My (very exciting) thoughts on drinking: >>>>Quitting drinking may explain why you are irritable, alcohol is a depressant, it depresses your nervous system, so if you quit you will be irritable for a while, but eventually you will get over it.<<<<
I know that's true, and it's what people say, and there are no exceptions, but I am.
There have been three periods of alcohol use in my life. Age 15 to 17, about 27 to 30, and about 40 to 45 1/2.
Periods of a few years, to this last period of about five, 5 1/2. Ten year periods of abstinence between. Absolute abstinence. The times I've stopped have been by decision, and therefore I've stopped cold.
I began taking steroids at 33 1/2. By the time I hit forty, my sanity was in real jeopardy. My nerves were burning up. My brain was being deprived of even basic functioning chemicals. I was searching desperately for the graphite rods which would slow my Chernobyl meltdown. None.
In the desert, I discovered alcohol. Almost remembered it. Took it as life-saving medicine. Even at cost; knowing the cost would be high.
Knowing that the cost would be to my Whole system. Costs I had sensed and elected out of in the past. Away from.
How can you tell if a mental/physio condition is going to beat you? You know that if you're taking any drugs they need eliminated. I wasn't; hadn't smoked or drank or turned on or even eaten an unhealthy meal in ten years. There is nothing there to factor, or that I can improve.
I think you can tell you're on the edge of precipitous danger if you fear for your sanity or want to die.
If you're being consumed. Burned up.
A Doctor once said to me, in response to one of my immune system presentations that mystified me, something I just remembered: "You're a house on fire. First we need to put out the fire."
I started pouring alcohol into my system, as a considered choice, to keep me alive. To buy time. I knew it was a step backwards, in one sense; and not the choice I really wanted to make; I didn't want to give ground. But survival is persistent warfare. When you can't get there a certain way, you may have to backup and choose another trail. When defeat and death blow hard in your face, like quartzite sand, a wise choice may be to back down. Prepare to come back for another attack. It's a sideways choice. Not popular, either. But fuck it. You're in a perilous stalemate, and every minute you're there you're in serious danger. At least your brain is working well enough for you to recognize that. Now move.
I bought the time.
It's an air burial, a temporary sky burial.
I can't physically walk very well. Move around. Move at all. Such (in a sense) obvious metaphors in life. For me, not to be able to walk is surprising. For me, to have such enormous battles in my mind is surprising.
To not drink is a simple thing. On/Off.
To decide to drink, is a not-so-simple thing.
But these are choices within our control. If we are able. I am; I was.
I've "withdrawn" from a few things. I found prescribed opiates the most difficult. The most physically painful. Cigarettes, the most mentally painful. If one can remember why one's doing it, one can dodge and hopefully placate some of the anxiety. All these things are do-able. We've even quit drinking coffee for prolonged periods.
So now we're straight. People, including my younger self, tend to assume, nay always assume, that straight is a place from which you have a better chance.
It was so. But then it was not. I've been all three places ~ straight, stoned, and in crazy danger. The third place, the third game, has a different set of powers and rules. You can't control them by stopping. Not by will. You may not control them at all. They may control you. You don't believe this, but eventually you will. May. May have respect. And fear.
You can endure, you can hold hope, and you can collapse and fail. You can look. For ways. You do what you can. You look for protection. And hope that Time will be your friend, but you know it may not. It's a struggle. But if you lose, that could be the worst thing. You don't know. Part of you doesn't want to find out by losing, because it fears permanent change. Even unknown change. Like death. Is death good for us? Why not? Why?
Survival. Friend or foe. Both? I don't know; but it's a rough and nasty game.
I think it is for everyone; just that the timing and appearance may be different. |
