The pattern

So 2008 is finally over, and the new year is nearly upon us. Boy am I glad to be here. I’ve been waiting for 2008 to end for weeks; the festive season has been one long dark cloud in my life, as far as I’m concerned. In some ways, 2008 was the best year of my life, as well as the worst. Looking back, I can distinguish two halves to the year. January to July were perhaps the best months of my life. August to December have been comparitively dreadful, if not the worst. I want to say I don’t know why that is: the reasoning I come up with every time I try to explain to myself why it’s been so bad seems too obvious and simple. Since August I have been on a downward, depressive spiral; I’ve had no luck finding work and no reason to get up in the mornings; I’ve drifted away from most of my AA friends and I haven’t felt emotionally sober for more than a few moments. My dire financial situation has led directly to this depressive attack which has brought me to the point where I hardly know who I am any more. I’ve had so many drinking dreams, I’m beginning to wonder if I really am still sober after nearly eighteen months. I haven’t had a drink since July 2007, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m sober. Part of me wants to relapse, to see what it would be like, to check whether it would be the kick up the arse I actually need.

 Today I’m not in as bad a place as I was a few weeks ago. I haven’t wanted to drink this week; I’ve gone to meetings and shared and participated in service as usual. But after everything I’ve been through this year, I can’t get back to that feeling of being a happy, sober member of AA any more. I went to the local meeting last night and tried to be a normal part of the group, but felt just as separate as I did when I was three weeks sober. My sobriety has been tested this year: I’m living in the real world now and there’s no going back. And that terrifies me as much as it ever did.

 Last night’s chair spoke briefly about his preference for positive sharing in meetings. He claimed that if he had heard old-timers sharing negatively about life in his early days, he would not have kept coming back. Hearing this put a distinctly bad taste in my mouth; I was ready to share honestly about how bad I still felt, and all of a sudden I felt as if I wasn’t allowed to. Pride continues to be one of my biggest character defects, and despite the knowledge that I can say what I want in any meeting without worrying what others think of me, when it came to my turn to speak I couldn’t stop myself from putting that old positive spin on everything, something I used to do a lot in my early days. I hated myself for it – I wasn’t feeling at all positive last night and I just wasn’t being true to myself – but I couldn’t cope with the idea of the chair judging me for my negativity. I ended my share saying that I was grateful to still be sober, which wasn’t entirely true at the time but which is more true today. I have a slight headache today, for some reason, which has made things a bit more difficult; but if I was hungover everything would be a million times worse and I would undoubtedly still be in bed now. I know how lucky I am to be sober today. But this idea that we can’t say how we really feel in meetings has always got to me.

 I was surprised when others in the meeting shared more honestly on the subject, saying that they have always valued the opportunity to talk about how they’re really feeling in AA. Some seemed angry with the chair for what he had said. At the end he humbly apologised to us all, emphasizing that he had not meant to imply what we’d all taken from him. So for now, we can continue to be brutally honest in meetings. If I’m not feeling great I have to say it – I cannot hide it. Sometimes it makes my skin crawl to open my mouth about those feelings, especially because I’ve been sharing about the same feelings for months on end without change. But whatever anyone thinks about me, shouldn’t matter to me. The point of having meetings as a forum for speaking our minds is so that we can get things off our chest. Some people out there may think that anyone over a year sober should put the newcomer first and speak positively about prolonged sobriety at all times. But the truth is, when I was new to AA I wanted to hear old timers being honest about their lives. The honest truth is that life is fucking hard when you’re sober. Only 5% of us make it to lifelong sobriety. That statistic still makes me want to get there – it would be cool to be in the top 5% of something.

 2009 draws ever closer; I wonder what it will bring for me. This time of year always makes me look forward. I have no idea where I will be by December 2009: I guess there’s a 50/50 chance that I’ll be living in my own place. It’s totally dependent on whether I can find a job or not. Given that the economic situation is supposed to get worse next year, my hopes of finding work are a lot less than they would be normally. At least I can’t blame any lack of success entirely on myself – I intend to try as hard as I can, but if we’re in a recession then we’re in a recession. All I hope is that whatever happens, I can keep myself from sinking further into depression. I’ve been through enough this year, and I’m sick of it. When you’re depressed it is really hard to do anything useful. I don’t want to be controlled by my emotions any more. I’m scared that I will always be controlled by them. For the past six months I have kept a record of my daily anxiety levels. In summer they seemed to average at about 30% every day. Some days there was no anxiety at all. More recently, a reliable and distinct pattern of weekly ups and downs has emerged. About once a week, I’ll get to 80 or 90%, then it will slowly come back down to 10 or even 5% by the weekend. Then the climb will start once again, and by Wednesday it will once more be up to the high 80s. It does not always follow that precise pattern, but on average, Wednesdays appear to be the worst day for me, while Sundays appear to be the best. Very surprising, and very intriguing.

 When I started keeping my anxiety record I didn’t realise I was using myself as a case study in an experiment, but that is what I seem to be doing as time goes on. Six months ago I just wanted to see what my anxiety levels looked like over time; now that I know the pattern, I want to find out how I can change it. Every time it goes above 70% I write down what has happened that day. There’s always some trigger in the environment: I never get worked up for no reason. It usually happens when a sexual partner has dumped me, when I’ve had an imaginary argument with a friend, or when I’ve got no money. When the bank applied all those punitive charges to my account in October, my anxiety reached its highest peak in years. At the same time, my depression reached a peak. When Gareth cut contact with me last month, both conditions reached another (slightly lower) peak. Romance and finance are the two most common causes of emotional angst for me. I’ve always been vaguely aware of it, but now I have proof. What’s clear is that I have to be on guard when it comes to romantic or financially relevant situations. I have to stop over-spending, and I have to sort out what I want in my sex life, something that’s proving much harder to achieve at the moment.

 Today is Wednesday, so I should be reaching an anxious peak at some point. Nothing particularly bad has happened today, so I probably won’t go past 50 or 60%, though because it’s been a week since the last peak, I’m bound to be naturally more anxious today than normal. That’s the biological component of my illness. It’s not just an emotional reaction to negative environmental stimuli – I have an over sensitive nervous system which seems to go through a weekly cycle of up and down. It doesn’t look as if Prozac, which I’ve been taking for seven months, can control that. I generally experience less social anxiety in various situations these days, but the generalized underlying anxiety hasn’t gone away. I either need to try a new drug or I need a course of psychotherapy. After seven months, I am still waiting to hear from my local primary care trust about when I can see a therapist. I’ve waited patiently on their list. Now I need to see someone, do something. I might know a lot about my condition, but I can’t therapize myself better. Or can I? Does the fact that I’ve finally recognised this pattern mean that I am truly on the road to getting better?

 After eighteen months of sobriety I would have thought I’d be feeling a bit better today. I’m not depressed today, just a little flat. The normal after-effects of a big depressive attack. Soon it will be 2009, winter will be over and I’m sure my natural cycles will change. But I don’t want to be a slave to a natural cycle! I want to be normal, all the time!

 Well, despite not feeling normal today, I have agreed to go dancing tonight with Dean and others from AA to see in the New Year. Until a few hours ago I had no intention of celebrating the new year away from home. But I just got a phonecall from Dean, who happens to have a spare ticket for this event in South London. He seemed very keen for me to come. I haven’t danced for months. Maybe it will be fun. I just don’t know. I will never forget last new year, when I nearly relapsed in Edinburgh. That whole holiday was a bad idea. I couldn’t help thinking that I would have been better off at home, watching the fireworks on television. Well, the difference this year is that I will be on familiar territory with sober AA friends. Since I’m not drinking, it’s unlikely to be the worst night of my life.

 For the first time in months I’m throwing caution to the wind to see whether something that feels potentially risky to me could actually be good for me. The last time I went dancing, I was dressed as a girl, and I had a fabulous time, in what couldn’t have been a riskier environment. It was nice of Dean to pursue me to try and get me to come out. Maybe I won’t feel alone tonight after all, like I have felt for the past few months, like I felt this time last year. There’s no knowing until it’s happened. That’s the thing about life, you can never know what is about to happen, no matter how much you try and plan it.

My space

I don’t want to write about Christmas – I get a distinct feeling of discomfort every time I think about it – but write I must. When I don’t write about things, it starts to feel like they haven’t happened. Unfortunately, Christmas did happen this year, and it was a dark one. For the first time, I wasn’t actually looking forward to it. In fact as the day drew closer I was increasingly dreading it. For some reason, I wasn’t in the mood for Christmas this year. Normally an invitation to my aunt’s house for Christmas dinner would be something to get excited about. This year, I just wanted to stay in bed and forget about the world. Every Christmas-themed song, movie and advert on television and on the radio irritated me like hell. I was expected to go over to my aunt’s house as I had no excuse not to: I dreaded it every step of the way. I made sure I had my AA fix to give me strength beforehand; I spent the morning at the annual share-fest at Flood Street which always runs throughout Christmas Day. Like last year, there was a nice atmosphere in the room and much of the sharing expressed exactly how I felt about Christmas, namely that it meant nothing to me.

 In the afternoon I didn’t want to leave, but I had no choice, which made me feel worse about the whole thing. I regretted not telling my aunt that I had other plans for the day. I don’t know why I suddenly didn’t want to spend the day with the family pulling Christmas crackers and eating roast turkey. I guess the thought of sitting at a table watching people get drunk on sherry for three hours didn’t appeal to me. It really didn’t help that my mother kept phoning to check that I was on my way. She had made her way there much earlier; I’d said I would meet her there at around 3pm, but I didn’t arrive til 4, and she wasn’t happy about this. As soon as I arrived she made a point about getting me to apologise to my aunt, who just laughed it off. Walking there through the ghostly, empty streets of London that afternoon was like being in a nightmare. I expected one of them to open the door and tell me I should piss off home as I was no longer welcome. I knew I shouldn’t be feeling that way on Christmas Day. It’s supposed to be a happy, loving day for the family, but for me it was the most stressful experience imaginable.

 I was more socially phobic than I had been in months, so I could hardly speak to people when I got there. Enjoying the occasion was out of the question. I simply sat quietly in a corner while everyone else tried to find things to talk about. It’s not that they’re bad people: my aunts and my cousins are really nice. My mum isn’t bad either, just a little insensitive. She knew I had to go to AA that morning, yet when I had been there for just a few moments she offered me an Irish coffee (containing Baileys liquor, formerly one of my favourite tipples). It was a faux pas that she’ll never know about, because I didn’t say anything, I simply ignored the offer. I felt like biting her head off but I managed to resist creating a scene in front of the rest of the family who I only see twice a year and who have no idea what I’ve been through.

 Could I make them understand somehow? Could I explain what I’ve been through, what alcoholism really means? I don’t know. The truth is, when you only see certain people once or twice a year it’s hard to initiate serious, profound, uncomfortable conversations with them. It is for me, anyway. A few months ago, when I was getting on so well with my father and all his sisters, I really felt like a part of that family for the first time, but on Thursday I didn’t for some reason. I just wanted to be alone. Years ago, I used to crave that kind of family occasion so badly, because I was never invited to things. Now that I’ve experienced a real social life with family and friends in all kinds of situations and environments, I’m starting to find that I like my own company. I’m sure I would have loved nothing more on Thursday than to sit in a hotel room in the highlands of Scotland watching the snow out of the window. When the whole thing was over, I was thoroughly relieved. Next year, whatever I end up doing, it will have to be entirely my choice. Christmas hardly means anything to me any more; people with no family and friends may think I’m an ungrateful person for saying that. But the mere fact that as a member of society I am expected to want to celebrate something that means nothing to me makes me resent it all the more.

 Around Christmas there have been a few interesting events in my life. I’ve been travelling to East London on a regular basis to help decorate the flat that has just been purchased by Jan, my new lover. As I said last week, he’s much older than me and much richer – I’m probably making a big mistake by getting involved with him. It will probably all end in tears and I’ll have probably have to do another step 4 with my sponsor. But right now, I don’t care. I’ve had the chance to find out what it’s like being an adult in the real world this week. I’ve never decorated anything in my life; it’s actually quite a lot of fun, as well as good exercise. Yesterday I was back and forth between the shops and the flat, purchasing things to make the place look nice. It’s a beautiful flat, overlooking a river and the new Olympic park, which isn’t even taking shape yet. It will be exciting to see it grow between now and 2012. I have no idea if I’ll still be welcome there in four years’ time to see the Olympic opening ceremony, but if I am, I’ll have a fantastic view of it. This week I got to play homemaker for the first time – it’s a nice role to be in, since I’ve never had my own home to make. It would be nice if the flat was actually mine and not someone else’s. Well, in the future, who says I won’t have a space of my own to play with? This could just be practice.

The point

I felt OK this morning, I really did. But then life started and as always I didn’t feel OK any more. I didn’t actually get out of bed this morning; I stayed under the covers until around 2pm because there was no reason to get up earlier. It’s been another shit day, and I don’t know how much longer I can go on feeling this way. It’s like life has stopped; nothing happened today, nothing ever happens these days. My life may not be as difficult as that of a starving child in Botswana whose mother has to walk five miles every morning to gather water, of course it isn’t. But I don’t live in Botswana, I live in England, supposedly one of the richest countries in the world, and I can’t afford to get a bus into town any more. It’s real shitty being unemployed. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. When I finished Uni in the summer it seemed so great to have all that free time ahead of me, it really did. Not having to get up every morning and work was quite a comforting thought, but now just five months down the line, I have so much free time that I’m sick of it. The responsibility of work scares me, but having no money and no purpose in life is a sacrifice I can’t afford any more. There is simply no point to my life today, and whenever I feel like there’s no point, my default setting is to want a drink. Because when I have no responsibility to anyone or anything, there is nothing to do except drink. I’m really fucking bored, day in and day out, and alcohol is the best cure for boredom that I’ve ever known.

 Tonight I had the choice between going to a meeting and going to the pub. I chose the meeting as it has become so engrained in my routine. And I suppose the thought of losing nearly 18 months of sobriety was too scary to contemplate. I didn’t want to go to a meeting; I didn’t really want to go to the pub either. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Just go to bed and hide from the world forever, I suppose. As I walked into the meeting hall I was petrified of facing people. I could hear Dean’s voice when I was within twenty metres of the room, which is ironic as Dean has been at the top of my resentment list for months. I knew I would see the same old faces, hear the same old things for an hour and a half, and it scared me because I knew that this would be the rest of my life. I loathed the idea of sharing about my actual feelings because I knew it would put a damper on the whole meeting. It would certainly bore those poor people who have listened to me share about my unchanging problems constantly for the past three months. But as I forced myself to walk into the hall I was painfully aware that I had no choice but to share honestly. There was no other reason to be there. I had to talk about the depression, the feeling of pointlessness and the desire to drink. It had to be released from me before it killed me.

 I expected the usual fake sympathy from people after I’d opened my mouth. Instead, a newcomer spoke about how bad it made him feel whenever ‘old-timers’ share negatively about life – he wanted to hear more of the positive. Great, I thought, now I’ve offended a newcomer. Things couldn’t get much worse. As soon as the meeting was over I rushed to the toilets to lock myself in a cubicle and cry. I couldn’t bear to be around people any longer. I realised that my depression was making my social anxiety flare up. When I feel that low I find talking to people very tiring. Everyone looks so much better than me, so much happier and healthier, and I can’t think of anything to say except ‘fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck’. I can’t help comparing myself to people in that state. I’d rather lock myself in a toilet cubicle than force my miserable company on them.

 Unfortunately I couldn’t cry in that place – it was too public, with people walking in and out of the adjacent cubicles. How humiliating it would have been if someone who knew me came in and heard me sobbing behind the locked door. So I dusted myself off and walked back out. There was no one at the building exit – I could easily have gone straight home without waiting to say goodbye to anyone. But I waited for my sponsor, who had been in the meeting, because recovery has installed this chip in my brain which automatically tells me to wait around when the sick part of me wants to run away and isolate. My sponsor came out quickly and offered to buy me a coffee across the road where everyone would be gathering for some post-meeting fellowship. For a few moments I was stuck – I had no idea whether I wanted to go for coffee or not. I was close to tears and knew that I could offend a few more people with my negativity if I chose to stick around. But I also knew that going home would mean I’d have to be alone and deal with my feelings. Eventually I chose the latter option, as I simply couldn’t bring myself to make the effort that the social situation would have required. I could have gone straight to the pub – I had money to drink, it would have been so easy. But I didn’t. I came straight home to write this. I’m not sure why I didn’t drink tonight. It’s not because I prefer being sober right now. Unlike everyone else in tonight’s meeting, I don’t love AA or sobriety. I’m not a grateful alcoholic today. All I have keeping me sober is the 17 months that I’ve done so far. If I drank tonight, I would have to go back to one day sober, and my pride just won’t let me. My annoying, irritating, stupid bloody pride. I’d rather die than have to tell people like Dean, with their wonderful, happy sobriety, that I am one day sober again. It would be the worst possible thing to have to go through. Is pride a bad reason to be sober? Should I want to stay sober for other, more honourable reasons?

 The truth is that I am an alcoholic, and I will NEVER have a healthy relationship with alcohol, no matter how I feel about life. If I was really happy and jolly and well right now, I still wouldn’t be able to drink. If I was a normal drinker I wouldn’t even be thinking about these things – there wouldn’t be a debate in my head about whether to go the pub or not. I wouldn’t have to have six or seven pints of lager just to feel remotely normal. I can never drink again, and that makes me very sad. I don’t want the rest of my life to be like this, I’m really sick of getting up every day and feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders, but by God I’m going to have get used to it. Life IS tough – newcomers need to accept that. I hate this idea in AA that when you’re past a certain time you should only share positive things. Fuck off! I wouldn’t bother going to meetings if I couldn’t share exactly what I needed to share, and at the moment I need to share all of this. The chances are I would have drunk tonight if I hadn’t opened my mouth in that room and let all that shit out.

 I’m scared to go to sleep tonight because I’ll probably have another drinking dream. I’ve been having them pretty much every night recently. When I shared that earlier, I noticed several looks of horror around the room. It’s not normal to wake up every morning thinking you’ve relapsed when in reality you haven’t – is it? Every time I wake up from such dreams it takes a while for me to work out what’s real and what’s not real, and that is a frightening feeling. To wake up every day thinking I’ve gone back to one day sober. Why does it keep happening? Why does my subconscious mind keep choosing to drink when I know I can’t? I’m sure I’ve heard before that a dream relapse is not far off a real relapse. I’m in real danger here, my sobriety is hanging by a thread. And I have no idea how to get better. Life isn’t going away, my feelings aren’t changing. I have to live with myself every day for the rest of my life, and that’s a bummer as far as I’m concerned.

 The other night I inadvertently had a taste of the old life. I went on a date with a much older, much richer man who took me out for dinner in Soho before booking us into a four star hotel room for the night in Hyde Park. We got a black taxi across London from Soho to Lancaster Gate – it’s been years since I sat in a taxi. I met my date on the internet; we appeared to get on and find each other attractive, though by the end of Tuesday night I didn’t know if it was him or the money that I fancied. In my drinking I went on quite a few dates with men like that. It was a typical drinking date, except I wasn’t drinking. He was, which hardly bothered me at all. He talked about taking cocaine, something he seems to do on a regular basis, how wonderful it is and how I should try it some time. I wasn’t disturbed by the thought of taking cocaine like I used to be. At the hotel the sex was great; we hardly slept. When I went home on Wednesday morning I added one more notch to my bedpost, unable to decide if I wanted to see him again. If he had no money, it would probably be a much easier decision. If we meet again and go to his flat, there might be cocaine. I am under no illusion that taking coke would not constitute a slip. It would horrify my sponsor to hear me say all this – and I know he’s reading this – but I have to be honest. I don’t think I would ever actually take cocaine, but there is no way of knowing what will happen tomorrow, how I’ll feel next week, next month, next year. Seeing this man again would be dangerous to my sobriety, yes, it would be like playing with fire. I just don’t know where I’m going any more, why I ought to carry on. Just keep going, one day at a time, let go and let God, AA has all the answers. Or does it? I don’t trust what it says any more, I don’t trust my higher power any more, which makes me feel so lonely right now. When I finally realised this on the way home tonight, it dawned on me that if I am actually going to get better, I have to start facing life by myself. AA can’t be there to hold my hand all the time – neither can God, neither can my mother. So that’s my problem tonight. I’ve never really faced up to life before. How the fuck do I start now?

Sorry

Over the weekend I remembered that there was one amend I had forgotten to make as part of my step 9. There’s this guy called Rohan who I had a brief fling with in London a few years ago. I was drunk when we slept together, and when I realised this I quickly lost interest in him: the usual story. It would have been forgotten about, except that Rohan didn’t want to forget. He texted and messaged me online for months afterward, keen to meet again and pick up where we left it. I resolved to ignore his messages because I was frankly embarrassed that I had ever got involved with him. Rohan was slightly weird, to be honest; one night when we were still seeing each other he sent a text message saying he never wanted to see me again because people “don’t make friends in London, everyone is only out for themselves”. The next day he was hugely apologetic, claiming that he had been drunk when he wrote the text, but it was enough to put doubts into my mind. A few months later I was properly ignoring him, and finally he sent a message telling me to “rot in hell, you arrogant cunt”. My behaviour had clearly upset him enough to warrant the worst name I had ever been called, and I couldn’t help wondering if I really had been that bad. I realised that I had been rather mean to him, ignoring all his previously kind messages and blanking him whenever I saw him in bars on the gay scene. I said nothing, though, as I thought that replying to a message with the c-word in it probably wouldn’t do me any good.

 Today, I have a program of recovery and a step 9 to complete. I have been unable to rest all week thinking about this final step 9 candidate, and last night I finally contacted him. He had sent me a friend request on facebook, so I thought maybe he would be a bit more receptive to an apology these days. How wrong I was. My message was as sincere and apologetic as I could make it without grovelling. I apologised for ignoring him for so long and for generally being a shit to him three years ago, though I still wasn’t entirely sure that I had been. I expected nothing back from him – it’s been three years, he lives in Australia now and it’s not like we were ever close friends. His reply this morning was about as unforgiving as you can imagine. He wrote:

“You were and still are a shit, a self centred cunt, and I’m glad I never got drawn into your depressive black hole. I spend my life trying to avoid people like you these days. I wish you no best.”

My instant reaction wasn’t to crave a drink – I simply wondered what I had done to deserve such vitriol. Three years later, and he’s still bitter about such a trivial thing? Did I really treat him that badly? I couldn’t help thinking back over my past behaviour, and for a few moments I thought that maybe I was a bad person after all and I just couldn’t see it. Maybe I really meant to hurt him three years ago – maybe I don’t deserve his or anyone’s forgiveness. In that frame of mind, I naturally began to think that AA could never work for me. If I am such a terrible person, what hope do I have?

 Then I started to think that perhaps Rohan was trying to suck me into HIS very own depressive black hole. Maybe his intention all along was to say those things, he was just waiting for me to get in touch so he’d have an excuse. I was a sick person three years ago, but I don’t think I am any more. My apology last night was sincere, I didn’t have to send it. It’s the first time in three years anyone has said anything like that to me – many of my friends today would tell me that I am actually NOT a bad person. Perhaps Rohan is bitter and twisted and just saying things to me that are meant for someone else.

 For a while this morning I wanted to respond, to punish him for being so cruel. How dare you play this game with me! I wanted to say. I didn’t have to apologise to you – you clearly have issues if after three years you STILL can’t accept a genuine apology for something so trivial. I think you are a bitter, twisted little person who needs a lot of help. I began to write the message, but eventually I discarded it. What good would it do? It would probably just draw me further into the negativity, and do I really want that? The inner child in me is desperate to retaliate, it feels like I’m being weak by saying nothing. But I wouldn’t be turning the other cheek by retaliating. Surely the healthy thing to do is ignore it and move on. Whether I really was a terrible person or not three years ago, I’m not that person any more. He can continue to hate me – he lives on the other side of the planet, I never have to see or speak to him again.

 I was going to find some excuse and not go to the step meeting in Holborn tonight, but I’ve just realised that I need to go and share about this stuff. The inner child wants it to be big and dramatic; it wants me to burst into tears and elicit everyone’s sympathy and hugs. That probably won’t happen, I’ll probably just leave quietly at the end of the meeting like I did last week. But I need to keep going to meetings and sharing. I can’t give up now, though I badly want to. As time passes by the illness gets stronger inside me, making me feel weaker all the time. I really want to give up and stay in bed today, because life is SO tough. Right now I feel alone, being forced to fight for myself, and I’ve never been good at fighting. Last night I dreamt about returning to school once again – this time there were some AA friends there, but all too soon they had left school and abandoned me to look after myself there. In the end one of my old classmates picked a fight with me and I just lay on the floor and took all the kicks and punches, because I didn’t feel like I could defend myself.

 It’s the worst dream I’ve had in a long time, and I woke up feeling the same depression and anger that I was experiencing earlier in the month. This problem isn’t going away – life isn’t going away. Everything’s getting tougher and I only have two choices: keep going, or throw my hands up and give in. I don’t really know which choice I want to make any more. When you get a message like the one I got from Rohan this morning, it all starts to seem a bit pointless. We’ll see.

Memoir

Not a bad week this week. I have gone back to daily AA meetings and I am feeling comfortable there again. Sharing about what’s happened helps. Last night I tried to draw a line under my latest depressive attack by declaring it over in the Hop Gardens meeting. I won’t see Gareth again and I won’t feel bad about it any more. Whether the depression is really over or not, I think drawing a line publicly will be beneficial to me. I have decided to start writing a memoir. This is purely for me, not for the pursuit of money. It will be an interesting writing exercise. Has my life been interesting enough to write a book about? Well, I’ve always felt that I have a book in me. For years I’ve tried to write something semi-autobiographical, with embellishments and added characters and scenes and plots; it never seems to work. Perhaps if I just write the truth, it will work. At least I won’t get to a certain point in the story and realise that parts of it need to be changed, because everything has already happened for real. The only difficulty is when I get to a certain point and realise that I’ve missed important things out accidentally. That always makes writing difficult. I hate going back to edit before I’ve finished a piece of writing, but in this case, I don’t feel able to carry on unless everything is in there. If Augusten Burroughs, my favourite writer of the moment, can write a memoir at the age of 25 then so can I. My life hasn’t been anywhere near as quirky or dramatic as his – but I think I have things to talk about. I don’t think I will ever publish it. If I wanted to publish I would be primarily be concerned with writing to make money, and that concern tends to be more of a hindrance than a help in everything I write. I’ll write it, keep it and maybe I’ll look back on it in 25 years’ time, to see where I was at this point in my life. Writing a memoir or a journal is like making a time capsule. What I write today will never be the same as what I write tomorrow. It’s interesting to write about my early life, to organise events into patterns and categories. The patterns are so obvious from the very beginning, it’s a real shame no one actually noticed them at the time.

OK…

Tonight wasn’t so bad. I attended a local AA meeting where I knew I would get the opportunity to share, as it goes around the room in a clockwise fashion; it is not just those with the loudest and most confident voices who get to speak. I talked about everything that has been going on for me, including the fact that my paternal grandmother passed away last night, which I only discovered this afternoon. I am sad about this mainly because I didn’t know her: I only met her a couple of times, as she lived in Ireland and my involvement with my father’s side of the family has never been that great. I am sad for my father and for my aunts who have all lost their mother today. I don’t know what I would do if I lost mine. I doubt I would really be able to carry on. It has made me think about the family again, something I’ve done a fair bit this year. I’ve seen a lot of my aunt Emily recently but not of my father. I wish I was closer to all of them. It’s a big family and for years I was so angry that they never included me in anything. Now I think I probably could have made more effort to be part of things.

 Despite the sad news I am feeling better tonight that I have done in the past few days. Tonight’s meeting was good for me; it reminded me that AA can be a supportive, safe and comfortable place. The crowd there was completely different to the one I usually see at meetings. It’s in a different locality to most of the gay AA meetings, which is probably why I’ve always liked it so much. No ‘clique’ exists in this meeting. Perhaps I would benefit from choosing it as my new home group. People shared about the difficult times they’ve been having recently and  the hope that the AA program has given them. When I talked about my grandmother’s death and all the other things that have been going on for me, I guess I finally accepted that it has been a tough period in my life which I don’t necessarily deserve. Of course, life is tough sometimes and we all have to live with that, but what’s been happening to me in the last month or so has not all been my fault. Neither has it been anyone else’s fault. It is what it is, and maybe it will pass. Many of the things I’ve been through are not unusual or uncommon experiences for alcoholics, but thanks to the fact that I suffer from depression they have all seemed so much worse than they might to a normal person. I have a tendency to be hard on myself when I realise things like that – as if I should have known all along that I was just depressed and it would all be OK in the end. But I can’t help feeling the way I feel, and when I am depressed I really need to start being kinder to myself.

 I also need to start being kinder to others. I was very mean to the people from the Monday meeting earlier – people who used to be friends. The fact is that I’m not really a part of their lives any more and it’s not really anybody’s fault, it’s just a process that has taken place. I need to find a new group to hang out with, certainly. Maybe I’ll find that in local meetings. I’ve been saying for months that I want to make the local meetings a more regular thing. Like many changes, it will require work, something I don’t like.

 The past week has seen me more spiritually sick than I have been in my entire sobriety. That is a scary thought at 17 months sober. What could I have done to avoid this event? Well, I still have a tendency to isolate and blame others when things don’t seem to be going my way, which leads to more anxiety and anger and depression. I should have gone to more meetings, I should have called my sponsor more and I should have done more praying. But I didn’t, because I’m still in early sobrietyand making mistakes, something I forget far more often than I should. I’m still learning and growing; growing is very painful. I hope that after tonight the dark period will pass and a better stage in my sobriety will begin, but there are no guarantees in this life. All I can do is try and stay sober, one day at a time. God, I’ve never loathed that cliché as much as I do right now!

Disillusionment

Nothing much has happened since Sunday, except that I have gradually come down from my latest depressive attack. This is the way it always goes: something happens, my anxiety levels rocket upward, followed by depression and general feelings of worthlessness/disillusionment with life. After a couple of days this wears off and I go back to what could be described as reasonably normal, until the next thing happens a week later or so. So for now I guess I have a few days of feeling OK to look forward to, though I have nothing exciting planned for this week. I’ll certainly be job hunting on a daily basis, as I have done for the past fortnight. I may attend a few AA meetings if I’m sensible, though since yesterday I seem to be experiencing a sense of dissatisfaction with the program. You can’t separate the fellowship from the program, and at the moment the fellowship is really pissing me off.

 Last night I made tea at Holborn, and ‘the clique’ were there as always. Colin, Joe, Dean, Clive, Gavin, Amanda, and countless others who I have had to put up with every week for the past 17 months. On the surface they are really nice people - too nice actually. It all just seems fake to me at the moment. I’ll probably feel differently next week; up til a few months ago I loved them all wholeheartedly, but right now I don’t want to be anywhere near them. I can’t stand the constant smiley-smiley happy banter, it drives me mad! I really don’t think I am cut out to be part of any cliques. Sometimes I prefer to be alone, with no obligations to anyone. When you’re in a clique you are answerable to the other members at all times: you have to be nice to them every time you see them, and you have to tell them everything that is going on with you. You can never have any negative feelings towards them, and you can’t choose to be part of another clique from time to time. Those are the rules of clique-world that I have been able to gather from my 17 months in AA so far. I’m not sure I want to find out any more.

 The main reason I’ve always disliked cliques is that I am jealous of their ability to be solid, comfortable and happy all the time. Yes, it makes me sick seeing other alcoholics enjoy themselves as part of a nice little social group while I stand to the side, suffering in silence. But for all the reasons I just mentioned, I doubt I will ever be comfortable in the middle of a group like that. Sometimes it’s better being alone. I don’t crave the fellowship nearly as much as I used to. Last night I made the tea quietly, sat at the back of the meeting until it was over then went home quickly, turning down Dean’s invitation to the coffee shop before he had the chance to even finish saying it. I wish I hadn’t been so blunt – he caught me off guard – but I’m glad I came home last night instead of subjecting myself to another hour of happy clappers anonymous. Having had the weekend that I’ve just had, I was not in the mood for tea and socialising. I rarely am these days. When I feel like that, speaking to people is such a bloody effort. I’ve been sharing about my situation in meetings for months, and people like Colin and Dean still don’t seem to get why I am depressed at the moment! Every time I see them I have to explain what’s happening, because they’ve been so busy getting on with their own wonderful lives they keep forgetting how I am. I don’t want to be part of their wonderful lives any more. Thank God I only have to make the tea at that meeting for six more weeks!!!

Alone

Not a very happy weekend. I am horribly and sickeningly and painfully infatuated with Gareth, the headteacher who I’ve spent three nights with in the past week. He’s an adorable, affectionate, caring and loving man; the more I get to know him the more I know I like him. But I cannot bring myself to believe that he will remain interested in me. It was my 26th birthday yesterday; we went out for dinner in town, and he bought me a lovely present, which is more than any of my other friends had bothered to do. He paid for dinner and then we drove back to his place again for what I hoped would be another night of affectionate sex. As well as emotionally and intellectually ideal, he is my physical ideal as well, and being with him is just sublime. But last night he was tired, so we spent most of the time sleeping in each other’s arms. He was also stressed out by various issues going on at work, which he explained to me and which I could offer little support with. I have my own anxieties to deal with this week, and I’m a weak emotional support for others at the best of times.

 We were quieter with each other than we usually are this weekend. This morning Gareth seemed in a rush to get out of the house, and I was on my way home by 11am. I was not looking forward to coming home, and it probably showed on my face. Though last night was not the best night ever, it was far better than a night at home on my own would have been. I was almost in tears by the time we got here today. I didn’t want to leave Gareth not knowing where I stood with him, whether I would see him again or not. Though he has always said he likes me, his quietness this morning didn’t make me feel any more secure than I did this time last week. He was fairly vague about when he would be free again, which I can’t help taking as a sign of his unwillingness to commit to anything. I suppose he’s got to know me and he’s lost a bit of interest, like most men do.

 I was haunted by the memory of my miserable seventeen year old self as I walked up the stairs to my flat this morning. Nine years ago I would come home from similarly rare outings feeling exactly the same way: like I was returning to my prison. I hate it here - spending time with Gareth reminds me of what life is like away from here. Out there I can have fun, be happy, be myself. Here I am still a child, looking after my mum who is still down with some kind of sickness that has no symptoms but which makes her inclined to spend all day in bed. I came in the door today ready to burst into tears. It felt like I was trying to stop myself from being sick in front of her. I said the obligatory ‘hello’ and ‘how are you’ before rushing to my bedroom to pull the covers over myself and bawl helplessly. Twice this week I have cried like a baby, for the first time in many years. I’m glad that after all this time my emotions are thawing out and I am finally letting go of it all, but the misery and despair in which I find myself is no less. I am still trapped here, with no way out. Meeting Gareth has just made this all the more obvious. He isn’t just a man, he is a symbol of everything that is missing in my life. His quietness and his distance this morning really hurt because I’ve seen it happen so many times before. After a week or two they all start to lose interest,when they’ve found out that I am needy and weak and useless in bed. That’s right, no matter how I try I still can’t perform in that department because of this stupid psychological barrier which makes it impossible for me to enjoy myself with anyone who I don’t fully trust.

 I could ask Gareth how he feels about me at this point to either disprove or confirm my suspicions, but I’m scared of what he would say, and I don’t want to put pressure on him. He has his own shit to deal with – he doesn’t need me hanging round his neck like an albatross. I’ll have to forget him and look after myself, like I always do, because I must be destined for singledom forever. I thought I had got past this need to be loved, but it remains in me like a wound burned into my stomach. I haven’t done that much promiscuity, but what I have done this year has tired me. I’m tired of meeting different men for casual, unemotional encounters every week. Sex is great, but sex with the same person on a regular basis is even greater. That I have discovered this week. If only someone would come along and ignore my insecurities to see the good person inside me, because I think there’s one in there. But no one will, it’s too much effort.

Angry Day

In the scheme of things, it has been a horrible day. I got up at 2pm because I was so tired and subconsciously felt like there was nothing to get up in the morning for. All year I have tried to make a habit of getting up at the same time every morning – but it’s not working. I did very little today. This evening I shared at the gay meeting in Soho about my latest week from hell. I felt a little better for a while afterwards. But it is my belly button birthday this weekend and I had planned to go out after tonight’s meeting with AA friends, which I wasn’t looking forward to at all. I was actually dreading it because I knew very few would show up. Many of those invited had come up with excuses about being too ill or busy. In the end only three of us were there. We sat in a bar drinking coke for half an hour before heading home. It wasn’t the worst night out I’ve ever experienced - thank God I wasn’t drunk – but over all it felt pretty pointless. I hardly had the money to enjoy myself and there was no one there to really enjoy myself with.

 I wish I hadn’t done anything for my birthday this year. For a long time I wasn’t going to. I only decided to have this night out pretty late in the day because people kept saying I should do it. In recovery I’ve prided myself on not caring how many people turn up to my occasional social events – when it was my first sober anniversary I was happy to just have eight people there at the restaurant. I thought I had got past this longing for popularity, but tonight has shown that a part of me still craves it. Last year’s birthday was so much better, although it felt awful at the time. I hate myself for feeling this way! At least I have two friends who were willing to show up tonight! But it’s just one shitty thing in a long line of shitty things to have happened this week that makes me want to cut my wrists right now.

 I keep thinking about last night, when I cried in the bathroom because I suddenly felt trapped in my life. It’s not just this flat that I’m trapped in, though that is a big part of it. It’s this horrible, pointless, meandering from day to day lifestyle that I am trapped in. I have no reason to get up every day, let’s face it! I can’t stand that I have so little money that I have to walk everywhere in the pouring rain. I can’t stand that I can’t afford food when I go out to meet friends. I hate that no one will give me a job, despite me pushing myself every day to find one. I hate living here in this fucking council flat, with a needy passive aggressive mother who throws a tantrum every time I try to set a boundary. I’m sick of my fucking life. Sometimes I just wonder what the point of carrying on is. I’m stuck, and I can’t see a way out. It’s no use trying to comfort myself with the possibility that I might find a job eventually, because I need a job right now. I can’t wait any longer, but the way things are I might have to wait another year. And by then I seriously think I might have killed myself.

 I’m not being over dramatic or self pitying, I am being brutally honest about how I feel. The truth is that I have absolutely no belief in myself. I can’t believe that I am capable of getting myself out of this mess. I still need the world to help me. I’m still waiting for someone to come in and wave a magic wand and take all of my problems away. I know that is never going to happen, I’m not fucking stupid. But the things I need to do to get better and to turn my life around are just so excruciatingly hard. I’m tired of fighting to survive every day. If I had the choice I’d go to bed and stay there forever, I really would. All the effort I’ve made, everything I’ve ever done has come to nothing. Look at me! I’m 26 years old, living at home, no money, no real achievements, no security, nothing to live for. I’m stuck, stuck, stuck and I don’t want to go on any more.

 I’ve been so angry all day, I really wanted to hit someone or punch something earlier. I was furious with my mother for throwing pots and pans about in the kitchen this morning to try and force me to get up. But then in the evening I found myself doing the same thing, while she lay in bed claiming to still be ill. We have a really bad effect on each other when we’re like this. There is so much anger and pain in this flat, I need to get out right now, but there is nowhere to go. I have to stay. Last night when I was sobbing in the bathroom and begging God to take me away from here, I was haunted by the image of my fifty year old self still living here, looking after my eighty year old mother who has never let go of me. I don’t want to be here when I’m fifty. I’d rather be dead than spend another twenty five years in this hole!

 I need help, but I’m running out of people to ask. No one I’ve spoken to has got any real advice to give me, other than the old chestnut ‘keep going’. I only have two choices: to give up and stop or keep going. Neither is particularly appealing to me. This situation has nothing to do with alcohol; I’m so far away from drink now that it doesn’t even really seem like an option. Not that I could afford to drink tonight anyway, but I know it would make everything a million times worse. I couldn’t get away with another drink. Tomorrow there would be absolute hell to pay. That doesn’t mean that everything is rosy and wonderful in sobriety today. My life remains as bad as it was eight years ago when I felt just as trapped as I do now. And I don’t know what to do. I just don’t know what to do. I can’t think of a single AA cliché that seems to be useful at the moment. I want to get away from this place so badly it hurts, and I can’t, and that makes it hurt more. I asked God for help last night, and it hasn’t come. Is this really where I am meant to be? Am I just an ungrateful jerk who needs to accept what he’s got? Oh, but I wouldn’t feel this way if I really was meant to be here. I know how I feel now and my life needs to change dramatically. I need to get out of here. But how?

Crying

I don’t know if it has been a good week or not. I’ve certainly had a lot to deal with; there has been pain and joy in equal measures. Tuesday was the worst day of the year, when I found out that the bank had applied yet more penalty charges to my account and I was in even greater trouble than I had thought. I’m sinking further into debt and it seems incredibly unfair, and so I decided to go down the road to see if anyone at my local branch would be interested in helping me. I was seen very quickly by one of the junior managers, who agreed that the charges seemed severe and gave me a number to ring. I rushed home to ring it, and to begin with the call seemed to be quite a success, as I got hold of an operator having a good day, who had all manner of suggestions for me, culminating in one that might take me out of debt once and for all. It would have involved them giving me a consolidating loan to pay off the overdraft and all my other debts – the sound of taking out a loan initially seems scary and possibly insane, but the operator was sure that he could get reasonable, affordable terms for me.

 He said he needed five minutes to work out the exact terms, and so I put the phone down and waited for him to call back. Half an hour later, he still hadn’t called and I was absolutely desperate for the phone to ring. It had felt like I was finally getting somewhere with my problems. I hadn’t expected anything to come from my decision to complain that day, and to find someone at the bank who seemed to want to help was wonderful. I called them up after half an hour and was instantly disappointed to hear the voice of a different operator who didn’t sound anywhere near as sympathetic. I managed to talk him into considering the loan option which the previous operator had been so keen on; he put me on hold for twenty minutes while he considered his own terms, before coming back to me with the news that my application was unsuccessful because I am not in employment.

 It doesn’t annoy me that they turned me down in the end – it annoys me that for nearly an hour I was led to believe that there might be a way out of this rut. Whoever that first operator was, I wish to God I could get hold of him again and persuade him to take up my case, but I didn’t catch his name when I spoke to him, so I imagine we’ll never speak again. So here I will remain, hopelessly in debt to the bank, losing nearly all my unemployment benefit to overdraft charges. It’s not the only thing getting me down this week.

 I saw Gareth again last night. We had a lovely night; everything was absolutely perfect. I headed to his place out in Hertfordshire and we shared pizza in front of a lovely, warm fire whilst watching the cat hilariously play with an elastic band. It was my favourite night of the year. I felt spiritually nourished by it because everything was just so nice: the company, the atmosphere, the feelings. Gareth and I couldn’t keep our hands off each other as usual, and once again we didn’t get much sleep. To wake up in his arms this morning was even more beautiful than before. He allowed me to sleep in while he went off to work early, which was nice, and he even lent me his travelcard so I could get home because I didn’t have any money to put on mine. He’s the perfect gentleman, in every sense of the word, and he’s also stunningly attractive. I still can’t believe he’s interested in me!

 I am partly serious when I say that. I’ve never been desired by such a person before; no man who I’ve ever wanted has wanted me in exactly the same way. Over and over again he tells me I’m beautiful, amazing, gorgeous, and I want to say precisely the same things to him, because I mean them. I’m absolutely sure that Gareth means it too, but whether he will want to continue seeing me in the long run is anyone’s guess. Once he gets to know me, what I’m really like, surely he’ll be inclined to back off? The vast majority of men are, in the end. It’s sad but true.

 I just can’t bring myself to trust that this one might actually work out. I shouldn’t be so desperate for it to become anything more than a casual fling, because as far as my sponsor and everyone else in the program is concerned, I’m not ‘looking’ for a long term relationship any more. My mind has been opened this year to the possibility that I don’t need one man to save me. I could have several men. If someone should choose to cut ties with me, like Martin did, it shouldn’t be important because I don’t need anyone. But in my heart, I am starting to need to be loved again. I can feel that desperate need to be rescued creeping up on me, like it always does, because things are developing past the point of casual sex with Gareth, and I am beginning to like him.

 I really don’t want this to happen to me, but I have no control over it. And when I’m with him, lying in his arms and looking at his beautiful green eyes, it’s rather nice to feel that love which I’m not supposed to be feeling. After just a week, I want to tell him that I love him! How can it be!? People don’t fall in love in the space of a week, do they? Well, I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been here before.

 As I’ve said many times, nothing like this has ever happened before. I’ve never actually slept with a man who I also wanted to be with emotionally. I know I want to keep seeing Gareth, to get to know him and to become part of his life, and I can’t stop myself from wanting that. But what if he ends up feeling differently? He could turn around tomorrow and tell me he’s lost interest, which is entirely possible because it’s what men do sometimes. And then I’d be left alone again, heartbroken because yet again I allowed myself to become vulnerable with someone who didn’t deserve it. How can I not be vulnerable, though? In all that time I’ve spent with Gareth this week, it would have been impossible not to invest some emotion in him. I wouldn’t just go all the way to Hertfordshire for anyone.

 I was upset most of today as I had no money to send Gareth a text message to let him know that I was on my way home. He had asked me to let him know when I would be leaving his house; by the evening he might have thought I was ignoring him when the truth is that I’m too broke to afford one meagre little text message. I travelled home almost in tears, and then when I got here I found my mum in bed instead of at work, claiming to be sick. Which sent me over the edge – it was not what I needed today.

 There have been a number of situations in my sobriety that have summed up everything wrong with my life, and today has been full of those situations. The inability to send a text message; my mother being ill in bed, dependent on me for practically everything. I am incredibly sad right now because when my mother is not all right, which is quite often, I can’t feel all right myself. I become the helpless toddler once more, left to fend for myself while she is absent and recovering. In reality I haven’t been a toddler for over two decades, but in my head I still am! Her being ill on occasions like this brings me back to the past, to my childhood, and I hate it. Coming back to a home where you have someone lying in bed, claiming to be dying of flu when they’re probably not, is not nice for anyone at the best of times. I have to come back to this on a regular basis.

 I hate myself for complaining, when I really should be grateful to my mother for everything that she’s done for me. The adult part of me is grateful, it really is. But the child in me is strong; so strong that I had to run a bath tonight just so I could sit in the bathroom and cry. I needed the sound of my tears to be drowned out by the running water because I couldn’t let my mother hear me. She doesn’t deal well with me being upset, especially when she is apparently sick.

 I was crying tonight because I could see the rest of my life panning out in much the same fashion. Through the tears I repeatedly begged God to take me away from this place, which made me cry harder. I’ve been stuck in this small flat all my life, and there is just as little chance of me escaping now as there was ten years ago. I feel trapped here, and it is at the root of all my problems. Unless I get a job, I will continue to be trapped here, and it’s not nice here. Gareth’s house is nice, which is why my evenings with him tend to pass by rather like pleasant dreams. They’re the kind of evenings I used to dream about. To actually experience that kind of thing now is lovely, but when I have to come back here on the evenings in between I just end up feeling worse, because those lovely experiences are not really mine. They belong to men like Gareth, who have all the power when it comes to deciding whether I can have the experience or not. If Gareth hadn’t invited me to Hertfordshire then I wouldn’t have experienced last night, it’s as simple as that. I don’t live the sort of life yet where I can spontaneously enjoy myself in a comfortable, pleasant space like that. It always has to be planned and waited for. If I had my own place, then I guess the comfort and pleasantness which I felt last night would easily become more of a permanent thing in my life. At the moment, such occasions are few and far between, because I have no job, no money and no future.

 Everyone keeps saying things like ‘it will happen when it happens’, which doesn’t help at all because I’m so stuck right now it hurts. It’s like I’ve woken up from a four year slumber and I’ve suddenly realised how much I hate my life. Though there are great things in my life today thanks to the fellowship, they won’t be enough until I have my own space. I guess it’s thanks to the program that I have finally realised what needs to change in my life. For four years I have tolerated being back at home – for four years I thought I was growing to like it. But I will never like it here, that is a fact. Not just because my relationship with my mother is toxically co-dependent. It is not a nice area; I don’t like the people around here. I don’t feel safe here. And I really need to feel safe to be happy. But none of that can happen until I get a job, and finding employment is the one thing I have no control over at the moment! I’m doing all I can, and nothing is turning up.

 For a very long time I wasn’t ready for work, I know I wasn’t. It has taken this week to bring me to my knees and make me realise that I need to be ready. God isn’t going to put work my way until I really am ready. When that finally happens, it will be like walking into one of those dreams where I return to school. For ten years I have had the same dream; recently I’ve been haunted by it much more than usual. It’s always the same: I get there only to find that I hate school as much as I ever did and I want to leave. When I go to work, I’ll hate it in exactly the same way and I will want to leave. But I can’t leave. I can’t run away from that fear any more. I need to finally face the world and be a part of it. I cannot be weak and helpless any more, even though in my heart I feel I am. So this is where my recovery really begins, right here. The first year was like a practise run, I suppose. I had the comforting security of a degree course at University to get me up in the mornings. Today, I don’t have that security net. It’s just me, and the world.