Thursday, November 18, 2010

Shoot, Shoot, Shoot and More Shoot

I finally checked my blog and saw that I had two more followers the other day so I feel obligated to write. You see I was going to wait until I could write that I had finally figured it out, that I had the answer and I had been living the happy life of sobriety for several months. Didn't happen. Instead life's been basically the same cycle since I started this darn blog. I do great for most of a month and then I go straight to hell for a week. The cap'n is fed up with me, I'm fed up with me. I've been off the booze for 3 days but I feel really sad. And then tonight I got bad news about a project I've been involved in, one that I thought was going to redeem me. Luckily I can't blame what is happening on my drinking but I feel like I'm being punished. I feel like I've been riding an undeserved wave of good luck for too long and now it's time to pay my due. I've used up my last chance and now I'm really going to have to prove myself before things get better again. Maybe that is the incentive I need. Plus I think I've developed an ulcer. Just one more thing to worry about. The cap'n says I love to worry. He is so, so wrong. I'm sitting here on this computer when I should be in bed because I'm trying to exhaust myself so I don't toss and turn all night. Or maybe I'm trying to make amends. God,I hope it works.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Good Grief, Charlie Brown!


Well, would you look who's back? I keep thinking I should wait until I'm in a better mood before I write this blog but God knows when that's going to happen so here goes. I'm not going to go into what happened. You've heard it all before. Same old rigamaroll, song and dance. Same old shit.
So last night I'm lying in bed replaying every embarrassing incident that I've had a leading role in in the last 10 years and I had this whole other blog planned but as you will surmise my co-writer had other ideas. I had just about cringed and mortified myself to sleep when this scene from my 1st grade popped into my head. I swear to "you know who" this really happened.
When I was in 1st grade I had this friend I'll call "Bertha", not because she was fat but she was bigger than your average 1st grade bear. Anyway Bertha loved to play on the see-saw but because she was bigger than the rest of us, most of the kids usually refused. As most of us know, to adequately see-saw you kind of have to have an equal playing field. So Bertha, would go around to all the kids asking them to play on the see-saw with her and one-by-one they would all refuse her. Then she would come to me. By this time, me being me, I was feeling very sorry for her. Apparently, even at this young age without the aid of alcohol or drugs, I was already suffering from short-term memory loss. So on her "cross my heart" promise to play fair and not use her weight advantage unfairly I would gingerly crawl onto the see-saw. Things would go pretty well for the first couple up-and-downs and then Bertha all of a sudden would get this demonic smile on her face and gleeful look in her eye. I would start shaking my head and pleading with her not to do it but Bertha was past the point of no return by then. Instead of braking her downward passage with her feet, Bertha would put all her weight into it. When her ample butt would hit bottom, my upward progress would terminate with a mighty jolt. Unable to hold onto the sweaty handbars, up into the air I would soar for an all too brief moment before I crashed in a cloud of dust and gravel onto the schoolyard ground. And Bertha would just laugh and laugh and laugh her fat little ass off. And yes, I fell for this over and over and over. Kind of like Charlie Brown and Lucy and that f'ing football.
I'm sure we all can figure out what that sad little memoir is a metaphor of. Apparently, it has always taken me a long time to learn my hard lessons. I have no advice today and I'm still see-sawing on how I'm going to handle my drinking. I've been sober for five days now so that's a small comfort. I have been drinking a couple of glasses of red wine at night. I ask myself, "Why?" I don't like it. It's not enough to get me high. It doesn't even relax me. What's the point? I guess it's just fulfillment of some sense of entitlement. I deserve that glass of alcohol at the end of the day. Moderation may work for some people, but I still find myself thinking about that drink at the end of the day all day long. How I'm going to handle it, or whether I'm even going to drink that day. It takes too much of my brain space and it's exhausting. I'd really like to just abstain and be done with it but the pattern of my last 6 months shows when I try to do this, I usually decide to eventually get back on that see-saw with harder landings each time.
So, no answers and no plans. I'm just out there doing my best to avoid all the Bertha's and Lucy's. Today I'm thankful for a husband that softens my landings.