Friday, May 2, 2014

Shit happens…(grumpy post)

The problem is shit happens.. big shit and little shit. Shitty Fridays and shitty Mondays and shitty any-day-you-like. Plans go awry, people say and do things that hurt or disrupt or concern or annoy. Sleep can be brief, bodies can be sluggish, eyes can be tired, feet can drag.

Kids can demand constantly and fight with each other all the time and whine and moan and scream and yell.

Workmates can tell boring stories or bring negative energy or sabotage plans or stuff up duties.

Family and friends can be overly opinionated or cause concern or sap energy or just be bloody thoughtless or mean.

Tradespeople can not turn up or turn up late...charge double or do a bad job. Service providers can fall short or fail to deliver. Things can break, leak, burn or bleed.

Shit. It happens all the time.

And we have these busy brains with this big cerebral cortex that keeps whirring away.. keeps us thinking and planning and wishing and projecting and fearing and worrying and … just endless whirring, whirring, whirring.

So it's natural that we want to escape. Just get away sometimes. This is why humans like to practice brain-bending… just to get away from all this shit that happens and general brain noise.

This is why alcohol works!!!! It takes us away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So it's Friday night and I'm grumpy. And my natural instinct as a human with a busy brain is to want to escape. But I can't escape because, you know, I'm a bloody alcoholic and don't touch booze because if I do I'm likely to fall back into a wine guzzling hell-hole that I don't want to be in.

Living sober means grinding through.. and going to bed early. That's all I can do.

Love, Mrs D xxx

10 comments:

  1. You grit your teeth and keep putting one foot in front of the other (or one foot into bed after the other!). And it truly sucks, and you yearn to be transported away from it all, by the Magic Travel Carpet (otherwise known as alcohol) to a place where none of it matters. And yet, you remember the aftermath of this magical escape, which creates far more suckiness on its own than the original pile of shit. And so, you don't. You let the waves of unhappiness, shit-iness, suck-iness wash over you, and pretty soon, they recede. (not soon enough for comfort, but soon enough that eventually you trust they will be leaving before too long).

    And then things look better again, and there is no painful aftermath of physical sequelae and psychological shame.

    Thanks for the reminder!

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  2. Hi Mrs. D,

    I haven't posted yet even though I've written you directly; I'm Jen with the friends who give me shit!!! You, your sobriety and your blogs have inspired me to keep going. I'm sorry when life is shit. Last night, I had the same "shit", and I thought what would the sober bloggers do...The Mrs. Ds, the Belles, the Rebeccas of the universe, and I knew they would say things like...you have to stop thinking of drinking as a reward or you need some self-care, or you need a break, but drinking isn't going to make the break better..so I tucked in the kids with kisses, grabbed a book and went to bed...and eventually, I relaxed.

    Thank you for all you do; I feel like you have made me see the everything good about not drinking...Thank you.

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  3. Yeah, husband phoned at lunchtime to say he'd had such a rubbish day he'd been told to go home. He was practically in tears. I suggested he went for a pint on the way to the bus. It'll be fine for him, he rarely considers drinking more than one (suppose he might tonight, but you get me). Anyway, it's going to be a fairly dismal evening I guess what with that as well as the usual traffic to negotiate and dinner to make. Still, I'll be a better more patient and pragmatic sounding board than if I'd bought a bottle of gin for us to drown his crap together. And I won't puke. All good. Hope tomorrow's better x

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  4. Living sober means grinding through.. and going to bed early. That's all I can do.

    YES. That's it. And, living sober is also sometimes called, life. Being a part of humanity. Welcome to the club! :)

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  5. This is genius, you are so insightful. This sentiment seems to be going around, must be something to that. At least it is nice to know we are not alone. Hope your tomorrow improves!

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  6. take you away for a short while and when you come back it is worse. all that said, really wanted a drink today. friday night's still hard. but over it now. chocolate was required. amy

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  7. Exactly why I drink/drank. To turn off or at least slow down the machine in my head.
    It is life, that's all it is. For better or for worse.
    Thanks for pointing this out to me. I'm on day 6. It feels good. But I always have to be reminded.

    Hope your day gets sunnier, physically and mentally!

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  8. So it's Friday night and I was grumpy too. And my natural instinct as a human with a busy brain is to want to escape, too. But I DID try to escape with wine, even though I have been trying not to touch booze. And now ... well, I'm teetering on that wine guzzling hell-hole of anxiety and dread and uncertainty. ... It's the uncertainty that I'm wrestling with today. Deciding Not To Drink gave me a plan. Deciding To Drink just gives me a hangover.

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  9. I felt like this too, yesterday. I just wanted to shut my thoughts OFF for awhile. So I went out for tacos, took a bath with relaxing essential oils, read a book and went to bed early. I am realizing that when I feel like this I desperately need self-care. And not the kind that comes in a bottle. Excellent and honest post, as always, Mrs D. xoxo

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  10. Great stuff, Mrs. D, there is not a person alive who can't relate! The most I can do when I'm feeling this way (and believe me, I just went through it myself when I stopped the smoking habit), is to remind myself that it will pass, and drinking is only going to worsen the already shitty situation... maybe not in the moment, but most assuredly when I wake up the next morning. So glad I finally got over to your blog, it's been ages! Hope the blah's have passed you by!

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