Riding the Tiger

Then in your 40's, you're like, "You know what?  This is the only thing I like about being alive."

{Jim Gaffigan on drinking}

 

I'm still feeling like crap—no energy, no enthusiasm, lack of concentration, lack of motivation—and so I've invested fully in blaming post-acute-withdrawal syndrome.  As I mentioned in that previous entry, I've gone back to the beginning of the Mass Effect video game trilogy in an effort to pique my interest in something, anything.  Video games have previously helped pull me out of depression; however, it's risky turning to them because they have become an integral part of my drinking behavior.  Since I did play most of the first and second game of that series while drunk, I'm trying to be enthusiastic about actually experiencing them with a clear head.  Plus, I don't want my alcoholism to completely ruin something I normally enjoy so much.

Bioware is by far my favorite video game company making my far-and-away favorite games.  But they have so much exposition in their richly detailed worlds and talking, talking, talking.  Usually, that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned, but with my damaged attention span, it's been hard to remain focused (without being able to take a hit of beer or a drag off a cigarette).  Last Friday, every time I entered a long, involved conversation or unlocked a new codex entry in my game, I would also fold the laundry I was doing or some other small mindless thing to keep myself from getting too twitchy. 

I have to believe that this will all get better over time if I keep up with my sobriety.  And yet it's no wonder to me that I'm drawn to cloistering myself and obsessing over a pointless activity because the things my character does actually impacts the things that happen to that character in a virtual world where s/he can actually make a difference.  There's just so much misery in the real world; I see it constantly everywhere I look.  So what does it matter if we're sober and self-actualized or drunken losers as we play out our hand in the stacked deck of life?

How Low Can I Go?

I swear, my depression is just killing me!  To have no hope and no pleasure in absolutely anything.  My moods are so erratic and so all-consuming that it's hard for me to have any perspective on my ups and downs.  I hope this is just a speed bump on my road to sobriety.  Until then, I just have to force myself to move through my life like an automaton.

Keep Your P.A.W.S. Off of Me!

Hooboy!  Yet another close call with drinking last night.  I was bound and determined to fall off the wagon when I left work.  I managed to avoid temptation and distracted myself by starting a "perfect" walkthrough of the Mass Effect video game trilogy.  (If you're not a gamer—particularly an RPG gamer—then you probably wouldn't understand.)  Of course, I'm so mercurial that my resolve can go south so quickly.  But two weeks of sobriety is two weeks of sobriety.

I was reading about post-acute-withdrawal syndrome (P.A.W.S.), and I probably have a long road ahead of me.  Given my extensive alcohol abuse, I'm most likely looking at continued depression and anxiety as well as cognitive impairment for the foreseeable future, even though I should be through the acute stages of withdrawal.  Unfortunately, as I've pointed out repeatedly, disturbances in my mood cause me to panic and seek out avenues of pleasure, which often involve drinking.

 

Let It Go

 

 

It's funny how some distance

Makes everything seem small

...

Let it go!  Let it go!

{Queen Elsa, Frozen}

 

My symptoms of continued withdrawal certainly hasn't helped my anger issues any.  Today I got enraged at a driver who honked at me as I was crossing the road in a crosswalk with the signal.  Then I just told myself to let the anger go and get on with my life.  Some people are just assholes.  You can't let their personality flaws poison your own view of the world and/or humanity.

The Struggle Never Ends

I was going to drink tonight.  I got as far as the beer aisle at the grocery store.  Then I wasn't going to drink.  Then I was.  Finally I bought some Cap'n Crunch and milk and left.  I know this sounds like a victory, but the problem is that I'll probably have to fight the exact same battle tomorrow.  And the next day.  And the next.  How can finite resolve ever hope to defeat infinite temptation?

 

My Inflated Sense of Self

 

you think you're in the movies

and everything's so deep

{The Cars, "You Might Think"}

 

The last time I drank, it was all very dramatic.  I was four beers into it on a Thursday night.  I'd played a few missions of my video game, and I just got so sick of the whole thing.  My drinking ritual gives me a modicum of fleeting pleasure, yet it becomes it's own kind of rat race so quickly.  I usually don't hold my cleaning up ritual until the weekend, but I just chucked everything into the trash: the rest of my beer, the empty bottles, my cigarettes, my makeshift ashtray and even my lighter and bottle opener.  I took a shower (I hadn't bathed in days), and before I went to bed, all traces of my vices were out of the apartment.

 

In a movie, that would signal the final victory.  The conquering of my alcoholism as I embark on a better life.  End of story.  Fade to black.  My major malfunction is that I honestly, deeply believe that that is how life works.   That everything neatly ties together into a logical, satisfying conclusion.  This is the root of my addiction to repeatedly falling low and rising up again, my lottery superstition and my mooning over contrived ideals of love.  Perhaps it's all just my psychological strategy for dealing with the true nature of existence - an abject chaos constantly battering against the fragile shelters of safety, stability and fulfillment that we construct for ourselves.

Slaying My Second Monkey

I am trying to get the caffeine monkey off my back this long weekend.  I'm tired of drugs causing me wild fluctuations in my mood and my arousal level.  So now that the acute effects of alcohol withdrawal are waning, (eight days sober!) I've gone back to being moody(er), cranky(er) and exhausted(er).  Actually, to tell the truth, I had a glimmer of optimism and hope for the future today, so that was kind of weird.  I've been getting weekly "lipo shots" for the past few weeks.  I don't know how much benefit they're actually giving me, particularly to my energy, but my friend Jon always told me never to underestimate the placebo effect.

 

My primary vector for getting my caffeine fix was caffeine pills because I don't really like coffee very much, though I did develop a taste for Starbucks' skinny vanilla lattes with an extra espresso shot for potency.  As expensive as their coffee is, it doesn't hurt my brand loyalty that they pay their employees higher than minimum wage and offer healthcare even to those working part-time.  Plus, their CEO recently defended gay marriage.

 

What Might Have Been

As I was driving into work the other day, I saw a man I went to high school with and on whom I had a terrible crush from the day I met him through all four years of closeted turmoil.  He is still looking handsome, and I recalled being drawn to his sardonic personality.  And I wistfully wondered how my life might have been had I hooked up with my "high school sweetheart" and was perhaps even still with him today.

This bridge was written to make you feel smitten
And with my sad picture of girl getting bitterer
Oh, can you extract me from my plastic fantasy?
I didn't think so, but I'm still convincible
{The Dresden Dolls, "Coin-Operated Boy"}

 

Except, of course, that he's straight and never once gave me any indication otherwise.  And he also never found me interesting enough in all the time we were at school together to even pursue me as a friend.  This is exactly what's wrong with how I've lived my life.  I've wasted so much time, so much energy, with pipe dreams I knew would never pan out.  Instead of opening myself to the possibilities that were actually in front of me, I opted to tilt at windmills.  I've missed so much mooning over the impossible, certain my mawkish faith would eventually be rewarded.

 

Linda thought her life was empty,

Filled it up with alcohol.

{The Nails, "88 Lines About 44 Women"}

 

While I've stripped away most of my juvenile man-fantasies over the years, I filled up that space with just...nothing.  And alcohol soon moved in as a distraction as I despaired at ever constructing a fulfilling life for myself.  Yet, I've still been living in fantasy:  about how my real life will start...when I get sober...when I get stable...when I win the lottery...when I become a completely different person than I am now.  Fantasy has sustained me for so long until it has become an integral part of my being.  Right now, today...Am I taking practical steps to pursue my dreams?  Or am I still chasing delusion to mask the void?

Trial by Fire

Lately it seems as if Wednesday's are a trial by fire in my sobriety, a trial I have invariably failed.  The pattern is always the same:  I drink Wednesday through Friday.  Renew my resolve over the weekend.  Manage to stay on track for the first few days of the week.  Rinse and repeat.

 

As for today, one bad vibe at work, and my entire being is screaming to get drunk so that I can abandon all care, if only for a little while.

Evening Update

Well, I managed not to drink.  I blew my budget and my diet and blew off going to the gym, so I wouldn't exactly call it a victory.  But fuck me, I'm doing the fucking best I can.

Diminish and Yet Remain

(Galadriel) You offer it to me freely.  I cannot deny that my heart has greatly desired this.

{J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring}

 

Ugh!  You never know when temptation is going to drop down on you and test your resolve.  Today at work, I had the attorney for a man who came to our office for a deposition hand me his client's almost-full bottle of Vicodin because we'd asked him to bring it in.  (I swear, opiates are coming at me in waves!)  I proceeded to photocopy the vial label for one of the attorneys I work for...all alone in the copy room...by myself.  Of course, I didn't take any; I don't think even I could be that stupid, but the addict in me did have a momentary flash of weakness over the situation, kind of came out of left field.  Opposing counsel even made a crack as he and his client were walking past my desk that, if they came across me sleeping, they'd know I'd nicked one of his pills.  It was all very bizarre.

Dain Bramaged

I was reading about alcohol withdrawal in an attempt to make myself feel better about feeling Not Quite Right, and I made the mistake of reading about the potential long-term or even permanent effects of alcohol abuse.  Obsessive histrionics are normal for me, even at my best, and I have to admit that my first inclination was to drink tonight to chase off my worrying.  My brain is all I really have going for me, and I'd hate to have my alcoholism cut short my writing career before it's even begun.

When You Follow Your Dreams

You take one step after the other
At times you may not know
Which way to go
You open one door just to find another
{Missing Persons, "The Closer That You Get"}

I felt as if I might implode today.  Job stress.  Family stress.  Interpersonal stress.  All backlit by my seemingly perpetual alcohol withdrawal.  I went into work to try and organize my desk, but I didn't get very much done before I had to leave.  I drove home—screaming in my head—and then walked over to the gym before it closed.  Half an hour on the elliptical gave me a perspective on things: I'm going to get myself ready for the week, go to bed early and focus on my job in the days to come.  Everything else I'm obsessing about can wait until later.

So Much to Give

I want to quote Carol's line in the middle panel to everyone I know.

My hypnotherapist in Los Angeles gave me a copy of The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World by Alan Downs, which I haven't actually read it yet.  But like any member of a marginalized group, I don't have to look far to become angry and frustrated with the status quo.  However, I think my anger issues also have a more personal dimension.  I had a lot of naïve expectations for life that didn't bear out, and most cynics are idealists who found the world to be apathetic, at best, and brutish, at worst.  I appreciate that I only have "first world problems," but the struggles of the wider world don't make my personal struggles any less difficult.

Such a Good Boy

Day three of not drinking.

Opiates are actually my drug of choice, and the person living with me has Vicodin from some recent oral surgery.  I'm surprised at how little temptation I have to steal them, seeing as how that was my modus operandi for two and a half decades.  Maybe I've actually learned a lesson and remember how truly horrible opiate withdrawal is for me, so much that it might even necessitate a short leave of absence from work, opening up an infinite can of worms for me there.  Similarly, the other day I was over at a new person's house, the friend of a friend, and I made the conscious decision not to ask to use the restroom and then snoop for any narcotics that they might have.  Maybe I just don't want to be that person anymore.  I certainly wouldn't miss that aspect of myself.

And awhile ago, I resisted looking for pain pills I think my parents might have while over at their house doing laundry while they were out of town.  I definitely don't want to betray my parents' trust ever again, especially at their sort of age, and don't want them to question whether they should allow me a key to their home or to have distrust embedded in the foundation of our relationship.

And Again *Sigh*

Ditto.

A hundred years of blood
Crimson
A ribbon tightens round my throat
I open my mouth
And my head bursts open
Sound like a tiger
Thrashing in the water
Thrashing in the water
{The Cure, "One Hundred Years"}