Apprehension

On my fears of AA.

Regardless of the ‘free to have your own opinion message’ that I have received from HOFL in earlier messages I still think that my reply to another excellent post of her should not be listed on her blog. My reply carries anger, and that’s fine for my blog but it should not be put on others I guess.

Since I have been doing this  quitting ‘on my own’ (with help from a GP, therapist and all of you here!) I have been wrestling with the thought of going to AA meetings. And there are a few things stopping me. Most important I guess in how I perceive things is my family history where religion has been an issue. Well BS, we had to fight to survive and not drown in my fathers wishful thinking for this world to end. I fought and did drown. So come the AA I am sceptical and I don’t dare to go because I am afraid I get caught up in the same religiouslike disrespect. By now I long to speak out freely with people on the subject of not drinking, or more on the repairs that need to be made and how other people did that. But only the thought of a meeting being anything like I have been through suffocates me. So I think it might be wise to not go till I sort this out ;-).

In the video of HOFL Lucy and Veronica Valli discus whether to call yourself an alcoholic or not. I think/feel(?), that due to the stigma of the word and the traditional intro of ‘I am such and I am an alcoholic’ the AA itself stigmatize those that are there. To me it feels like there is a general ‘need to feel shame and to call it upon people by forcing visitors to name themself such’. I had that when reading My name is Bill, I have that when reading up AA stuff online.

I mean, it is not like ‘alcoholic’ in anybody’s perception stands for anything good – as my Google autocomplete search points out. You might as well ask people to say: I am a nasty, smelly, not trustworthy, sneaking, cheating, irresponsible, aggressive, mean, disrespectful person that WILL NEVER BE FREE OF DRINK and I agree that the world will from now on secretly or openly disrespect me, distrust EVERYTHING I say and do, check my breath while kissing hello, check my reaction to anybody taking an alcoholic drink, try to be carefull around me when drinking, refuse me a job, refuse me loads of things that are now open to people who ‘moderate’ their way through the business club.’ And if one refuses to call themself alcoholic the shaming continue with: ‘now calling yourself such is therapeutic and if you don’t agree with that you are in denial. And denial is bad, because you will never be free. From denial comes lapse, relapse and collapse and we all know that people who relapse might kill themself. Told you, you’ll never be free.’

I never knew that I was supposed to kill myself if I would have an alcoholic drink but since reading up on AA this thought has been put in my head that it is The Thing to do. I thought I’d quit and not drink again but I should quit, not drink again AND be scared that I’ll kill myself if I do drink again.

All in all calling yourself an alcoholic in AA meetings doesn’t look like therapeutic to me, it looks like psychological torture of a former century. What’s wrong with: ‘I am feelingmywaybackintolife and I have been addicted to alcohol. Because of that I have build an addictive  character structure that is dysfunctional and makes me unhappy and unable to follow my true path in life. I am working on changing that.’ But the system of shaming and placing fear is what keeps me away from AA. And yes, I do know that I have a bit of a history with religiously based thinking.

I am unhappy that I have been fucked up when it comes to religion. I would love to be able to fucking trust anything – apart from having trusted alcohol. Wasn’t that me that said ‘I do not have trust issues?’ No, I just never trust anybody, so I don’t have issues… Well, I tried feeling what it felt like last Sunday with the potato story.

It is my believe that religion is based on projecting those hopes, thoughts and feelings that can not be carried by the person outward in a higher power. Like ‘God says we should kill those christian dogs!’ That’s just hate speaking and using something that has been made up, mostly by the person, as an excuse to justify behaviour. Same with ‘the kingdom will come’. Same with my father and his violent end of the world fantasies. He was ‘just’ expressing his own fears. Because of this projecting of that what can not be carried we get a lot of the extreme hopes, fears and  agressions in religion. It’s never like ‘Hey, dude, whassup? Sun shining, let’s go for  a swim.’ because that most of us can carry.

Yesterday I worked out that the higher power I have envisioned for myself does not respond to any what I do, it could as well not be there. It does not judge, it has these natural boundaries. And I came to realise that it has the same quality as the wall I describe earlier. How appropriate.

There’s a good thing, my higher power does not judge (might that be a thing I can’t carry?), has put up some rules that naturally live in every human being in this earth like ‘you should not murder because that generally does not go down very well’ and ‘If anything living is small you should feed it, protect it, love it and let it play’. And if you don’t, things go wrong, we get unhappy, we ruin our natural habitat, poison it and poison ourself.

Got this new thought: Maybe I don’t need a book to work my shit out if there are people. Now that would be new. Maybe there is hope. 🙂

I am happy that I quit, proud that I did it and power to the people! 😉

Addition: 21 September 2014

I have been made aware of the point that I am, with this post, transferring personal aggression onto others. I do acknowledge that and I am sorry for the aggression I put out here. To be true, I am still not sure if I can/will ever come to, change my apprehension but I should not be writing out of spite or ranting because with our without conciously knowing, that will result in (trying to) hurt others. I was aware that there was something wrong with my drive when I wrote it. I was too angry to want to take a look at it. I am sorry. 😦

Answering my own blog

Hurt. Damage.

In my earlier post on addiction and blogging I was wondering about my way of writing. How I throw stuff ‘out there’, hardly do/did any censoring and treat people like speaking to a wall. The point is not so much in the throwing, well it is but the point is this sentence:

But that’s what I do, use peoples as a wall to talk to.

What!?!?! It would be sad enough if I said ‘use walls as people to talk to’. But the other way around? That is, rather disconnected. Hmmm. And what’s with the ‘peoples’? And ‘use’? And ‘talk to’ in stead of ‘speak with’?

I guess this is why I can write this blog and leave the crazy shit in it without censoring (too much). In my mind I can retreat in 2 seconds and delete it. Shit, haven’t looked up if I can actually delete the blog. In my mind nobody listens anyway so it does not really matter how crazy and unadjusted I am. That is some fucked up shit. :-(. Sigh. Sad now.

Came to realise this while reading up on trust and how families with addicted parents are crisis-focused. Works out that there are a whole lot of people out there that actually trust people and that people can generally be nice AND continue to be so because they are trustworthy. Didn’t know, thought it was only in LHOP.  But ‘Castastrophe muss nicht sein.’ it seems.

‘Do you trust people?’

‘Yes! Well, No. But I pretend I do. That makes it easier.’

Shitload of pretend behaviour around me. Keeping up appearances. I HATED that in my mother. Well, actually glad I did pretend because some of the intentions are destructive enough as they are. Aaah, drink craving. Fuck off!! You’ve done enough damage.

Image flush. Like seeing my life pass in front of me. Not rewinding this time, just circling. Whaaaaaa! Wheeeeheeeee! Damn, who needs shit when you’ve got yourself?

This just feels very appropriate now.

The sounds, the fun, the melody, the name of the original song, the overwhelming beat and most likely the empty hall 😦 and the person coming to set a stop to it all :-(. Not sure how the third person watching fits in. Ha! Should have wiki-ed that before I wrote it :-D. Gheghegheghe. No, not funny.

All in all happy that I quit and proud of it.

 

What is addictive in the blog

Sat outside, read Nakken and found out what is addictive in this blog. There is addiction in living in the blog, not in the real world. But I’m ok with that now, that’s fine. It has only been 3 weeks, I just need to add more living to my life.

Another part is the way I write. I throw it all out there. No ethics, no censoring (well a little, on my thoughts / fears on AA) and very little to no regard for what other people might feel. I keep peoples feelings in mind when reacting and replying but not in my own blog, does not always work but there is no undo or edit button on the replies. My Publish button is actually called  the ‘get it out of your system’ button. It works. But it is using peoples as objects, as

Now there’s a funny thought; I was going to write ‘wall to speak to’. Hmmmm…. sad now.

But that’s what I do, use peoples as a wall to talk to. The intention never starts of with ‘speak with’. Very little speak with. I expect people to talk to me when they disagree or want to tell their story and then I’ll listen, no problem there and that is when things evolve into a conversation. But the mindset is ‘talk to’. Sorry 😦

Guessing this one will stick with me for some time. It’s a family trait. I feel it is about not letting in, no two-way connection. Can I love, yes. Can I believe anybody can love me? No. Little two-way. Loads of closed doors and walls.

So that’s what I need to look into. Hmmm. Discomfort here.

And laugh it off again; just remembered I got this very nice book ‘The fine art of small talk.’ Bought it to develop some small talk skills for business events and seminars etc. very helpful, very good skill development book. Ghegheghe. This book thing is getting a bit strange. Come to think of it, that’s a family trait as well. But why reinvent the wheel? I know how much it takes to become an expert in a certain subject. And I am thankful to those that are experts in their field and share their knowledge and experience in a book, on the net, in groups or personal session, or in whatever way actually. I believe I paid 16 Euro’s for Craig Nakken’s book. It contains a lifetime of experience! Not buying into everything (yet?) but hey, I will not ask my money back for that :-D.

I learn well by reading. Even though it feels like I can hear everybody screaming by now ‘GET OUT OF YOUR HOUSE AND START INTERACTING!’ Yes, yes, I will, I will… 😉

Walls

Day 6

Part of this post is a reply to a reader. Currently reading some more in my new book ‘The addictive personality’ from Craig Nakken. Jason Vale was about the alcohol part of an addiction. I know now alcohol is bad, which is why I don’t drink it. I can’t make more of it.

This book is about the addiction part of the addicted person. To some of you that have had addiction treatment this book may be yesterday’s news but I’m doing this sort of on my own and found every sentence from the first say 11 pages quote worthy.

I have bought the book because I have always thought, even from a very young age that I have this character structure that gets addicted to everything possible. There’s this German saying ‘Je länger, je lieber’. Which means something like: the more the better but with loads of yearning in it. I’ve had that all my life. My mother could read me the same book 10 – 20 times over while my brother never, ever reads a book twice. He once went nuts when I put a CD on repeat. Which surprises me because I had been listening to it for 2 months in a row already… I can eat the same dish 2 weeks in a row because I can’t get enough of it. Actually, before I quite I ate one dish 9 months everyday for breakfast and lunch, recipe will follow.

At age of 14 I went from not smoking to 15 per day in one week. I have drunk 3 litres of cola per day for at least a year, 1 to 2 litres in the years before that. I combined that with at least 2 litres of strong black tea per day if it were not five. And of course 3 litres of beer. Note to self: get kidneys checked. Same with everything. I can wear the same clothes for a month onwards because I like them (I do wash them if you care to know). I have bought the same black t-shirt for 20 years in a row now, adjusting sizes from XS to XL as I drank more and got fatter. And if I don’t get the things that I like, that specific cheese, rice crackers with cheese and marmite, a specific stock in my chicken soup I get irritated. Part of it has to do with being hypoglycaemic, blablablabla. And blaaaaablablablaaaaa.

Writing this down is ok, reading it back is quite overwhelming. Starting to become aware of the bullshit in me. Ooooh, the powers that are within. Did I really do all that? This is one of the parts where I think I am weird. I guess that’s a justified feeling then. And I think I cover it up with righteousness, decisiveness and projecting security outwardly in a rather aggressive way. ‘Don’t come near me, don’t touch me, don’t disturb the brittle safety that I hold within.’

Yesterday I wrote: ‘To me it feels like I have a tendency to structurally replace something for something. Not sure what the somethings in this equation are, apart from the drinking, of course :-D.’ Today I read that addicts replace intimacy with excitement and try to nurture themselves with an addiction that finally gives the sense of omnipotence, amongst others. Yes. That would be me. And the addiction also numbs the real feelings allowing the addict NOT to deal with the life issues that are. Then pain turns into despair and the shit hits the fan.

They say with detoxing from alcohol there may be some nausea. I’m only getting that now when reading this book. What have I done to myself? And I would really like to jump over the grief to the ‘I’m so glad I stopped’. And maybe, just to get me through the day, I will do that. Trap, trap. Ubuntu, girl, ubuntu. Have mercy, have mercy. Crying. This is me, and this is what happened. All the bullshit that I carry around, what a weight.

Realising something: I put up all these walls. I was thinking of using the same move to keep booze out. But booze is already out. No worries. Not going back.

Looking inside now. The rigidity does not help me cope with things, it makes it so that there is no movement, fluidity, suppleness, or how you call it in me. Makes it hard to breathe and when breathing it does not bring life. Focussing now on the energetic walls around me and the effort I put in to them. Letting go and focussing on the intention I have to bring them back up, very visible all now. Shit, coming of the booze gives me so much ability to learn! It’s almost as strong as a ayahuasca trip. Learning, learning, feeling my way back into life. 🙂

Despair, mourning. My gods, have I wasted so much energy, time, life, cut myself off so badly? So cut off. MAMAAAAAA!!! Why hast thou forsaken me? Why have I forsaken me?

This world, my world (?) seems to lack a spiritual mother. Not sure what that means.

Flashes, flashes of history coming by. Moving house at 8 years old, totally new environment, alienation, been beaten up by best friend day before. Lost, no place to go. Walls beginning to build. Powerless because it was all decided for me. Strange because I left, strange because I was new and did not speak nor understand the dialect which was found to be strange, dangerous. And I? ‘I will keep you out because you keep me out!’ Threat, fear, anger. Where is Yoda when you need him? Breathe, relax and drink water.

And…. back to normal again. Good book. 😀