Was just wondering. I think in a post I made previously I referred to Van Gogh - miserable his whole adult life, an alcoholic and also apparently a misogynist who assaulted prostitutes....when I was younger (a LOT younger) I really romanticised the whole 'wastoid' lifestyle. In 1986, when I was 14, I saw a film, 'Sid n' Nancy' (based on the life of Sid Vicious, the heroin-addicted bass player with the Sex Pistols) and GOD knows why (it was such a pessimistic film) it made me WANT to be an addict. I'm not blaming this film in particular. From when I was about 8 I wanted to be a smoker, mainly because my parents were non-smokers, and all the smoking parents of my friends seemed to have infinitely more 'interesting' lives....probably because they were alcoholics as well. By 'interesting' I mean that these adults, the parents of my friends, had melodramatic relationships, break-ups, new romances....Especially my cousin's parents. My cousin and I were once very close. We were born a month apart. Sadly, we are no longer close. But when I was a child, I loved her the best next to my immediate family. One time, after my aunt and her then-alcoholic husband had had a TERRIFIC row, to the extent that us kids (I was staying over for the night) were cowering in our bedrooms, pretending to be asleep....anyway, I had to go to the toilet, and I held on until there was a lull in the fighting, and then snuck out to the bathroom, and on my way, I passed the living room, and my uncle (who was probably smashed) had his head buried in my aunt's belly and was so obviously very much in love with her, and she was stroking his hair and at the same time smoking a cigarette....obviously, a very private moment, and one that I just happened to catch a glimpse of. I thought it was so romantic and wonderful. My own parents never even touched eachother in front of me. And they seemed really boring in comparison (although, ironically, my uncle is now sober - thru AA - and my dad is now pretty hardcore alcoholic).

Sorry. I'm just ramblin' away here, killing time and trying to not drink anymore. I have had a few today. My 'excuse' was my ex's harrassing behaviour over the phone, the reasons for which I won't go into, since it isn't really relevant. Well, my ex's harrassing behaviour was my excuse for CONTINUING to drink. I had already had two sherries on the strength of the fact that the man I am currently involved with had called me to say he had gastro-enteritis in a bad way, and would probably not be able to come over and see me tomorrow. I had really been looking forward to seeing him, and I scented something bogus about his excuse, and felt hurt....so, straight for the sherry, without a second thought.

This is my problem: no matter how much I DON'T want to drink, even the slightest little disappintment just puts me in robotic mode (ie pour drink and drink it without THINKING about what will probably happen as a result....that is, I pour out that first drink and somehow kid myself it's only going to be one or two, when in fact every single time I end up drinking to point of at least comfortable inebriation: more often though, I have gotten  beyond that point of comfortable inebriation by the time I finally decide to stop).  Up until recently I never got the point of the 'think, think, think' slogan....but I get it now, even though I haven't been sober for more than two days running since I recognised that there was, indeed, a problem with me and the drink (again).

I think I have posted before about my previous stint in AA, before I had a child. I was totally non-drinking throughout the pregnancy, and only drank one drink at a time for the sake of politeness on social occasions while breastfeeding. So basically I was sober for about 27 months. I remember, though, at a New Year's Eve party (just a family thing with my ex's people) breastfeeding my daughter, who was not even one year old then, and putting her down to sleep in her portacot, and turning off the light in the bedroom, and hearing the people outside getting increasingly raucous and laughing....it was a lovely summery night (I live in Australia) and God, I really wished I could have a few. And I thought quite consciously, once the breastfeeding is finished, you CAN have a few. That is, I said to myself that this period of enforced continual sobriety will end eventually.

As it turned out (by the way, I'm digressing from my original topic, but it's helping me....) I did breastfeed my daughter until she was 18 months old. Then I had to stop very suddenly, because of a big depressive episode I had that involved panic attacks etc, and the medication I was prescribed was not compatible with breastfeeding. My ex, I must say (I'm being rather nasty here) was very unsupportive. Actually, 'unsupportive' is a polite way of putting it. He cracked me across the face and told me to pull myself together. And then he went back to sleep (he liked to sleep in until about ten: he was on a postgrad scholarship and had no compelling motivation to get up early, except for, you would think, the fact that I was getting up every single bloody day at about six thirty in order to feed/change/love our daughter. And I was always 'it' in this respect, despite the fact that I was sleep deprived because I generally had to get up at least once, more often twice, during the night to breastfeed).

Anyway, had to wean my baby very suddenly, and it was very traumatic, I think, for both of us. I would've preferred to wean her more gradually (of course, by the age of 18 months, she was eating solid food as well, but she would have very little to drink apart from breast milk, and that first day when I had to deny her the breast.....she held out and cried and got really upset, not to mention thirsty, but by bedtime agreed to drink some cow's milk from a cup....)  

Once baby was weaned, everything was cool for a LONG time. By which I mean about 12 months. I was fool enough to take up smoking again, but I still hardly drank, although I was not a tee-totaller. I left my girl's dad on her second birthday. After hours of verbal abuse, topped off my my ex refusing to let me have car keys to drive to shop for last minute things for her party (I had to walk, with baby in stroller, to an overpriced deli), I finally cracked and attempted to call his sister to let her know that I really couldn't handle having a kid's party that day. He had been pinging me across the cheek with his fingers in a really painful way, going past and pulling on my earlobes while I was trying to put my make-up on, screaming at me that the 'f**king place looks like a brothel, why don't you clean it up, you stupid cow...' etc and so forth.  

As soon as my ex realised that I was calling his sister without his 'consent', he cracked me across the face, grabbed the phone off me and hung up....I called her back, he tried to hit me again, but I dodged him....then he went and lay down in our room and I silently packed up a few things and called a cab and went to my mother's, and from my mother's to a women's shelter, and since the women's shelter I have been living in an apartment owned by my parents.

I pay my parents almost the same amount of rent that they would get with a regular tenant, but since my ex only sporadically pays child support (and I'm afraid to invoke legal aid in order to enforce his payments for fear of antagonising him) most fortnights my parents have to give me back about $50 of what I paid them to start with. My parents, both substance abusers, are constantly going on about my 'ingratitude' and the fact that I am costing them money. I would go out and get a crap job in order to circumvent all this shit but the cruel joke is that I actually have really good, well-paid job coming up for next semester, teaching Shakespeare at a local university,and I don't why in hell they gave me this job since I am not at all a Shakespeare expert. But the point is that SINCE I am not a Shakespeare expert, I am having to do a lot of (unpaid) preparation and writing (I am doing all the lecturing, tutoring and co-ordination for this course) and I don't even have the time to work in a laundromat (which is where my ex would LOVE to see me). My daughter is in daycare one day a week, my mother has supposedly committed herself to minding my daughter one other day but she whines and bitches about how this one day a week is disrupting her life, and more often than not, I can't even drop off my daughter at Mum's place and go home to work in peace - I have to do what I can at Mum's house, constantly interrupted by admonitions and accusations of 'ingratitude'.

Where I have personally 'stuffed up' (as we say in Oz) is that on the nights when my ex has my daughter overnight (I wish I didn't have to agree to that....but that's another story) I ought to be doing work on this stupid course, but I always get wasted instead. One reason why I was disappointed by my boyfriend's 'gastro' (real or fictitious) was that he is one person that I don't feel like I have to booze around: I can just enjoy his company and the contact and have a cuddle and a bit of joy....I know if he can't make it tomorrow night I'll just be on the pills and booze bigtime. That's if I allow my daughter to go her dad's tomorrow, which I'm not sure I will, given his recent crazy behaviour.

Anyway, I've vented. Thanks for reading, if you have read this far. Responses would be appreciated but I don't expect them.....this has been an extraordinarily negative post, and I apologise if it has upset people. But right now I have northing except this board, it seems.

Toni, would especially like to hear from you....

Sycorax