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AdeinEngland 
2:57am, July 15, 2009
I have no real frame of reference for this, but for me personally, in the first two weeks of sobriety, i've had to keep a watch on myself....
...Not in terms of temptation of going back to booze but just literally a watch on mySELF. There are various personas that can come out with bashing cymbals if i'm not too careful, the alcoholic being just one of them. I thought i'd jot a few down just in case anyone else had come across these characters.
The Thumb Nose
It's been 13 days since i last touched a drop of alcohol, which when compared with evolution, the big bang and a few other little Godly passtimes - really isn't that long. Dont let that fool you into thinking that i can treat it like JUST long enough to turn my nose up at friends that are going out on the Friday night as though i'm somehow above it.
"You gonna come out for some beers on friday, Ade?"
"You guys are STILL doing that? Jesus..."
"Well you were passed out with your f*cking shorts round your ankles 4 weeks ago?"
It's ridiculous really. I suppose it's the ego taking control and trying to make me look and feel like i'm not missing out, like it's some kind of f*cked up choice i've made to not be able to handle substances and thus not get to see so much of my friends with they all head out.
The Infuriatingly Chirpy Sundayer
Having been to quite a few parties and having been to quite a few REAL parties in my time i'm well aware of how i probably come across when i venture out of my room on a Sunday morning, the only person in the flat that doesn't look like he caught Ebola, Swine Flu and Ecoli last night. Differences are differences you might think. And that in the West these days (with the exception of some red-states) we're largely open-minded and accepting of these. But white-hoods and N-words still safely in the bin, you'd be forgiven for thinking not when my flatmates and their friends are lazed out in the front room watching Friends re-runs, exhaling like their trying to perform a cross-lounge kiss-of-life to eachother, or single handedly trying to heat up the planet. But in i come, a ray of sunshine. A sunray that goes through a window and makes you uncomfortable, start squinting and just want it to pi$$ off - but a ray of sunshine never the less.
"Tea anyone? Coffee? Anyone fancy a trip to the Portrait Gallary in a bit?"
"Shhhh keep it down, it's only... ....Jesus is it half-2 already?"
"So thats a no to coffee then - toast? no? gallary? anyone?"
By the look on their faces you'd think i had just walked in, pulled out a knife and severed a puppies head.
And then kicked it.
As you're probably aware - when you're feeling ok, and someone else walks in the room and cracks jokes, busts out the smiles and seems in a good mood - your mood will lighten too. If you're not aware of this and you continue to be in a bad mood you should probably check a different 'topic-thread' than this next time. It sounds like you've got depression.
But if someones in a bad mood, the last f**king thing they want to see, hear, even know about is someone else being in a good mood. How many times have you been rushed off your feet, trying to get home on the bus or train. Stressed, tired, b*tchy mood and then you hear someone on their mobile phone behind you laughing and joking...
"ha ha ha - so then i said no thats MY hairband! this is yours! ha ha ha"
You actually want to kill them.
So here i am torn between my desire to remain sober, and chirpy. Versus my desire to remain alive, and breathing. Funny, it's not a dilemma i expected to face in the first 13 days, just being honest. I mean, if i wander into the front room next weekend, bouncing off the walls and vomiting sunshine, only to get a bullet through my f*ckin head - will St Peter be open to discussion?
"Pete - i gotta be straight with you here. I wanted to get sober. I wanted to be happy. And someone shot me in the face."
"Okay."
"So i was wondering if you could just overlook it. Shouldn't be hard from up here. You can't see a bloody thing but clouds."
"Overlook it? I'm sorry i can't do tha..."
"But i just wanted to get sober!"
"Yes. Well you're sober now?"
"I'M DEAD!"
"But you're sober?"
"Yeah, it's not quite sobriety as i'd hoped."
The Lonely Pretentious Idiot
As i sit in my room, relacing my shoes, catching up on washing, writing journals and then moving back onto music i'd abandoned for years i notice i'm getting more and more pretentious. (No, kidding - i'm sat here writing an article on the facets of my own personality. Go figure.)
The Skizophrenic
As i leave a bar on Friday night, a litle depressed that a date didn't go as well as i had previously envisaged it might...
"So you have a girlfriend, Ade?"
"No... no i'm single"
"Ah okay. Good."
"And you? You're single too?"
"No i have a boyfriend. He's coming back from South America next week."
**ade spits his OJ out and animatedly answers his phone**
"YES this is Ade. Why i'd love to come and pick you up from hospital, Mum. Sorry i have to go..."
So as i'm going home i'm understandably down and start having an argument with myself, albeit in my mind.
"You're just making me feel down because you want me to go back to the bar and order a drink"
"No, you feel down because you got messed around by a date."
"Well thats true. But it's still pretty funny. First date. It's no big deal. Yet SOMEHOW i feel like Simon Cowell just gave my family an intimate run through of my sexual failings. On live television. Twice."
"Right, and thats my fault?"
"Yes, you're making me feel down over nothing because you know there's a higher chance of me caving in and getting a drink if i'm massively depressed."
Anyone else ever had that?
The Nice Guy
Anyone that lives and works in London can tell you that the tube is probably not the greatest platform for any event entitled "The Olympic Manners Challenge". If a pregnant lady walks into the cart and there's no seats, then she'd better hope that the little bubba pops out with a deckchair because no ones going to get up and offer one. Except "The Nice Guy" that's feeling tip-top, T-Total and sober. I leapt up last week and offered my chair to a woman as soon as i saw her. And she wasn't even pregnant! Well, i dunno she might have been. Probably not though. She was about 70. But while the other inhabitants of the Northern Line's 07:40am service were sat thinking "I wonder just how elastic this etiquette thing really is?" i figured f*ck it, i'm going to be sat down all day and for once my legs aren't acheing from doing 'The Shark' all night saturday so up we get.
Also performing in the nice-guy theatre is the pram-carrier.
As i approach the steps of the train platform another lady is struggling with her push-chair so i offer a hand regardless of it making me late for work. (this is what i blame it on when i get into the office anyway).
"Ade you're late!"
"Yeah sorry i had to help a woman with a push-chair."
"For two f*cking hours?"
It's weird.
All of these aspects of my personality must have been there the whole time but just either dumbed down and stifled by alchol and the tiredness it brings or you need a certain amount of good sleep and natural seritonin to WANT to help others or to feel proud about being sober.
I suppose it's all about getting to know yourself as a human being again.
For so long i've only known the Ade that went to work, sighed a lot, then went out to a bar or a club and got wasted - i'd completely forgotten about the other guy. The musical, comedic, creative, half-irish, tries-to-be-helpful 5'9, slightly pretentious chap.
I studied psychoanalysis for a year, and one of the topics they talked about was this premise of "The Murdered Me" and the mourning thereof. They lectured on the theory that depression stems from mourning the person you feel you could or should have been. So it makes sense that if this other 'me' wasn't murdered and only recently made a fight back and refused to die. That this would evoke shades of euphoria, creativity and a general sense that things really aren't that bad.
I just hope that while this apparent euphoric, helpful me is functioning, i can lift just enough prams, offer just enough seats and if it's a REALLY good day - not use the disabled toilet at work - just enough so that when St Peter does short-change me, at least maybe he'll overlook shorts-round-my-ankles drunken tomfoolery.
Concluding, a very worrying thought enters my mind. If i end up in pergatory for a thousands years for getting hammered and passing out with my shorts round my ankles - what do you think he'll do when he finds out i'm not religious?
...Not in terms of temptation of going back to booze but just literally a watch on mySELF. There are various personas that can come out with bashing cymbals if i'm not too careful, the alcoholic being just one of them. I thought i'd jot a few down just in case anyone else had come across these characters.
The Thumb Nose
It's been 13 days since i last touched a drop of alcohol, which when compared with evolution, the big bang and a few other little Godly passtimes - really isn't that long. Dont let that fool you into thinking that i can treat it like JUST long enough to turn my nose up at friends that are going out on the Friday night as though i'm somehow above it.
"You gonna come out for some beers on friday, Ade?"
"You guys are STILL doing that? Jesus..."
"Well you were passed out with your f*cking shorts round your ankles 4 weeks ago?"
It's ridiculous really. I suppose it's the ego taking control and trying to make me look and feel like i'm not missing out, like it's some kind of f*cked up choice i've made to not be able to handle substances and thus not get to see so much of my friends with they all head out.
The Infuriatingly Chirpy Sundayer
Having been to quite a few parties and having been to quite a few REAL parties in my time i'm well aware of how i probably come across when i venture out of my room on a Sunday morning, the only person in the flat that doesn't look like he caught Ebola, Swine Flu and Ecoli last night. Differences are differences you might think. And that in the West these days (with the exception of some red-states) we're largely open-minded and accepting of these. But white-hoods and N-words still safely in the bin, you'd be forgiven for thinking not when my flatmates and their friends are lazed out in the front room watching Friends re-runs, exhaling like their trying to perform a cross-lounge kiss-of-life to eachother, or single handedly trying to heat up the planet. But in i come, a ray of sunshine. A sunray that goes through a window and makes you uncomfortable, start squinting and just want it to pi$$ off - but a ray of sunshine never the less.
"Tea anyone? Coffee? Anyone fancy a trip to the Portrait Gallary in a bit?"
"Shhhh keep it down, it's only... ....Jesus is it half-2 already?"
"So thats a no to coffee then - toast? no? gallary? anyone?"
By the look on their faces you'd think i had just walked in, pulled out a knife and severed a puppies head.
And then kicked it.
As you're probably aware - when you're feeling ok, and someone else walks in the room and cracks jokes, busts out the smiles and seems in a good mood - your mood will lighten too. If you're not aware of this and you continue to be in a bad mood you should probably check a different 'topic-thread' than this next time. It sounds like you've got depression.
But if someones in a bad mood, the last f**king thing they want to see, hear, even know about is someone else being in a good mood. How many times have you been rushed off your feet, trying to get home on the bus or train. Stressed, tired, b*tchy mood and then you hear someone on their mobile phone behind you laughing and joking...
"ha ha ha - so then i said no thats MY hairband! this is yours! ha ha ha"
You actually want to kill them.
So here i am torn between my desire to remain sober, and chirpy. Versus my desire to remain alive, and breathing. Funny, it's not a dilemma i expected to face in the first 13 days, just being honest. I mean, if i wander into the front room next weekend, bouncing off the walls and vomiting sunshine, only to get a bullet through my f*ckin head - will St Peter be open to discussion?
"Pete - i gotta be straight with you here. I wanted to get sober. I wanted to be happy. And someone shot me in the face."
"Okay."
"So i was wondering if you could just overlook it. Shouldn't be hard from up here. You can't see a bloody thing but clouds."
"Overlook it? I'm sorry i can't do tha..."
"But i just wanted to get sober!"
"Yes. Well you're sober now?"
"I'M DEAD!"
"But you're sober?"
"Yeah, it's not quite sobriety as i'd hoped."
The Lonely Pretentious Idiot
As i sit in my room, relacing my shoes, catching up on washing, writing journals and then moving back onto music i'd abandoned for years i notice i'm getting more and more pretentious. (No, kidding - i'm sat here writing an article on the facets of my own personality. Go figure.)
The Skizophrenic
As i leave a bar on Friday night, a litle depressed that a date didn't go as well as i had previously envisaged it might...
"So you have a girlfriend, Ade?"
"No... no i'm single"
"Ah okay. Good."
"And you? You're single too?"
"No i have a boyfriend. He's coming back from South America next week."
**ade spits his OJ out and animatedly answers his phone**
"YES this is Ade. Why i'd love to come and pick you up from hospital, Mum. Sorry i have to go..."
So as i'm going home i'm understandably down and start having an argument with myself, albeit in my mind.
"You're just making me feel down because you want me to go back to the bar and order a drink"
"No, you feel down because you got messed around by a date."
"Well thats true. But it's still pretty funny. First date. It's no big deal. Yet SOMEHOW i feel like Simon Cowell just gave my family an intimate run through of my sexual failings. On live television. Twice."
"Right, and thats my fault?"
"Yes, you're making me feel down over nothing because you know there's a higher chance of me caving in and getting a drink if i'm massively depressed."
Anyone else ever had that?
The Nice Guy
Anyone that lives and works in London can tell you that the tube is probably not the greatest platform for any event entitled "The Olympic Manners Challenge". If a pregnant lady walks into the cart and there's no seats, then she'd better hope that the little bubba pops out with a deckchair because no ones going to get up and offer one. Except "The Nice Guy" that's feeling tip-top, T-Total and sober. I leapt up last week and offered my chair to a woman as soon as i saw her. And she wasn't even pregnant! Well, i dunno she might have been. Probably not though. She was about 70. But while the other inhabitants of the Northern Line's 07:40am service were sat thinking "I wonder just how elastic this etiquette thing really is?" i figured f*ck it, i'm going to be sat down all day and for once my legs aren't acheing from doing 'The Shark' all night saturday so up we get.
Also performing in the nice-guy theatre is the pram-carrier.
As i approach the steps of the train platform another lady is struggling with her push-chair so i offer a hand regardless of it making me late for work. (this is what i blame it on when i get into the office anyway).
"Ade you're late!"
"Yeah sorry i had to help a woman with a push-chair."
"For two f*cking hours?"
It's weird.
All of these aspects of my personality must have been there the whole time but just either dumbed down and stifled by alchol and the tiredness it brings or you need a certain amount of good sleep and natural seritonin to WANT to help others or to feel proud about being sober.
I suppose it's all about getting to know yourself as a human being again.
For so long i've only known the Ade that went to work, sighed a lot, then went out to a bar or a club and got wasted - i'd completely forgotten about the other guy. The musical, comedic, creative, half-irish, tries-to-be-helpful 5'9, slightly pretentious chap.
I studied psychoanalysis for a year, and one of the topics they talked about was this premise of "The Murdered Me" and the mourning thereof. They lectured on the theory that depression stems from mourning the person you feel you could or should have been. So it makes sense that if this other 'me' wasn't murdered and only recently made a fight back and refused to die. That this would evoke shades of euphoria, creativity and a general sense that things really aren't that bad.
I just hope that while this apparent euphoric, helpful me is functioning, i can lift just enough prams, offer just enough seats and if it's a REALLY good day - not use the disabled toilet at work - just enough so that when St Peter does short-change me, at least maybe he'll overlook shorts-round-my-ankles drunken tomfoolery.
Concluding, a very worrying thought enters my mind. If i end up in pergatory for a thousands years for getting hammered and passing out with my shorts round my ankles - what do you think he'll do when he finds out i'm not religious?
