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To break from what I'm tied to...God knows how much I try to...   
04:00am 30/01/2009
  I know my last entry was supposed to be a two-parter, but I lost the motivation to continue it and without going back to re-read it (which I hate doing), I'm a bit lost as to what I was talking about in the first place.

It's 4 a.m, and I'm still awake. It may have something to do with the fat burners and energy drinks I took today. Or the coffee. Actually I'm blaming the coffee, I don't drink it often anymore so when I do it keeps me away. Which is odd, because I used to drink four or five of them a day and it didn't effect my sleep. That I know of. It's hard to tell what does or doesn't effect my sleep since I have such a fucked up sleep schedual. I've been staying up until 3 or 4 in the morning for so many years now, it's routine. I can't break it, no matter how I try. Even when I have to get up for school, or work, I still tend to stay up half the night and just suffer through the next day. I've always been a night person. The day doesn't do much for me. But it's wearing me down at times. There's no reason to be up this late. There's nobody awake to talk to.

Anyway.

I didn't have any topic in mind when I started typing here, I just wanted to kill a few minutes. I last had a cigarette at 3:30 a.m, and wanted to wait until at least an hour before I have my last one of the night. But since I'm writting, let's talk about something interesting.

Alcohol.

The demon alcohol.

I took an online test lastnight to see if I was an alcoholic, and the results were about what I expected. I'm not, but I have warning signs and could be at risk developing one in the future. I'd like to avoid that.

I come from a town where most people are drinking in High School. Maybe sooner these days, but back in my day, the popular people came to school on Monday morning with drinking stories. For me, I drank maybe 4 or 5 times while underage, all at the suggestion of others. Peer pressure, or something like it. When I turned 19, my then girlfriend was still 18, so if she couldn't go out, neither could I. I maybe drank another 5 to 10 times from the time I was 19 until I turned 22. Throw in another handful of times while I'm 22, until my last summer at home, when I started to go out on a regular basis. Once a week. Sometimes once every two weeks. I'd struggle to drink 8 beer, usually leaving 2 behind, and spend 1/2 an hour trying to finish one at the bar. Drinking wasn't really my thing.

Until I moved away to go to school. I was in a new Province, new town, and knew nobody. Going out for drinks with classmates was how I got to know people, so, there was a drinking night during the week, and always a party on the weekend.

Eventually I met a friend who liked to drink more so than I, so in keeping up with him, I developed a bit of a habit. Three times a week, sometimes four. Anytime there was a party, there I was. I kicked the drinking for 10 months, when I moved back home for various reasons. I went on a health kick, lost weight, and while I went out, it was maybe once every two weeks, sometimes once a week, nothing serious or excessive.

Then I came back here.

By this point, I developed a real enjoyment for drinking. I'm a shy person, so drinking loosens me up, makes me feel more confidant, and makes me want to have my voice heard when I'd usually just stay quiet. But things started slowly. We'd go out on the weekends. Then Wednesday. Then pretty much any night we had a reason to go out for, we did.

I'm not sure which I became more hooked on. Bars, or drinking.I'd like to think it was bars. Having lost a lot of weight and more or less re-inventing myself during my time home, I came back here with a new found ability to pick up at bars. So, naturally, I wanted to explore that phase as much as I could, and couldn't do it sober, so I drank and hit the bars any chance I got. I was also sort of trying to bump into what I guess could be called "the one that got away", but while I was out, I'd get hammered and usually end up, or at least try to, going home with some girl. This kind of became my life style. No relationship. No girlfriend. Nothing to stop me from drinking my face off and going out everynight. I live in a college town, where, if you want to, you can find a reason to go out every night but Sunday. Even on Sunday if you want to get loaded before midnight, you can go out then to. I'm close to the bars. I enjoy the bars. Going to bars can lead to sex. It's just so damn tempting.

I lived that life for over a year now. It always felt social. I was just a party guy. I only drank because I liked to go out. I'm not an alcoholic. An alcoholic is the guy living on the street, drinking liqour out of a paper bag. Or the guy who wants up and has beer for breakfast. The guy who literally drinks all day. That wasn't me. I just liked to get hammered, hit the bars, party it up, and come home, hopefully not alone.

In the summer, I started to become concerned. My parents split up over the summer, which in itself is a topic I feel I have to talk about sometime, but not tonight. I found myself drinking to deal with that.  The night I found out my father left, I was at a bar. I wasn't drinking, I was just out killing time when I got the call from my sister. I hung up the phone, and my first reaction wasn't to cry, wasn't to talk to somebody, it was to get drunk. I called a bootlegger, had a bottle of rum sent to my door, and sat in the living  room smoking and drinking until I passed out. Drinking took my mind off it. I didn't care if we went out. I was content to sit on the door step drinking my face off until I let my feelings out, and then numbed them with the booze. I was at 5 nights a week at this point, and would end up snapping, crying or yelling at people on a regular basis. But I kept it up, because getting drunk was a nice distraction from my life. After one drunken break down, I decided it was best for me to throw the towl in on the rest of the summer and go back home to be with my mother and sister. I went out a couple of times while I was home, usually resulting in a break down of some sort, but it was a once a week, 'normal' habit.

I came back here in September, probably before I was ready. Things were still ugly at home, nobody was doing well with, or accepting our new life, and so I hit the bottle again, looking for that familiar distraction. At this point, my mother wasn't taking things well, so on a regular basis she'd call me and talk about things I just wasn't mentally or emotionally ready to talk about, and as soon as I hung up the phone I'd be off to the liqour store. Eventually I figured out that it was easier to talk about these things if I was already drunk, so I'd start drinking while I was waiting for her to call. I'm not somebody who shares his feelings easily, and this was a situation that resulted in me having more mixed emotions and deeper feelings than anything I've experienced. So, I drank. I drank to allow myself to awknowledge it. I drank to make myself forget it. I drank to feel, and I drank more to take the feelings away.

At that point, I realized I was drinking more so to drink than I was to go out. Sometimes I drank alone. I'd usually go out, and sometimes meet up with a girl, but I started to hate myself for doing that. Waking up next to some girl you know you don't want to see again. That you know you only ended up with because you were drunk and wanted sex. Suddenly the life I led a year ago didn't seem quite so cool. It wasn't fun anymore. I felt guilty and ashmed of myself. I really can't say for sure what caused that change. For months I was content to bang my way around town while hoping the one I really wanted would somehow find me again. Now I wasn't enjoying it. At all.

That's where I realized I had a problem. I was hooked on it. Hooked on drinking, hooked on partying, hooked on sex...it became such a big part of my life that I couldn't just stop it, no matter how hard I tried. If I was bored, I'd drink. If I went out drunk, I'd want to get laid. I knew deep down I didn't want this, but I couldn't break the cycle.

*For the record, I see nothing wrong with having a few drinks, going out with friends, and hooking up with some willing young lady. It happens, it's fun, and I'm sure I'll do it again in the future. With me, however, it became a lifestyle. It's all I did, all I looked foward to, my whole motivation for getting out of bed, etc...

Anyway, I went home over Christmas break, and like every other time I went home, I cut back on drinking. I drank maybe three times, two of which were with my old friends, and we didn't really go anywhere, It was drinking just to kick back and have fun with my friends, not because I wanted to go hunting for women or because I was trying to drink away any feelings. It was over Christmas I decided I'm going to change. Eventually. Slowly. Hopefully.

That brings us to today.

I don't plan to quit drinking all together. I'm still going to go out on the weekend, still have a few drink with the guys, etc. But I want to cut back. Break the cycle, change my life style. Living just to drink and party is a sad, sick existence. I feel better about my parents situation. I've accepted it. It's sad. It hurts sometimes. But I don't feel the crippling pain I felt months ago that required mass amounts of alcohol to control.
I don't want to party three nights a week. I don't want to have meaningless fling after meaningless fling with women I don't want to talk to sober. Thus far in my life, there was only one women I felt I wanted. Maybe I blew it, maybe she blew it, or maybe it was just not meant to be, but it didn't happen and I decided I would just stay single and fuck around for the rest of my life. (Authors note: My fear and lack of interest in relationships deserves an entry on it's own, for future referance)

But now, I feel differant. I don't want a girlfriend. Maybe I never will. But I'd like to attempt regular dating. Instead of getting drunk and picking up a girl, never to talk to her again, I'd like to take a girl out for coffee, a movie, a real date....likely never to talk to her again. Hey, I'm not perfect, and try as I might (at it remains to be seen how hard I'll actually end up trying on this one) I might never be able to fully change, or find happiness...But I'm trying.

So this is my one month progress report. I've been hitting the gym hard for two weeks now, which is the one thing that always took my urge to drink away. Working out makes me feel strong and energetic. The last time I drank l was Friday, which it's bad because I was the weekly night out with my roomate. Just a night out at a bar, sitting around, chatting, etc...I wanted to drink tonight. Well, I didn't want to. But I felt an urge to. Had I have been asked to go out, I very may well have. At one point I considered drinking myself and going out alone. But I fought it, and made it through the night. I'll drink tomorrow because it's Friday, and hopefully be able to take Saturday off. But weekend drinking isn't an issue for me at this point. Twice a week might be a lot for most, but if I can cut it down from 3 or 4 times a week, and start going out to have fun with friends and not just to pick up, I'll be happy for now.

As trying to break the habit of bar hook ups, I've cracked on that twice. Two weeks ago, while I was in a huge fight with my roomate, I sat in my room drinking alone because it was the only way I could get through the bordum of sitting in my room alone all night. While I was here drinking, a girl I seen a few times in November sent me a drunk text wanting to come over, and, well, I caved. While I wouldn't date her, she's actually better than most, and I can talk to her, etc...but still, I cracked. The second crack came last weekend, during my casual, fun night out, when I ended up in a conversation with an eager couger, and, yeah, I cracked again. I'm trying. I don't go out looking for sex, but if it comes looking for me, I'm not a hard guy to find.

So, one month in, and so far, for the most part, so good.

If anyone reads this, thanks for reading.		  
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I Used to Know Who I Was (Part 1)   
02:59am 01/12/2008
  I've found myself lately wanting to talk. Write. Vent. Whatever you call it. I've had an emotionally straining couple of years. Falling in love for the first time in my adult life, in a situation that was stressful and difficult at the best of times, having it end, badly, trying to decide where I wanted to live, hating myself, changing myself, realizing the positive changes in my image had caused negative changes in my personality, confusion about where I'm going in life, what will become of me, a slight sadness about getting older and being further and further removed from better days of the past, and finally, my parents divorce and the end of the life I used to know...

I'm trying to figure out where to even start this entry. I want to examine where I'm at right now, what I need to change and where I want to go, but my mind if a blank.

I guess I'll start by saying that alcohol hasn't been a positive in my life the past year. To explain why I drank moe than I should have last year woud require me explaining how changing my physical appearance changes my life style, and in turn, my personality, and how the physcal change was brought on by the end of a relationship I cared very much about. See how it all ties together?

About 2 years ago, that relationship ended. I'd never been somebody who really wanted to be in relationships, although I'd always been in one. I'd been very vocal about the fact I didn't want to date anyone in the near future when I met this person out of the blue and we'd go on to have something of a relationship that was actually special to me. She was the only woman I'd met, dated, slept with, or in any other way known that I felt I wanted to have in my life, to be with, today, tomorrow and for every other day in the forseeable future. The details of that relationship don't need to be told, but when it ended, it was hard. I'm sure many people that may read this have been heartbroken before, so I won't bother explaining how it feels like, but happening to a guy who went from carefully avoiding having to care about anyone, to deeply c aring about someone made it worse. As I think about it, this might be where alcohol first showed it's potential to have a negative impact on my life, as my first reaction to the relationship's end was to get smashed.

A side effect of the heartbreak was the fact that I was unsure about where I wanted to live. I moved to this town a year and 1/2 prior to go to school and when that didn't work out I decided to stay when I met a lot of good friends and landed in the relationship I was in. But I'd been feeling drawn back home for awhile and if not for her I would've left months ago. Eventually I made the difficult decision to leave this place and everyone I'd met here behind and go home. But going home didn't solve everything, as I missed here, and learned that  I didn't like myself anymore.

Living on my own for the first time in my life, I didn't really take care of myself. A lot of beer, a lot of fastfood, pizza, snacks and wing nights had me noticably over-weight, also for the first time in my life. I was always naturally in good shape and had a lazy nature about me anyway so exercise wasn't something I got much of, or even realized I needed. But fresh off my heartbreak, I started to hate myself. To doubt myself. To wonder if maybe I'd looked better if she wouldn't have left. I was pissed at myself for not being better than I was. I promised myself that I was going to get in shape, going to improve myself physically, and that whether I ever got her back again, I'd at least never let myself feel that I wasn't good enough for anybody.

It turned out I was only home for 10 months. I missed it here and thought about it often. When I came back 10 months later, I was thin and stylish, ready to attack this place again. But in the back of my mind, I wanted to run into her again, let her see the new me, and hope maybe there was something still there. After almost 2 months, I ran into her at a bar one night, where we'd have a drunk conversation and left together, but I didn't feel I was given anything significant out of the encounter to think I should try to resume a relationship with her, and, frankly, seeing as how I was feeling good again, I was terrified to put myself out there and risk the possible step backwards rejection could have caused. But it was nice seeing her, and I hoped to run into her again, which led to me going out a bit more than I used to.

A funny thing happened when I went out. I discovered that the new me could get laid on a fairly regular basis. I'd never really done the bar phase. When I was old enough to go to the bars, my then girlfriend wasn't, so I didn't get to go. When I finally did start going I had little success. When I moved, I went out with groups that were there to hang out with eachother and rarely got the opportunity, or even idea in my head, to try 'picking up'. From there I'd end up seeing someone and/or fat. Now, I'm going out in hopes of running into a certain someone, and if she's not around, I have getting laid as a fall back. This is where the drinking started to pick up, but at least at this point I was drinking because I liked to party, not to hide or explore negative feelings like I'd eventually do....

By this point my life revolved around drinking, sex, clothes to help me attract sex, all the while still having feelings for her that were still very much strong but being burried until, I felt, the time would be right to tell her. That time would've been any night if I'd happened to run into her and she'd made her move on me, giving me the chance to reply with my feelings, but it didn't happen, so I became used to the idea of caring about her from afar while having my fun with the bar scene.

I realize a lot of people go to bars, and sometime they happened to hook up. I didn't go to bars for any other reason than for women, either the one I wanted or any one of the willing I'd find on a given night. Drinking and hitting the bars 3 nights a week became a life style for me.

(To be continued....)		  
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trentreznor7
 
 

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