed off with me. The place I plan on doing most of my college home work. I would rather listen to that dinky little thing than have the speakers hooked up to the laptop but listen to them on Youtube or a lame mp3. Get back to a time when music was enjoyable.

I've gone and run out of time again to talk about the Dr. Bacon session, damnitt!!!

Anyone would think I was trying to avoid it.

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Stevie

Avoiding?

1337

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Sunday, October 22nd 2017 (Getting Emotional: The New Dr. Bacon Session)


Tomorrow I am back at college after three weeks off. Lindsay and I were in Dundee yesterday. A week from now and the clocks will have changed. We'll be close to winter again. But fuck all of that shit for now: Dr. Bacon session!!

There are signs now that we are starting to move away from the awareness building and into the actual therapy part of it. Away from the problems and heading into the solutions. Moving on from the pontification and talking and into the action. Moving into the part of the process where I might start to notice some benefits. We begin with the usual ''How have you been?'' crap that I feel slows down our time together. It'd be great if there was a pause button in the room and we could just rewind it a few seconds each time a new session started. This way we could just pick up exactly where we left off. Rather than a series of sessions it would be more like one huge long session with a series of breaks. But this would be missing a crucial part of the process I guess.

Obviously the trip to Spain comes up and the part he picks up on, from answers I give him based on his own careful questioning, is the end of the holiday. Why do the others on the bus want to get back to Scotland so quickly? What do they mean when they comment to one and other things like: ''It's the little things (about home) that you miss when you're away?'' What the actual fuckity fuck does that even mean? I have been thinking about this quite a bit since we came back. Why do people seem to want to get back to Scotland having been away from it for a while? Perhaps much more importantly: why don't I want to? What is the difference between myself and these dozens of people? What do I get out there in Spain that they have had enough of by the end of the holiday? What do they have waiting back home that I don't?

Dr. Bacon wants to look at this a little more but would like to get away from the talking element of our therapy. I'm great at talking. Love it. By that I don't mean that I'm super talkative or anything (I'm really not) but I am now aware that talking about something is the best way of avoiding feeling it. Talk about it, even talk about the feelings and emotions of it, even talk about feeling the emotions and feelings of it, just don't actually try to feel any of it, or to connect with it emotionally, or at least stifle it if possible if you think it might be happening. This is the way I roll and have done for some time now, likely the duration of my entire life up until now.

Last session we had, the week before I left for Spain, was a pretty terrible one. It was the worst session we've had and I wasn't sure what to make of it afterwards. Perhaps all this waiting around for psychology services was all for nothing. It's possible that they don't have a method for me to try to work. Maybe it's just not worth the effort any longer. These thoughts are quite easy to dispel these days. Rather than allow them to fester I can see them for what they are. Silly little thoughts based on fear. I treat them the same way I treated thoughts of smoking while on holiday. I know when I am doing something I should be doing. It's not a case of knowing on an intellectual level that I am on the right path with something – I can feel that I'm on the right path with something. The no smoking is definitely one thing I will be sticking to. It's my Higher Power stepping in and reminding me what is important, leading me not into temptation.

I also learned last session that when I spend time in my Detached Protector defensive mode there is very little can get done. Dr. Bacon and I were at our poorest in terms of the connection within our own relationship and this was simply due to me having a bad Detached Protector day. The awareness building is happening all the time. I am now noticing how by being in any of my defensive modes, but particularly the Detached Protector and Bully and Attack ones, I am crushing any possibility of connection. This, I guess, is why most people have such a hard time getting to know me, on and off line, and why they have to work so hard to get in. Perhaps it just isn't worth the effort for most of them.

We try a bit of imagery work. Bacon picks an image he would like us to work with. In this case it is on the bus heading back to the airport in Spain when the others are talking about how they are looking forward to getting back to Scotland. I close my eyes and he begins to talk me through it, scribbling on his notepad whenever I say anything that he finds interesting or relevant. The idea of this exercise is to get me into the habit of trying to allow emotions and feelings in, rather than blocking them out, denying them, or talking my way around them.

So I'm pretending to relive that moment in Spain, coming off the coach and about to head into the airport. He wants me to set the scene a little and asks me questions about the weather, what I can see and hear around me. If I start to get off track a little he is quick in bringing me back. The bus drives off and I am left standing there. Not me really – Little Stevie. He's standing there on his own in Spain and I think Bacon wants me to be frightened and feeling alone. I don't. I do wonder why Lindsay did not stay around to join me in this hypothetical dream scenario and that she would stay on the bus rather than stick by me but for the sake of the therapy imagery I guess I have to be alone.

Dr. Bacon introduces himself into the story. Little Stevie has become, in my mind, essentially a drawing of himself, like we're watching an episode of South Park or something like that, but not as pathetic, and when Dr. Bacon enters the fray I quickly shrink him down too, make it so that he is Little Bacon (which would have been a good post title come to think of it) and make it so that he is a humorous drawing of himself too. Now we have two humorous drawn children standing at an empty airport in sunny Spain.

It's getting pretty obvious to me now that while I often believe myself to be feeling emotions and connecting with people I really am not. It only feels like this because this is all I know. In terms of connection I am mostly distant. In terms of feeling emotions I am almost incapable, unable. This is the part of me I've often referred to as my Dexter Morgan Syndrome, that part of me I often try to deny but that I know makes me a little different, always on the periphery, forever on the outside looking in. I don't know if I yearn for human connection as much as Dr. Bacon perhaps thinks I do or if I even yearn it at all. I suppose that with Lindsay I have someone I can trust to confide in, to talk to, to listen and support me, and someone that allows me to do all of these things for her.

We did a better job with the imagery work this time than we did the time before but I still feel as though there is work to do. But it does feel as though we're getting started. I now know and can no longer deny some things about myself. I struggle to connect and I do this by getting super defensive. Other people have been spotting this about me for decades and some have pointed it out to me. I listened to them and had began to think that they were right and that this was indeed the case. I'd never really seen any evidence of it though, despite me having front row seats my entire life, until I started working with Dr. Bacon. Now I am noticing it more and more as we begin to work on possible ways of breaking these barriers down. The coming months should be exciting times.

With all that said I think I'll get myself into the spare room for a while. I could do with listening to some CDs and I have one final day off to spend in the spare room before it's back to the college work tomorrow morning. There is more to connection that one-to-one human kind. Robert will be coming to get me soon and then we're heading to the nearby hill and climb to the top. I used to do it every weekend when I had the car.

Anyway – no more procrastination.

I'm off!!

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Stevie

Getting emotional.

1578

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Monday, October 23rd 2017 (Old-Timer Fear/There's Always One)


I'm writing this morning on the balcony at Lindsay's. This'll be the last time I do this in 2017. It's getting too cold in the mornings now to be sitting out here. I don't find it particularly cold in general these days, I have to say, but the mornings are a little on the fresh and crisp side for me from here on in.

Nine weeks to go until we break off for Christmas. I'm really going to try to stick to a routine during this time. College every Monday and Tuesday (that's the easy part) and work, with OR WITHOUT Barry the Bullet, every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (that's the not-so-easy part). It really would do me good to get back into a working habit. That's two weeks since we came back from Spain and not one day of work carried out in that time. It's something I'm going to have to work hard at motivating myself for in the coming weeks.

I want to talk a little about AA meetings for this post. I'll be at college in a couple of hours and that will probably start to take up a lot of tomorrow's words but for now I would like to, if you'll allow me to, go back to the weekend, starting on Friday evening when Robert text me out of the blue to ask if I wanted to go to a meeting. We ended up at one I have never been to, still in the county but a little further than I've been used to getting to. As a result there were a bunch of people I've never met despite being a member of the fellowship now for more than two and a half years. Of the twenty one in attendance I have not met perhaps half of them. It's quite surprising actually.

Before I know it I am standing in the blokes' toilets looking at myself in the mirror and asking the God of my Understanding to please help me in removing the defects I am feeling, namely fear and anxiety. I've shared a few times since coming into the rooms but not since my second birthday back in February and not since May last year when WQD on Ryver's Megs invited me to Glasgow have I shared in front of what would be an unknown audience. That went okay at the time but I'll be at the top table in a few minutes and I'm not feeling great about it. I do remember being told of the advantages of fighting fear in these cases. It's what courage is all about. It's what it means. So I get up there and do it. The fear might not be completely removed but it will begin to once I start speaking. If I don't get up there then I'll have to deal with regret for the rest of the night instead. Yuck....

What do you say when you find yourself up there? It's often tough knowing what may or may not be appropriate. Given what happened last Saturday night when there was almost a fight kicking off at the end of a meeting and an in-meeting debate about whether or not it is okay to share about the Twelve Steps from the top table I am hesitant at the beginning to know what type of people these guys might be. Will they be tolerant of the program? Might they even expect it? Or would they condemn me for it? Tell me that the rooms of AA are not the places to be talking about the Twelve Steps? I just go with the flow and there is a bit of Twelve Step talk thrown in there.

The feedback is generally very positive and there are a few telling me that it is great to hear someone talking about the Steps from the top table, so rare is it these days, they say. Not was it a case of me telling about the Twelve Steps and what they represent according to the Big Book and the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions literature but I gave real life examples of how I used the program to put action into me work with my sponsor. I mentioned the writing of my inventories and the subsequent discussions; and I spoke about my amends and the results I've seen since doing them, short and long term. People seemed to love it. All but one.

And it's him I've been haunted by all weekend and still am a little bit now. He wasn't offensive, he just elected not to share from the body of the hall when asked, but he wasn't happy with what I was saying. I got the Old-Timer Fear again. That thing that we can often get where we feel as though those who are highly experienced in this look down on us as not doing it right. What the fuck does someone who has only been in the rooms for a couple of years or so know about being and living sober?

When Robert drops me off I tell Lindsay about this and how it is bothering me and she just tuts and tells me that there's always one. There's always one.

Stevie – ''What do you mean?''

Lindsay – ''I mean there's always one hating on the top table.''

Stevie - ''. . .''

Lindsay – ''You see it at every meeting. Did you talk about the program?''

Stevie – ''A little.''

Lindsay – ''That's probably his problem then. Either that or you're a new and younger guy who is threatening to break up the old man's social club that AA essentially is.''

Stevie - ''. . .''

Lindsay – ''I wouldn't worry about it. Who gives a fuck what some old dude thinks?''

Stevie – ''Strangely, me for some reason. I'd hate the thought of people not getting something out of what I've tried to contribute.''

Lindsay – ''Did you mention Barcelona?''

Stevie -''I did at the end, yeah.''

Lindsay – ''No wonder he's pissed off. You have to remember that some AA members get sober and then live in the rooms. They don't do anything else with their lives.''

It's a good point. Could this mysterious old man who was not available to shake hands with me at the end of the meeting be one such member who has sobered up and lived in AA? Or was I just spouting pish from the sacred place at the top table of an AA meeting? I'm not that important that I am capable of creating a massive reaction from others, I know, but there was a reaction from this guy. Definitely. I would do best to rid my thoughts of him. I won't know what his boggle was and so there is no point in me wasting further thought or words on this.

My Higher Power knows how much I dislike sharing from the top table at meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous.

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Stevie

Not a fan of the old top table.

1188

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Tuesday, October 24th 2017 (St. Columbus)


Over the weekend I hadn't been looking forward to getting back to the college but now that I am there it is good fun, I have to say. This is the beginning of the first week of nine before we break off to spend a fortnight with Santa and Co. The routine for these nine weeks I am determined to make like this:

Monday: College

Tuesday: College

Wednesday: Work (cleaning windows with or without Barry the Bullet)

Thursday: Work

Friday: Work and then debt collecting in the evening (this will be the longest and most demanding day of the week).

Saturday: Football, time with Lindsay, and perhaps the AA meeting most weeks

Sunday: Day of rest/college homework/working on spare room, and maybe church

There will be plenty of things happening outside of this routine but this is how I hope things will turn out for the most part. There's an Opeth gig next month, I'll have Dr. Bacon and dentist appointments. I'll be handing in the keys to the cave to the council. There will be shit happening. Life happens. This is the loose plan for the next nine weeks though and I intend to stick to it. Talk about it here, yes, but then put the action into it and actually go out and do it.

If I've been learning anything over the last couple of weeks, especially since last weekend when I paid a visit to my old home group, it's that Margaret (my old addiction counsellor) was right all along in the importance of positive life events happening shape our values and well-being. Seeing Stu happier and more conversational, less in his head and with seemingly less to prove, less anger bubbling away underneath, was noteworthy and has showed me that while AA's Twelve Step program is definitely worth a bash when you come into the fellowship with the desire not just to stop drinking but to go on and get well also it is essentially only one tool towards something that Dr. Bacon is always talking about in our sessions together. That is: all human behaviour is based on trying to have personal needs met. Anything that goes towards helping with that, like a Twelve Step program or something similar, is worthy but with Stu I think it is far more likely that the reasons for his seemingly contented and more relaxed attitude and demeanour is to do with long unsatisfied needs being met than it is to do with the God of anyone's Understanding or working a program in any capacity.

This is why I must put living life positively at the forefront of my mind and then put it into action. I have to stick to this above list and keep a routine like this going for long enough that I can find that type of satisfaction myself. Cleaning windows is the easiest way to pull in money (providing I can get a routine established) and so I will continue with this for the time being. I then have a little power to put this money towards getting some of my unmet needs met. It's what it's all about.

On Sunday morning Robert and I went to church. He's a strange guy. I wonder what he'd be like drinking. I've often wondered that actually. What would many of these people I mix with so often be like when they'd poured a couple dozen units of alcohol into their system? For some it would likely not be very pretty. I can't see Robert being great with a drink in him. He seems quite intense most of the time, a little schizophrenic to be honest, and I think that being drunk would only magnify this. We were supposed to be taking a walk up the big hill afterwards but he backed out after we'd been to the church. He had been looking to ''connect'' with me on Facebook but when I ''spoke'' with him through text message once he'd dropped me off at Lindsay's he replied that he was listening at the church today and had decided to delete his account. Strange, contradictory behaviour.

Robert's okay. He's the kind of guy I reckon would benefit greatly from a lot of work in a room with someone like Dr. Bacon but he puts his faith in AA, and now the church, and some motivational tapes he bought from America. Somebody Santisi and how to cure the twenty six emotional enemies of the mind, or something like that. He lets me sample some of it in the car and we start off with fear. I doubt it will be enough.

One person I did ''connect'' with on Facebook was English Sara's daughter who lives way down in London. Dennis and Sara had been down to visit her a couple of months ago and they are turning it into a regular thing. As I am ''talking'' with Lydia I am thinking of how different things are now with them. I used to pop into English Sara's most nights and we would spend a lot of time at that flat until she moved in with Dennis back in January. Now I have all but moved in with Lindsay to another town and I now see English Sara and Dennis around once a week, sometimes once a fortnight. Things are changing. Both she and I have our college things going on. Life is moving on and we're parting company a little, just like I seem to be with Gillon and my brother and their families.

Lindsay and I were talking about money while we were at the bus station awaiting our transport out of Dundee and she was telling me about how she's curbed her spending. I had figured this was due to us moving in together and perhaps now that we plan on trying to get away whenever possible to save for flights and such like. Turns out that she's also been thinking about other things too. She's planning ahead. Whatever she is thinking about buying – does she really need it? Do we have space for it? If we are to be moving down south when the chance arises later in my degree then do we really want to be taking with us a shit load of stuff we don't need? I think about that too from time to time actually. After seeing just how much stuff went from my cave down to the tip or to Lindsay's flat let me see just how much can be involved in a move. I can't see us wanting to take a whole load of stuff with us should the time come when we decide that a move further away is the best option for us.

Right then: yesterday was an okay return to things at college and today should be a little better still. I'll get back into it eventually. On Tuesdays prior to us breaking off for the trip to Spain and two week holiday afterwards I had been walking the nine miles into college on Tuesday mornings. I have time but don't know if I can be arsed this morning.

Which is exactly why I should go and do it.

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Stevie

Getting back into all things college.

1223

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Wednesday, October 25th 2017 (Megastores)


A few more memories been stirring around this week. I've been unpacking the stuff in the spare room at Lindsay's, getting it ready for a painting job and to get the carpet down, and so have been hunting through some of the boxes that came from the cave. Everything was rushed and so none of the boxes are marked to even hint at what might be inside. One thing I've noticed is there sheer volume of things I have received over the years from my nieces. They are five and four years old but ever since being old enough to scribble onto a piece of paper they have provided for their uncle Stevie. I have a shit tonne of birthday cards, Christmas cards, Easter cards, Halloween cards, and so on, as well as loads of pictures and paintings made just because. It makes me realise how sour things seem to be at the moment. I haven't seen them for two and a half months again already. There is barely a relationship there to cling onto. By not being a part of their lives I am wasting a beautiful opportunity.

Lindsay and I were in Dundee on Saturday. She was checking out an HNS office she had to go to through the week (yesterday morning actually) and so we thought it would be a good idea to locate it first so that she wouldn't run the risk of being late and freaking out and we could also check out an AA meeting further from home and somewhere we had never been to before, which we did, which I may talk about later in the post if I feel the need or can be arsed. We'll see how I feel. When all is said and done (and let's face it – they should be getting done more than they should be getting said) I have to keep to my routine this week and it has been pretty easy so far. Going to college was never going to be the big issue though – going to work was and so it is vital that I get through to my town in time and of the mental prep to meet Barry the Bullet and get this new routine of mine off the ground and running.

Since I grew up in St. Andrews and there is basically nothing to do through there when you are into your later teen years you can tend to spend a bit of time in Dundee. It's the closest city and it has everything St. Andrews lacks for that age group. As Lindsay and I are walking through the streets I haven't been to for many a year I feel that nostalgia creeping up again and rather than fight it I let it come over me. Dundee high street. I have been to Dundee a few times in the last ten years or so. I came to meet a bass player through here one night last year when I was hunting for musicians and I attended an open day at the university but on neither occasion was I to spend any time on the high street or surrounding areas much. I was there to get things done. On Saturday I was pretty much there just to linger.

How things change. I can remember the huge Virgin Megastore that used to sit at the front of the Wellgate shopping centre. It's now a B & M's store. That Virgin store used to be one of my favourite shops in my tiny universe. It catered for every musical desire and as long as you didn't mind being completely ripped off by the Bearded Bawbag that is Richard then you were on a roll. I used to but my music from CD and record fairs and the local CODA shop but the Virgin one certainly was a great place to visit when I was younger. The HMV just along the road is still open though.

Stevie – ''Do you think they still sell CDs these days?''

Lindsay – ''Would you like to go in and have a look?''

I'm amazed that not only do they still sell these CD things but they also charge around the same price they always used to. I've been enjoying my CDs of old while working through the spare room at Lindsay's. I've been getting back into listening to music again. The internet is slowly and subtly killing music and the way we listen to it and this return to the ways of old has been enjoyable, even if it has slowed down my progress in the room. In the future stores like this will become a thing of the past, retro, and young people will talk of how they wished that they lived in a time when there were HMV stores and Virgin megastores.

The high street appears much smaller as is always the case when we return to things years later. I can't say for sure where it used to be but around here somewhere was an electrical store and I remember shopping here with mum one year and she was taking ages to do whatever the fuck it was we were here to do and through the shop window my brother and I were watching the television screens through the electrical shop window. Sega Megadrives were hooked up with Sonic the Hedgehog – the latest and greatest in modern gaming technology. We must be talking twenty five to thirty years ago.

If I bring things right up to date with the present day then I have to start thinking about what must be done this morning. Barry the Bullet hasn't always been the best guy to work with at times since I started back cleaning windows over the summer break but he seems to be a little more on the ball just now and I feel that he will meet me in a couple of hours and that we will get something constructive done. This means that we should be okay for working for the week. It has rained a lot since we came back from Spain but this week is looking a little better. The cold seems to keep the rain away and today we are looking at highs of around nine, dropping to eight tomorrow and then seven for Sunday's clock change to daylight saving time. This should hopefully mean that we are to expect a start to the dryer weather. It's doing its part.

It's up to Barry and me to do ours.

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Stevie

Trying to do his part.

1114

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Thursday, October 26th 2017 (Forty Eight Days and Counting Down)


Tonight is the night Metallica play at the SSE Hydro in Glasgow. A few months ago when we all first booked the tickets (my brother and Scottish Sarah, Kung Fu Pandis and partner, Gordy, Lindsay and me) I wondered if I would have to wait this long before seeing my brother again. Surely not!?!? The way it has turned out though this has been exactly the case. All these months passed. It's by far the longest time since we've been on this earth I've gone without seeing him. Lindsay and I had been trying to get shot of our tickets (could use the cash back to be honest – the tickets were ninety five quid each) and finally managed to pass them on last night but it was a lot of fucking around. I had to drop the price ( I'm no tout – I was only asking for face value as it was) and so we ended up losing fifty quid on them. Not the end of the world. I won't see my brother now until perhaps Christmas at the earliest, which I am thinking is one of the main motivations for me selling up.

Another is just the cash. People asking me why I'm not going, especially since we just got our student loan payments through, tend to understand when I say that we could use the money because I've just paid five hundred quid on rent arrears to clear the path for me moving in with Lindsay, which in itself cost two hundred in van rentals and so on, and I just spent two hundred on the software for the college classes (Adobe Creative Cloud), that we have an Opeth gig next month, we're just back from Spain, Christmas is just around the corner, and both Lindsay and I are still just lowly students.

The biggest difference in college work this year from last year are the deadlines. Last year things run very much on a project by project basis. We started on Project One and had a deadline of four weeks. Then we moved onto Project Two. This pattern repeated until all of the projects were completed and the course was finished. This time we have been given all of the projects that have to be done for the whole first semester (which finishes around the end of January) and we are just to work through these at our leisure. All in all there are, so far, seven projects that have to be completed. As things stand I am doing quite well with two of them submitted, marked, and passed. When I look at the Student Portal I can see that the deadlines for all of these projects is on the same day: December 13th. Around forty eight days. So what do we have to actually do in this time?

Assessed Show 1:

''You will be required to demonstrate your knowledge and skills by presenting a music programme suitable for Boom radio. You will operate all studio equipment while presenting. Evidence will consist of the completed recording. You must use at least two distinct sources of music e.g. CD and digital playout etc. You will also be required to produce and read out two scripts during the show (celebrity news and a local weather)''

Assessed Show 2:

''You will be required to demonstrate your knowledge by presenting a pre-recorded music programme. This programme is not live, therefore you may edit your show before uploading it and broadcasting it on Boom. For this Outcome, a running order should be drawn up.''

Assessed Show 3:

''You must produce, present and record a music show suitable for Boom while interacting with Social Media. To complete this task you must also:

Produce a conventional running order according to standard layout which is appropriate to the programme audience and purpose and type of radio station.
Produce a pitch of least 100 words and a royalties sheet for each track played''

Assessed Show 4:

''You must produce, present and record a music show for Boom radio containing three pre-recorded interviews (location, studio & telephone). In the process of producing your interviews for your show you must:
Record a location interview (minimum 5 minutes after editing)
Record a telephone interview for your show.
Record a studio interview for your show''

Aside from these four main projects there are also further practical assessments.

Practical Assessment 1:

''You must create a commercial (30-60 Seconds) suitable for a local commercial station such as Kingdom FM featuring pre-recorded audio, your own voice and music. Your programme should comprise at least three tracks and should be free of unintended distortion while demonstrating good audio mixing between the tracks. To complete this task you must:
Edit & multi-track audio to the required technical and artistic standard and appropriate to the production brief.
Use appropriate equalisation and dynamic range controls.
Save in a format appropriate to the brief.
Provide a script of your finished programme formatted to industry standard.''

Practical Assessment 2:

''You must produce a pitch for the production of three related podcasts then present it in conditions that reflect current industry practice. Your pitch must identify the appeal of the podcasts to the target audience (Boom listeners). It must also explain the production process and, finally, identify suitable online marketing strategies to support the podcasts.
You must also produce a series of three related podcasts of broadcast standard (minimum5 minutes each) and must be suitable for public consumption and adhere to appropriate standards for taste, decency and content. The work can be edited to an appropriate length or re-purposed into a series of files. You must ensure that your podcasts do not breach copyright laws and ensure metadata is correct. You must upload and test your podcasts without assistance.''

Hmmmm... Some tricky sounding ones there. I will be finished the advert soon. I'll maybe post it here as it will be quite good once it's done. After that I will be hoping to get onto the pre-recorded show, Assessed Show 2, I think it is. This can be done here, at Lindsay's, and I can edit it at my leisure. There's no real excuse for anything other than a high quality show in this case. Once those two are done I will start to feel as though I am getting places. The Assessed Show 1, the live broadcast, will be quite tough but potentially I could go for it this coming Monday when I am on air, next week at the very latest. This could mean that by the first week in November I have done half of the Assessed Shows and one half of the Practical Assessments.

The hardest ones would be yet to come though. I'm not too concerned with the podcasts as, again, I can work on those at home and get good results this way. Time won't really be a problem since I have the software on my laptop now. Assessed Shows 3 and 4 will be the most difficult I think. Those will be the final two assessments I submit, as I see things at the moment. I can see these two hanging over me as we go into December.

Aside from this there are other assignments due in for other classes as well as some Street Team work that must be done for one of the local radio stations. It's going to get pretty busy soon I think. There's a lot to do before Santa climbs down any chimneys.

I'm game though.

This is what I signed up for.

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Stevie

Doing what he signed up for.

1293

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Friday, October 27th 2017 (Giving a Shit!)


So far so good on the working front. Barry the Bullet appeared on time on Wednesday and we got out all day despite a wet start and a generally windy and unpleasant day. Yesterday was better in terms of weather but worse in that Barry did not answer his phone in the morning and so I was challenged to go out myself. There was no excuse really. I decided to go for it and managed to get a fair amount done, breaking the one hundred quid target I set for myself. It's not the most riveting experience ever, cleaning windows by yourself, but it was a shorter day and I feel better, stronger in myself, for having fought the fear and gone out and tried it. I do feel tired though. On Wednesday Barry the Bullet and I took a trek after work to pick up his bike and from there I decided to walk back to Lindsay's. Add that walk to the time spent on my feet at work and you have a pretty fatigued Stevie. More walking around for debt collecting tonight but then it's the weekend.

After work last night I had planned to do the usual Thursday night thing and go to visit English Sara and Dennis before firing along to the nearby AA meeting. In less than two weeks I will be handing in my keys to the cave and so will be staying in another town. While this means that it will be more difficult and inconvenient to see my friends from this neck of the woods it will not be impossible. I can see them some other time. There's always next week. This isn't my Detached Protector at work either – I have other things to be doing and, to be honest, after that solo shift at work in which I cleared one hundred bucks, I feel a little too tired to be walking two and a half miles to English Sara's knowing that after the AA meeting I will have to walk back at ten o'clock at night. Fuck it.

So instead I work on my Assessed Show 2, the pre-recorded one. It's running on a nineteen sixties thing and so it's been fun to work on. There are a few things I don't get though. If this is to be aired one evening on the college radio then how am I to carry out the celebrity news and weather sections as asked for in the brief? Won't they be out of date by the time the lecturers approve the content? This would mean that fake weather and outdated news would be going out to our listeners (whoever they actually are) and so I will perhaps have to check this out with someone before I hand it in. Also – what time will this be going out? We are asked when presenting to constantly mention the name of the radio station, links to social media, and the time. How can I pre-record something and mention the time if I don't know what time this will be airing? There's much to be thinking about but at the moment I have worked as though it will be going out from eight until nine. If this needs changing then I'll do it as it will only be a slight pain in the ass, a pain in the ass it will nevertheless be.

I still find it difficult to know what to make of this course. I guess I'm still more than a little insecure in that I don't feel as though I'm any good at something until someone tells me I am. Last year I had a feeling that some of my work was getting quite good in the old sound production classes but since we never had any real kind of feedback from the lecturers it was often very difficult to know for sure. I definitely can do something better and with more confidence if I know that someone better at me rates me at it. It's one of my flaws I guess, my character defects and shortcomings, one of the ways in which I am codependent still.

There are a couple of things besides work and the Assessed Show 2 from college. They are: being abroad and missing it, and that hater at the AA meeting last week. It has been a full week now since I (very unexpectedly) found myself at the top table of an AA meeting for the ninth time in my thirty odd months of being a member. It's a sign that I am still a little sensitive but it's possibly more than that.

Maybe since I am not as active a member as many of these guys who attend and have attended every week, sometimes multiple times per week, all through their sober lives, I don't know the lip service as well as I should and I come off as not being too affiliated or invested in AA as a whole. It wouldn't surprise me. I guess that there's a time and a place. When I talk about the Twelve Steps I seem to do so with psychology in mind. When I talk about and think about things that Stu said when he was sponsoring me I tend to find myself trying to fit it in with what I'm learning through working with Dr. Bacon. This must come off as me having more faith in something that isn't AA. It makes it out as though AA and their Twelve Steps are entry level recovery and that the real learning and growing comes once you move away from that onto superior programs, which is my firm belief. I don't know if this sits well in the rooms though. Perhaps my sharing days are over. I got nine shares out of it and it was eight too many.

But then I wonder. Everyone else seemed to get something out of it. People like hearing about the program and they tell me this at the end of the meeting. It was just that one guy. There's a tendency with me to feel as though all of the others felt the same way as he did only the cover it up by being nice. Really they all felt the same way he did. Then I find myself wondering why I should be giving a shit at all, especially since we are a week down the line and tonight someone else will be getting up at that same table to tell their story. I will just fade into the background, a tiny little part of that room's history. For some reason though – I do find myself giving a shit.

For now I am putting all of that aside and heading out to work and then perhaps college this afternoon.

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Stevie

Heading out.


1156

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Saturday, October 28th 2017 (Before the Greasy Spoon)


After a week of being busy and out of the house I look forward to a day spent with Lindsay. Until three o'clock when the football starts. Then my loyalty will be torn between my two weekend loves. She's still in bed at the moment anyway. She's spending the last morning before the clock change in bed. Strange. It's dark at the moment and last night I noticed it dark before the debt collecting mission even got underway. Next Friday evening we will likely find it close to being dark by the time we finish cleaning windows at five o'clock, assuming Barry the Bullet will be joining me, that is.

So Lindsay and I are gonna be heading for breakfast at the local greasy spoon (don't tell our Slimming World consultant) and then we're going to be checking out the travel agent to see what we might be able to do about getting away next year. Rather than leaving it so late in the year we are looking at perhaps something around April time when I break off from college for Easter. I was talking with Ian and Barry about this at lunchtime on Wednesday.

Ian – ''You must be loaded m8, I couldnae dae that, go away on holidays all the time.''

Barry the Bullet – ''Nah, me neither, fuck that man.''

It's more a case of us starting to watch what we're doing with money, Lindsay and I. I've saved nearly one and a half thousand pounds in the near nine months of not smoking. I also take a packed lunch to work and the college. On Wednesday Barry spent four bucks on his lunch and eight quid on cigarettes. That's a healthy saving I am making. I also take my flask into the college each day so that I don't have to buy coffees. They went up this term and while you can buy one for seventy five pence in a little paper cup it costs around one and a half quid for a decent one and over two for the lattes and suchlike. Some of my peers are on three, maybe four a day. I'm doing quite well to save when I can. I got the holiday bug while away in Spain and if I want to give myself another little fix then I'll have to cut corners where and when I can.

With Barry being off on Thursday and me being out solo, and with him having to sign his name on the dotted line at the job centre yesterday while me being out solo again, I decided to finish early yesterday (like. . . before lunchtime early) and head up to the college. It's our day off but I should be able to get a computer no problems. There are a few tasks eating away at me and I want to get ahead with some of the more time-consuming ones. I mentioned through the week what the tasks were we had to submit by December 13th (six weeks on Wednesday) and I'll outline them here:

Assessed Show 1 – a live radio broadcast recorded and handed in with the music edited out.

Assessed Show 2 – a pre-recorded show recorded and edited. I've gone with a 60s theme.

Assessed Show 3 – The three interviews.

Assessed Show 4 – Interacting with social media while on the air.

Practical Assignment 1 – Show dedicated to assigned musical artist.

Practical Assignment 2 – Create a fake advert.

Practical Assignment 3 – Three connected podcasts.

I've ticked off Practical Assignments 1 and 2. Assessed Show 1 I will do on Monday when I'm next on air. Yesterday afternoon I worked on Assessed Show 2. The interviews, social media, and podcasts are standing in line. I'll have to give them some further consideration but for now it is my pre-recorded show. That's what I'll be thinking about until it's finished. The way I'm going with it at the moment I am hopeful that I can spend time editing it over this weekend, recording some more of it at the college perhaps on Tuesday morning, and then spend some more time next weekend (great having the software at home this year) and then submitting it on Sunday evening next week at the very latest. It'll be going out on air so I want it to be as good as I can get it. I know that the local and regional radio stations have access to our work and listen in regularly. Everything we do must be recorded so that it can be made available on request. There might be employment opportunities further down the line based on work we are doing right now and so quality must be paramount. There's plenty time to worry about the other Assessed Shows and Practical Assignments.

I left the college and then went to Wetherspoon for what will soon become my regular haunt for between work and debt collecting. I hand in the keys to my cave a week on Wednesday and after then there will be nowhere for me to spend time in my town at these times. Friday afternoon we will be finishing work around half past four when the sun starts coming down and then we start debt collecting at six. Wetherspoon offers a burger and chips while I work out which addresses we will need to be visiting. Last night I didn't bother contacting Barry and didn't get back to him when he contacted me. He let me down on Thursday morning by sleeping when he should have been working and so I just plodded on myself and went debt collecting on my own. It was worthwhile. I did alright.

So when I think about this past week as a whole I have to be incredibly happy with myself. I kept myself busy each day and did everything I could to better my situation. Could I have done more? Only if I was to be incredibly hard on myself. I brought money in and worked hard at the college (if that is the right word. College doesn't feel like work when I compare it with cleaning windows) and so I feel much further on from where I was one week ago.

If I keep going like this I will come good in the end.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a happy weekend.

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Stevie

Hoping to have a happy weekend himself.

1093

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Sunday, October 29th 2017 (Forty-Ventura)


An extra hour in bed. Doesn't feel like it. One of the problems in working hard over a week is that you get tired over the weekend. Or I'm getting old. Either way we are now into the colder months. Doesn't feel like it to be honest. Pretty mild out there. I don't know if it's some psychological thing or what but with the clock change always seems to come instantly colder weather. It's a battle of the mind. The cold weather will definitely be on its way though. A day at a time we'll all get through it.

I did okay this week. If every week is as productive as last week was then by Christmas I will be sorted. Sorted with what I don't know, it's just something we say around here, meaning we'll be comfortable, on track, that sort of thing. I've been getting better at trying to move forward rather than just settling. I stepped up at the AA meeting last week and shared from the top table, fighting the fear, and this continued through the working week with me getting on with college assessment and, possibly most important of all – I worked a full day and a half solo when Barry the Bullet failed to turn up for window cleaning shifts. It wasn't even tempting to slack off. If I want this better life I keep saying I do then I know I need to work for it. This fact now seems imbedded somehow.

I was looking at the set list for the Metallica show from last Thursday night and have to admit that I regret selling on our tickets. From the looks and sounds of it they played a blistering show yet again but, like I've mentioned before, I have already seen them and we have Opeth at the Barrowlands coming up two weeks on Thursday. It's perhaps all a little too much excitement at once and when all is said and done I think that Lindsay and I have made some good choices in 2017 – the year that has undoubtedly been the best I can remember.

Next year is already beginning to take some shape and also already has one or two things to look forward to. In terms of Lindsay's Christmas presents I had originally bought for her tickets to go see the Wicked musical. When I saw Strictly Come Dancing tickets more recently I opted to get them (she's a big fan but then which girl isn't!?) and keep the Wicked tickets for her birthday. This is convenient in fitting in with the dates. So there will be Strictly in February and then Wicked in May. My birthday will be a few weeks before the Wicked show and it'll be my fortieth. Forty years of being on this earth. Yikes. I'm more than half way there.

Lindsay and I have been looking to get away ever since the moment we stepped back onto horrible, muddy Scottish soil three weeks ago and yesterday we popped into the travel agents after grabbing breakfast. We had planned to get a few quotes and see what was available for the weeks close to my birthday. College breaks off for Easter at the start of April so everything ties in quite nicely. Greece seems to be the best option but when we do a little research later on it turns out that this is because it isn't really that awfully nice there at that time of year. We do a little more digging (I say ''we'' but I the laptop is on Lindsay's lap while I have one eye on the football) and a couple of things stand out.

The college didn't seem to mind me going on a trip during term time this month so I don't think they'll have an issue with it in April either. We find an all inclusive deal for Fuerteventura the week of my birthday, slightly off term time. So I'd be taking two days off the college but this means that we'd be leaving on April 20th and coming ''home'' on the 27th – my birthday being on the 26th. I'd be away for my birthday. A closer look at the island reveals how perfect it would be for our purposes and Lindsay heads back to the travel agents to book it. Looks like we're going away for my fortieth!

I usually have quite a torrid time of it in the build up and aftermath of my birthdays. I don't know what it is but I have always hated celebrating being a year older and tend to isolate during this time. There won't be any of that for my fortieth as I'll be in a far off land (as close to Africa as I'm likely to ever get, at least for the time being, never say never in sobriety) and will have a plane to catch the following day. My next birthday there will actually be something worth celebrating.

The other week when we had the removal van booked we went along to Lindsay's brother's birthday dinner and there were a few people there. My instant reaction was that he must be quite popular. I think about it though. If I wanted to I imagine that I could fill a bigger table than his. Even just keeping the guest list small. We'd have mum and Johnny Bravo; my brother, Scottish Sarah and the nieces; Gillon and his family; Kung Fu Panid and his family; and English Sara and Dennis. Oh, and obviously myself and Lindsay. We'd then have a total of, including children, eighteen, which would make our group six stronger than Lindsay's brother's. I could have a big birthday dinner if I wanted to. For whatever reason though I would never dream of it and would much prefer a low-key trip away to a small Spanish island on Africa's west coast with one other person.

This is all the future though and I like to finish my posts in the present. I have some little tweaks to make to my Assessed Show 2 for tomorrow and then it will be almost ready to hand in. If I can complete Assessed Show 1 tomorrow afternoon while I'm on air then that will be me half way through the first semester and right on schedule for getting everything handed in on time.

This weekend isn't over yet.

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Stevie

Going away for his birthday.

1089

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Monday, October 30th 2017 (Church Hunting)


I would rather have paid for our trip to Fuerteventura in full this weekend but Lindsay paid only two hundred pounds of a deposit. It was pretty much the money I'd made this week from working and had put in the jar to be banked over the weekend. Rather than go to the bank it found its way into the travel agent, which I'm all good with. It means that nothing from inside the bank went onto this trip. I can put money towards it every week from my wages until it's paid rather than us dipping into our funds. This way I am pretty much paying for the holiday by window cleaning money. There was a time when I would hate something terrible on that business but now I am reaping the benefits of starting it and trying to (with Barry the Bullet's help for sure) keep it afloat. It really has saved my bacon on occasions over the last three or four years and now it's helping to fund fun in the sun. It's helped greatly with Christmas too. It's incredible motivation to get out there and work whether or not I hear from Barry again or not.

It's a heck of a lot lighter in the mornings now that the clock change has happened. I think that this is actually why we do it to begin with. Without it the kids all go to school in pitch black and we can't have that. So we have it a little darker in the evenings instead. Makes sense I guess. I don't really care. I actually quite like the dark nights coming in, helps me to hide away, creep around undetected. Allows me to blend in better with my surroundings and go unnoticed. Makes me less likely to want to go to an AA meeting on the spur of the moment either, which is a good thing. I should only be going when I feel I need to. My message isn't really AA's message and so it's not as if I should be going for the benefit of other people, the newcomer, They always side with the loud-mouths anyway, gravitate towards ego rather than recovery, and then after a few weeks they leave to continue drinking as they always have done.

Ouch!! Where the hell did that come from? A little resentment towards the fellowship? Is it worth investigating what is going on with me as I find myself capable of writing a little attack like that in my journal which has recently been of a more positive vibe? It's obvious that my last meeting – the one I shared at from the top table – has beaten out of me my love for the rooms. I do often find myself questioning my enthusiasm for AA and I guess that with the college going as it is just now and all of the other stuff happening at the moment I am putting AA to the back of the pile of things to do. It's not that my recovery and the idea of staying sober is wavering – absolutely not at all – it's just that I see my sobriety and my participation in Alcoholics Anonymous as two very separate things indeed. If in doubt: stay away from the rooms for a while. Maybe I'll go to the local Saturday night one this weekend. It's been a few weeks again already.

I had a few things to sort out with my Assessed Show 2 yesterday to have it ready for this morning. I'll ask someone to read out the weather for me and perhaps another to go over the celebrity news and gossip sections that we have to include in our shows. After that there will be a little editing and then it's good to go. That'll be another one submitted. No fucking around here. Having the software on my own laptop has been a God-send – straight from my Higher Power to me, or straight from Abobe to me anyway.

I much prefer Pro Tools. We used that program last year when I was studying sound production. This is also the program I used to record all the music videos I used to post and the music I used to record when I was first sober. Adobe Audition seems quite cheap and limited in comparison which I find strange since it is the radio industry standard program. You'd think they'd want to use nothing but the very best but this is not at all the case. Pro Tools does cost more to rent each month than the whole creative cloud package that I have at the moment which consists of all of the Adobe programs from Photoshop to Acrobat and so on and so this is perhaps something to do with it. I also think that because editing is only one small part of the course they want a user-friendly program to work with and Audition is much easier to use than it's Avid counterpart.

We were at church yesterday morning, Lindsay and I. I had been to a different church a week ago with Robert and so this is the greatest church participation that there has been from me since I started working on my Step Two and Three with my sponsor. Back then I was using the church as a way of trying to discover what it is about the people who attend these places that makes them believe in such nonsense. It wasn't until later on that the concept of a Higher Power became favourable to me. That's not really accurate actually. I don't think that it was just a simple case of it appearing favourable to me any more than it was something happening within me to warm to the idea, to the idea of a Higher Power and a togetherness among us all. It wasn't something I set out to do, it just kinda happened through being exposed to it for a time.

This service was much more traditional and old fashioned than the types of services I have been to in my sobriety thus far. While I got something from it (though I still am not entirely sure what it was) I think that we'll be looking into some of the other churches in the coming weeks. There are around six of them within walking distance of this flat and this was only one of them, albeit the closest by a half mile of thereabouts. Hopefully we will find one to our liking while on our travels.

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Stevie

Searching for churches.

1116

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Tuesday, October 31st 2017 (Feedback)


Yesterday we were each called individually into one of the secret little rooms hidden down by the edit suites in the darkest part of the college campus. We were getting feedback on our settling in period. We've been at this for two months now (actually only five weeks since we just had a two week break and I was off for a week for the trip to Barcelona too) and so we were to check in. How do we feel we are doing and do we have any concerns? How do the lecturers feel we are doing as students? This is something that never happened once when we were doing the sound production last year and so it is most welcome, depending on what their feedback is, of course.

I am aware that, when placed in front of a computer with an editing software package and a bit of time and direction, that I can work away as the lone wolf and come up with some good work. Having the Abobe Creative Cloud at Lindsay's now means that I can do this kind of stuff in my own time as well. I am not surprised to discover that the lecturers feel that I am strong in this area. When it comes to audio and editing and so on there are no concerns whatsoever. They were expecting the four of us who came here from the sound production last year to be good at these parts of the course work.

What I was more concerned with was the actual presenting and radio show content element. For one hour each day we are in class (every Monday and Tuesday) each duo heads into the control room and takes control of the airwaves. We go out live on the college radio. Students can listen from any campus in Fife (although I don't know how many actually do) and lecturers listen in to see how we are getting on. This was the part of the course I have been freaking out about since we started. It brings me to thinking about that AA meeting a week past Friday when I was asked to share at the top table of a busy meeting I'd never been to before in front of people I had never met. I felt really nervous yet when getting feedback many people were saying that I didn't seem so.

Turns out that this is also the case while I'm on the radio. My partner and I are, apparently, if not one of the best duos in the class, then THE best.

Stevie – ''Really?''

Lecturers – ''Yeah!? We're really glad that you guys were paired up as you sound good together, you bounce off each other and neither of you takes control of the time, it's very 50-50 but without us having to tell you to be. It's really good. You're doing everything that you should be doing.''

This is a bit of a surprise to be totally honest. It's really helping with my confidence though and I feel better prepared not to go on and just get done and hand in these assignments I've been working on this week so far without being plagued with self-consciousness and self-awareness. I ask others if there feedback was positive and for the most part it was. They always tell me at the end though about what they were advised to work on and what they might be able to do to improve one aspect of their work. I got no such advice and direction. Pretty much a gold star student as things go.

I have to use this extra time I now have to make sure that I am on track with all of the assignments I mentioned in a post last week. I've handed in the fake advert and yesterday I did Assessed Show 1 so I'm waiting for feedback about them. I have made a good start on my pre-recorded show (Assessed Show 2) which will be based on music from the sixties and so this will not go out on air until one evening since it is not in keeping with the Boom Radio demographic and so is counted as a niche show and I plan to continue with this over the weekend while I have some time. I could do with getting started on the podcasts as they will be quite time-consuming given all the editing that will be required. I should make contact with the people I hope to involve at the earliest opportunity, which would technically be right now actually.

There. I should hear back from these guys soon enough. It's nice to have a plan in place and be following it. Tomorrow I will be back in working action and it would seem that it is once again up to me to run things window cleaning related as I still haven't heard anything from Barry the Bullet since his no-show at work last Thursday. Anyone would have thought he might be interested but evidently not. If this means that I am looking at a three day period of working on my own then I feel ready for it. There's a holiday needs paid now and I enjoy having things to look forward to. I have rescheduled the dentist appointment so that I am available to work as much as possible this week and don't have to take tomorrow off.

All of the work gear is in the cave at the moment and so I think I'll be staying there this evening so that I can get everything ready. I only have one more week until the keys have to be handed in and I still have one or two things to sort out between now and then. My claim for housing benefit for the period between me being on the sick and receiving student bursary and loan has been rejected and so I still have plenty debt from that place. I'll sort it out as things progress. From next Wednesday onwards there will be no base to have handy and available, no cave to drop my things off when I'm in the area. I'll be on my own. Quite where ladders and buckets and things will be kept after that is anyone's guess but I'll figure something out. I always do these days.

Right – time to get lunch made up and my flask filled. One more day of college before I have to start thinking about work.

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Stevie

A 'top of the class' kinda student.

1102

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Wednesday, November 01st 2017 (Solo Again)


When you say things like: ''Christmas is seven weeks on Monday!'' it makes me wonder what the fuck I'm gonna do to get ready for it but when I actually think about it there is nothing to worry about. I have made some great strides in sorting Christmas out this year before it becomes a hassle, before it becomes a thing, and I start worrying. I was actually going to go shopping the other day when we were at the travel agent for some more things for the nieces but don't want to ruin things. I like doing a bit of shopping for presents in December and so decided to leave it for now. You can spend so much time preparing for things that you ruin the event itself. Christmas is all about the build up. The day itself is never anything other than a huge disappointment but the two or three weeks beforehand I found out last year can be great. I'm hoping for the same again this year. That means no more shopping for presents until nearer the time – and no more talking about Christmas in these virtual pages. Moving on . . .

So my Assessed Show 2 went online live on the college radio last night at eight o'clock and Lindsay and I listened to it while we were working in the spare room, packing things up and unpacking other things, only to repack them again. We're making big progress though. There will come a time when it is ready for painting, just not yet.

I messaged mum yesterday morning. I had been thinking about what I might do for Assessed Show 4 in which we are asked to create three related interviews and I had thought about Barry the Bullet and Ian and asking if they wouldn't mind doing interviews about downhill biking which seems to be their newest hobby. I don't know about their reliability though and so I've spoken with Lindsay and mum about doing interviews on the NHS instead. I need three people and they must be recorded in three different environments. Mum will come into the studio next week and Lindsay will be doing the 'on site' one. I don't know exactly what would constitute being on site but I think that a coffee in the hospital canteen would probably count. Then there's just the telephone interview. I really am starting to bash through these assessments.

The feedback I got on my pre-recorded show was hot and cold. I could have done with having it less scripted and more natural and the volume of my voice could have done with being turned up a notch. The lecturer says that even taking these into consideration I am punching well above my weight at the moment. That this assessment would only need a few tweaks and changes here and there to pass at degree level. I'm doing well. To be honest I don't usually need this kind of feedback, I always know when I've done something right, it's just nice to have it confirmed by an expert.

In half an hour or so I will be heading out to make a start on the working week. Barry the Bullet hasn't answered his phone even though he promised on Facebook all week that he'd be coming out. I won't be letting it deter me and I'll be going out myself in a short while. It's colder, yes, but it's nowhere near the stage where we've got frost on the paths so I'll be safe on my travels for another few weeks. Where working is concerned I am in a strong position having got myself to the point where everything is in my possession for the first time in a long time. All the ladders are in my back garden at the cave while the gear is inside the cave itself. I have the work books with me as well and over time the work I do solo will overtake the work Barry and I did together and so things will update soon enough.

In terms of where I'm at on the actual window cleaning run, how I am doing in terms of getting around the cycle of work, things could admittedly be a lot better. Barry and I as a partnership haven't been around much of the work in a while, nothing much at all since I left for Spain almost a month ago, and so the pressure is on for me to get things done this week. No matter how much I might start to feel lazy come Friday I will have to get three days out of this week if I can. There is good motivation in knowing that a weekend is right around the corner and that I can pay some money towards next year's trip away for my birthday as well as starting to build Lindsay and my savings back up a little after hectic recent spending. I rescheduled my dentist appointment so that I could get the best out of today but I tomorrow afternoon my day will be cut short with an appointment with one certain Dr. Bacon, my clinical psychologist who I am to see in the early afternoon, half past two I believe it to be.

Right then! I had better get a move on. The day starts off with a tricky little carrying of the ladders and bucket of water to the place I finished off when I was out last week. This is the best part of a mile. I've walked many miles this year (well over a thousand actually, since I quit smoking) but carrying stuff, especially water, makes it all the tougher. I could leave the water and hope that the first customer I arrive at will give me some but you never know who is and who isn't going to be in and so I should do better by leaving prepared.

I'll leave you for now, will leave the cave in around ten to fifteen minutes, and will hopefully arrive on site around twenty to twenty five minutes after that. It's cold and grey out there.

But it's where I'll be spending my day.


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Stevie

Spending his day with the cold and grey, and his Higher Power, but that goes without saying.

1070

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Thursday, November 02nd 2017 (Earning His Meals)


Waking up in the cave hurts a little. There's no bed so I sleep on the floor with a sleeping bag Lindsay loaned me. There's not much at all in the cave at the moment. I hand my keys in on Wednesday next week and everything was moved out of here a few weekends ago when we rented a van. So my back creaks and groans a little when I wake and I can become disturbed through the night with poor circulation but the temperature is nice and within my control since the gas safety check was carried out a couple of weeks ago. I think I'll be staying here again this evening as I like being able to get up and get on with work with everything close at hand, just sitting in my garden, what is my garden for another week anyway.

I didn't bother contacting Barry the Bullet this morning. When debt collecting arrives tomorrow evening I want it to be a good one and I'm not interested this week in sharing my spoils with someone else. I'll do all the work so I'll get all the rewards. That is my attitude this week. The run is starting to shrink a little as well as I drop some properties I find it difficult to get money from or that give us other problems. It's going to become a ''one man'' run at this rate and when it does there will be no need for a second worker. The pressure is still on to get things done but I did okay yesterday on my solo mission.

Barry and I have been setting targets of around forty properties per day over the summer and yesterday I was pleased when I finished on twenty six. Fourteen short of what Barry and I would normally do combined. I'm getting started earlier this morning so that I can get as much done as possible before the day is cut short with an inconvenient Dr. Bacon appointment at half past two. By the time it's done I doubt I'll be able to get anything more done and so I will be finishing half day today. Friday is the big one. A full day with a debt-collecting mission in the evening.

I'm hoping to return to Lindsay's tomorrow evening with something to show for my efforts. I'd love to be able to put one hundred quid into our holiday fund and another hundred into the overdraft. Lindsay has an interest-free overdraft with the university and at the moment we are nearly five hundred pounds into the seven hundred and fifty allowance. Now Lindsay has gone into freak out mode and started up internet banking so she can keep tabs on what's been happening and where the money is going. I have to admit that this is a little inconvenient since around half of the five hundred bucks was me getting in some things for Christmas. Now she's going to be looking through transactions and receipts and so on. I don't know what will show up but I'll find a way of working around this. But I could do with paying something back into it this weekend. I don't like being in the red.

In order to curb my spending while being through in this town for the week and with the cave having nothing in the way of cooking appliances I got some rolls and Pot Noodles in. I'll buy my lunches when I'm on site but that's breakfast and dinner covered for the next two days and all on a discount too. It has been a long time since I bought a Pot Noodle and was amazed by the shrinking that's been going on since my last purchase. The little sachets of sauce have completely diminished. It makes me smile. How much money do they want? And for what do they want it for? What are they saving up for? I'll never understand it. Who could have thought that it was possible to pity those who appear to have everything? The truth is that I do pity these people.

The church told me on Sunday that you can worship God or money, but not both. I get it. I see it. Everywhere I see it. At the college it is particularly eye-opening as to how such a new and young generation, so promising and clever, are so mindless when it comes to their attitudes about both God and money, especially God. They think of God as being a great thing in the sky looking down on us all rather than a guide to living a healthy and fulfilling life. They see Him as something evil rather than something loving. They are the new generation and modern society has done a magnificent job in grooming them to become passive little consumers who look out for number one all the while sacrificing the togetherness that the church would suggest as an alternative.

After all – why do we need togetherness when we have social media? False Togetherness. I thought I would use Facebook a lot more than I have done. I was never on social media much although I've had a Twitter account for a number of years. When I started at the college they wanted us to get on Facebook if we were not already and so I signed up. I have barely used it since. It's been good for catching up with people like Lydia, who lives in London, and for spying on my nieces since I don't seem to be a part of their lives anymore, but I find it all so incredibly unfulfilling that I don't really bother with it. I sometimes wonder if my sessions with Dr. Bacon get in the way a little. I tend to have less time now for superficial relationships that I used to (and that wasn't very much, let me tell you) and with Facebook I find it to be as superficial as it could get. There's a tremendous feeling of sadness I feel that is an ever-present undercurrent to watching my college peers communicate with one and other on the group chat. I think it is loneliness that really bonds them. Or I'm full of shit and it's loneliness that keeps me from joining in.

Speaking of loneliness, I should be getting to work. It's not so bad really. I chop up the work into little batches of four houses and that takes up roughly an hour. If I manage four and a half, or even five, in this time then it's a bonus. I'll be working right up until an hour before my appointment so that I have time to grab some lunch and get there on time. Then I'll be walking back to collect the work gear and head back to the cave. I might do the whole 'English Sara and AA meeting' run this evening. I hope I do.

I think I will.

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Stevie

Earning his meals this week.

1170

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Friday, November 03rd 2017 (One Thousand Days Sober)


I've reached another milestone. This is my one thousandth day of continuous sobriety. I am impressed and don't feel like telling myself that it's only a day at a time and all that jazz. I'm not bringing it down, bringing myself down, in this way today. Maybe tomorrow, but for today I am loving the fact that this milestone has been reached. One thousand days. Try counting up to one thousand. Go on! Even try doing it really quickly. It's a big number, and each of those little digits represents a full day. It's a long time to be sober for.

What a day this could turn out to be. I'm up early enough for to get started working on my own again this morning at an decent time and the weather is looking good. I don't mean that it's sunny (it's actually pretty fucking chilly this morning) I just mean that it's dry. It's good working weather. Barry the Bullet got in touch with me last night to apologise for the last couple of mornings in not being ready and said that he was all set for work today.

Stevie – ''I think I'm just gonna go out myself again today. I've done pretty good this week so far and want to see how it plays out.''

Barry the Bullet – ''You know I won't slow you down.''

Stevie – ''It's not that. . . I've just been having a good week as it is and want to see what I can get done myself.''

I've got him a little concerned about his job. Do I really need him now? That's what he'll be thinking but it's also what I've been wondering at times over the past two days. I've said to him that if he answers his phone on Wednesday morning then he can come out with me then but that if he fails to answer that time then he can have another week off. Hopefully this will get him thinking that I'm not fucking around anymore. We both now know that I am capable of working by myself – something that we have likely both doubted for some time now and something that has kept the situation whereby it appeared as though I often needed Barry more than he needed me. Now things are changing. I've enjoyed this week. It's been surprising.

There was a third psychologist in Dr. Bacon's room yesterday. A trainee. There seems to be a lot of training required before one becomes a clinical psychologist. I agreed last week to allow this trainee to sit in on our session and I feel fine today and so don't mind him sitting in. Dr. Bacon wants us to do some more imagery work and this is something I'm still not altogether comfortable with. We look over my homework.

I have a few incidents noted from my Mode Diaries but the one we go with is the one I wrote about the sharing from the top table at the AA meeting that night I went with Robert to that meeting I'd never been to before. Bacon has me close my eyes and settles me into the session. Then I am asked to describe my surroundings. Always asked to speak in first person, as though I am currently still there, I set the scene. Then I am asked to describe how I feel inside. We know already that I am fearful and anxious, that I really don't like being up here at this AA top table where I am free to be judged, and I am asked to tell where these feelings of fear and anxiety can be felt within my body.

We did this one time before using me leaving Spain as an example and what ended up happening was that we spotted a pattern in which I go from being in trouble to the final solution. The middle part is missed out. This is the important part, the part where the connection takes place. The part where I express what it is exactly that I think I need. There seems to be this thing I have where people are to guess what it is that I am after and if they respond positively then I'm all for it. If they don't manage to somehow know what it is I need then I can tend to become resentful. Either way I am not good at actually asking for what it is I need or even putting the idea across. For other people it is often guesswork. Not ideal for healthy connections.

So this time we use the image of me at AA's top table a couple of Friday night's ago and we take the feelings I was experiencing then, those of fear and anxiety, and we use them to go back through my life to a time when I felt these before. The first thing that comes to mind we go with and I find myself back in primary school as a young boy. It's Father's Day soon and the class is making cards for their fathers. Only there's this one little boy who's father isn't with us. This is the nineteen eighties and we've only recently stopped striking children with canes and so we are living in the stone age with respects to education, as usual, and the done thing back then when a child is different is to remove them. I am led to a large cupboard, the same cupboard we are forced to stand in when we have misbehaved, and I am to write out a grandmother's day card instead.

I can't remember if I bothered to do it or not but this is the image we go with. It's Father's Day and I am isolated and placed somewhere normally reserved for misbehaviour to take part in a solo activity. Dr. Bacon comes into this image and reasons with the teacher. In the end another little boy who has also lost his father is allowed in to sit with me for a while as Dr. Bacon and Mrs. Shaw work out what best to do. We, myself and the other little boy, are both allowed back into the class and we join in with the activities just like the others. We are no different from the other children. I am now asked how this new scenario feels. Better, to say the least.

When I am asked to open my eyes I make a mistake in showing a little emotion. Just a little, but he's all over it. Bacon doesn't miss a trick. Within a few seconds my face has returned to its stony default setting but he thanks me at the end of the session for allowing myself to let a little emotion out, for trusting him enough to allow this to happen.

We have penned in our sessions from now until Christmas. I won't see him next week because Lindsay and I are heading to the Barrowlands in Glasgow to watch Swedish metal band Opeth so we're scheduled for the following Thursday. Then every fortnight after that. Thursday at half past three on the 23rd November; 7th December, and the 21st December. After that we'll work out what we're doing next.

Today is the important day though. It always is. I'll be working right up until half past four (it'll be starting to already get dark by then) and will then carry the gear back to the cave where they will spend their last weekend here. I'll then be heading to Wetherspoon (which is where I'll possibly post some of this shite I've been writing since I last posted on Tuesday morning) and then I'll be heading out for a solo debt-collecting mission.

I'm looking forward to it.

I'll let you know tomorrow how I got on.

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Stevie

One thousand days since he took a drink!

1330

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Saturday, November 04th 2017 (Working Statistics)


Right then – here are the statistics for the week just passed as far as work was concerned:

Wednesday:

Total work done: £126
Cash collected: £41

Thursday:

Total work done: £108
Cash collected: £71.5

Friday:

Total work done: £123
Cash collected: £123

Friday evening:

Cash collected: £105

Week total work done: £357
Week total cash collected: £340.5

That's pretty good going if you ask me, which of course you didn't, but if you check in here regularly then you must do so with at least a slight interest in how I go about trying to be sober and live my life, get out of this hole I am still to some extent caught in. Considering that I may have used Barry the Bullet's unavailability this week as an excuse not to have any faith in myself I have shown this week that I can be relied on and depended on to do the heavy lifting when it is needed. I've proved to myself this week that when I am motivated I have the tools to get the job done.

To pull in this close to the amount of work done is the good thing and that which shows that there was effort there on my part. Considering that Thursday was cut short for a Dr. Bacon appointment it is quite impressive that I still managed to topple the one hundred pounds every day over the three days. Imagine what a solid fortnight might have done. Even a full month, providing the Scottish weather could hold out that long, which it never does at any time of year. It makes me wonder though. I could have worked my way out of my financial difficulties a long time ago. All those times I had nothing to eat. All that debt building up. Going without internet in the cave now for nearly two years when the bill was ninety pounds. A day's work. There was a solution there all along, I just wasn't of the motivation or mental or physical strength to do it at the time. Now though.

So I wake this morning still in my cave. This is the longest time I've spent in this place for a while. Three nights and no less. When I first started dating Lindsay I was at her flat once every now and then. Over Christmas it increased significantly. In the time since I have seen the time I've spent in the cave deplete and it has been rare for me to spend more than one night in a row here. I have to admit that I've really enjoyed this week. Wednesday through Friday – a full three days of cleaning windows by myself and a debt-collecting mission at the end to boot. Now I wake and it's the weekend. No work today. Saturday – the day of rest.

Considering that I spent twenty nine bucks this week (it adds up, so it does) we are left with three hundred and ten quid so that's one hundred into the holiday and another hundred into Lindsay's overdraft. This leaves us with some to spare so we'll get some shopping in and put some more away. I like proper horror movies but Lindsay likes those of the Saw variety and so we're gonna be checking out that new Jigsaw movie at some point today, my treat, a belated Halloween present. The idea came to me when I saw it on the Restoration calendar for this week just passed. I had been on my lunch break and had nipped down the town centre when Jimmy sat next to me and asked what I was up to and if I was going to the church this afternoon. Since it was so bloody cold I decided that I'd pop into Restoration with him and take advantage of the free coffee. Warm the coggles, put a little heat into my bones.

I used to go to Restoration every week. I'm trying to recall when I was last there but when addiction services worker Louise comes in later on she refers to me as ''Stranger'' so I am guessing it's been a while. The room has changed, or rather the people who are in it have. The regulars have moved on. New blood has taken their place. I don't like it. Too much change, too much of a difference. Louise says that she'd wondered what had happened to me.

Louise – ''I thought that maybe you weren't coming back . . . ummm. . . for the same reasons that most people don't come back.''

She thought I'd been drinking? I thought I was past that. I figured myself now to be seen as one of those guys who had managed to make it and who was never now likely to go back. The only reason I haven't been there for so long is because I have had other things to be getting on with. In this way I am a good example. It's just that no one gets to know I am if they never see me. It makes me wonder what all of the guys who are not here and I am told no longer come are up to. Doesn't mean they are still all drinking. Surely one of them has got himself a job or something and moved on from this? There's no way of knowing. It's one of the more frustrating things about getting to know alkies and addicts.

There's a calender of events all planned out for the next two months with go-karting probably the highlight for November. Next month we have the Christmas dinner which will be on the fourteenth. I said I'd give them my money nearer the time if I was going since I don't know what things will be like on the working front by then. The dinner will take place on a Thursday afternoon and so work would be troubled and interrupted by it. It will be the week before Christmas though and so I do hope to go. I don't know what other Christmas celebrations I will be involved in. It's a good time of year to start with the festivities too, just eleven days before the event itself. When the idea of Christmas hasn't yet been overdone and become stale. I'll be with my old Restoration buddies, those of them that are left.

It's frustrating how often these guys toggle between life as a sober person and life as a drunk. There are some positive things about this though. The people at Restoration have more humility, a humbleness, that is sorely lacking in their AA counterparts.

Lindsay mentioned to me that she bumped into my old sponsor at the shop the other day. She was waiting to use the ATM while he was in front of her. When he turned around he looked straight at her for a moment, elected not to speak, turned, and walked off in the direction of his car. I don't know what to make of this. Stu really is displaying some strange behaviour. Perhaps Lindsay is missing out one or two details but I wouldn't put it past Stu to have acted this way. It seems that fatherhood has changed him in many ways. His ego is back. I think that he's wanted a family all his life but he was so poor with women that it never happened for him. In sobriety he found online a Russian bride in need of a visa and so tied the knot. Now that he is a father it lays to rest all of his inferiority from his past. Now he feels himself worthy. The world can now see clearly that he is, at the age of fifty three, finally successful and attractive enough for someone to want to mate with and provide offspring.

This is obviously a need of his that has been unmet for the whole of his life and now that he has it he is showing odd behaviour – the sort of behaviour that puts people off him, I just hadn't really seen it until recently. Good luck to him in the future. I look back and wonder what on earth I was thinking to be going through the program with him to be honest, like Madonna must feel when she looks back and watches the Material Girl video again after all these years. We do what we have to do to get to where we want to be but it doesn't mean we have to remain proud of it.

Anyway – it's time to get moving. I'll get a bus in am hour and will be at the town centre of Lindsay's town around fifty minutes after that. We're meeting at the Golden Bite cafe for some breakfast. From there we can decide what we are doing for the rest of the day.

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Stevie

Saturday not the day of rest after all.

1503