Starting All Over Again

It's tough to start all over. You get comfortable with where you are at. If you are one stricken with anxiety, alcoholism, addicted to cigarettes, panic, trepidation, and fear then you are almost implanted in that addictive cement that can sink you to your knees, leaving you helpless to where you just cant move.

My fingers have started to quiver, and shake as I write this, because it's me stepping out of my comfortable box. I think that I want to step on to a tight rope without a net. I want to spend the last of my money on one months rent! I would have another two months rent if I didn't do anything! Complacency is not an option. Complacency has ruined my life. Complacency, is just as evil as booze, cigarettes, or lack of will.

I am 37 years old and have let alcohol, complacency, and fear derail me from my dreams! Remove alcohol, complacency, and fear, where would I be? I would be right where EVERYONE of those who aren't alcoholics, DON'T WAIT, and AREN'T AFRAID are!! They are sitting in good jobs, vacations twice a year, and in loving families and homes!

I love alcoholics, and their pain soaks in to my fingers, body, and soul... Just can't give strength to that demon anymore. Please don't be complacent like I have. Live your dreams! Don't wait anymore!

Sometimes You Just Get Sad

You know you are smart and you know that you have something worthy to give to the world. Yet, your back in the same hole again. That's where I'm at yet again. Again... So much to say, and a thousand people to say that I'm less of a man.

I can dream, raise my hopes, and announce to the world that I can kiss the edge of time. Speaking to my inner soul is easier, when you don't have to answer to the questions that lie inside.

It makes me sad when I only allow myself to write a few words at certain moments in my life. Feelings, and moments are there, so readily available. I wish, that it was allowable. Allowable that my weakness's weren't so shunned.

Watched a movie two days ago. I related to it, and that too made me sad. John Travolta played the role of an Alcoholic living in the south. Once a proud professor, who lost himself in the bottle, which eventually took his life. It was a story of struggle, of triumph, and ultimately defeat. It's really hard when you keep writing your own epitaph. The title escapes me at the moment.. Curiosity suddenly consumed me and I just had to find it on the internet. It was called "A love song for Bobby Long"

I missed the first 20 minutes of the movie. I don't care however. It's probably better that way. I loved listening to Travolta say quotes from literary classic authors.. I enjoyed that. I enjoyed Scarlett Johanson (I have no idea how to spell her last name) be so wonderful. The other co-star was fabulous as well. It was a movie that actually had an ending that was nice and and a closing that I didn't have too many issues with :)

I actually want to go down to the "river" right now!! Not yesterday, but now! Bobby wanted to live... For a moment...

Finding Excuses To Drink Alcohol

The mind of an alcoholic can be very crafty, and quite the salesman. Your addicted body and brain will give you every reason and excuse imaginable to convince you to open up the bottle.

You've had a bad day at work, tomorrow is your day off, your fighting with your girlfriend/boyfriend, it's a Holiday, your "friends' asked you out to watch the ball game at the sports bar, etc.... The list goes on and on and on. The excuses that an alcoholic will make to rationalize or give validity to the "reasonable" decision to drink is endless.

I'll give you a few examples of some of the ridiculous excuses that I have made over the years. Whenever I have my daughter for the weekend (every other weekend visitation, since I'm divorced. Imagine that!), I always find the excuse to drink on the Thursday before so I won't have as much temptation to drink around my daughter during the weekend. I make sure that I get wasted enough on Thursday so I'll have a brutal hangover and won't even have the desire to drink for the weekend. I rationalize to myself, that I wouldn't be a good parent if she saw me drinking excessively so I might as well get trashed the day before that she comes over to the house.

I have managed to keep the vast majority of my alcoholism away from her for 13 years. So therefore, I tell myself that I'm a better parent if I don't drink when I'm around her. Two days of sobriety is manageable, although not entirely easy. The Sunday afternoons, the addiction comes back roaring strong telling me "Its almost time for some drinks my friend. Soon, you will be mine!"

Another excuse I make to drink alcohol, is going to events that I enjoy and have always associated alcohol with that particular event. Sporting events, concerts, bars (obviously), casinos, boating on the lake, or at least in my case just about any type of social event. I have always suffered from social anxiety, so deciding to medicate myself with alcohol was always an easy excuse to make.

Some people have such stressful lives at work, they use the excuse to drink daily as a way to "relax and unwind". What happens in the end however, is that their quality of sleep suffers, often they drink too much, and their stressful job gets even worse.

I remember the days of doing construction work throughout the hot and humid summer months. Nothing sounded better than having some cold beers after work. Just driving by the local bars in the area where you live (between 4-6 PM), you can certainly see that I'm not the only one that feels this way.

Everybody in this world has many hardships that come their way in their lives. The difference is "everybody" doesn't drink, or at least doesn't drink for the many reasons that an alcoholic does. Alcoholism makes you believe that it's your friend to help make the good times in your life even better, the stressful times less intense, and the sad times a little less painful.

An alcoholic can find an excuse to drink everyday of their lives, and to that alcoholic many of those will seem very rational. At times an alcoholic will know that the decisions that they are making are ruining their lives, but alcoholism leaves them powerless as they struggle aimlessly with their addiction.

Please feel free to add some of your own "excuses to drink" if you are an alcoholic, or some of the excuses that some of your friends and loved ones have made to encourage their own alcohol consumption.

Here is a great book that I have read about reversing the damage of alcoholism -
Eating for Recovery: The Essential Nutrition Plan to Reverse the Physical Damage of Alcoholism