Exercise for Alcoholics

Exercise as an alcoholic was always a wonderful conflict.. On the one hand I was genuinely interested in being healthy and focussed on maintaining a fitness regimen.  But on the other hand I knew in the back of mind I would be drunk before days end and in that state resistance to 'non-preferred' foods was quite low.  Not forgetting the completely unpredictable calendar of drunk / hungover / asleep making it virtually impossible to schedule anything outside of work.  And the pathetic tendency for a drink to materialise in my hand at any hour of the day, even whilst tying my laces for exercise, making the actual exercise event far too infrequent.

But I joined the gym and went through boot camp sessions in the early morning darkness with the others.  No doubt panting acrid alcohol breath all over them.  But they didn't say anything - like no one ever did , ever.  (Maybe that is why my alcoholism progressed for so long, and I allowed myself the indulgence of "it's not really that bad" for the last few years especially.)  And I counted walking home from drunking bouts as exercise, as though pounding the pavement smashed was actually doing me good.

So now, I walk/run six eight and ten kilometers around the beach and it is nowhere near as difficult or painful as it was with a dry mouthed hangover.  So inspiring, I have bought some shirts and socks and other exercise stuff for the spring.  And have been sticking by my commitment for a daily half hour minimum - no matter what.  After all, if I could always manage to squeeze in a bottle of wine, no matter what, surely I can squeeze in a half hour's exercise, no matter what.

The Backstreets of Naples

I remember the backstreets of Naples,
Two children begging in rags
Both touched with a burning ambition
To shake off their brown tags, they try

We landed in Rome after ten days of drinking in Ireland.  Rome is sticky and crowded and I had a burning hangover that drinking throughout the flight hadn't numbed.  So we made our way to the hotel and barely opened the suitcase before I was leaning out the window, smoking, with a glass of wine in my hand..

That afternoon we walked around Rome in sandals and made a booking for dinner at a restaurant. Pasta with Black truffle.  After a few days meandering through the cobblestone streets we tired of lining up and buying tickets to touristy things.  The garish opulence of the Vatican City was simply overwhelming

Naples is a crowded, greystone city we drove down into, stopping lost a few times as we circled towards the center of town.  Finally after asking for directions we made our way to a hotel that had rooms in our price range.  We parked the car for three nights and paid, and as I watched the man drive it away I hoped it would still be there when we were back.

The streets of Naples were quiet and narrow.  Our hotel looked over a plaza and we were woken each morning by a garbage truck squeaking outside our top floor window. It was voyeuristic to watch the other windows and people going about their business with the lights on. no blinds.

Just across from our apartment we saw all the locals and the market where they were selling fish and vegetables.  Walking down the street, looking at the fish and produce, we were met with looks of disdain from the locals.  As though we were inspecting their products and, when we didn't stop and buy anything, rejecting it.  But the truth was we had nowhere to cook or prepare or store food, so we had to eat out every night.  But the looks of almost contempt was what I remember.  Maybe it was our new clothes, or something, but we definitely felt their gaze.

But still ever the alcoholic, we got home from an evening of eating and drinking, and I couldn't lie down and admit the night was over.  So I crept out the apartment and went down the stairs, out onto the street.  It was around midnight and I was clearly drunk, looking for some cigarettes or something. 

And walking along I saw the local younger men standing by the cafe as it closed, and I just felt something, somehow, that told me not to go any further, and that I should actually go back upstairs and go to sleep.  Like a feeling or danger, or fear.  Out of my depth.  So I slowly turned on my heel, and tracked back to the hotel, and closed the door behind me.  Deserted of all that drunken bravado when faced with some street toughs in Napoli.

Let's Drink to that...

For someone who has to drink all the time, it can become quite routine and, frankly, tedious, so there is a whole book of socially acceptable ways to legitimize drinking for each particular day.

Like saying "Let's drink to that" when a life event happens and you are with people who are looking for an excuse to drink - that's what you do - drink.  Even though pretty soon the actual event you are drinking "for" becomes completely secondary to the actual end of drinking.

The drinking cues and prompts in day to day life are everywhere, it is no wonder that alcohol has become so blurred with the whole concept of having a good time and relaxing.  I'm still not sure if I can categorize a gathering as 'fun' unless there is alcohol or the chance of alcohol, even though I'm not drinking. They even call it Social Drinking, or say, when everyone is drinking it's a "Social Event" or she's not addicted, she's just taking drugs "socially"! 

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Only stopping drinking altogether has given me the space to see these officially sanctioned drinking times, (like Fridays, or Sunday afternoons, or when the game is on, or around a barbeque), for what they are, insidious triggers to get drunk.

Sure, the romantic ideal of having a frosty glass of beer after toiling in the garden is almost erotic to me, but being an alcoholic the sad reality is me slinking around the tree ferns glugging from a bottle of red wine first thing in the morning.  And smiling that pathetic merlot mouth grin before any work has been done.

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Now we have months like Dry in July and Sober October and Feb Fast where it is a novel challenge to go without alcohol, and a slew of media personality types writing about how challenging it was, or how mundane it is. But whilst these promotions advocate abstinence, the underlying implied message is that everybody drinks all the time, and we're just stopping "for fun" cause we could stop at anytime anyway.

"Like it's not a problem or anything," they reassure themselves,  "just for charity, you know?"

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I Might be just starting to see some financial effects of stopping drinking - you know how sometimes money just gets sucked up by other 'needs' when it is sitting in accounts?  So just checking the other day and noticing that I haven't spent anything on alcohol for over 150 days adds up to around about a month's mortgage repayment.  Which is nothing to sneeze at, or wait a sec, should I be saying, Let's drink to that?

Sober Observations

Being sober is a million little things.  Without the noisy confusion of alcohol, my eyes are open to see those minute moments where the meaning of life is in simply being.
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I was sitting in the morning sun and my daughter walked over and flopped in my lap, and nestled there.  Just lay there, and flicked her hair from the side of her cheek and looked at the trees without saying anything. 
A casual moment of trust and confidence that would never have happened when I was all blustery and drunk and too agitated to allow a moment like this to evolve. 
She is beginning to see me as something other than a bumbling, scary man, and I am coming to terms with the awesome responsibility of being her father.
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Giving in to alcohol and accepting that it could no longer be a part of my life has been an awakening for me.  And those unsaid gestures of my daughters underline how much of a changed person I am without it.
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Friends over for dinner and we shared a couple of smoked trout and bottles of rose.  Of course I am not drinking and without noticing no one mentions my sobriety anymore, it is just part of the furniture.
And having the inner confidence to say aloud what I think is funny without alcohol is an entirely different headspace to being drunk and just putting it out there.
So I tried my sense of humour and it got a few laughs, which is different for me, as sometimes my irreverent humour takes a bottle or two to kick in.  Or I should be saying that finding the platform for humour without being drunk is certainly unfamiliar - as I was so terrified of being a sober bore.
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Here's to posting more often with more sober observations.

Last 100 Days Fat

Since the 100 Days theme is such a powerful tool for motivating me, I have decided to harness it to focus on weight loss this time.  Reading Life is Too Short to be Fat, which is filled with basic truths about losing weight, and why making excuses and simply waiting for a trigger is not good enough reason to stay fat.

Like not reaching for that first drink (or stopping by the pub, or ever buying alcohol i the first place) - there is a certain time when you can stop yourself and consciously choose not to eat the wrong food.  And not to make excuses or add emotions or some sabotaging context to the food.  It is a biscuit - bad, simple as that.  It is not 'deserved' or 'because I am tired' or 'a special reward' - see where the alcoholic thinking has some cross over here?

I found myself finishing a project or late shift and coming home via a liquor store, buying two or three bottles of wine, a sixpack of beer and a couple of packets of potato chips for some savoury 'balance'.  Then I would start on the beer around nine am, and graduate to wine before eleven am.  By five or six that evening I would be asleep in bed, or stumbling around outside staring at the chickens.  This was my 'day-off' reward, or so I thought.

In a similar way, I have been eating chocolate like never before in my life - and it is a sad reality that some people have remarked they thought I would have lost more weight stopping drinking.  I probably have, but the chocolate has not helped at all.

So, here we go with a new list of commitments and the next series of challenges...

Only Waiting

Black bird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
all your life
you were only waiting for this moment to be free

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Driving around town this week I was conscious of not driving like an alcoholic.  Like tailgating or being impatient or taking extra risks.  So I deliberately repeated "there is no rush" to myself, even when I was delivering eleven Father's Day gifts on Friday afternoon.  And home with plenty of time for an afternoon nap before my wife and kids returned.  My old alcoholic Friday afternoon was a heart-bending rush to get that first drink in around lunchtime.

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In a great place today - calm, walking around the beach with my daughters, tending my tree ferns and chickens, and just soaking up the first Saturday of Spring.  Saw myself last weekend saying I would never drink again, and compared drinking to something you sort of retire from as you get older - like eating greasy food or smoking or playing computer games.  Said this to a beer-drinking friend at a barbeque, thinking "Am I being arrogant - or just sensible?"

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Had a haircut and the hairdresser said it was nearly 'wine o'clock'.   Said I'd stopped drinking four months ago.  She crinkled her nose and caught my eye in the mirror as hairdressers do.  "So what do your friends think?"  And I lied a little bit, 'cause to be honest I don't care what my friends think.  I just don't drink from here on.  Simple.

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Father's Day is a meal out on Sunday night with the in laws who I haven't sat down with since stopping drinking.  Which will be refreshing for them.  I remember the mother in law having a half bottle of sweet dessert wine on stand-by as a way of delicately 'turning off the drinks' the last few times I was drinking in their presence.  A tried and tested way of slowing down alcoholics in that family without conflict.

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My father and I haven't spoken since my step-father's funeral five years ago.  He was tanned and fit - back in Australia briefly from his home in the foothills of Thailand - and I was a distracted, red-faced drunk.  He taunted me in front of some other relatives and I waved him away, dismissing whatever he was saying and heading outside to smoke and drink some more.  We hadn't talked for about five years previous to this.  His father was a cruel, old drunk.

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Have made some big decisions with the business and am ready to commit to going back to school and starting a new career.  Have reconciled with myself that at 37 I have a good 25 years to offer in my new career.  So here comes landscape architect and there goes small business owner.  Is a paradigm shift for sure, but this is what will challenge me and I can't think of a better way to grow older than working with plants and the built environment.

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Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise