Quiet Time

I've been off line a bit with this blog and twitter, been busy with stuff and then just felt a bit down.

Had family argument, things said on both sides, but it puts me right back down to feeling like the crap mother I know I've been.

I know I deserve nothing from my children, but I'm lucky they love me and support me but the issues of the past can't help but sometimes to come up.

Please anyone reading this, if you have kids, please please try and stop drinking, it's the pits to be sober and know what you did to your kids by being drunk and stupid.

Please try.

Picture This

Sitting with my live in boyfriend, both drunk on a bottle of vodka each, but not drunk enough.

Look at the clock, panic, closing time, we've missed it.

We panic, we need more, thinks how to do this.

Go to a hotel, they're bound to have drink after hours.  So we go, drive, to the nearest hotel, 3 star, nice place, we rock up drunk, trying to appear sober.

Book room, ring room service, ask for bottle of Vodka, get told it's £50 a bottle, forget the reason why, but for fuck sakes, £50 a fucking bottle man.

What did we do?  We'd already paid over a ton for the room, we were that desperate we bought the bottle, and I added some Valium to the mix to at least get full benefit.

We were grubby, smelled of smoke, the guy looked disdainful, but left the bottle after being paid by cheque.

We started drinking, a row broke out, can't remember why, my live in boyfriend walked to the balcony, one floor up, next I heard crashing about in the trees below, I staggered up and looked over, saw him move and went back to lie on the bed to drink.  He had jumped over but didn't know why.

For some reason I locked him out of the room, didn't want him back.  He made his way back and started banging on the door, by this time I had emptied my pill bottle and hid the pills, throwing the empty bottle on the bed.  I don't know why.

I let him in, he looked at the bottle and swore, asked me if I'd taken them, I just gazed at him, I could have answered but didn't.  I don't know why.

He called an ambulance, lots of fuss early morning in hotel, they came and checked me out, I was ok.

I then slept.

We woke, feeling like death, stinking in clothes we'd slept in, stinking of booze and fags.  We crept out, got in the car and drove home.

I knew I had to face my kids then, and their looks of disappointment and disgust.  Felt like the worst shittiest mother in the world, basically I was.

That drink cost us near on £200, added to all the others caused a life time of regret.  That's insanity!!

Blip

Since the 2nd April when I had my bad day, I've been fine again.  I popped back up the very next day, so it seems maybe that my bad days aren't going on for so long as they used to.

Got a little balance back, but then today had rubbish stomach thing, felt totally fed up.  Thank goodness for the Internet and my twitter friends whose conversations with me and others kept me occupied while feeling poop.

My daughter phoned up and said to phone her if I felt bad and wanted someone to speak to, she's so kind hearted and I love her so much, along with my other grown up children, and then my friend brought me dinner up and that felt so nice he cared.

I just really want to say that although I felt bad today I was surrounded in caring and love and it felt so good.

xx

Bad Day

Yesterday was a bad day, I lost all my balance again.  Balance seems hard for me.  I know what  I should be doing, but I just don't do it.

My ears were more noisy yesterday, I have tinnitus, still continuing today, I always have noise but sometimes it's worse than others.

It was my eldest granddaughters 5th birthday, I phoned her and wished her happy birthday and heard the excitement in her voice telling me of her presents and the people who would be sharing her precious day with her.  All my family would be there, but not me.

I have to admit I did feel sorry for myself, but also sorry for her that I couldn't be there and see her enjoy her day.

So, I just slobbed about on the laptop all day, didn't get any of the things done I should have, for my personal growth, didn't do anything at all, not even the garden got watered.

It feels like a massive downer after those few positive days, but this time I'm going to try and get right back up there, and carry on.

Today I will try to regain my balance, go out with my therapist round the block, and all the other things I neglected yesterday.

By writing it down, I hope to seal it into my brain, as I do when I keep repeating over and over 'I don't suffer panic attacks', or 'it's no bother going out, it's fine'.

Please, brain, be good now.

Good Day!

Well, I feel good again.  The other day I felt good, but was so scared something bad would happen or I'd get a massive down because of it.

I'm not sure why I think that way, but I always have.  Maybe it's because I feel I don't deserve it, or that's the way the universe works, or whatever, I've always felt the same.

Scared to look forward to good things, in case they don't happen, or I 'jinx' them by thinking positively.

On the other side of the scale, I do that thing, I've forgotten the word for it now, but it's like always believing that bad stuff will happen, always thinking the worst, that's an easy way to think.

To think positively is scary and hard.

But hopefully with practise, and more positive days to look back on where nothing bad happened because of it, I can learn that it's ok to feel positive and look forward to good things.

I will tag all my good days and take heart from them.

Social Interaction

I'll probably ramble in this one, so here goes.

I'm nearly 60 years old but feel like a stupid kid in my ability to socially interact, or have one to one conversations.

That's where the drink helped, it got me over those awkward times.  I felt awkward until I'd had a few but once the drink kicked in I was fine, I could go up to anyone and start a conversation, could hold my own in company, or so I thought at the time.

In reality I sounded a dick, stupid, gauche, inept.

I never really learnt how to converse, from day one at school I hated it and got bullied, was never one of the smart or popular sets.  I stayed alone a lot.

My family moved a lot which didn't help, I didn't get on with my family, I felt the outcast, which I was.

After leaving school, I had a little bit of normality.  I got a job and a nice boyfriend, but also discovered blushing and spent most of my teens and early twenties trying to hide it with green tinted make up and just hiding myself away from everyone.

My boyfriend had to move back home, away from where we lived, for work.

I didn't have a proper boyfriend for a few years after that, or any friends.

Eventually I married and had children, but the man I married was much older than me, I think he was a father figure to me, and someone I felt safe with, but things happened which made me feel unsafe, so really I've never felt safe in my life.

He was a good man, as was my dad.

The worst thing happened and he died leaving me with two small children.  I tried really hard to make things the best as I could for them, wanting to shield them and love them more, to make up for this devastating thing that happened to them.

After about a year I went out for a night out with a friend, had a drink and it felt so good.  It took all the tenseness, anxiety, worry, sadness, fear and loathing of myself away.  For just that time I was drunk I felt good and happy.

This is the way I started, just one night of a weekend, and then maybe a quarter bottle in the week at home once the kids were in bed, and then I met the person who would be my second husband and the drinking started in earnest.  He made me feel even more stupid if that's possible.

There, I told you I would ramble but the point is that I never got to feel I had anything of worth to say.  I never got the hang of speaking to others where I felt equal, I always felt like a stupid child and they were the grown ups laughing at me.

Even now I shy away from any social contact, and luckily being agoraphobic I have very little of it, so if I say anything on my twitter stream or to you in messages or comments and it doesn't sound right, it's just because sometimes I don't know if I'm saying the right thing or not.

I write it, and read it, over and over, thinking does this sound stupid, patronising or just plain wrong.

So please forgive me if this happens, whatever I write is not meant in a bad way, it's probably just that I've got it wrong again.

AA

During my years as a drinking alcoholic, of course I tried AA, it's one of the most heavily advertised groups out there.

I phoned them, spoke to some nice people, got invited to groups, went along, but really and truthfully got nothing out of them.

All I can remember is the boredom of sitting there for so long, just waiting for people to stop standing up wanting to share, so that I could get to the offy and buy a drink.  Nothing said in the meetings hit me or held me or made me think I could be like them, nor did I want to be like them.  I wanted to be like me, but a sober me.

I didn't like the little sayings, they seemed smug, and still do, propped up on cards round gloomy rooms, usually in old churches reinforcing the spiritual tokenism which wasn't for me.

I know it's helped so many people, and I'm sure not putting it down, but there are other ways to get sober and I resent the way they say if you don't join AA you will not stop drinking.  If you're drowning in a hellish deep pit of despair, to hear that something you personally find annoying and no help at all, is the only thing that will get you sober, is pretty demoralising.

I really think they should stop saying that.  Unless they don't say it to everyone, but every meeting I went to they said it to me.

The people individually were pleasant, they meant well, some were kind, but the whole thing was too spiritual for me, I didn't believe in any higher power, I still don't.  I needed something tangible, something 'I' could believe in to hold on to at my bad times.

I found it in my family, as stated here, but I truly believe that AA is wrong if they are continuing to tell the lie that you can only stop drinking if you're with them.

To me it's like swapping one addiction for another, having to go to meetings once, or sometimes they say, twice a day.

We're all unique and AA doesn't work for all of us, for those it does work for then great, but we all should find our own way and AA maybe should state that there are other ways to stop.

Even the treatment centre I went to made us go to AA meetings once a week, I'd hide in the toilet till they'd gone, I just couldn't face it.

I had to hit my own rock bottom, I had to find my 'own' way of stopping, and I did and I hope that anyone reading this will truly believe that if AA isn't for them, then there are a million other ways to do it, just don't give up, it's possible, I know and a dear friend of mine has been sober for 15 years without AA.

My message is, AA is great if you like it and it works for you, but if not, YOU CAN DO IT WITHOUT AA.