intoxication – Trezvennost II

how crazy am i?

“That’s the problem with crazy people:

they don’t know they are crazy!”

Jim Jeffreys

I think epigraph quote should be under the title, and in the blog post that’s how it would be (and is), but not in the Word document that I have started writing this post. It took me quite some thinking about it, and it would take me less than ten seconds to change it, but I haven’t. I went on thinking of it. Should I change it? Should I leave it the way it is? Will the time changing it be significantly smaller as compared to my continuing thinking about changing it?

I think a lot. I like it, until it kicks me in the butt which does happen from time to time. I pay no mind and keep on with it. I have no expectations that it would get better, for most of the time I have no care. If I did have the expectations that it would get better, I would be crazy, because it is insane to expect different results from practicing the same behavior.

I used to be that insane when it came to things compulsive, involving drinking alcohol and acting OCD. Thanks to drinking, I was prone to depression. I wanted to find a safe manner of drinking after many a time of finding a proof that my body wasn’t interested in adjusting to that idea or behavior. It has worked for others, I’ve witnessed, but not with me. I’ve tried different everything that involved drinking as I continued drinking, and that was insane.

After I finally have quit intoxicating myself for good, I’ve noticed plenty of positive factors showing up, including massive decrease in depressive attitude and in OCD behavior. I was less crazy, but to keep myself in check regarding sobriety, abstinence, and the behavior that would keep those in check I had to think of it. I wrote about it, I talked about it, I talked to myself about it, and thinking never ended.

Thinking excessively is not crazy. Talking to yourself is not crazy, because scientists came with “self talk” term for it and they recommend it to deal with solving tasks.

So how crazy am I? I think I better be this crazy that I am now than being insane as I was in my past life with substance abuse limiting my oxygen.

the image was copied from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe500eIK1oA and crazed up by me. thank you.

runners will be shot

PO11188957-front I seriously thought I could escape this rat race. Like Jeff Waters wrote “I just needed a break from it all.” Only a long term one. I wanted to keep on being drunk. I loved it. Bliss. Lack of care. Beautiful solitude… and then from time to time I’d meet like-minded people, only at the end I’d always end up alone, so I kept that as normality. Besides those unfortunate occurrences, all was great as long as I was not sober. I didn’t want to care about anything. I just wanted to dedicate myself to alcoholic intoxication, for its illusion was beautiful. It was love at first sight and love that promised to be endless. I was all for it.

Funny how life keeps working on a different level and by different rules than what you think you need. Life started grinding over me and forcing me to change which is what I refused to do. While I was trying to escape what I thought was a tyrannical regime, all I could feel was constantly been shot at by the guards. And it went that way until I gave up running and accepted life on its terms.

Easier said than done, of course. Much easier in my case. I felt like surrendering would be betrayal of everything I knew and stood for. I fought relentlessly. It took time to realize that what I was really betraying was giving myself an opportunity to live a happy life. Not that happy worry-free life they show in Disney movies, but a realistic happy life where I do everything I can and care for and get what I deserve, including the mental and spiritual balance.

And when I fully realized that life without booze and running could actually be a good life still, I stopped in my tracks. I then turned around and went back in the direction where I was trying to perpetually escape from. The walk towards turned out to be much shorter than the running away. I was arriving at something with every step I made.

the image was copied from https://www.customink.com/fundraising/escaperoom and butchered by me. very smart shirts, by the way. escape rooms rule!

to be an apple

He wanted to be…

OK, he was an Apple

He was red, and green, and yellow, and even white,

As apples come.

He was this juicy thing you could eat right away

He had things of his own he could’ve been happy with

Yet he wasn’t because

He always wanted to be an Orange.

To him, the Oranges were all that he could wish for,

How they grew, and laughed,

It looked so infectiously simple how they did things,

Including drinking –

It seemed intoxication and consequences came to them effortlessly.

He could sell his core to be like them

And he tried to do so.

It took him many falls and been kicked around,

Dark spots and pinches off his red, and green, and yellow skin

To the point white was all gone, or so it seemed

Until one day he learned something –

He will always be an Apple

Because his body was thought through and made in a different way

Selling his core brought no desired fruits, pardon the pun

And when that dawned on him,

He cried, yet the sun failed not to keep shining on him

And the dew still looked beautiful in the waking up grass.

It took much time, enough to feel like eternity,

To find peace with that realization.

Then one day, it all became clear to him –

He could look so many ways,

Feel so much different being alive instead of jealous.

And he also found there were many other Apples to talk to

Which he didn’t cared to do for a long time,

Lost in his resentment.

Next day was very red, and green, and yellow, and even white,

And so many colors he didn’t know existed.

There was much time to grow and enjoy them all

And he kept on doing so

Effortless one day, with some strain another

Yet drinking over that he didn’t need to anymore.

the image was copied from https://retouch.ca/portfolio/apple-orange-retouching/ thank you.

thank you to Russ for the idea.

Saved by the Wall

Thanks to Brian for the wall inspiration.

In the grey mist nothing was to be seen, or so it appeared. I ran fast, making jumps here and there. I yelled loudly, they were curses and shouts of joy. Growls were loud to the point that as they left my mouth, my throat hurt. Yet still I did it, because I wanted to express all of my anguish and joy of liberation which I thought I was experiencing. And when I was just about to make it out of the woods, I ran into something. I should’ve known, of course, what it was – I ran into it so many times before. Still somehow, I managed to forget each time. So much good time, so much forgotten in the midst of it. I hated the pain that pierced my head, I hated forgetting, but oh how I hated remembering! It would always appear just when I started to have a real good time. I looked at the wall that mounted above me, and I recalled more and more of the past instances. Resentments, pain, need for the cure, instantaneous relief, blinding intoxication, freedom at the tip of my tongue and all over my brain, and then – hitting the wall and all the self-loathing that came along with it…

No, that is not the wall to symbolize the isolation as in the great Pink Floyd album/movie, although in me past of self-destruction that certainly would come over for a visit and stay for a long time if I’d allow it… and I did.

Each time my mind wanted to party, even if it was a celebration of the day just for me, myself, and I, my body would perform all the necessary rituals, no matter how tired it may have been minutes prior. I’d run to the store to get booze so fast I’d beat an Olympic champion. And then the chug-chug-chug must-do and I was back in business of fun. Colors came back, and the reality would retreat. And since I could never stop if I started, I’d let party keep going. More beating Olympic champions would follow, and oh dear, how bad my stomach was ravaged, while my mind danced not realizing it was kept being raped!

And then would come that time when my spirit would be running in the grey mist of not seeing too clearly anymore and then BAM! I’d hit the wall. I’d be lying there wonder what the hell happened. Most of the time that would happen in the morning after. What a crash! Getting on with the day in “the morning after” was like a world war! And I could never learn from that lesson of which I had thousands.

Lessons! Oh, how well I tried to ignore those! I kept trying to bash my head through the wall. Just kept doing the same thing. Then I decided it would be smart to try and walk around the wall. My mind was looking for the loopholes in the Creation that would allow me out-smart my body. Mostly those attempts were based on the advises from other drinkers. Listening to those, I was rejoiced. The illusion that the grass is greener somewhere out there where we aren’t at yet didn’t want to die. I believed I could still find the way to be happy on my own terms, doing what I wanted, being reckless if they just let me, or dream all day long if life allowed it.

And yet I kept hitting the wall, only these times instead of being blinded by pain and growling helplessly, I’d be wondering aloud “Hey, I ate this time!” or “I was drinking water too!” or “Well, I wasn’t mixing anything!” And no, those attempts to calm down hangovers didn’t work for me. My body simply didn’t want to have anything to do with alcoholic intoxication beyond certain point. Problem was, I couldn’t stop drinking at any point except for brain shut down, or I’d be out of money, or the liquor store was closed.

The wall was a testimony to my being unteachable and lost in denial. Yet at the same time, all these times I failed to see that the wall was also the extremely useful limitation created for the sake of my self-preservation, my body trying to teach me a vital lesson. It was to signify my boundary I believed I wanted to and could cross, but my body and mind won’t allow me to. It worked just as the blackout was not a curse, but just my body shutting down on me so I wouldn’t kill myself with all the truly lethal massive dosage of ethyl spirits.

It is easier to see now that I was spending crazy amounts of money and time to pretty much kill myself each time over the last several years of my drinking “career”, while I was thinking I was having a good time, diving headlong into the illusion of running away from reality for a little while. The wall of my body and mind reactions saved me, and yet I felt I was weak and needed to strengthen it by building a seasoned drinker’s attitude and gut. Silly, but sad.

And that just how my mind and body reacted in the real time. The way my mind was screwed by my own hands during those years is sometimes hard to look back at, so crazy those thoughts and ideations were. I still say in the AA meetings that this recovery fellowship literally was the best thing that ever happened to me. No lie about that. I’ve learned about my limits. I’ve learned how not to run away from life, and I’m still better at it these days then in the past. I became better with living in my skin and accepting responsibilities. And I no longer go too crazy to kill myself and deny it.

Thank you for fourteen years of sobriety!

the image was copied from https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/b3xhua/found_it_the_wall/ thanks.