23/05/2025 - Personal Journal

I have been struggling with my drinking again. After going dry for 6 months, I have been on and off for the last few weeks. In fairness it has been much more off than on, but I feel it's presence there and I know I have a fight on my hands and there is unfinished business with my additions.

The last couple of days I have realised that the problem is more than anything one about patience, acceptance and peace. I have too little patience. The easiest way to demonstrate that is my attitude to money. I have spent all my life in debt as I do not have the patience to wait until I have saved the money I need to do something. Though, to be fair to myself, it is also as I have never been able to support my family on the money I earn, so to do anything and support the kids has often required creative accounting. The problem is that debt limits my ability to do what I wanted to do. It is a commitment I need to meet, before I can do the next thing. So that stops. I have about a year before I leave work and start my own business. I will use this time to ensure that the debts are reduced, or reducing, so that I have greater freedom of movement.

I also do not accept my situation. I want to get a lot done and I do not accept the limitations that time and energy place on me. Due to that I often fail in my attempts. My drinking is an example of that. I need to accept that life without alcohol will be different. I will also need to build that 'different'. I can't just grasp it and drag it from the future to now. The chemical dopamine hit is instantaneous, in a similar way to pornography, or winning something. The ease with which one can gain gratification is coupled with the emptiness of that gratification. They provide a quick fix to sadness -- they distract, remove the boredom of real life. They are doing something, the existential challenge of just what the fuck am I doing with my life is temporarily silenced. And alcohol in particular gives you false courage and makes the impossible seem possible. Until the complex thoughts are cognitively too hard and you have just distracted yourself before voluntary, or involuntary sleep.

I am not at peace. I could phase that another way: I am not in equilibrium with my life. I want to achieve more. This is on multiple levels: health, wealth, impact and understanding. I want to gain a level of health I have never had before. I want to be fitter, stronger and happier than I have been. These desires can be interpreted from a mind or body perspective. Perhaps it is unhelpful to think of them as anything other than a whole. I do not have the wealth I desire. My needs are not great and I am fairly confident that they can be meet as long as I am healthy. Impact is more challenging. I want to be a change agent. I feel that I have wisdom which I can use to make the world a better place, but my impact is stifled by being tied to earning a monthly salary. That is the knot I need to untangle, hopefully something my sessions with Peter can help with. Understanding is tricker. I increasingly view the world from a spiritual perspective, where there are veils we can not see through. I express my spirituality through my faith in Jesus. The gospel is a good news story, and a guide to how we should live. But, I also wonder where is the evil, where is temptation, where is sin. The practice of faith through religion does not focus on those aspect: why would it as it all rather depressing. But if there is evil walking amongst us, or spirits which are inherently different to us and largely unseen. How do we deal with that.