The Not Happy Thread

Hey, sorry for trying to help.

 

No offence meant, Link the Writer. I was just pointing out our cultural differences.

 

Sure. Sure.

 

Try a little simple prose - like that. Diary stuff gets you off your back, readers like sincerity: a young man and his struggles. Being in your twenties is tough...no need to appear bombastic, high-faluting author. Simple is best. When you write clean and simple, you write very well. All best

 

Fruit flies have spawned an impressive army in my kitchen and I have no idea where they came from. All my fruit is in the fridge, the trash gets taken out, I can't find anything rotting anywhere. It's nauseating to walk into a cloud of fruit flies. Well, everything is nauseating these days, but fruit flies feel like a biblical plague.

 

Hey, get on my level, Lyrical. My house was recently besieged by roaches. ROACHES!! The spawn of all abomination, the seed of Evil itself. I'd take fruit flies over roaches any day, thank you very much.

Welcome to the club. Mine looks like shit too.

 

Three day bender? Round these parts, we call it the weekend.

 

Not fun for those who have to take care of your drunken ass. I like a drink here and there, but a man who forces his family to care for him like a child because he can't control himself and his drinking is no man at all. He is a child. I've no sympathy nor tolerance for drunks. Come to think of it, I've no sympathy nor tolerance for those who choose to sit around and whine about why life isn't fair rather than doing the best they can with what they've got. Life sucks, big whoop. Sucks for everyone, get over it.

Well, I'm a cold-hearted bastard today...

 

I see the forum is as devoid of any semblance of a sense of humour as ever.

 

There's some truth here, but no grey paint in your cupboard. I suppose I have been an enabler on many fronts for many years.

 

Sorry, but this is one of the few things I'm wholly black/white about. If you want to destroy your life with alcohol, be my guess, but don't drag everyone else down with you. And if you killed someone because you were driving drunk, absolutely no sympathy from me. No one forced the bottle to your lips.

 

Well they do all those things, and they are among us, but I don't share your point of view. I don't know whether the word is 'sympathy?' Alcoholics have an illness, they are very destructive. I suppose your vindictiveness is most striking.

I dunno, lack of compassion? Wisdom...

Your position is political, safe, but humans are complex. I'm thinking about your POV, not you.

 

Nope. NOPE. I'll take fruit flies over roaches too. No thank you! They definitely are the devil's little minions. My first house I ever bought was infested with roaches, which I did not know until we started doing to extensive renovation. I saw a couple and worried there might be more, but one week into the reno, my neighbor came over to meet me and complain that all the work was sending the roaches in a mass exodus to her house. I felt bad, but not that bad if you know what I mean. Happily, they never came back. I don't know how she got rid of them or if she ever did, only that I never saw them again.

 

Mm, true. It's just that I find it a bit difficult to feel sympathy for someone who apparently wishes to destroy his/her life with alcohol. I'll still hold out for a chance the person will change, but still, no one forced the liquor down their throats.

EDIT: It is striking, my vindictiveness. I'm ashamed to admit it, but at my worst, I'm a vindictive, mean-spirited son of a bitch. It's like I'm goddamned Jekyll and Hyde here! At my best, I'm what I normally am here, a somewhat eccentric oddball who just wants to hang out, make friends, and help out whenever I can. At my worst? Run. RUN!!

In other words, ah...any problems you'd like to tell me? What can this grumpy old vindictive whale do for you? God, don't you just hate it when you feel like you've murdered a thread because you got a bit angry over something? I can almost see you all back there staring at me, sort of shifting around uncomfortably saying, "Uh...who wants first dibs? Anyone?"

 

I was going to let this one go, but can't. My post was intended as a joke, much like (as I suspect) @OurJud's was. There are significant cultural differences between our countries with respect to alcohol. We don't tend to label people alcoholics quite as readily as you seem to, for one. I resent anything even approaching the inference that anyone has to take care of me. The role of carer(s) in my house, over my children is facilitated by my wife and I. For someone purporting to have no tolerance for those that like to whine about perceived injustices in their lives, you disproportionately negate the claim with your countless posts on this, the not happy thread about some banal shite or other.

 

There's two conversations taking place at the same time, thas all.

 

OK, OK, sorry. Got a little stirred up there and showed you my ass. Sorry 'bout that. And for the record, I do actually have some sympathy and pity for alcoholics, I just would rather encourage them to go seek help if they needed.

Now can we drop it and pretend that I didn't stir up a shitstorm, please?

 

BUT people getting pissed a lot...they're not the same as alcoholics, it's different - I know the two groups converge, but it is different. Some people have this personality split brought on by booze: they get very evil and it is very exhausting...

 

When I get drunk (well, a healthy buzz, rather), I turn into a happy, bubbly, and quite clumsy person. Guess I just got lucky...

But yeah, I've heard tales like that. They become a completely different person when drunk. Sounds terrifying...

And now I feel really disgusted with myself for how I acted in the last page. >:[ Granted it's not the worst thing in the world, but Christ, I'm better than this. I know I am.

 

Well I happened to come across this and as Ive mentioned before a lot of people who I grew up around and love very much are alcoholics. My uncle who basically stood in as my father figure was one for a long loooong time bu he was sober by the time he died but yeah I seen my fair share of breakdown and a few interventions.

It is never an easy thing to see or deal with.

There have certainly been a lot of late nights and arguments that always kept me up as a child (I still dont do terribly well around people who are wasted) but with that said......the people in my family who struggle with it are still great. In fact .....now this is just from my personal experience they were always the smartest, kindest, funniest, most chilled (when sober) or at the very least the most interesting to be around. I can say without a doubt most of the people in my life who I've learned from the most, connected with and REALLY look up to are the ones with addiction problems and they really all worked hard to make sure I was more well off.

And yeah it can be hard to sympathize, I get that totally and it is a very confusing thing to see .....can be hard to understand.

Hell I'm still not sure I fully understand sometimes and its been such a big part of my life so far. But I wouldn't trade any of them or the experience, advice, love and support they've given just cause they happened to have a drinking problem.

Well anyway I'm rambling like I always do but just wanted to say that most alcoholics (which is quite a bit.....a lot of AA family friends as well) I've known and met are wonderful people. Now please note I don't advocate over drinking or anything

It really is a very very hard thing to deal with and it very much can poison the addict's life and the lives of family members. It is really a shame that people have to deal with that and there are no doubt super negative effects on everyone involved....

Yet not to sound arrogant or overly positive on such a depressive subject I consider myself one of the lucky ones as we all know there are people who end up just completely a mess from dealing with this, but my life for some reason has turned out so positive because of it.

I wished to God or whoever that the people I love didn't do that to themselves and didn't hurt other members of our family (wish even more that people in general didnt have to deal with it of course) but I couldn't ever stay angry or vindictive against them .....they just were always there for me.

Hell my uncle (before he went sober) went to drink once when I was like five or six, never even left me alone in the car or outside, he brought me right in the bar and sat me on the pool table and he let me just play with all the bar games and taught me how they work....he did it with a smile.

So pool, darts etc

Which yeah might be irresponsible but now that he's gone I really look at those days with a great sense of ......warmth ....I guess, not sure on the perfect word but yeah warmth

Sorry this was so long and all but the topics of interest and all that tends to make me talk quite a bit

 

Damn it!

My ankle gave out on an uneven walkway and I fell injuring the ankle, the opposite knee and both of my forearms. I do hope nothing's broken, I don't think it is.

Last time I fell like this I weakened all the tendons in a knee and it took almost a year before it stopped giving out when I stepped any way but straight.

I can move the ankle but now my whole leg is throbbing up to the knee.

Sigh.

 

As for the alcoholism, I win the prize. There were two murder suicides and a third suicide in my family: Depression self-medicated with alcohol. My brother's been an alcoholic since he was a teenager, almost died when his esophageal varicies burst in his 30s. He quit drinking but switched to cocaine. Then he got arrested and lost his job of 18 years. He quit everything for a few years and now he's drinking heavily again. My dad died of an alcohol and smoking related cancer. His father was the suicide that didn't murder his wife at the same time, she had already died of an illness years earlier. His aunt died when she crashed her car into a bridge while driving drunk.

There are a few more stories but I think that's enough.

 

This is my family, too. At least four people in my family have killed themselves while on one of these "harmless" binges (my brother told me he was considering loading his shot gun, in fact).

@matwoolf Addiction is an illness, you're right. And I'm not too hard on those in my family who relapse, as I see it as part of the recovery process. Every day is different, and presents its own challenges. However, when you have a daughter, like my brother does, who you dump off on her grandmother to partake in a drinking binge, I don't have a lot of patience for it.

And when you tell me that you're considering taking your own life, I don't brush it off simply because "you're an adult" and if you need help, you'll get it when it hits you that it matters. Too many times that mistake has been made.

But I'm also not going to hold your hand through the process, either. I'll be there to make sure you're actually conscious and breathing while your sleeping, in case I need to call an ambulance for alcohol poisoning, and I'll be pouring out your alcohol while I check in. Because I don't encourage or support it, and that's pretty damn clear.

The difference between the culture of alcohol in the UK versus the states is that our puritan roots painted alcohol as some kind of happy evil, and as a result, when many kids become of age they don't know how to drink, and they go off the deep end -- and whether you find us too harsh on drinkers or simply overprotective, the aforementioned root issue has caused quite a bit more alcoholism in the US.

But I also don't believe that alcoholism or addiction is a joke, or that neglecting to stop drinking for 72 hours straight should be taken lightly as "a weekend." Especially when you're a father. Especially when drinking to that capacity has been known to kill people. Especially when you're depressed, and you might just give it a nudge in that direction before the alcohol does it for you.

End rant.

 

That sucks.

 

It does suck, as you know. And that's why I don't take it lightly, or joke about the line between alcoholism/addiction and a night on the town. Self destruction is destructive to more than only oneself, and it's pretty easy to brush off if you've never seen someone you love dearly turn into a ghost of the person they once were, or repeatedly put themselves in dangerous situations because they can't cope with their emotions.