Sunday Weekly Reflection (Live Typing)

Where do I begin? I suppose I’ll start with my housing issues. People who tried to take over my house ten months ago have been calling to my door. It’s brought a lot of trauma back. I have been full of fear and anxiety. I have had to buy a camera for my apartment to relieve some of the stress. At the very least if they break my door down they will now be held accountable. The message will spread that my home is no longer a party zone. My home is now an alcohol free zone. I missed three days of journaling because of this stress. I hope it comes to an end soon. I was at a meeting on Tuesday and a person quoted ‘Yesterday’s shower won’t keep you clean today’. I definitely reflect on the past too much and could do with a more positive strategy when it comes to thinking. Currently I have been imprisoned in my own home, too afraid to leave it. I suffer from catastrophizing and ‘stinkin thinkin’. It’s an area I could do with self improvement. What I can take from this week is the confidence that no matter how dangerous and shit life is I don’t need to pick up a drink, mentally it’s been one of the hardest weeks of my life. My gambling is still making my life unmanageable but luckily it didn’t interfere with my mental health too much. There were days and nights I was self-medicating too, today I just want to live. In AA they would say to ‘keep it simple’. A simple life is all I want to achieve today. I’ve even been making plans to reconnect with some old friends in the near future. I can have a beautifully simplistic life if I don’t drink or gamble. I will be too afraid to leave my apartment over the next few weeks but the light at the end of the tunnel is that I might get more time to transcribe my diaries for this website. I will still glare out my window to make sure nobody is venturing up to my apartment but as the days fly by I feel less anxious in doing so. Sobriety could be an amazing thing for me but the reality is I’m back to square one. Technically today is my first sober day….again. I started getting on my knees to ask for help today, it’s something I plan on doing now everyday. Being able to hand over the shit in your life to a higher power can reap serious rewards, it also allows me to be humble and grateful. At present I’m eating well, I have a beautiful roof over my head and am able to clean myself.(Something I have struggled to do over the past week, which reminds me of my intentions to have a shave today. BRB)

It’s February, the days are still short. I’m waking daily at five a.m and in bed by seven, I’ve had to adjust my whole lifestyle around these old acquaintances that have been trying to access my home. Everyday is a struggle. I know now some of the fear is reaching out. The time will come where I need to reach out to the guards. This too will spread around the town like wildfire, going to the guards for help is unheard of in homeless and addiction circles. Again, as Martin in CM Coolarne once said to me, ‘It’s time to stand up for your sobriety.’ I need to ensure I’m at optimum health too. My SMART goals for the week include ‘Attend Tom’s Relapse Prevention Meeting on Tuesday.’ and ‘Run at 6am Monday, Wednesday and Friday.’ and most importantly ‘not to pick up a drink or have a gamble no matter how tough life gets, even if people manage to breach my fortress’. I’m looking forward to the longer nights that come with spring too. At present I’m too afraid to turn the lights on in my house so a lot of meetings are out of my reach. I have however found a meeting I’m really looking forward to: Ben’s Friends Hope. (www.bensfriendshope.com) they ‘offer a bridge to sobriety for food and beverage professionals.’ I’m actually looking forward to joining this community. I don’t at present have the balls to do a meeting after five p.m until the days become longer but the meeting has already given me hope of joining suffering addicts in the hospitality industry. I need to remind myself daily that the day will come when I can attend their meetings and as they would say in AA: ‘This too shall pass’.

It’s 2pm, all it took was one glance out the window and I was brought back to ten months ago, the only difference is this time I don’t feel like killing myself. I need to adapt to my new way of living, it’s like Covid all over again. My shopping will be done online and housing first will deliver my medication, it could be months before my life gets back to any sort of normality. I must stay on guard, they may not have come to my door yesterday but I’m dealing with opportunists. I need to protect my fortress. I believe three cameras is probably excessive, I should be happy today with the security measures I’ve put in place. I must believe I will return to ‘Happy Living’. I need to stop looking out the window and move on with my new hermit inspired lifestyle. All looking out the window is doing is creating anxiety. Even if I were to lock eyes with the people I am avoiding, I’d feel obliged to go downstairs to tell and that wouldn’t end well. Remember Conor, this is a marathon not a sprint.