Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Update #2

It's difficult to find time to write. Let's see...last Friday night I had two drinks. Then the next day, Halloween, I got wasted for the first time since drinking again. I was with my significant other, and we went out to a bar where the bartender served extremely stiff drinks. I was dressed up as a slutty Robin, and though I had about 4 drinks, each of them was probably a double, so I would guess it totaled somewhere between 8-10 drinks for the night. The next morning I felt terrible--the familiar fog and thumping mental pain and achy body--and I didn't feel better all day. Alcohol is really a pretty weird drug. And yes I know it would seem that I am headed down a bad path. But it was a holiday, and I never know how much of my psyche has been irreparably altered by repeated doomsday talk. All I know is I haven't drank since then and I haven't wanted to. Well, maybe I've wanted to a little, but nothing major. The point is that, for now at least, choice still remains.

My mind is a frightening place. I often think about dropping everything and just driving for hours and hours until I end up in some unknown place, left to figure my life out anew. I will occasionally Google different cities all over the world and contemplate what it would be like to live there, alone, and to build my life there. Or perhaps it would be where my life would crumble into whatever weird pieces survived. I have been told so many times that what I'm doing--drinking again--is going to kill me, that it is almost impossible to avoid these apocalyptic, hyperbolic ideas. I am starting to become convinced that the conditioning we subject addicts and alcoholics to plays the biggest factor in their fucked up lives. From an early age we (society, treatment, doctors, 12-step) tell people they have "crossed a line" and they are now permanently fucked, as if we actually know that for a fact. I'd say about 95% of the time no brain scans are done, no actual science takes place. All of these diagnoses are the result of mere observation and opinion. I have seen, and experienced, the destructive, world-wrecking power of the self-fulfilling prophecy. And now that I have the choice to drink or not, I'm considering quitting on my own simply because I like living life with the guarantee that I won't end up in a really bad place due to alcohol or drugs.

I don't have time to write much more tonight. In other life, my lease expires soon and I will have to make the decision whether to move in with my partner or not. Ugh. I still have an instinctual response to run, I think because I am convinced that I am fucked forever and I am a time-bomb and no one should be close to me. Thanks 'doctors' for all of your help.

P.S. - How do doctors explain food addicts recovering? A person who is 'addicted' to food, or sex, or shopping, MUST learn to moderate because those are aspects of life. If you are a doctor--and when I say doctor I do NOT mean any person who has been corrupted by 12-step theology--then please reply with an explanation for food addicts and recovery. Thanks.

Goodnight! I'll keep you posted, and fingers crossed that my life doesn't fall apart ;-)


1 comment:

  1. Hi Jon,

    Stop worrying about whether 'they' might be right that you have crossed the line. There is no such thing as a conviction to a lifetime of alcohol addiction. There is only the risk that you may start believe this because of your own doubts. Let this myth be your motivation to prove them wrong and prove yourself right that you have a freedom of choice, which you have.

    The more realistic concern is your desire to run away from things. For me this was the main reason to drink. Perhaps the most common reason to use drugs? The far better option is to try change your life so that there is no or little reason to flee. Use your freedom of choice there as well. Alcohol only offers a temporary relief, to make you miserable afterwards and undermines your capabilities to execute your free will. Which is exactly what you don't want!

    Perhaps it is the same story with the Baclofen. You told me you stopped taking them because you are worried taking pills. If you 'want' to worry, worry about taking alcohol. In other words, don't let the wrong kind of worries drive your actions.

    You don't have to keep your fingers crossed that your life doesn't fall apart. You decide, you're the boss.

    Stay well.

    Sjoerd

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