The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Wednesday, June 28th 2017 (Absent Bullet)



Trying to make the most of a day off (they happen all the time now, like – every fucking day!!) I changed up my doctor surgery and did little else. The college only finished up eight days ago but already I am lost without it. My old doctor was about a mile and a half north of my cave and so it makes sense that I should register with my local one, the closest to me, less than half a mile from the cave. It makes me feel as though I'm a part of the community. I have to say though that this is something I've bee struggling with recently. A sense of belonging and community. It's a combination of leaving the charity shop due to the changes made by the new chair making it more expensive and less community driven, and that Russell Brand book I've been reading which talks all about the importance of community and how we've allowed capitalist ideologies to become so dominant in our societies now that this suffering we all feel yet completely deny is there and real is actually a spiritual suffering due to our lack of sense of community and belonging.

It's completely true I think. Twice this morning there were chances for drivers to fuck me over, me being a pedestrian on a mission and all that, and both of them took them, speeding up to try to frighten me, or just let me know that they feel as though they are important and that I should wait on them. I can relate. I too used to be filled with hatred – especially in the mornings and especially when I was driving – and it's still there every now and then these days but to a much lesser extent I must say, and when I see these guys racing to work I can't help but think of Russell's comments in the book. We are suffering, to a quite staggering degree, from a lack of community.

This makes me wonder if I might actually be right in leaving the charity shop and refuse to go along with the apparent community-busting and money-making philosophy that the new chairperson is bringing. Like all nasty ideas it'll spread rapidly throughout a community already in the throes of a terrible neighbour-fucking-over illness. By not giving up my free time to this place any longer (and I feel as though I've never had as much free time as I currently do) I am making a stand against this but it is a silent stand. Only me, Dr. Bacon, Lindsay, and perhaps some of you guys, actually know why I've left. But then would it make any difference in telling anyone else? Like Russell's book says – we don't know that we are suffering from a lack of community and so it's totally unlikely anyone is going to listen to someone that isn't famous and on television. It makes me think that people are not as sociable as they think they are and that the idea of a thriving community fills them with fear. We're actually very isolated creatures just pretending to be sociable. This is the way I've always felt about humans.

I got up this morning and text Barry the Bullet to make sure he'd be up and ready at the meeting spot, got no reply, risked going all the way down there anyway, waited and waited, realised he wasn't going to show, and then walked back up the road to the cave. Next time he and I are together I am going to have to get from him a list of all the addresses we still have left in this business, move all of the gear up to the cave and then come up with some alternative. Barry is just too unreliable these days. It'll feel like I'm stabbing him in the back – will feel that way for both of us – but it's either that or lose the business completely.

Maybe I should show him some loyalty and just split it. Fifty/fifty, right down the line. After all – how am I going to continue keeping a business running while I'm a full time student again? It's not going to happen. The extra money from working just one shift per week (could be as much as a hundred bucks) would be enough to cover my living expenses (I'm a cheap date now that I no longer drink, take drugs or smoke) and so one day's work per week is all I'll need come September. What about between now and then though? I could do with getting out as much as possible and it's been a complete disaster so far. Two weeks ago I went out to work on the Wednesday. Last week I was supposed to make my big return and work Wednesday and Thursday and then this week Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The reality has been that I haven't been out at all since that Wednesday two weeks ago and the money gained from that shift went straight back into the business buying business cards and rubbers for the squeegees. I'm not struggling for cash but I have to be careful or it might not be too long before I start struggling for it again.

So if I'm not going out to work today I'll have to make the best of another day off. It's getting close to lunchtime and I haven't an answer from Barry. I keep getting little images of him sleeping away. He'll get up soon to a bunch of text messages and missed calls from me and I'll hear from him later on. In the meantime I am going to head through to Lindsay's town and pay her a visit. I'll be checking up on dates for meeting musicians and getting on with completing that college funding application. I'll pop into the Credit Union on the way and find out if they accept student loan payments. If not I'll have to work out starting a bank account. I'll also contact mum about checking my passport application. Hopefully I have her details correct and am good to go. There's still plenty of time but it will pass quickly if I'm not thinking about it.

I'm going to leave the laptop here (in the cave) so won't be posting this or today's writing until probably Friday evening or Saturday morning. This way, should I stay over in the next town, I'll be ready to step straight off the bus tomorrow morning prepared to work. That's the plan anyway.

But, where Barry's involved, plans don't seem to mean much at all.

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Stevie

Sticking to his plan.....

1131

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Thursday, June 29th 2017 (Watching A Car Crash: Part One)


It's raining something terrible again. It's only been a week since the college finished up but already I am going nuts with the boredom, the uncertainty, the not knowing where I'm going or what's going to happen now. It's bringing out some of the worst elements of myself. Like all animals do when they feel trapped and uncertain I find myself biting. I think that Dr. Bacon notices this during our session this afternoon.

It's taking too long. These sessions. Nothing is happening. We're still just messing around at the assessment phase and it's taking too long for me. If I'm going to be making the best of things then I'm going to need tools to help me and I'm not getting them at the moment. There's a real sense of urgency, impatience, about me at the moment. It reminds me of when I was going through the Twelve Steps with my AA sponsor. It's very similar to Step Five in some ways. In that Step we talk about all of the resentments, fears and harms done to others that have been prominent features in our lives so that we can use the rest of the program to try to make up for this. In the case of psychology, or at least Schema Therapy the likes of which I am working with Dr. Bacon on at the moment, we look at existing patterns of thinking and behaviour and how they fail me so that we can use therapy to alter them.

For all the positives regarding AA's famous program it is in the changing of our negative behaviours I found it to be weak. Step Six and Seven have only one technique for ridding our negative thinking and it is to just ask for it to be removed. This ties in quite nicely with the whole idea of it being a spiritual program and so plenty more studying of spiritual philosophy may be required to complete these Steps properly but to be fair the whole idea of them really is to just ask an unknown entity to remove parts of your personality you don't like when they crop up. It's pretty vague. The main problem I find myself wondering about now though is what if Schema Therapy is just the same? What if it promises so much but also offers only the most vague of solutions? And what is the point in us spending all of this time talking about Little Stevie, my inner child, and all that? Why when I am going through these periods of being less than happy can we not focus more on the solutions instead of the reasons why Little Stevie might be hurt? Where does it lead us? Where does it take us? What is the point???

Dr. Bacon – ''Because he needs to learn that something different can happen when that upset comes out, that it's not just going to be shut down. That it's not just going to be detached from. That we're not just going to direct it at someone else. That actually somebody can respond to that and see that it matters that he's upset, and can help him to think through what to do about it. So if you're coming in here all guns blazing and I am just really punitive and say something like: ''Okay, you're not trying, that's the end of therapy!'' that would just be us repeating that cycle. No change. If we just go detached and you say that everything's okay and that it doesn't matter and we just need to move on and I just go along with that then again that's just me going along with one of your defensive coping modes. No change.''

Stevie - ''…''

Dr. Bacon - ''I can't collude with these parts, I can respect them, and notice that they are there for a reason but I'm not going to get change from any of those. It's not just a case of Little Stevie coming out and moaning, it's about him saying that he's been hurt and someone else saying that this shouldn't be happening and helping figure out what to do about it.''

Okay. Let's forget Little Stevie for a moment. We're talking along similar lines to how Gillon was talking to me a few weeks ago. I'm sounding a little like he was when he approached me at the college and talked about this feeling of ''emptiness'' that he was hoping that further study would rid him of but that was sticking around him. I thought at the time that it was a sense of disconnection from his community that was his plight. It makes sense. I don't think we are as sociable creatures as we like to think of ourselves as but definitely more so than we currently are. Back in the day I'd imagine we lived in small settlements of fifty or more and there would be a kind of all inclusive mentality – something incomprehensible in a society where inclusion depends on social and economic status. Where people can't even fathom inclusion let alone believe it possible. Where it is fashionable to hate and exclude.

I suppose that this is why AA is so popular. It's not a case that it's THE place to go to get sober or even that its program can offer an end to one way of thinking and behaving and the beginning of a new way that will work much better. It's that it is all inclusive. You can go there and fuck up, repeatedly, and yet the fellowship has to accept you back (I must add that on two occasions I have seen this abused and it was appalling, but it has only happened twice that I've known in hundreds of meetings). This is the main reason for my visits to Dr. Bacon's room (a doctor who cannot legally sign my passport and so I'll have to search elsewhere) – lack of ability to connect. Gillon is perhaps proving to me that it's becoming a little more commonplace than just the one or two fuck-ups like me in each community and that even once-popular people can suffer from feelings of isolation given the way our communities are run at the moment.

Going back to my worry regarding any kind of plan to these sessions:

Dr. Bacon – ''The way our session is structured is, what we would do in the first little past is try to understand what modes have been active and causing a problem in the time between sessions. What we're trying to do is to establish the life patterns are, and that will be the patterns that different modes and responses create in your life, and there will be some pretty predictable patterns, there'll be a few key patterns, one of them is here – what's happening now. If there's nothing happening in the room then I'd ask you about what's been happening in your week.''

Stevie – ''Okay.''

Dr. Bacon – ''But if there's something happening in the room between us then I'd always have to deal with that first, because that's going to get in the way of our therapeutic relationship, that's going to be live, and if we don't deal with it there and then there's a good chance that anything we try to do over and above that is just going to be superficial.''

Everything's superficial though, isn't it!?

It hasn't been the best session but then that's around three sessions now we've been faltering a little. I don't know if this is just a part of the natural running order of a Stevie relationship. That's been a few months now and so I'm finding the trickier parts of me more difficult to hide. I'm letting my guard down.

Where's booze when I need it?

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Stevie

A constant internal car crash.....

1331

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Friday, June 30th 2017 (Watching A Car Crash: Part Two)


It's the day I've been waiting for for a long time. When we sober up, according to Twelve Step fellowships, we are so useless and untrained at looking after ourselves or anything else that we should try to buy a house plant and keep it alive for one full year. Apparently we should then move onto a small pet and try to keep it going for two years, but we're not there yet. I am there in terms of the plant though. Back in 2015 I bought two and they both died after around eight months in this claustrophobic cave of mine. Then, last June 30th, I thought I'd try it again and bought the same two plants (a Dragon Tree and a Leopard Lily but the Leopard Lily died) and now I am able to celebrate. Yesterday I was down the town and popped into the card shop and bought my Dragon Tree a birthday card. This might seem pitiful to some of you (especially those who consider themselves to be alcoholics but who had no problems in keeping alive plants when their drinking was at its worst – and jobs and relationships and.....) but this to me is a big day.

Talking about my problem behaviour in that I struggle to relate to people and to connect with them in any meaningful way – not because I don't try to but more because I create, quite frustratingly, defensive modes of conduct during connecting opportunities which renders them difficult and often impossible – I wonder about those who have managed to.

Stevie – ''Some people do. I have connected with people before.''

Dr. Bacon – ''They must be able to, like I can, see past it.''

Makes me wonder. Makes me a little suspicious actually. Do the people who I can seem to connect with want something from me? Is that why they are willing to see beyond the damage of my psyche? Lindsay? English Sara? Gillon? I could think that they all want me for one reason or another and that would help understand them a little better. It wouldn't explain more recent connections though. What about the folks at college? There tended to be two groups in our class and I was as valuable a member of one of these groups as anyone else who was a part of it. That's the way it felt to me anyway. Maybe this is one of the reasons for my slip in mood of late. I have lost some connections. It wasn't just a college course.

I'm meeting with mum (yep – you heard that right!! This'll be twice since Youngest Niece's birthday back in February, the day before my second sober birthday. I've been to more AA meetings than I've seen mum since) tomorrow morning. A large percentage of passport applications are returned due to some error but post offices will check them for you for a tenner. Mum says she'll look over it if I want and so it's happening tomorrow morning. I'll get to find out how my family is doing. It's got to be one of the most distant families ever now. I haven't seen my brother, his wife, or either of my nieces in more than two months. This is not how it used to be at all. Some things were definitely better early on in my sobriety.

I wonder if this is just the passage of time. It could just be that these particular siblings have reached the point in their lives where they go their separate ways. I think there could be another possibility though. It could be me. My modes often work in unknown ways to me but others will know all about them. Is it a case of me getting worse now that I am sober? It's highly likely. In many ways I feel more disconnected than I remember when drinking.

Dr. Bacon says that I have to have built an awareness about myself that means that I know which mode is most active within me at any given time and so that I can step in before he does and tell him which mode is in play.

Dr. Bacon – ''But if this is happening between us then that awareness isn't there yet.''

Indeed. Sucks. It's all about building this awareness then. If I want to move forward then this is the next step in doing so – learning to become an expert in knowing my modes.

Dr. Bacon – ''Without that awareness then it doesn't matter, I could teach you some of the best psychological techniques, tips and strategies in the world but if you aren't on it, if you aren't catching yourself and don't see it then you won't be able to put it into practice.''

Stevie – ''Is that something that's going to be happening?''

Dr. Bacon – ''What's that?''

Stevie – ''You teaching me some of the world's best psychological tips and strategies?''

Dr. Bacon – ''Well I don't know about that hahaha. This is something that often goes wrong in other types of therapy, this is why Schema Therapy was designed actually, you can teach....loads of people learn all of the techniques and strategies but...''

Stevie – ''Can't make them work.''

Dr. Bacon – ''Can't make them work. They know them......they just can't put them into practice.''

Stevie – ''I've all but given up trying to use AA's program because it was always during the times I needed it most that I was found wanting.''

Dr. Bacon – ''And the problem there is that when you are at the time when you need it most that is when the mode activation is the strongest, and remember when you're in that mode...this mode...''

He's pointing at the Detached Protector mode on our little diagram which always sits on the desk during sessions.

Dr. Bacon – ''This mode doesn't give a damn about your AA, couldn't care less. It's only function is to disconnect. I can feel this pulling me into one of my modes, my Compliance and Surrender mode, which is to just go along with people when they are unhappy with me – so that's one of my modes – so I'm having to resist just jumping straight into this change with you.''

I don't think that I want to jump into this change as quickly and recklessly as he might be thinking I do, or that I might be putting across that I do, it's just been a difficult transition going from college full time and working at the charity shop on the side to not being able to even get out and clean windows. Barry the Bullet has been on the phone to say that he'll be in touch about next week as his mum has taken another turn for the worst. Her years spent with a cigarette in her months are coming back to bite her in the ass, they always do but usually a little earlier than the sixty five years she's reached, and so once again I am torn between feeling bad for Barry and his mum and for myself for not being able to forget about all this shite and just get back out working for a spell.

I know my modes better though. It's Friday late afternoon and I'm supposed to be heading to Lindsay's for the weekend soon. I'm a little behind schedule though. It's the Detached Protector again. He loves asking me to just stay inside on my own. Why risk going to all these places that might humiliate me? It's the same mode that stopped me from going to Restoration again this afternoon. That's a whole bunch of weeks on the trot that I haven't been. Probably a good thing though.

What I am going to try to do this weekend is attend that AA meeting. Even if it's a whole load of shit and carries the weakest AA message I've ever heard (would have to be really bad then, I promise you) being there will help satisfy my need for connection.

It's not why we're really supposed to be going there but it'll do for me.

Dr. Bacon describes this situation I am currently in where I am to notice modes in action but not make any effort to try to stop them from happening as watching a car crash.

I don't have another session now for three weeks.

I'll be hoping for as few car crashes as possible.


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Stevie

Off for his bus.

1439

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Saturday, July 01st 2017 (New Month; New Musicians)



The year half over then (not quite – there are more days in the second half of a year and especially one not a leap year). That's okay. I still like the thought of life not being all that long. Knowing that it does have an end. That we are all heading in some direction. That everything is always moving. Even if the direction we are always moving toward is death. It's good to think this way sometimes. It helps put things in perspective a wee bit.

One thing I'm doing to try to keep busy in the time I have between now and then is looking for musicians with which to spend my time with. This isn't a new thing for me and once a year I go on one of these musician hunting missions with varied success. Early last year I played my first sober gig but then things fell apart afterwards. I'm met with literally dozens of guys (and a few gals) since I sobered up in a bid to connect with others who share this passion of mine.

In saying that I haven't played guitar much at all in the time I've been sober. I actually once upon a time studied music at an academy in a nearby city and got myself to a pretty decent standard. I yearn to be back there (at that playing standard) but don't have the patience to get back into it in that way. Somewhere along the line I lost my passion for playing music. I'm not naïve enough to think that by playing a few auditions with a few guys is going to get me back into thinking back along those musical lines and giving it that kind of commitment again but it's all about trying to have fun. That and trying to connect with other guys.

So far I have three meetings scheduled. On Wednesday night I am to be meeting with some guy from my town. I'll be meeting him in the very same Wetherspoon I used to meet up with musicians the last time around. I think I'll take my laptop down there after work (assuming that happens) and have my dinner there while I wait on the guy to show up for seven o'clock. He's the most local of those I am to be meeting but he seems the least sure, by this I mean he takes the longer time to get back to me on the website private messages and he seems.....I don't know.....just a little unsure. It's hard to explain. Anyway – he's looking for a more acoustic thing and plays guitar and sings. It should be an okay meeting (they always are) so I'm looking forward to it.

Next weekend there's more happening. On Friday I am off to a small local village in the afternoon to meet another. This must be the most awkward town in my county to reach. There are hardly any bus routes take me to his neck of the woods on a weekday (there's no Sunday service whatsoever) and so with us arranging to meet at his house at half past two I will have to get a bus (according to Google) around two hours before we meet and won't get another one until ten to seven, a good four and a bit hours after our meeting is scheduled. It's at times like these when you notice how poor our public transport system actually is. I'll have to confirm this at the bus station where I'll be able to get official times and that but already it seems like travelling will be an issue for meeting regularly with this guy.

The third option is happening on Sunday. There's a band from another local town (a bigger one though and so comes complete with a decent public transport system) and they've sent me this message:

''
Here's a set list we're working on:*
Set list:*
1) Creeping Death - Met*
2) holy diver - KE*
3) You could be mine - Guns*
4) Rose of sharyn - KE*
5) Doom song (original)*
6) Seek and destroy - Met*
7) The Trooper - Maiden*
*cassandra (original)*

We're keen to write more originals.*
''


There's some really cool stuff in there. The KE stands for Killswitch Engage who are a (sort of) metal band and so the whole set is kind of very hard rock or out and out metal, with the Guns song being the exception – Guns 'N' Roses are more pop/rock if you ask me – and so this is a very different project from the other guys I'm meeting earlier in the week. I looked back through the history of this guy's membership adverts on the website and it seems like he only started this up in January and met up with the band members between then and late April. Then, around the beginning of last month, the lead guitar player left for some reason and they've been hunting ever since.

So this is where Stevie comes in. I think it's a good thing that they've only been playing together for a few months. It means that I'll have a better chance of sliding in. This is definitely the most promising of the meetings coming up and while I am still under forty (just) I think it's okay for me to play hard rock and metal music. There will come a time where neither appeals to me. These guys are all in their thirties. I have until Sunday next week to learn these tracks but that's fine. I could probably play The Trooper right now even though I haven't played for ages and the Metallica ones are pretty standard (although Creeping Death is pretty tough going on the old stamina) but I'm not familiar with the Killswitch Engage tracks at all. Practice needed. The main thing I'm interested in though is the quality of their two originals. What are their writing skills like? I'm looking forward to this one more than the others for sure but each of them will be interesting.

I met with mum this morning and we chatted for a couple of hours. I should probably have talked a little about that while it's still fresh in my head and talked about the musical stuff tomorrow but fuck it. There's never any structure to this journal.

In many ways it's just the ramblings of a madman!

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Stevie

In many ways mad.....

1092

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Sunday, July 02nd 2017 (The Shack)


Yesterday was one of those days that you don't really appreciate how good it was until it's over. I think that yesterday might turn out to be a very important day for me a little further down the line.

I'm talking with mum over coffee in the morning. We've met at a local cafe and she's going over my passport application to make sure I've done everything correctly. All this planning for holidays abroad is very new to me but mum knows what's happening. I think she's not long come home from her third trip of 2017. She starts talking to me about Barcelona after hearing that Lindsay and I are looking forward to our day there. Most people I mention it to say little more than the importance of protecting my wallet but it can't be worse than any other major city. I don't live that far from Glasgow after all. Mum has much better advice for me although she does give me an example of her pocket being picked.

She then starts talking about her latest trip. She's recently been to Crete and has made some interesting observations regarding the differences between life there and life where she spends most of her time, here in the Kingdom of Fife in central Scotland. She says that one thing she notices more than anything is the sense of community spirit. I can imagine. Maybe I can't actually. The best way for me to would be to try to imagine the complete opposite of what I know from my time here. She is telling me of possible reasons we may have lost community whereas some places still seem to have it and thrive with it.

I drop in my own little possible reason and it does not go down well with mum. She completely disagrees. I mention that us no longer going to church might be a big factor in the lack of community spirit these days. She's a newsreader though. She watches it too, so when she hears ''religion'' she somehow connects it first and foremost with ''war'' and ''death''. She seems totally incapable of seeing that this is just a part of the capitalist agenda. Get rid of the church. Get rid of anything that threatens this new way of life we seem to be heading towards where communities don't exist at all. My mother isn't a stupid woman but I feel this part of her to be very closed-minded. She cannot see a single benefit to community by having churches or even, so it would seem, spirituality.

She seems incapable of separating the words ''religion'' and ''war'' and, if I'm being honest, why has she taken me saying that we might feel unhappy and disconnected as a community because we no longer are a church visiting society, at least that might be a little reason, one of many contributing factors, but why does she confuse religion with spirituality. She's quite sure of making me understand that she's not religious.

Stevie – ''I'm not religious either. But I have a God in my life. Not a hate-filled one that you seem to have got all messed up with, sounds more like the Devil fucking with you to me, and I am a member of a fellowship, a community within a community, that for all its flaws and imperfections, does try to promote a healthier and more spiritually driven lifestyle. It's the difference between me drinking to suicide and asking you to help me with a passport application so that I can go on my first trip abroad since 2005 – all made possible with the savings I've made from quitting smoking. That's what spirituality is capable of. The Bible is taken as a metaphor.''

As I am discussing this with my mother I realise how selfish I have become. How the God of my Understanding has disconnected from me, not because He's nasty and enjoys abandoning me, but because I am not doing his bidding. Thy Will Be Done. I've forgotten that and have taken a different path from he. But he's calling to me now, telling me that, as always, I have another chance. I just have to do the right thing.

I am at the AA meeting for it starting. Since doing my ''ninety days without a meeting'' thing I have tried a couple of times to get back into the AA way of things. I stayed for the first half of a meeting back in mid May. I then attended the first half of the local convention a couple of weeks later. This time staying right to the end was not such a difficult thing.

I found that a great deal of the judgement that I felt and that I was putting out to others began to diminish as the meeting got going. By the end it was gone. It's not perfect by any means. Some people who attend meetings are very sad and very lonely men and women. They aren't able – likely for reasons I am working through with Dr. Bacon at the moment and over the coming months, making me feel like one of the lucky ones in that I can take what I like from AA but realise that it does not meet all of my needs – to make it in the real world. Imagine, then, what life might be like for these people if the fellowship was not there.

It's easy sometimes for me to forget that all of the stuff that's starting to happen in my life now: the dilemma with which course to study; the coming holiday; the quitting smoking; the double marathon attempt; perhaps even just the fact that I am alive still – this is all directly related to the fact that I started attending AA meetings on a regular basis back when I first got sober. I even met Lindsay in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.

More than perhaps all of that is that I found a god, a Higher Power. The God of my Understanding. This means I am effectively never alone. I know have a (sort of) socially acceptable way of talking with myself. I just have to better learn the signs I am disconnecting from Him so as to minimise the time it happens. The more time I spend disconnected in this way the worse I will feel. All of this has taken me more than two years of exploring and investigating, writing it all down, to figure out. It's no wonder I can't communicate it with mum. She may or may not have her own Higher Power but at the moment she feels that there is only one god and it is one of evil. She suffers as a result of this belief. She can't see that the real evil are the corporations and news outlets that promote the ideas that ''religion'' and ''war'' are synonymous.

Captain G drops me off at Lindsay's after the meeting. While I've been away Lindsay has found a movie for us to watch. The Shack, it is called. It's a 2017 film but we got an HD quality copy from the site ''fmovies'' (although the second option is best – ''fmovies.io'' rather than fmovies.to but either is okay. I've found this year that this has become our favourite movie streaming site. I am a little sceptical of the movie at first but we watch it. My mind is still buzzing around thoughts of the day to concentrate much on it. I have to make sure that this evening's meeting isn't a one off and isolated event. I'll do my best to get there next week too.

Then the film begins to take shape and it follows the themes of my day. The protagonist's daughter is murdered and he finds himself in the company of God for the movie. He is like my mum is now, like I used to be, in that he believes God to be evil. During the course of the film he goes through a kind of fast-tracked version of what I had to do regarding my father and my lot in life while I was working through the Twelve Step program. The same kind of psychic changes I've had to try to go through since getting sober. The film is a little wanky at times but I really enjoyed it given the context of the day.

Sometimes life can be beautiful I guess.

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Stevie

Leaving it there.....

1430

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Monday, July 03rd 2017 (Old Timer Training)


Captain G drove me to Lindsay's from the meeting on Saturday night. We had a good old chat. The only AA member I've had any sort of contact with over the last few months has been Lindsay and so I've lots of catching up to do. He's telling me as we are driving along about a couple of resentments he's had recently and how his method of dealing with them is to pray for the other person each and every day until eventually, sooner or later, it is gone. It might take a while but keep at it and eventually the resentment will die. From the way he explains how his resentments started I have to wonder if I am quite as bat-shit crazy as I often disrespect myself as. I'm a ''quick fix'' kinda guy still and so I don't like any solution that features the terms ''eventually'' or ''sooner or later'' but I like the way that each and every one of us tries to find what works for him or her.

He starts talking about Lindsay and me and how it's great that we're doing so well and going on holiday and all that.

Stevie – ''You seeing anyone yourself?''

Captain G – ''I'm seeing someone from the fellowship.''

Stevie – ''Oh right, anyone I know?''

Captain G – ''Yeah, you'll know her.''

I figured that would be it. I'd be left to cast my mind over all of the women I've met since joining AA over two years ago in search of one I felt to be a potential match for Captain G – a task that may have wasted many a.......whatever thought measurements are called.......but he just comes out and says it.

Captain G – ''Marie.''

Stevie – ''Oh, nice.''

I haven't seen her for fucking ages. The last time I even heard about her was when she spent a couple of months (must have been around November/December time) in a local psychiatric ward which was something I only learned through someone else's Facebook (I won't get Facebook myself).

Captain G – ''Yeah, been seeing her for around seven or eight months now.''

So the psychiatric ward thing happened while the two of them were dating. That's okay.

Stevie – ''That's nice. I didn't know.''

Captain G – ''We wanted to keep it secret from others in the fellowship.''

I get it. I was the same with both Jenna and Lindsay. It's not the business of others in AA. But over time (and not all that much of it I can tell you) people in the fellowship came to know all about it. It's not important enough for others to care but it is important enough for those who find out about it to spread it. Lindsay and I are now common knowledge in AA but, as I am beginning to realise, Captain G has other reasons for perhaps wanting to keep such a tight lid on this part of his private life.

Captain G – ''This is actually the main reason I left my home group. They said that I shouldn't be going out with her. When we started dating she was only a couple of months sober.''

This is frowned upon in the rooms, and rightly so, and we call it ''Thirteenth Stepping'' in the rooms. Marie was a newcomer, two months sober and still learning the ropes. Captain G, on the other hand, has been in the fellowship for years (six and a half at the moment so just under six when this all started taking place) and has been through the program. He's supposed to know better. What would people think about him if they knew? Who gives a fuck!? It's a little closed-minded again from people in AA. For all we know what happened between them happened very organically. We just don't know. I've never been able to see how the old timers can tell us not to be so judgemental but be so judgemental themselves. If we are all only sober for today then why does it matter how far into one's sober journey they are?

Stevie – ''I got the same advice with Jenna and with Lindsay. They didn't want to know the details, they just got the basic information and made an instant judgement about it. To be honest it was one of the times I saw genuine sickness in some of the old timers. They've never been able to communicate well with the opposite sex and they have huge issues in sex as a subject. They come from a repressed age but where's the growth?

Captain G – ''My sponsor lives on his own and he's divorced from his wife but still went round every day. I wondered what the hell he knew about relationships when he was acting like this.''

Stevie – ''I was the same. Stu had a Russian bride who lived apart even though they were married and then the moment she was refused her visa to work in Scotland she mysteriously fell pregnant and now has her visa. Stu acts like he's in control but if you want my honest opinion there is no love in that relationship whatsoever. They are both satisfying aesthetic needs – theirs is a marriage based on co-dependence.''

It doesn't matter too much about Captain G's relationship with Marie or Captain G's sponsor or ex-sponsor's relationship to his ex-wife and how healthy or unhealthy it may be. Nor does my sponsor or ex-sponsor's reasons for marring his Russian bride in need of a visa come into the equation when I'm assessing my own love life. All of this is just distraction, stopping me from connecting with my own problems in my own relationship. If I wanna be this guy who turns into a better AA old timer than the current old timers, a more wise and worldly in the ways of recovery old timer (which I do, of course) then I'm going to have to conquer my own demons, my own fears.

Lindsay contacted a relationships guidance/counselling agency a couple of months ago and she went to an induction thing where they discussed the outlines of what it is that the service offers as well as Lindsay giving them her perspective of what our relationship is all about. She was then told that she'd receive an appointment date for the two of us to go down and start some kind of relationships therapy around the end of June. This has actually happened and on Friday she got a letter with an appointment which is, with amazingly little notice – this very day! So, in my dreams, today goes like this:

I get the bus in a short while to my town to meet with Barry the Bullet and head out for a day of work. I'll finish this around four o'clock this afternoon and head straight for the bus station and get the half past four bus back through here so that I can make the appointment at five. It'll be tight.

These sessions will likely be happening every fortnight and they will be (probably) structured round possible reasons as to why I find having sex with my girlfriend to be such a fearful task. It'll be all spotlights on Stevie once again but I'll give it a shot.

Quite whether this will work or if this is something that Dr. Bacon is more likely to be able to help me with is as yet unclear. I'll give it a go though.

Anything to be a better and more knowledgeable old timer in thirty years time.

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Stevie

Going through extensive new wave old timer training.

1293

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Tuesday, July 04th 2017 (Relationships Scotland)



The working situation is still as embarrassing as anything – not working yesterday because Barry slept in – but would have been out this morning had it not been raining again. It's mad out there. The weather forecasters didn't mention anything about it last night, it's as if they don't even know sometimes what it's going be doing, and Barry and I are still hoping to get out in an hour or two depending on what happens, but these are all little reminders of how shit and inconsistent an earner this occupation can be – and this is supposed to be peak summer time too. So far we've had two brief hot spells and the rest of the time it's been wet. I actually heard the other day that this year's June was the wettest June for seventy five years. Global warming in full flow. I still have eight weeks after this one (or is it only seven now?) until any study I might be engaging in gets up and running and so I am keen to get working to put a little aside for this coming holiday and maybe even for Christmas.

I'm gonna talk a little bit about last night's relationship counselling session that Lindsay and I attended in a moment or two and this will likely take up the rest of the post but I just wanted to quickly say that......actually, nah – it's neither the time nor the place.

So I meet Lindsay at the Relationships Scotland main office and it isn't long until we're called up. It seems like it's going to be quite interesting. The counsellor is female which helps me tremendously in opening up (but to be fair every employee I saw in the building was female and so it makes me wonder about the authenticity of the equal rights movements we're been having in this country for decades) and we are led to a little room upstairs. Lindsay had started this idea rolling after her psychiatric nurse had suggested it after we'd had a few troubles a couple of months ago – April I think Lindsay came here for her initial meeting.

I had figured that it would be a case of the spotlight being shone on Stevie and him having to explain a few things about himself to these women but it wasn't like that (not yet anyway). It was more a case of the counsellor finding out a little about the two of us and our relationship. On the way out the next couple in the waiting room are called up. It's then that I begin to wonder about how we might have appeared to our counsellor. This couple seem very different from Lindsay and I.

This couple look as though they both work full time whereas Lindsay and I are both students despite us being each well into our thirties. As we are telling the counsellor about our individual lives it becomes a little obvious that we are not the type of couple that walks into these rooms all the time. I suppose that we are an interesting little challenge. Neither Lindsay or I drink or take any drugs and so we didn't meet in a pub or a nightclub. On the contrary we met in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous – a fellowship that while I accept is not invisible is certainly not as known in the public eye as I might be led to believe give my affiliation. We are both ex-drinkers and users in recovery. This gives our relationship an interesting dynamic I feel.

I've heard Lindsay's story before but as I listen too her explain it to our counsellor I can see that my acceptance of it is perhaps not normal and has come about by the fact that I am used to listening to horror stories about people drinking and am used to seeing it in my everyday life. The problems with access to her son; the brain haemorrhage and so on. When the counsellor asks us one at a time if we have ever had thoughts of suicide it is almost a case of ''Of course – who hasn't!?''

As we start to talk about our relationship I find myself judging us a little, thinking that the other couples who come her will all be more sophisticated than us, more ''normal'' and that their problems will be more adult and less ''alkie'', less addict. I do think though, and always have since we started going out, that Lindsay and I do share some qualities that aid our relationship that some of these ''normal'' couples would be terrified of. One of them is the fact that since we are both in recovery and have our individual therapists we are constantly advised to be honest and are constantly encouraged to seek growth, spiritual growth mainly. This all gives us perhaps some advantages over these other couples who have a little more stability and greater direction that we have, both individually in their lives and within their relationships.

As I am listening to the outline of what will be happening in these weekly sessions I can't help but feel that this will be yet another place where I will reap tremendous advantages. Every Monday evening we will have our one hour session and we'll be going over all sorts of mouth watering subjects including the reasons we drank in the first place; our family history; our sexual health; you name it and it's there. Initially there will be six sessions before we go through a review to see if another six might be needed – for some couples the initial six is fine but others may need more – and it is suggested to us in a joking manner that the six sessions will likely not be enough for us.

She also says that we might have to do a lot of talking and work around loss as there appears to be a lot of loss in each of our lives. I guess this is true. I think that when you drink like I used to (in your cave on your own for so long) that you tend to miss out on quite a lot of things that other people deem necessary, perhaps even essential, parts of growing up. I missed out on a lot of these things. Many people in AA and on forums like this don't seem able to understand this and that's okay. Some alkies have relatively normal lives. They are married in healthy partnerships; they have long-term employment; they have a circle of healthy friendships. They have everything that makes the adult human healthy, they just drank a little bit too much.

I didn't have any of these things. It's not that I didn't try – they just didn't ever seem possible. The truth is that, given the modes Dr. Bacon and I are discussing during our psychology sessions, I probably wouldn't have had the capacity to gain this normal stuff that so many take for granted. It seems as though sitting on my own with a bottle in my hand was pretty much the only option and sometimes now when I think back I can relate to this older Stevie a little better than I've previously been able. I can understand him a little better.

Anyway – the rain doesn't look like it's going to die down any but maybe if I go meet Barry the Bullet at the later time that we've agreed this morning – do my part as it were – then possibly the weather will do its.

Later dudes.

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Stevie

Far from normal.

1292

[Baclofenman]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

I did notice a couple of things going on upstairs in this closed-minded, turbulent little collection of conscious and unconscious thoughts that fits snugly within the confines of my skull.

Love that phrase....

Regards



Bacman

[Baclofenman]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

The first was the most prominent – the Charity Shop Cafe. Why has it put its prices up? Did it really have to go and do that? Lindsay and I were at lunch yesterday and the place we were at sold filled rolls at only ten pence more than the charity shop now charges. Their big breakfast deal is a pound eighty more but you get twelve items instead of seven and so when you work it out per item the charity shop charges fifty seven pence per item and the other place only forty nine

Ahh but have you considered 'your' shop may offer more beans, peas or chips than the other local charity shops in the area. Fresher free range eggs or a larger cup of coffee. The additional cost of transport to, said cafe may outweigh the increased cost of 'your' shop.

This is a conundrum that will play on the mind of many a peckish cafe attendee.

Regards


Bacman

Note to self - never, never again will I post on this site using the mobile theme.
It sucks, as does predictive text....

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Wednesday, July 05th 2017 (Firsts For Everything)



I find myself still casting my mind back to some of the things we talked about at that first counselling session with Relationships Scotland on Monday night. I actually can't wait to get started on this. The counsellor has a lot of work to cover in terms of our family histories and how we ended up as drinkers and then as ex-drinkers but I think already she hinted that she is impressed by the level of honesty and insight that we both seem to share. It makes me realise that all of this recovery work we do; all the sponsorship and meetings and AA stuff; the psychology appointments; listening to others in places like Restoration; trying all types of therapy once (I even tried art therapy a few months ago) – it all adds up. It all makes for people who aren't so afraid to explore or express themselves.

I had been worried that the spotlight might have been shone on me during these sessions (there will be times when this happens) but this isn't new to me. I'm not a beginner when it comes to sitting in a counsellor's chair. I'm actually getting quite good at it but have to remind me to be myself as best as possible, whoever that is. We have these personae we adopt given situations we find ourselves in. You notice it a lot on forums such as this where everyone acts almost sickly nice and fake – not at all a true reflection of who they are. Perhaps even lying but more likely just desperate for approval. I'm possibly no better than any, perhaps even worse than some in that sometimes I am nastier in these pages than in the real world – this is often used as an outlet for me rather than an ego-stroker – but to get back to the point: I can't let my previous experience in counselling settings dictate who I am to be when I am at the Relationships Scotland sessions which will from now on be weekly engagements.

One of the things (actually THE thing) that I felt was Lindsay's main motivation for starting up these sessions in the first place was our sex life, or lack of it. The counsellor brings this up.

Counsellor – ''It says here that you hadn't had sex yet, is this still the case?''

It is! When she asks about it and why this is so despite us being together for ten months now I can only speak up and say that it is my doing, that I'm responsible for this happening (or not) and that I'm still unsure exactly why. Rather than make an enormous thing about it she gives me a little hope.

Counselling – ''We have a sex therapist here, they're very good....''

Hmmmm... ''they'' doesn't suggest male or female but given what I've seen of this place so far I am going to all but guarantee that it's a woman.

Counselling - ''...that's maybe a road we'd go down later. Obviously sex is a part of relationships and so it's going to come up in these sessions. You both are going to have to try to be comfortable talking about all kinds of things related to sex. We will talk about different positions, porn, masturbation, and so on.''

This is completely fine with me.

Counselling – ''To have been together for ten months and not had sex.....that's obviously something that we would consider a problem but we'd be able to work with you on that. It would start as maybe mutual masturbation and then move on and eventually onto penetrative sex. That would be kind of homework that you guys would be given.''

I've covered my past sex life in this journal on older versions of this website and how difficult I've found it in my sobriety. It's been a long time (eight years now – almost all of my thirties) and I gave up trying to figure out when the last time I did it sober was but I reckon it would have been when my daughter was conceived and she'll be fifteen later in the year.

They say that sobriety is all about ''firsts'' in that we have to learn to do things all over again. It's not the same as relearning because we never really learned to do things sober anyway. I've had my first sober birthday, first sober Christmas, all of that stuff. Soon I'll be going on my first sober trip out of the country. I've played my first sober live gig; I've studied my first sober college course. This though – when sex comes into play it is much more difficult.

AA might say that I should work my program and that it should all be fine. Sometimes I think that these AA old timers have said those words so often that they have completely lost all meaning. It's just something they say now – an answer to every problem. It's their way of avoiding thinking about anything: just hand it over, pass the buck and bury your head in the sand. ACA is just as bad. It would suggest talking about it every week for the rest of your life. Nope! Unfortunately an answer to real life problems cannot be found in fellowships like these. Their programs are useless against issues such as sex.

Thankfully I am gaining insight into why. My defensive schema mode – the Detached Protector – is so powerful that when it is in control very little can stop it. When Little Stevie feels vulnerable this mode will come in and shield him. Sex is now a situation where Little Stevie is triggered and this mode comes out to play. The program can't help me with this because it isn't designed to. Dr. Bacon said the other week that once my awareness is such that I know at all times exactly which mode I am in then we can start to work on some of the better psychological techniques and tricks. I long for the day but it can only happen once my awareness is highly acute. There's no easy, quick fix for this.

There might be a fix though. The good thing about all of these ''firsts'' is how interesting it has been learning all about them. I can't see how first sober anything's can be fun and interesting if they were always done anyway. Learning to have sex all over again – learning something like this sober for the first time in many a year – it'll be a lot of fun I think and certainly it'll be interesting.

Right then – I'm meeting some musician guy in a while so I'd better get moving.

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Stevie

Learning and Relearning.

1142

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Thursday, July 06th 2017 (The Laptop Stays in the Bag)



Ahhhhh.... the joys of getting back out to work. That's another full day in the bag making it a whopping two days for the year. Now we are faced yet again with a quite terrible rain storm that seems destined to remain the course of the day and so the week for me looks to be already over. As a result of this working I am already now stiff and sore. It amazes me how much weaker I am now than I was when I approached the end of my drinking. I feel as though I was stronger back then somehow. I didn't seem to stiffen so easily. I guess I was just more used to it back then. Even though I missed more shifts than I worked it was still unlikely that I would miss work for the six months at a time it seems to be happening these days. I hope to get back out again soon: Monday to Thursday next week.

Tomorrow afternoon I will be heading to a tiny little village not too many miles from here to meet with a musician hoping to get something started. Last night I was at my local Wetherspoon's to meet up with another guy with similar ambitions. This coming Sunday I have an audition for a rock/metal band and there's another guy I messaged on SoundCloud who it looks as though I'll also be meeting up with at some point next week. The search for musicians is back in full swing. Last night's guy...I'm not so sure I'll see him again. Twenty four years old he seemed to want to get outta there as quickly as he showed up and seemed terrified of the Wetherspoon atmosphere which was actually quite busy for a Thursday night. I know not if we'll meet again but I won't hold my breath.

I get it though, his anxiety about entering a busy pub. I was like that as I approached the door. Something started telling me that I should maybe bump the guy. Or even call him and apologise and reschedule. I used to come here all the time and I guess that in the early days of last year when my internet was cut off and I started looking for wi-fi hotspots and found Wetherspoon to be one of the best I perhaps struggled to enter. After a while it became pretty commonplace and I had no problems in entering, finding a seat, ordering food at the bar, and then setting up the laptop. Now that I think about it I perhaps look strange. I have my laptop with me for this meeting but the same voice that is telling me I should be better served by cancelling this meeting, about turning and walking back up to my gloomy cave is telling me now that to be seen sitting here with my face buried in a laptop would be weird. Somehow this voice convinces me that these people would give a fuck. If the twenty four year old I met goes home and writes in his own little journal then he'd probably discuss how tight and wound up I seemed. The laptop stays in the bag and I resort to people-watching to pass the time, trying to think up different places to arrange these types of meetings in the future.

Now that we are twenty four hours away from this incident I am wondering what schema mode might have been active. Dr. Bacon is always asking me to look hard at these modes and try to figure out which ones are active and at which times. We're looking for patterns here: real life patterns of thinking and behaviour. Walking into a busy place would be the obvious trigger for Little Stevie, as would the thoughts of appearing silly in front of all these other people (most of whom seemed not to even notice he was there to be fair) and so the Detached Protector would be the obvious mode he'd call upon. This is the only mode that would try to sabotage an event by telling me that it would be best if I avoided it – that being alone would be better, safer. The fact that I entered the pub despite this active mode does not in any way signify me getting better. Last year around this time, maybe more like fifteen months ago, I was going through the same thing: bring out the Detached Protector but fight against it and do what I had planned anyway. I say this but it was only a week passed Saturday I walked to an AA meeting but couldn't actually enter the room.

Sometimes the Detached Protector still beats me. I think that when it comes to moments like last night when I decide to fight against it and things turn out to be less than worth it there is a sense I feel as though perhaps I should have listened to it and boycotted. It's only when I fight against it and things turn out to be enjoyable and worthwhile that I notice the benefits of continuing to try to combat and defeat this thing. Times like the AA meeting last weekend. That was incredibly worthwhile once I had been. Well worth going, and good for me too. I've promised myself that I will be going again this weekend and this is still the case. Lindsay is working tomorrow and Saturday so I'll be looking for things to get up to anyway.

Yesterday I was walking back to the cave after working with Barry all day and bumped into a couple of the volunteers at the Charity Shop Cafe as they were closing up. What has happened to me?.....and all the rest of it. Turns out that Elsa, project manager for the last fourteen years, is leaving on the 21st. They are having a night out for her on Thursday next week and I'm invited. I should go. It was Elsa who gave me my interview for the position I started in July last year. They seem to be struggling for volunteers again. I'm not the only one to have left in the last two weeks. Once again the new chairperson – her responsible for all of the changes that led to me leaving in the first place – is brought up. Bullying – at least perceived bullying – of one of our more disabled volunteers. I think that it's a case of mental illness in our chairperson. I don't think that she means to be all horrible and aggressive all the time. I think she's just like that through some personality disorder she either isn't aware of or doesn't know how to treat. We all have schema modes and some are more harmful than others. Like all of us though – she has a responsibility for her own mental illness and so while I think it is okay to be tolerant we must do so only up to a point.

Apparently if I ask the chairperson she will provide evidence (she apparently has to on request) as to the donations made by the store over the last five years. I can then add up what I know the shop to make each year and then make a decision about my future there. I wouldn't like to think that I could be coerced into working there again but this afternoon Barry and I headed to the Charity Shop for lunch. We'll see. Baclofenman makes some interesting points for me to consider too:

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Ahh but have you considered 'your' shop may offer more beans, peas or chips than the other local charity shops in the area. Fresher free range eggs or a larger cup of coffee. The additional cost of transport to, said cafe may outweigh the increased cost of 'your' shop.

This is a conundrum that will play on the mind of many a peckish cafe attendee.

''

Right then – we're supposed to be keeping these word counts down a bit.

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Stevie

A busy boy.

1363

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Friday, July 07th 2017 (Endless Summer)


I got a bit of a fright when I stood on Lindsay's scales last night and noticed myself to be weighing in at eleven stone and ten and a half pounds. This makes me, at this exact moment in time and no other, more than my Slimming World target weight but is enough to kick-start my anxiety. I am allowed to be within three pounds either side of my target weight and so anywhere between 11; 4 and 11; 10 is okay. My current weight is not. It probably means that I will not eat tomorrow until dinner time in the evening and that will only be because Lindsay has returned from work and so will be there to witness. It would seem strange to her if I was to say that I had already eaten as I always ''weight'' for her to come home first.

Lindsay often says that I should be careful with my body dysmorphia and although I tend to dismiss these comments I do have to accept that the way I feel whenever I am over my target makes me wonder how healthy my attitude to my weight actually is. According to the NHS:

''Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is an anxiety disorder that causes a person to have a distorted view of how they look and to spend a lot of time worrying about their appearance. ''

and to Wikipedia:

'' Body dysmorphic disorder*(BDD) is a mental disorder characterized by an obsessive preoccupation that some aspect of one's own appearance is severely flawed and warrants exceptional measures to hide or fix it. ''

so I'm not altogether sure that what I have is a definite disorder but I do spend time worrying about my weight when it isn't within the Slimming World guidelines.

I think back to the Relationship Scotland counselling session on Monday evening. She was saying (the counsellor) that she would like to look at my coping strategies a little more closely in future sessions and wondered what they might now be since all of a sudden, in one two-year period, I have ditched all of my previous methods. First the booze (exactly twenty nine months to the day), then the drugs (seventeen months to the day), then both cigarettes and the antidepressants (both exactly five months ago to the day) I had been taking. There isn't really anything else left over. My mum didn't smoke, drink or take drugs while I was growing up but she did eat and it is hard to believe it's actually my mother in her wedding photograph. She's gone up and down in all the years since many times but she seems to have her own weight target and it's a lot more lenient and forgiving than my own. I don't know if this is some kind of factor in my attitude towards weight or if it's more to do with my lack of acceptance and tolerance of ageing.

I still cling to youth, well.....not youth so much, I just don't want to be a forty year old and start to decline as we inevitably do. I can't imagine being as stiff as I've felt recently after all of this climbing ladders all the time – can't imagine a world where I get this stiff this quickly. It's pretty pathetic. I cling to my twenties and early thirties. It'll be interesting looking at what my current coping strategies are. I'd be a fool to think for a moment that I wouldn't become one of those hooked on food if I don't watch what I'm doing. Such a great percentage of the population I am a part of do exactly that and use food as a way of getting through life. As a result we apparently, here where I stay in the county of Fife in central Scotland, have the greatest number per head of population of overweight women in the UK. Blokes can't be far behind. When I heard that I thought something like, ''No way......Surely not....'' but then I noticed that you just have to look around you to see that it is a ''huge'' problem. If it can happen to all of them then it can happen to me.

More people attend the Slimming World meetings I've been to than attend any AA meetings in the local area. They probably double or even triple the number of people I've seen in AA meetings in Glasgow. They also seem to all relapse whenever they go on holiday or on a night out. Being overweight is more forgiving of relapses than drinking is from what I can tell. I'd say that there is the same percentage of people around my age compared with those much older (like – hardly anyone under fifty) than in AA but I will say that there appears to be a greater willingness to learn from the group. By that I mean that a good recipe is a good recipe and a good piece of nutirtional advice is exactly that, a good weight loss tip is treated as nothing more or less than that and it doesn't seem as though some comment has any ''weight'' to it only if it comes from the mouth of a member who has been at their target weight for thirty years and is one of the crowd. Everyone seems willing to learn from everyone else. Yet it has a greater relapse frequency....

I can still access the college's Student Portal and so my membership must still be active. I got a letter through the door the other day which has motivated me to get my arse into gear where my future is concerned and I find myself this morning sending an email to the lecturer who runs the radio broadcasting course. He'll get back to me soon enough to say that it's all good. I've been for my interview and everything anyway. I had hoped to have more time to think about things and to perhaps even attend an interview with the practical journalism tutors before making my mind up but I can always change my mind at a later date. At least this way I can get on with applying for my funding now and I know that this will not turn into the endless summer, that there is some sort of pot of gold waiting at the end of this rainbow. We have been getting the odd rainbow as well given that the last couple of weeks has been a case of rain one minute followed by sunshine the next and then that pattern repeated.

Okay – there's a bus leaves stance twelve in an hour and it'll get me into that little village with quarter of an hour left over to find the guy's address. He's asked me to take my guitar with me so there will be some playing involved. This is okay even if my fingers are as stiff as my legs these days. These stiff legs will make walking to the bus station painful. I could use my concession bus pass to get me there for free and it would save the walk.

But that's no quick way to get back down to my target weight now, is is!?


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Stevie

His weight is fine.......until he knows what it is.

1235

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Saturday, July 08th 2017 (Schema Phases)


There aren't many football-less Saturdays to go now, thankfully, and the new season will be kicking off five weeks to the day (actually it starts on the Friday night so less than five weeks to go). This is indeed good news. Life is different when the beautiful game is with us. There's been a lot happening too. Mike Ashley, owner of Newcastle United and generally a chancer, has been quoted as saying that he's a ''Power drinker who likes to get drunk!'' He's worth around three billion quid yet still talks as if he's a teenie-bopper: a ''power drinker.'' I think that the summer this year has been completely different from all other summers I have known. For some reason I have wanted it to be over since it started and I can only think this is to do with direction in life. The college gave me that and ever since it finished I have felt unsure about things.

Glasgow Rangers and St. Johnstone have also bailed from Europe in the earliest opportunity and transfer values continue to remain high with Romelu Lukaku signing for Manchester United for around seventy five million quid. There is an interesting little video on BBC Sport.com that covers illegal streaming of games and how if people knew it was illegal to do so then they would be less likely to do it. There is an anonymous fan on there trying to fight our case for us, explain why streaming rather than paying the ludicrous television deals to watch the same games is a good thing, but he's not on the ball enough for us, or maybe he was but he's been edited. I think that the more people who stream illegally and the less people who pay to watch football then the closer it'll be to being back where it belongs – in the hands of the fans. Cancel that subscription and get it online for free!! Football is a community thing, not a business.

The new season is the future though. What's happening now? Well – given that I have Body Dysmorphia I felt it necessary to assess my progress given yesterday's fat-finding catastrophe. I am now starting to lose again the tiny little amount I put on and am feeling all the better for it. It's all about avoiding my default setting still. Even though I am well into my third year in AA and all this recovery business I am finding that my default state is still uncomfortable enough that I need an enormous distraction to take it away from me. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever find out what it's like to be human.

Rather than focus too much on self-pity and the negative situation I find myself still very much involved in I try to think more about possible ways out of this. Praying was never something I was too great at, never gave it a chance, but I have established a sense of a Higher Power. I think I know the essence of what we are talking about when we mention the Gods of our Understanding. It's never been the real answer for me up to this point though. Lindsay has been working the last two days and so I've had a little more time than I might otherwise so I've had a look at Schema Therapy online and tried to find out a little more about what might be happening in the future with myself and Dr. Bacon.

''The Schema-Focused model was developed by Dr. Jeff Young, who originally worked closely with Dr. Aaron Beck, the founder of Cognitive Therapy. While treating clients at the Center for Cognitive Therapy at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Young and his colleagues identified a segment of people who had difficulty in benefiting from the standard approach. He discovered that these people typically had long-standing patterns or themes in thinking, feeling and behaving/coping that required a different means of intervention. Dr. Young's attention turned to ways of helping patients to address and modify these deeper patterns or themes, also known as "schemas" or "lifetraps."

Yeah, I get that. And that too.

''The schemas that are targeted in treatment are enduring and self-defeating patterns that typically begin early in life. These patterns consist of negative/dysfunctional thoughts and feelings, have been repeated and elaborated upon, and pose obstacles for accomplishing one's goals and getting one's needs met. Some examples of schema beliefs are: "I'm unlovable," "I'm a failure," "People don't care about me," "I'm not important," "Something bad is going to happen," "People will leave me," "I will never get my needs met," "I will never be good enough," and so on.''

And that too.

''Although schemas are usually developed early in life (during childhood or adolescence), they can also form later, in adulthood. These schemas are perpetuated behaviorally through the coping styles of schema maintenance, schema avoidance, and schema compensation. The Schema-Focused model of treatment is designed to help the person to break these negative patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving, which are often very tenacious, and to develop healthier alternatives to replace them.''

Sometimes, as my awareness is growing, I feel a little tired of these modes, these schemas I have created as coping mechanisms. I've known for a long time that certain things, certain ways of thinking and behaving, haven't been working for me yet there has often been little option, little defence against them, and so I've more or less just let them do their thing. Like watching that car crash while knowing all along that it's coming but being unable to do anything about it - like Dr. Bacon was on about the other week.

''Schema-Focused Therapy consists of three stages. First is the assessment phase, in which schemas are identified during the initial sessions. Questionnaires may be used as well to get a clear picture of the various patterns involved. Next comes the emotional awareness and experiential phase, wherein patients get in touch with these schemas and learn how to spot them when they are operating in their day-to-day life. Thirdly, the behavioral change stage becomes the focus, during which the client is actively involved in replacing negative, habitual thoughts and behaviors with new, healthy cognitive and behavioral options.''

I started my sessions with Bacon on the......I think it was the twenty sixth of January..... and we've spent the majority of our time together in the assessment phase. Now though I think we have moved onto the second phase – emotional awareness and experiencial – as I'm asked a lot more to try to spot which mode I'm in at any given time and complete minor homework assignments. We do go back to the assessment phase every now and then so perhaps I'm sitting on the fence still – not quite into the experiencial side of is but not fully out of the assessment one either, kind of still having one foot in each of them. It won't be long before I enter the third phase, the phase that will take up a lot of the time: the behavioural change stage. Can't wait.

I'm building up a word count again so I'm going to get a move on now, get away from this journal.....

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Stevie

Has to go shopping now.

1230

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Sunday, July 09th 2017 (More Schema Phases)



Good morning! Here's a little story:

''Harry is a 45-year old middle-level manager. He has been married for 16 years, but his marriage has been very troubled. He and his wife are often resentful of each other, they rarely communicate on an intimate level, and they have few moments of real pleasure.

Other aspects of Harry’s life have been equally unsatisfying. He doesn’t enjoy his work, primarily because he doesn’t get along with his co-workers. He is often intimidated by his boss and other people at the office. He has a few friends outside of work, but none that he considers close. During the past year Harry’s mood became increasingly negative.

He was getting more irritable, he had trouble sleeping and he began to have difficulty concentrating at work. As he became more and more depressed, he began to eat more and gained 15 pounds. When he found himself thinking about taking his own life, he decided it was time to get help.

He consulted a psychologist who practices cognitive therapy. As a result of short-term cognitive therapy techniques, Harry improved rapidly. His mood lifted, his appetite returned to normal, and he no longer thought about suicide. In addition he was able to concentrate well again and was much less irritable. He also began to feel more in control of his life as he learned how to control his emotions for the first time.

But, in some ways, the short-term techniques were not enough. His relationships with his wife and others, while they no longer depressed him as much as they had, still failed to give him much pleasure. He still could not ask to have his needs met, and he had few experiences he considered truly enjoyable.

The therapist then began schema therapy to help Harry change his long-term life patterns.''

It's always a case of people being the toughest aspect of life. I've often said that this recovery carry-on would have been an incredibly simple and straightforward affair were it not for me having to deal with other people. Some of them are okay, or rather I should say that sometimes I am better at dealing with people than others, and the exchange is not altogether unpleasant, but the majority of the time I see people as nothing more than selfish little shits who are always using any opportunity to fuck someone else over and to lie to them without getting caught, trying to constantly justify every selfish action of theirs.

Dr. Bacon says that this might be an overcompensating mode of mine whereas I criticise others to make myself feel better as my self-esteem is shot and my own sense of worth non-existent. I don't know if he's right about this though and we've never really gone back and looked at it again. I don't consider myself to be any better – I'm human too – and so it's a fear of nature that is my main issue here. When my son was born (way back in September of 2000) it was my first real experience of being with an infant. Fatherhood was great. I was finally getting rid of the memory of my own disastrous family by creating my own one. What I did notice though was that my little boy was unbelievably selfish. He was a baby and so was completely incapable of knowing that anything beyond he existed. Still though – he was a creature that only cared about one thing: himself!

It was this awakening that allowed me to see beyond any doubt that we are born as nothing more than exactly what it is I think we are. I do believe that we go through a phase after this and when we get a little older when we begin to learn that others exist and that we are all connected. That if we want the best for ourselves then it makes the most sense that we try our best to live in harmony. This is my favourite phase. Then something changes again when we get a little older still and we go through this kind of identity crisis in which we think we can make our mark and learn who we are by making the most amount of money we can, and, preferably more than the next guy. I don't know how much of this is environmental and how much of it is nature but I think about bullying in teen years and how easy it has been proven that seemingly normal and selfless people will start to assist in bullying if it helps their own sense of belonging. They put themselves and their image above the needs of the victim and, much more crucially, above their own beliefs at that time. In this way they are even worse than the baby because they have a conscience to beat out of the way first that the infant hasn't developed yet. Every phase of human development is cursed with selfishness and a small degree of evil, except maybe that stage between infancy and adolescence.

I'm at the meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous last night. I'd promised myself last week that I'd go again this and so I've kept my word. It wasn't a huge struggle to get myself there but there was a little part of me tugging on my arm asking me exactly what it is that I think I'm going to get from it. It's not that I'll drink if I don't go. This is obvious to me now after I successfully completed a ninety day without a meeting challenge – something that others in the fellowship seem very averse to. It's something else. Dr. Bacon says that he feels no one acts out for no reason. That the whole of psychology is based on the idea that people do everything they do due to psychological needs and whether or not these needs are being met. Whatever I used to get from the meetings – whatever psychological needs were once being met – no longer are but there's a definite sense within me just now of lack of belonging. Since the end of the charity shop volunteering I have felt the sting – the lack of communication and connection – and so it makes sense to try out AA again as it will offer me exactly this.

Without having some more experience in schema therapy this is not a great idea. I am still very much that car crash waiting to happen. It's okay that I attend but I should try to remain silent wherever possible. Thankfully last night it is a big meeting and so there are several people who decline the opportunity to speak. Damn schemas:

''A schema is an extremely stable, enduring negative pattern that develops during childhood or adolescence and is elaborated throughout an individual’s life. We view the world through our schemas.

Schemas are important beliefs and feelings about oneself and the environment which the individual accepts without question. They are self-perpetuating, and are very resistant to change. For instance, children who develop a schema that they are incompetent rarely challenge this belief, even as adults. The schema usually does not go away without therapy. Overwhelming success in people’s lives is often still not enough to change the schema. The schema fights for its own survival, and, usually, quite successfully.

It’s also important to mention the importance of needs in schema formation and perpetuation. Schemas are formed when needs are not met during childhood and then the schema prevents similar needs from being fulfilled in adulthood. For instance a child whose need for secure attachments is not fulfilled by his parents may go for many years in later life without secure relationships.''

Dr. Bacon sometimes says that there are both positive and negative aspects to trying schema therapy at my age. By forty we tend to find that negative thoughts and patterns are very ingrained but there is still within us great motivation for change.

It's very difficult to find any information on exactly how it is that we will go about trying to weaken these beliefs I have but I'll have another look in a wee minute over a coffee.

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Stevie

Making coffee.

1382

[Lunarer]

Re: The Sobriety Experiment: Chapter Two

Monday, July 10th 2017 (Good Things and Bad)



It'd be nice to get out to work, start off the new week with a bang, but it's raining again. It's not the kind of rain that is likely to stick around all day (thank the God of my Understanding) but it's enough to mean that we can't get started at the usual time and just generally it puts a ''dampner'' or things. That's been more days with rain than without since I left the college more than a fortnight ago. Weather in Scotland really is shit, like most other things here.

Thankfully I have a holiday booked which will be my first trip out of this country for yonks. It really frustrates me how some people in recovery, especially the ones in AA meetings who begin everything they say with ''Hi, I'm ******* and I'm an alcoholic.'' and then tell us all about their terrible drinking lives which included marriages, full time and long term employment, cars, mortgages, and regular trips to other countries. I think it's incredibly disrespectful to those of us who would find those things so alien that they would be uncomfortable. I don't say in meetings that I'm an alcoholic simply because I don't classify myself as having been one. I was just a drunk. But I do believe that there are sections of my story that dwarf many in the rooms these days – especially when it comes to all those things taken for granted by most – those things that people don't seem to think are all that important in their lives when they have them but just the same are all the things that help create a healthy adult persona. It's the loss that creates the devil in us. It's little wonder that these people don't seem to ever have anything different to say from one month to the next because they don't really have anything to recover from.

Tonight Lindsay and I will be attending our second session with Relationships Scotland and its couples counselling and we'll most likely be looking at loss. That's one thing that the counsellor did mention at our inductory session. She said that there were lots of examples of loss in both of our lives. Both Lindsay and I have spent large parts of our lives isolated; neither of us has ever been married; we don't really have any friends (Lindsay is well liked in AA but doesn't seem to want to pursue things much outside of the rooms; I'm not even liked in AA but do have a couple of friends outside of the fellowship that I can visit from time to time) and both of us have traits of the borderline patient. We have both lost access to our children. We've lost quite a few things in our lives but none more so than the opportunity to try to do normal things at the ages we're supposed to do them. Loss..... That's without this counsellor knowing anything about the passing of my father when I was five which is what started off this chain reaction of shite in the first place.

I don't know why I was so poor at coping with what happened in my life and why it seems that so many others who go through worse seem to do okay. Madonna lost her mother when she was around the same age I was when I lost my father. It worked out for her is all I'm saying. I don't fixate on possible reasons as to why she was so strong while I was so weak but I'm not going to apologise for thinking about things like this from time to time. I used to get so frustrated in the very early days of my recovery when people would always, rather than answer my question or engage me in an exchange of thoughts about a particular subject either recovery or non-recovery, they would often take the cowards way out and tell me to stop over-thinking. I was making them feel uncomfortable and so they would try to shut me down. It's not the same as when Dr. Bacon says I try to intellectualise things so that I can avoid connecting with them.

That's one thing that I did read when I was looking over websites talking about schema therapy. People like me often develop and nurture a defensive and cynical stance on people and the world and that this can often be so that we don't have to invest in them. I guess this is right in many ways but I still think I lack the ability to love people because they are actually disgusting and horrendously selfish creatures I want no part of.

There have been good things happen this weekend though. I emailed the lecturer who takes the radio broadcasting course and he got back to me telling me that he'll be in the college next week and will send me an email when it's official and I'm on the course. At least that's confirmed. I received through the post my Summary of Attainment which has my previous qualifications plus the NC in sound production added to it and all of its component parts. It makes me look like I've done quite a lot of things as there are dozens of elements to the course I wasn't aware of.

Another big thing done this weekend happened yesterday. If I want to go on this little trip to Spain in October then I would have to get my passport photo signed and I was struggling to find someone who would do this. I had thought that Dr. Bacon would be able to but we checked and it is not permitted for a doctor to do this. Apparently it was due to the large number of people asking their general practitioners to sign their photographs. Aww... poor little underpaid and overworked GP's. My heart bleeds.....

Lindsay is a trainee nurse though and so knows lots of nurses. She actually should have finished her training by now but took a year out after having a drunken fall that ended with her having a brain haemorrhage and so most of the girls from her original year are already qualified and have been working for a year. One of them happily signs it for us (even though nurses are always cited as being more overworked than doctors) and so we are one step closer to making that flight in twelve weeks' time or so.

Between now and then there is lots to do though. The rain looks like it's not going to be dying off just yet and the forecast is for it to stick around for most of the day. I'll get going just now and contact Barry the Bullet, see what he makes of things. I could really do with getting out and cleaning some windows. That counselling session this evening won't pay for itself.

I feel like I am better prepared mentally for the day ahead now that I have put some of my hatred onto the pages of these forums.

But it'll come back.

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Stevie

The hatred always comes back.

1205