reasons to drink. not very good ones.

having consumed one drink on not dry January 6th and now on my second and so far damned again it's easier to carry on than stop, i think of why i drink:

• the self is infinitely more interesting once it has consumed a drink 
• the self allows itself to be selfish once having had a drink and other concerns fade away, like bedtimes.
• the resolve is weakened and the self allows the self to be weakened at the expense of other more mind rewarding things like reading fabulous books or making children laugh
• the self atones the self for shitty addiction
• the self wallows in humorous self pity and comes up with multiple reasons for continuing in the same vein as the self is powerless it tells the self. 
• the self says maybe tomorrow you can get back on the straight and narrow and ultimately rewarding
•  the self is fucked. 

nearly dry January 6th

the more i decide not to drink, the more its pull grows.
I managed to get through the entire evening with aching teeth (ew) irritating feelings of annoyance and general distemper.
I read my books, i read to my children, i made supper and got the daughter to bed without a single drop.
Then at the stroke of nine pm (3 hours later than usual) i cracked open a cold can of beer.
i feel slightly defeated that i can't even manage one damn day.
i logged on to blogs in general of abstainers and the more i read of how wonderful they feel, the more wretched i began to feel.
is the beer making me feel better?
not really, though i think it sort of represents closure for me of another day.
the reasons i wish to stop drinking...

• to treat the week in a business like fashion up on time and in bed on time (a routine)
• to reduce groggy hellish hungover mornings 
• to reduce earth shattering tiredness during the day
• to improve health - skin and body and inner bits i can't see
• to be more present with my children 
• to find proper purpose for living 
• to live without alcohol
• to face life without this damn drug
• to live

and yet, here i am glass of cold alluring beer diminishing beside me. 

moderation moderation moderation.

perhaps if i can utterly reduce the nights i crawl to my pillow in oblivion then i may start recovering from this blight. 

i can allow two pints of beer and then bed.

but you see, i think i am desperately miserable and the gulping down of slightly sweet yeasty beer seems to stifle the discontent and sense of self failure. 

and yet i deeply don't want to go there completely which would explain the night time issue.

i am all to well aware of the hundreds of thousands of drinkers especially mums who see the night form 6 pm stretching off into miserable awareness of nothingness. 

yes there are board games and stories to be read, books to read and films to watch, but somehow after the grime and grit of another day, sipping or swallowing an alcoholic beverage seems to be the only thing that satisfies emotional and almost physical misery.

and now as i finish that first can and reach for my second, the dreadful cruel shit heap of self pity reaches out its devilish hand to wrap its claws around my shoulders and comfort me. 

'bad mother' it suggests, then 'no of course not dear, you are struggling...' try harder' it calls. 'but no, you can't try any harder. it's too hard, isn't it my dear...' 

how can i possibly go to bed now? i think. two beers and i am still sober. i will have to be alive while i go off to the land of sleep. i can't face that.... knowing i am losing consciousness.... 

oh fuck. does it really matter. you've done it before, woken up feeling like road kill and dragging your body through the day till eventually till it feels ok again. you can do it again, and again. 

shit shit shit. 

 

Dry January! God help us all.

Can I please blame my children for my desire to drink? That and other members of my family, Please?
I have left the comfort of my bed to heat up some pre mulled wine left over from a very fast and now receding Christmas period of festivity (it's all the alcohol I have left!). I have, in post Christmas resolution, started reading Ackroyd's history of England, London etc to improve my mind and harpoon my interests, however, it is thirty minutes past eleven night time and still the little child like harpies festoon the sleeping quarters and deprive me of peace.

Dry January. God Help us all. I may yet be a useless parent, my children should now be wrapped in cloths and sleeping but my powers are clearly minimal and the little vikings do stop me from altering the course of my ways. They sleep till 11 am and retire 12 hours later or more.

 I will drink this wine then try again, and I hope that by Sunday night, I can sleep without need of alcohol. I plan to visit my doctor and profess that in giving up drink that I need Valium or some such potion to curtail my desire to obliviate myself.

They have of course followed me and pester me, though when I tried to sleep they played.
God help me 2014.

In the words of my little one at my arm right now 'mummy, i want a drink!'

God help me, so do I.

On the Morrow I will wake them early and tire them all day then I will sink to sleep with them at nine hopefully avoiding drink and wake up fresh on Monday, back to school, hangover free with redeemed children.

movements of the universe.

Given the title of this blog, the contents will probably be unremarkable, however I want to try and write down how I am feeling.
Today I woke up before 7 AM and I got up and made a cup of tea and I was in a good mood.
Now for me this is remarkable because often I wake up and don't even know I have a mood; I struggle to get things done and drag myself and the kids out of the door in a rush to get to school and thus begin the day.

To be frank, since the age of 16, I have felt a shimmer of horror when I have a happy mood as somehow my personality has always seen it as one of those blistering dazzling clouds you see sometimes which is illuminated against a darker almost thunderous backdrop of grey, and I have awaited the equal low that has always threatened to rear its' head in the moments or days afterwards.
My moods have always been black or white and grey is deeply unpleasant as it would mean flat.
so my life and day to day movements has often been dictated by how the weather is within me.

Today it was like an eclipse; a total eclipse, where suddenly everything came together in a moment of perfect unison; the peace was almost heavenly, as if this was the alternative reality that exists within the present reality but which cannot always be accessed. Maybe like Plato's caves and shadows, I was no longer a shadow but the solid figure creating the shadows. I was out of the cave.

With no real reference to any current self help guides, but echoing that, I felt grateful. (don't want to be cringy, but) grateful for what I have. A roof over our heads, just enough money to get by. Most amazing children, friends, family and acquaintances and my world hitherto cramped and squalid and dirty and cold seemed comfortable, wonderful , in fact, privileged.

Like an eclipse, it felt as if I too had come from the shadows to inhabit my own body, so one heart was beating within me instead of many beating hearts of all the different mes that come to rise throughout the day if that makes sense.

Anyway I am afraid I cannot articulate further now about this, but i suppose I will watch this space.

Does it rain in the waste land?

when i wake up and go out at five in the morning and it is raining, i feel happy and it feels like fairies are kissing my face. now in the pitch dark of night it is raining and while my house sleeps and everyone in it but i, the rain is like a constant friend who patters down with solidarity.
i cannot sleep though i did at ten but my insomniac little two year old woke me with needs for 'drink mummy' to which i dragged my wretched body to supply him with such then never recovered to sleep and instead made a reluctant return to the facebook planet and deleted 20,000 emails from an account i hardly use but still do occasionally.

i am in the recovery room from a good three weeks of depression.
i tell you, i have only just accepted that i suffer from this blight.
so far i have excused it away but i now gladly and fully recognize the strength of it ...... it's like a slow tidal wave slowly and ever so surely dragging you down to the salty and unoxygenated depths to taunt you with tombstones and futility, regret and failure.

i have suffered with this since i was a child though i can't now put my finger on what age.

a sister in a recent fall out described me as having always been -damn i can't remember the word, but is is damn unflattering- like basically a miserable witch- but i sort of realised in this time that actually i have been battling depression most of my life and when i am a miserable witch, it is usually because i am struggling with a thousand voices clamoring in my head.

i wanted to write when i was depressed just to give voice to the black treacle like invisible vapour that engulfed me with an irrational and unreasonable hatred of this life but i couldn't bring myself to go near a computer so i just dragged through each day making sure my children were fed and clothed and schooled.
i couldn't summon a smile for any one and saw this as an unnecessary exertion of vital energy, which i still feel is correct. having been always a smiler, i do now believe smiling should be for special occasions.

i am trying to think of the word she used to describe me to me, so rather than think, i will type my way to it, its like grimy....mangy ....moany....miserable....whingy.....groany....i can't find it! erm, it's there, on the tip of my tongue, on the outer layer of some part of my brain, whore...no that's not it , but connotations are valid,...... you have always been a ......grangey.....manky, no......ok. thats it a 'rude cranky bitch'

now, i don't think i like to hold grudges as these are horrid little bricks to carry round. but actually i find it hard to let these words, so articulate and specific, go. i think i may have said 'why do you have to be so perfect all the time?' and this was one of the responses i got,....'run around and hide behind service to others so you can excuse being a rude cranky bitch all your life'

anyway that told me!! i have spent much of my life trying  not to be a rude cranky bitch so sorry sis if you got the brunt of it.

any how to return to matters of interest i lost my big sis, our big sis, and now it's me and then my three younger sis's and it's odd not having my big sis there as a buffer, another sister from what i see as the same sides of the track to me. the same bedroom, the same dancing classes, the same kitchen in the same place we grew up. wasn't perfect, but it was.

sisters can be strange things. other women who we are related to by amazing chance and yet not often any real connection. a lonely thing sometimes.

Anyhows. Rant over.the rain is still falling opinionatedly outside my back door into the black garden. the night is old and tomorrow is another day.
thankyou dear ether for absorbing the innards of my brain.

I do exist,
as do we all.
tiny wheels in the cog of this perception
Each shouting dreams or insisting on our position in this crowded place.
It rains
as it will forever more
for all we know.
does it rain in the waste land?

Just another episode

This is the place I come to when I can no longer look on the Bright Side. When I wonder how it can all be so shit sometimes.
Where do I begin?
This is the place I come to when all my plans to write fizzle out and I can suddenly write and yet all I can write is of the misery.
This isn't head stuff, emo stuff, it's life stuff, family stuff that just makes me feel pretty hopeless though surprisingly calm and quite pragmatic.
It is about a little girl of six who would like a violin for Christmas and who is so excited about Halloween and distant birthdays,becoming crying and scared because her teenage brother and his step dad come to near blows frequently and is she terrified the police will be called again by a concerned neighbour.
It is about a woman trying to keep a semblance of normality whilst simultaneously maintaining a dysfunctional aggravated relationship. It is about thinking her children would be better off adopted in a calm family who have space and calm and violin practice, and don't simply struggle to survive and keep up appearances.

I attended a course pre summer about positive thinking; a very effective course which has impacted well. However, the anger and swearing of the man in my life,  is too much to bear and he wonders why I don't want to cuddle with passion and love .....ew right now!

My son hates him most of the time. He hates his swearing and shouting and coarseness.
I cannot help but defend the coarse one. He is only like that when something upsets or does not please him.
But I need another point of view, a second opinion. I don't trust my judgement. Perhaps I am too forgiving, or perhaps I am just plain nasty and horrible and in fact hateful.
The voice of a victim?
Martyr- someone who silently radiates to the world how long suffering they are, how they do so much to help and support others whilst nothing for themselves.
Victim- someone who sees themselves at the mercy of others behaviors and actions and who is powerless to take action.
Mature- Someone who recognizes the reality of the situation and seeks to alter it for better, to take control and recognize their  responsibility and make decisions and choices for one's own life.

So anyway. She, the little one fell asleep on the sofa beside me as she was upset and it was late, and the swearing and confrontation and slamming doors and stamping up and down the stairs was too much for her.
I now don't intervene too much, especially not with anger, as that would make three of us. I will chastise, and for some reason(as I grew up with confrontation, and Jesus-turning-the- table's kind of self righteous and morally justified anger), I can only calmly (something thoroughly rejected in my upbringing) point out how I see the behavior as wrong, and point out how it is hurtful etc. I genuinely don't see hitting, or swearing, or shouting as effective means of behavior control, and yet my home has these things (minus the hitting) frequently.

I did however become a little involved eventually. As i sat down, after a long day working, to watch an episode of Downton Abbey the argument began in the kitchen.
I didn't jump up and get involved. I like to let them work it out for themselves.
So, it proceeds: some affirmative adult male swearing and raised voice of disbelief and disgust...e.g 'you can't fucking do that, give it back to her.'
At this point my teenage son enters the room I am sitting in- on the sofa facing the TV, as you do- He is holding a pen that his little sister had been using in the kitchen where she did her homework along side her daddy who was half helping her and half watching rugby. "----" I exclaim (actually!) 'What are you doing, ---- was using that pen to do her homework, why are you being mean to her? Thats out of order, give her pen back to her'. He answers, 'I'ts my pen, I only need it for a second' (i had recently asked him to note down some info foe me regarding his failing bus pass) as he rushes around looking for another to give to her'.

Yes, i say, but she is using it, (it is an insignificant Biro) I say some more about how this is not correct etc...more informal though than that.
At this point, adult male enters the room and says something like 'i know where you get your f...ing behavior from... you fucking...blah type stuff...fu...ing outrageous....not paying for any of you any more....wont pay rent....' it all jumbles up for me. He leaves the area and I repeat to son that his sister is working hard on her homework etc etc...out of order etc.
Anyways, some further things ensue. Little girl comes through crying bitterly and I say to lie down next to me. Some tramping up and down stairs and shouts of teenager 'get out of my fucking room now....over and over. Little girl crying and scared....running to say 'it's ok daddy I have a pen now' at this point she is terrified of police being called. I say stay with me, and I think I go upstairs to see what is going on. Adult male storms down the stairs past me. Words are bandied about like 'hes a cunt, needs to move out, wont pay rent till he's out...when he is 18 i will knock him out...someone will knock you out...i hate you and your fucking son....' as he passes and this bile billows from his mouth . I react with 'shut up.' How else can I respond. I don't appreciate this method of dealing with family issues.
As I write this I feel awful that this hardly shocks me....it only makes me cold to adult male, and more caring and patient towards my son. I wonder why I am here with this? Who do I blame? What do I condone? Is it because of the emotional horrors and violent outbursts I have witnessed through my life that I can explain this away or come to live with it?

So I reiterate to son that this was wrong taking the pen. Trying to show some support for adult male despite his rocketing off the handle and all-guns -a -blazing shooting out profanities, stomping and shouting his head off at the first sign of something he disproves of. Son stays in his room angry. Like a smoking gun.

As little she calms and is OK, I say...did he snatch the pen from you without asking? This is the first moment I've had to establish what happened.
No he asked me lots and said please please please ...
oh, he did ask then?
yes, but daddy said no as I was doing my homework.
oh, so daddy interfered, I thought, not quite as justifiable as he gave the impression my son just snatched it,. while i would agree that despite nice requests that doesn't make the requestee obliged to acquiesce. However, I thought, why could adult male not just let little she work it out for herself, make up her own mind?
At this new discovery I briefly leave the room to tell adult male that  had no idea that teenager had asked and said please a few times.
Yes but it's not right, its out of order. You are teaching ---little she-- that it is OK to snatch etc etc.
In retrospect now I wonder why he couldn't just encourage her to lend him the pen for a moment or at least calmly chastise him ...ultimately its a small blip, the teenager was not dope smoking or swearing at anyone.......

After some more massive outpouring at me about my dreadful hateful son I tell adult male that he is a shit role model and that my son understandably hates him.

I return to watching  Downton Abbey and little she lies on the sofa wrapped in a puffy duvet and looking tired and tearstained.

Enters adult male to remove the lead from the TV and leave the room. I sit nicely for five minutes not too fussed.
Adult male returns and says he will now punish me every time my son is bad or something to that effect.
I iterate that this is not a punishment as I rarely watch television anyway.
He returns to watch the sport in the kitchen.

About five minutes later I feel aggrieved suddenly as was enjoying Downton Abbey. I enter the kitchen and ask for the lead. No he says. So I remove the iPad that he is watching and walk away with it as he tells me to give it back walking after me. I place it on the floor and put my foot on top of it lightly and say that if he doesn't return the TV lead I will smash it to pieces. I feel I have nothing to lose now.
My daughter comes to see and cries, 'no mummy'. He says 'look now you've made her upset'.
You started it I say. Give me the TV lead.
He calls me a name and gets the lead.
Plug it in too, I say (getting a little carried away)
No he says. I allow him to take the iPad.

More names describing me from his point of view, then he goes and leaves me alone.
I watch Downton Abbey to the end.
Teenage son comes down with a fossil for little she's show and tell.

She goes to sleep.
I go to bed upstairs with my 2 year old.
He sleeps in our bedoom.
Son sleeps in his own room.

a summary

gonna write down my little mess as need to get it off my head.
I have a headache in the back of my head,
i am taking part in a course designed to help you find your self esteem and become self empowered, take responsibility for your own actions and feelings not be a victim etc.
I have housework to do and this is what i feel like
'I don't want to do it, it depresses me and makes me tired. I have committed to having a friend over of my daughter tomorrow, but i don't feel like i will really be able to do it, i will be going through the motions and that is all.
I want to put a stop to my drinking, but all i can think of is sinking a bottle of wine and going to bed oblivious.
I have an important letter to write but i have no strength to write it and can't be bothered to any way.'
All of this says i am tired and i suppose i am thinking like a victim.
It says 'i can't'
My tutor told me to remove that mantra from my head and replace it.
not only i can't but i don't want to either.