Week 29

Nightmares

Today I have been Sober for 29 weeks. 203 Days

Sobriety

Well, there ya fuckin’ go. Waltzed on past a milestone and didn’t even fuckin’ realise. I guess that speaks to where I am at with sobriety currently. By no means do I mean that I am cruising. I’ve just got a bit going on and frankly, I don’t really give a fuck about milestones. If anything I feel a bit of pressure from them.

That said, it’s pretty fuckin’ wild to think I have been sober for this long. More than 200 days. That’s insane on reflection. As I’ve said in the past, it’s one of those things that kind of feels like has only just begun, but in the same breath feels like I’ve been sober forever.

I just wish I could stop having these fucking nightmares! They’re not recurring, but they always have a similar theme. I am drinking somewhere. Always with people I know. Sometimes with people, I don’t know. Sometimes I’m doing drugs. Sometimes I’m not. But in every single one of them I’m carrying on, having a blast, then everything hits me all at once. I realize what I’ve done and I’m absolutely shattered. Like as though my world has just ended. Like, I am absolutely devastated. Distraught. I can’t believe what I have done. All this hard work, wasted!

I spoke to my psychologist about them. She told me that we don’t really know enough about dreams to know what they mean. She suggested I just let them go as stupid dreams and not pay them too much mind. There’s no point trying to figure them out because I’ll never be able to do so. So, me being me, I’m going to do exactly what she advised against, for my own sake. I’m going to try to figure out what the fuck these nightmares mean. I can’t help it. The fuckers have me by the balls and I think if I can figure out why they are happening, maybe they’ll stop. Even if I’m just telling myself a convenient lie. If it helps, it fuckin’ helps. so, here goes.

Sorry, Kate.

So the first and most obvious answer is fear. It makes sense for me to be having dreams or nightmares about the thing I seemingly fear the most, relapse. It makes sense because whilst conscious I do kind of believe that if I were to drink again then I would have failed. That all the work I have done up to this point would be wasted. I would be a failure. There are some pretty fuckin’ powerful negative words in there. Failed, failure, wasted time. None of which I’m overly keen to associate with myself at the moment. So this theory is a definite possibility.

I’ve had a few moments this week where I have felt like it would be nice to have a drink. I wouldn’t call them strong urges. Just that warm, sunny arvo feeling that lends itself so well to the idea of having a drink. I’m still struggling occasionally with accepting that I may never drink again too. Just that same old thing where I reminisce about a time I was having a blast while drinking and thinking, “I’ll never get to feel like that again”. I’m also having moments where my brain tries to convince me that I’m ready to have a drink. I’ll be okay if I just have a few. Of course, you fuckin’ would, but you can’t do that, idiot!

So what does this have to do with the nightmares, or dreams, or nightmares…?

Well, my theory is that drinking is the coping mechanism my brain finds the easiest to access.

I’m starting to get into some pretty deep work with my psychologist. The stuff I’ve been avoiding for a long time. It’s hard. A lot of it goes on in your subconscious too. It might sound odd, but I am actually really glad that I waited until roughly five months of sobriety before reconnecting with my psych. I think if I had tried to do this work when I was freshly sober I would have either drank again or walked away from my psych. The two would have been too hard to do hand in hand. So I am not surprised really that I am having these little moments and dreams that I’ve been having.

I think it’s because for so long, I just drank about everything. Good stuff, bad stuff, sad stuff, whatever stuff. I would just drink to either enjoy a positive emotion more or suppress a negative emotion. I think now that I have removed that, I kind of don’t have an automatic solution for negative thoughts and emotions. Which is a good thing, because I need to learn to deal with them properly. But I think my brain, particularly lately, has been screaming out for a beer because it’s trying to process all of these thoughts and emotions that have been pushed back for so long and it’s just come to know alcohol as the easiest and most readily available coping mechanism. So you take that away, focus on just not drinking for some time and feel okay about it. You get comfortable with that and decide you’re ready to take on the psychological issues that drive you to drink. The problem is, you haven’t tackled these before while sober. Sometimes when you open a can of worms like this you don’t really have control over how many worms come out at any given time. Sometimes it’s manageable. Other times it’s overwhelming. It’s when you’re stuck in that overwhelm where I think the brain thinks to itself, “fuck this, this is all too much for me. There’s only one way I know how to cope with this much bullshit all at once and that’s bu drinking”.

I think that’s why I’ve been struggling a little bit lately. I think that’s why the dreams have been a little more frequent. What I’m working through is significant and it makes sense that my brain is seeking the thing it’s relied on the most in similar circumstances in the past. It makes sense. A lot of people in recovery talk about how they are at the highest risk of relapse during stressful times.

In a sense, I’m glad I’m going through this at the moment. Why? Because I have to get good at it. If I want to remain sober, I need to get comfortable with the idea that I’m going to have temptation all throughout my life, particularly in high-stress times. No one cruises along in life without any form of stress at all. So I just have to get good at it. this is an opportunity to practice navigating my way through a tough time and grow the muscle that refuses to cave into my brain that wants to take the easy way out. That’s not where I’m going to find the golden nuggets I’m looking for.

It’s also given me a greater appreciation and understanding of how and why people relapse. I’m guilty of being naive enough to wonder how people can be clean or sober for such a long period of time and then somehow relapse. This experience though has helped me become more empathetic toward people who struggle in recovery and ultimately relapse.

So yeah, this fucking sucks, but I’m grateful for it. I’m grateful to be presented with the opportunity to learn and grow from a tough experience. Tough times create tough people. Not if, but when I get through this, I will be all the better for it and next time I have a similar experience I’ll be familiar with the feeling and know that I have been through it before. Things are always easier the second time around.

I think the dreams are just indicative of where I am at the moment. I don’t really believe in the woo-woo bullshit around dreams. But maybe they’re telling me that I need to work on alternate coping mechanisms or I could wind up in the state I am in those dreams. Drunk initially, then fucking inconsolably sad. I see it as a little bit of a warning sign. Develop some alternate coping methods, dick head. Or you’ll end up in a stranger’s kitchen at 5 am talking about shit you don’t know anything about, like Peruvian politics and ultimately undoing this hard work and psychological progress you’ve made.

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The Pandover

A while ago I wrote The Pando Paradox about my beautiful big boy Pando and the dramas I had been having with him. We made the very difficult decision to re-home him. A little over a week ago a lovely young lady got in touch with us asking a million questions about him. We organised to meet with her on Sunday to meet Pando and potentially take him home. She sent us a message every single day asking if we were still okay to meet with her on Sunday. We looked through her Facebook page to see what kind of person she was, not because we’re psychos, we just wanted to make sure that if she took Panbo he would be okay. Her page was littered with pictures of her with other large dogs. It was clear she loved dogs, particularly big ones. So on Sunday afternoon we went to meet the girl and her family with Pando and drove back home without him.

I was fucking shattered. I thought I would have been able to handle it better than I did. But I cried uncontrollably like a baby. I was just so fucking sad. Since I’ve been doing this work with my psychologist and been encouraged to feel and express emotions that I’m uncomfortable with, I’ve found myself crying a little more often than I care to admit. Crying though is necessary. Our bodies are capable of doing it because we have to.

Like every other time I’ve been upset, I needed to know why, straight away. Why the fuck am I crying? Why am I upset? Logically, this is the best result for everybody. Pando is going to get the love and attention he needs. His life will be better than what we are presently able to provide him. At home, my plate has just been too fucking full, and not having to stress about him jumping the fence or spending more money trying to dog-proof the yard will be good for me too. It also gives us a little more freedom to travel back to Canberra or anywhere for that matter without having to worry about having two big dogs that need to be cared for. Something we probably didn’t pay enough mind to when deciding to move two hours away from our support network when having a baby. She has even sent us photo’s of Pando since and both he and her look extremely happy.

Despite all this, I was and am still sad. Trying to figure out why or understand my sadness is something I have always done. It’s as though if I can justify it to myself, it’s okay. I ran all the possibilities through my head. Like a fuckin’ emotionless computer. Had I let him down? Had I let myself down? Was I incapable of looking after a fucking dog? Why am I crying over a dog at all?

As much as he drove me nuts in recent times, I fuckin’ love Pando and I had to voluntarily give him up because it was the best thing to do for all involved. Yeah, I feel like I have let him down a little bit, but I saved him from the pound, I put everything I could into him, including thousands of dollars in vet bills after he fought with a colourbond fence and more money again dog p[roofing the yard. Even though I did all that I could I just couldn’t do enough and this was the right thing to do.

Then it dawned on me. I’m sad because it’s just fuckin’ sad. Sometimes, the right thing to do will make you sad and it’s fucking hard to accept that. For my entire life, I have been trying to avoid feeling sad or trying to justify my sadness with an explanation. This time though, I told myself it’s just fuckin’ sad. So whenever I think of the big fella, fuck yeah I’m going to be sad, and I’ll let myself be sad. I’ll let myself feel that sadness for a while and then remind myself that we did what was best for all involved. As much as it fucking sucked, the whole thing, maybe a small silver lining is that I can see progress right in front of my eyes. I need to allow myself to just feel these negative feelings for what they are. I’m never going to feel fully present or truly happy until I allow myself to feel all things, even the negative. I think this is a perfect example of the progression I’m making through the work I’m doing with my psychologist and I’m grateful to Pando for teaching me this.

Thanks for everything, big fella. everything. But especially this parting lesson, You’ve helped me more than you'll ever know. I’ll miss ya and I’ll love ya forever.

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Strong Finish

That last one fucked me up a little and I don’t want to finish on that note. So here’s a positive yarn for ya’s. A boss of mine once told me that when delivering a pre-start meeting to the boys, ALWAYS finish on a positive. Even if they have fucked up badly and you need to tear shreds, ALWAYS finish on a positive. It sets the mood for the day. I’m going to try to apply that sentiment to these blogs. I feel like it’s easier to allow myself to talk about dark or heavy shit, as long as I finish on a positive, which is comforting for me. So here’s a little feel-good tale. Probably more for me than anyone else.

I participated in The Canberra Times Fun Run Arthur (half-marathon) on Sunday morning. Anyone who’s been following me knows the last three months of running for me have been a fucking nightmare with this piece of shit asshole back issue I’ve been having.

I’ve tried to implement 100 million different fucking things to help alleviate the issue and finally, something has started to work. About a fortnight ago I just seemed to really turn a corner with it and had some pretty dramatic improvement. I’m not sure what it was but I am just so fucking stoked that I seem to be back and able to run relatively freely without too much pain at all.

I had a couple of good runs last week and the week before that gave me the confidence that if I had a good day I could run the Arthur in under an hour and 45 minutes.

So, I got up at 3 am and drove to Canberra. Did some stretches and massage gun stuff in the car park, went over for the 6:30 am start, caught up with some of the R4R legends, and then off we went. I found Benny A early in the piece and we ran together for probably 17 k’s until I had some bathroom dramas.

I felt really good. I ended up running my second fastest in terms of moving time.

My moving time was 5 minutes quicker than my goal. I honestly didn’t even think I was capable of sub1:45 let alone sub1:40. So basically, I am fucking stoked. I am excited. I am keen to run more. After my temporary break up with running, it feels good to be running well again and to have the desire to run again.

Operation Mara PB is in full swing. April ‘23 in Canberra, Lessgo!

Cheers Wankers.

X.

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