Soberphobia?

I finally finished reading Jinxed, Del Greening’s autobiography the guitarist and one of the founding members of my favourite band Peter and the Test Tube Babies, I had devoured all but the last two chapters and it’s taken a few weeks to pick the book back up. It like a lot of autobiographies I have read, they get a bit wrapped up in parts of their lives that are not as interesting to me as the journey. A good example was Morrisseys which I gave up on towards the end because it was just describing recent concert after recent concert and not that interestingly either. I thought this one was heading that way recounting stage managing for Lily Allen which was nothing to do with what I wanted to hear about, little did I know the last two chapters contained some self-reflection that really resonated with me.

He revealed he’d given up drink and drugs for no other reason than it got boring and it had run its course. He no longer felt the need to get wasted and no one wants to see a 60 year old man stumbling in the street throwing up, he does still consider the image of an old man in the corner of a pub drinking half a mild with a Jack Russell by his feet, very appealing, though!

It got me thinking about my sobriety and why it was never something I thought I could do because my hero’s in life all drank to excess and how much you drank meant how much of a man you were and to be masculine you have to drink. My drinking (and smoking, back in the day) was as much an image as it was a habit and to hear that a hero had given up drinking sort of validated my sobriety. I wish I’d read the last two chapters first because the stories of excess made me miss the image the masculinity drinking gave me, and the feeling of being drunk in the pub with my mates, but as Del points out there is nothing more boring than a drunk me retelling the same old stories until I pass out.

Being sober around drunk people gets boring very quickly too, if I’m drunk I never want to leave the pub and could easily drink for 6 hours plus, no problem, but the thought of being sober for 6 hours in a pub full drunk people would be torture The thoughts of what I could do with that time if I was not there would drive me crackers!.

The best thing to happen to me so far this year, maybe, is realising my concern about image maybe why I drank and image maybe why I won’t drink again I always thought it was addiction that made me drink but that may not be true?

/by

What about my wellbeing

An email entitled ‘Celebrating our fabulous colleagues – star nominations update. Take a few minutes to have a read.’ landed in my inbox and normally I don’t have time to read that kind of nonsense but for some reason, I clicked on it and began to read. Basically it was employees nominating colleagues because they think they’re  special, I wasn’t nominated but didn’t expect to be. As I read this email that was addressed to literally everyone in the company the author states that they would have been passing out paper copies of the nominations but can’t because their scan folder is not working followed by a smiley emoticon. So for no reason every recipient was told before the IT department were told that there was an issue with their scan folder which we fixed straightaway once we were aware of the situation.

I was so pissed off, there was no need for that petty little remark, ironically the last paragraph contained the following ‘Remember if you need any wellbeing support get in touch’  

Maybe it was me that took it the wrong way but it only takes someone like that to start getting others thinking, actually, I have a similar issue and when the axe is swinging I end up out of a job when it took 2 minutes to add a shortcut to a fully functioning scan folder that this person just couldn’t find…!

What about my well-being?

/1 Comment/by

…and just like that?

Yep today was the day we all went back to work and by 08:30 all the relaxation and calm feelings I had experienced for the last couple of weeks were all gone as I ranted at the amount of work piled up in my inbox. Everyone thinking their issue is the most important and most of the urgent issues were not within my control it was the incompetence of third parties or the lack of planning from others. A website not working, but we pay someone else 40 grand so I just let them know it’s broken and tell them to crack on and let us know when it’s fixed. A scheme that if I had known about it prior to it going live could have had the required settings in place beforehand or a form that needs creating proofing and configuring on 18 servers yesterday or we fail an inspection but it can be done correctly or it can be done wrong numerous times wasting everyone’s time!

Yep even though I don’t start work until 9:00 by 8:30 just like that I was stressed and felt like I was drowning in work, a trip to Warrington was necessary this afternoon when my time would have been better spent going through emails.

To top off that day I was asked to add 10% onto the fees…wow, just wow?

Reagan said to me tonight “Daddy why don’t you build sheds for a job, you like doing that?” Well yeh I do but only when it’s nice weather was my reply lol but woodworking does light my fire and NOT because everything I do is only good for kindling! Maybe think smaller make something saleable as a hobby, definitely maybe…?

/1 Comment/by

Jigging into 2023

Made my first jig today to cut lap joints in preparation for the construction of the windows for my shed. I have made lap joints before when making the door but with my new table saw I have the opportunity to be a lot more accurate and with the aid of a jig I can replicate the cuts numerous times.

Loving my Christmas present already!

/by

Friends

In life you meet lots of people most are just acquaintances but some turn into friends and of those some will be with you all your life. Others you may not see very often but remain close without any maintenance and I consider Sean Williams one of those friends. We don’t see each other often but like last night it’s as though we’ve never been apart, we just fall back into the same friendship we’ve had for years.

We had a great night, Jamie cooked us all a chilli, while Sean and I watched the Chiefs-Broncos game. So good to sit and chat all night about anything and everything and it was such a shame when it was time for him to leave but hopefully it won’t be 3 more years before we get together again.

/1 Comment/by

Sober 2022

A calendar year was my new goal after succeeding in not drinking for a year between 13th November 2021 – 2022 and that meant another sober “holiday” season. I knew I could do it the bigger question in my head was “Do I want to?”

Cut to today laying in bed and I completed the calendar year and I have to say it was easy to get from 13th November to now even though there was a couple of occasions I really did think about a cider or a wine but I chose not to I found quenching my thirst straight away makes the moment go away and I move on!

So 2022 done what now ‘dry January’ ?

/by

Starting 2023 shouting

It was a nice night to end 2022 we had fun playing UNO because that’s what Reagan wanted to play even though Yahtzee had been the preferred game up until Reagan’s participation. She went to her room for most of the evening to take part in an online party and because she didn’t want to watch the film me, Mommy and Lincoln wanted to watch, but to appease her when she did come down we did what she wanted to do.

Once it got to 23:30 we started to watch Sam Ryder on BBC 1 who was entertaining but both Lincoln and Reagan were getting tired the latter probably because she had Elouisa over last night for a sleepover. As midnight approached Lincoln could no longer utter a sound without being told to shut up by his sister and by Midnight as the fireworks began in London let’s just say tempers were at breaking point Lincoln daren’t speak Mommy was persistently being called by her Mom from America and on the screen there was an image of Queen Elizabeth II “Wow, how do they do that?” was the question Lincoln began to answer before Reagan hit him telling him to shut up!

“NO YOU SHUT UP! Is this how were going to start 2023, unbelievable!”

Bedtime it is then Happy New Year…

/by