I Heard a Little Girl

YESTERDAY I WOKE UP with my wife yelling at me - and I responded in kind and the day just got slowly worse to the point that I ended up secretly glugging wine by lunchtime and getting onto my second bottle by 4pm. 

I was drunk by then and sort of hoping my wife wouldn't smell it on me when I walked past her.  She did - I stank of alcohol of course - and she took the kids to her mums house and left me to my own devices.

I heard a little girl 2.40

So, with no money, no keys and no wallet - what to do?  Half shot and angry and abandoned - I looked underneath a pottery bowl and found a secret hidden $15.  A purple five dollar note and a bluish $10 note.  But no car and it was rainy and cold and I was tired and all that - so I walked across town looking for two bottles of wine for $15.

Funny how you sweat when you walk fast in the rain - even when it is like 26C - and you somehow manage to feign sobriety and normalcy when you get to the alcohol shop.  And I even stooped so low as to pick up an old cigarette but off the road that wasn't wet.  Nice form considering I'd also stopped that shit a few months back too...

Day 21 Sober

after a certain age every man is responsible for his face Camus.

OVER THE YEARS my face has withered and eroded from drinking to the point that it looks as though I am alcoholic.  Which I am - so it is completely fair but painfully cruel when I want to present as a sober, productive person and be taken seriously and listened to - like in business or in medical settings.  Stopping drinking doesn't erase the years of wear and tar that my face has endured.

Looking around my alcoholic cohort I notice our faces are all similarly corroded by alcohol - that we don't have the sharp edges and chiselled definition that say smokers alone have.  We share a soft pudgy texture of inflammation under our cheeks and around our necks where the years of bloatedness and just too much liquid leave us looking a little deflated.  Like the balloon has just squealed out some air and been retied too slowly - like it would take stomping on and still not pop.

The women are still beautiful - or still have that wet glint in their eyes despite their cheeks looking like a rumpled, unmade bed.  I can still see their youthful promise despite the fade into age and I quietly cringe at how loud and embarrassing they would have been on the drink.  Like I was.

Like the Sphinx, we have been eroded and changed by our drinking and our patiently our faces bravely front up to the mirror each morning in a plaintive plea for us to promise not to drink another day. 

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning

When I was at my most recent rock bottom I promised myself that I had to at least give myself a shot, this one last time.  That it wasn't really much fucking good to be an almost or a could've or a most likely - it was really up to me and if it was to happen - it was up to me alone.

So this morning, when I looked in the mirror and saw the cheeky, arrogant me winking back with a sly smile and quiet nod to all the shit I had gotten away with over the years, I though next of what getting away with it had cost, in terms other people would recognize. 

And getting away with it has huge costs and I have paid dearly to "get away with it"  like trying to fool myself that I don't look alcoholic - when the mirror doesn't lie.  Like bumbling around as though I'm sober - just high on life - when I've been drinking all morning.

I don't want to be a genius -- I have enough problems just trying to be a man.

So like the Sphinx, I am going to be a little more humble and quiet and a little less outspoken and outraged - and whenever I feel indignant and ready to fire, instead focus on me and my own self improvement journey.  (A great concept is to wake up every morning, and as your two feet hit the floor, say thank with one foot and you with the other - a walking gratefulness to start the day and see how long this can take you around for the morning.)

Stay Sober and keep trying...

Sharing

Now I have been sober a few weeks it is refreshing to be able to start forward planning again and "get on with it" in a way without thinking that anything I plan for or build towards could be all torn down with one big binge.  So I am making plans again which is always nice.

*

At one of the groups I go to they all share what they have done in the past week in terms of drinking and personal stories.  This week one lady had had a drink - last week it was another guy, the week before that it was me.  (That's why the sober counter is only showing 15 or so - I had a drink after three weeks and then had to reset the counter.)
It's always confronting to see the person fall on her sword and admit she had a drink - and the rest of the group sort of go silent and look at each other.  She had tears in her eyes and mourned that she had been sober for 10 weeks prior.  Back to day one, babe.

I shared about going to the beach for a bbq with friends.  And how I was not part of the conversation - ancient, 'heard-before' stories like going on a detox diet, or dreaming of opening a little shop, or hearing the secondhand story of how so and so did whatever.  Like it was ever going to happen or as if there was ever going to be a result.  Just that safe, polite chatter about nothing in particular and sharing nothing of any real substance or meaning.  What friends do, apparently.

*

Been getting angry at myself and my situation.  How I have cheated my potential though drinking, how I have veered drastically off course and now find myself drifting at what is either the beginning of something or the quiet denouement of a story of failure.  Being grateful just being here is a start, but there must be some sort of action.

"So," he said, at the end of his presentation, "That's about it for today - any questions?" Looking around the room, putting the cap back on the whiteboard marker, and tapping the pen against this thigh.

"With the brain damage," I started, "you said it's the only part of the body that doesn't repair itself - does that mean I could have some brain damage that is affecting my motivation and ability to plan and stuff ?"

He nodded, "Well, yes,"

"Does it explain like scattered emotions or anything?"

"It could...

*
So I went home and spent some time with my eight month old daughter - rolling around on the floor, playing with her, listening to her gurgling.  And simply treasuring the time I have - and how this recovery 2.0 time has given me the opportunity to spend it with her.  Stay sober...