tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64321162781403420422024-03-14T01:08:01.982-07:00Alcoholism and atheism: Christo Hoffmann, The Godless Alcoholic.Through my own efforts I will be able to have the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, and change the things that I can.
Life after drink does not necessarily include a life with a God. Serenity is attainable without a higher being. However the main intent is to reach people that need to get through and by.Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-2008522673035953132012-11-11T23:41:00.003-08:002012-11-11T23:41:57.144-08:00Emotional Sobriety
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I have come to realize and live with
the knowledge that I have one absolute certainty in my life. And that
is that I am an alcoholic.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Having been sober for four years now, I
have had to make a conscious decision to start focusing on living
life and not re living my drunken state. I have to concentrate on
giving myself and those around me whom love me, what I took away
while I was drinking.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Time; Time spent in a sober state with
those I love doing what I love and what they love. Reminiscing on the
good old drunken days will no longer serve a purpose for me. Hell, we
did not get to be alcoholics by not having a blast while drinking.
Yes there was really bad times, but there was also really good times.
The problem though is that the bad times and the state of living did
not allow for the good times to become amazing, awesome, mind blowing
times.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I used to believe that I could not have
that without alcohol as the times with alcohol seemed so good, I have
proven myself wrong in this regard over the last four ears and I have
done so a multitude of times. To elaborate on the things I have done
and experienced will probably shock most, and horrify the rest. Bt
trust me on the sun block. I have experienced live, I got addicted to
living what my fantasies and the most amazing thing has happened. At
the death of each fantasy, stood the birth of a new one.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I realise that the program that gave me
this sobriety might also give me the way or at least partly in
achieving a life of being drunk on life in sobriety. I do not I will
not have to keep applying the rest of the amended program as I have
come to live it in my life. But I might find the continued route if
you want to call it that to staying sober and after all try my utmost
to better on the memories I have had the privilege of sharing with
those I love dearly.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So I looked at the 12<sup>th</sup> step
and I noticed two things in the little AA 12 and 12 booklet.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It describes the path to living sober
continuously to be achieved through two things, emotional sobriety
and a spiritual awakening.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I had a look at the se and found some
interesting things
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Emotional sobriety apparently is mad up
of two parts. Negative feelings or emotions gets drawn on from two
parts of the emotional state. The part that recalls and the part that
evaluates. This simply means that when we experience an emotional
distressing situation or circumstance we draw either on past
experiences in looking for an answer or we evaluate, re evaluate and
then deal with it. Either by blocking that emotion entirely or
rethinking it carefully to draw from it the most we can. Either
positive or negative.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I don’t for one moment profess to be
emotionally sober. Hell I think I sometimes thrive on being
emotionally tipsy. Emotions is not always negative, and I would love
to be enthralled in the positive ones, the ones that makes you feel
on a high, the ones you get from truly living. Apparently this is
called a distraction technique, you know when everyone always tell
you to concentrate on the things that is positive and positive
thoughts attract positive reactions. Seemingly this principle have
been explained in science. And that is purely a technique of
concentrating on things that promotes emotional sobriety through
concentrating on positive memories and ideas. If you take a moment to
think about it, it is actually one of those things that seems so
glaringly obvious, but until its explained you never really take in
the importance of it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The part about emotional sobriety
includes for me personally so many things on so many levels once I
started thinkng about it that once I regaded the things I see
relevant to it in my life in isolation it means so much more than
just the concept in its own.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I had to reconsider why I explained
things in my life or shared parts of it in certain ways. And the
first deep realisation was that telling people whom you care about
what you perceive they want to hear is most definitely not only wrong
but extremely unfair on them and on yourself. I also realised that
stating the absolute truth might hurt as well, but at least you are
being fair in giving the person that you engage in the opportunity to
deal with the truth and not to deal with something you assumed about
them. You are also giving them the chance to accept you for what you
are. Not what you perceive them to want you to be. Because the real
you will surface eventually and that can not be stopped.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Trying to be emotionally sober also
means for me to apply patience in things. To wait for things to play
out or happen without trying to control the outcome of every last
thing around you. The reality of it is that this is so prevalent in
the serenity prayer as well when we say “accept the things you
cannot change.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I came to believe also that I have to
make a continued effort, to try and see the positive in other people,
even if the person might be someone that I don’t like. Looking for
positives in people and carrying that around with you seems a sight
better than worrying about them carrying the reciprocated negative
thoughts.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Then the 12<sup>th</sup> step talks
abot and describes a spiritual awakening.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It says in the 12 and 12 that the
meaning of a person that has had spiritual awakening is the
following:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“He has now become able to feel, and
believe that which he could not do before on his unaided strength and
resources alone. He has been granted a gift which amounts to a new
state of consciousness and being”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I am in no way of he furthest stretch
of the imagination a spiritual person in any way. So some might find
it surprising that I still find value in this. However this hit me so
hard when I read it as it described something about me that was born
slowly over four years.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Firstly I have not only become able to
feel, but I have become able to feel that none of my emotions either
positive or negative means anything if I do not have the ability
firstly and secondly a person to share it with. Most people in this
program look for that in a higher power, I found that in people. Yes
sometimes people betray you, sometimes your perception of that
betrayal might be warped and skew. But that is what you perceive and
not necessarily the truth even if they might be wrong about you. Fact
is. If we see the best in people even when they betray us. We will be
able to deal with it in a mature fashion.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I found that over the last two years a
person that I could really say anything to about myself. She mostly
does not even realise the value that she adds in my life. But just
that ability to allow her close and to allow her in my head with the
deepest darkest, and the most mundane is a feeling of freedom that
gives you the ability to live the way that you need to live. For this
I can never thank my life partner enough. She is my love, my lover,
my soul partner. And yes we can still be as kinky as shit after two
years and seemingly growing in it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The last part states that I have been
granted a a new state of consciousness of being. This has most
certainly happened for me, and it has happened without a higher
power. It has happened by allowing life to happen, allowing myself to
be open to be loved for who I am, and to love others for who they
are. I suck at being conscious of others needs, but I try and just
trying to do that gets noticed sometimes. </div>
Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-41652130572743647652012-10-16T01:23:00.002-07:002012-10-16T01:30:16.852-07:00Happiness<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We go through life learning it's little
lessons, also the big ones. Mostly we take note of these. But rarely
do we go and sit and take cognisant note of exactly we have learnt
from our actions or that of others. Rarely do we fully appreciate the
full implications of what we have done, not done or should have or
not have done.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Balancing life's lessons becomes a bit
of a juggling act in an ever ongoing game of learning and applying
those little grey areas that could very well become black blotches in
our make up as human beings.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As a recovering drunk its been
difficult to stay sober, as a sober person its also been difficult at
times. But the most difficult part I think has been to learn to live.
Not just to survive and to go about things every day doing what I do.
But to really fucking LIVE.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I have sacrificed so much for that
which I came not to believe in, and then some for that which I did
come to believe in. Its the learning curve of life one massive curve of
try and try again. Remembering now how I said to my father as a
teenager that I need to make my own mistakes, that I want to learn
from my own screw ups. I see myself doing things and living this
wonderful life. I realise that from the outside sometimes it must seem
that it is awesome to live this life. A life of love of passion and
of doing the things that I want to do. Well mostly, as I also learnt
recently that giving up on some dreams is not necessarily a weakness
but could be a strength within. It is not weakness to let go of your
own desires and sacrifice them for those who hold you dear, that
cherish you in their lives.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We have to be true to ourselves, we
tell ourselves that every day. But being true to yourself at the
expense of those close and dear to you, makes no sense either. I did
this program of recovery having to say to a lot of people how I had
wronged them and apologising with an accompanying question of 'How do
I make it better for you” and in doing that learnt the value of
true forgiveness and taking responsibility for my wrongs. I vowed to
never have to do that again.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Yet I find myself doing so quite often.
I do apply the principle still, but the sober godless alcoholic
screws up too... a lot!</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And he has to say sorry.. a lot!</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I have learnt is that the
balancing act of living your life at the expense of someone else’s
happiness has a default setting in screwing up the happiness that you
were chasing in the first place.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Finding what makes you happy while
still adding value to the lives of others seems to be a difficult
road but one well worth traveling.</div>
Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-21108462214878761622012-01-03T14:25:00.000-08:002012-01-03T14:25:23.222-08:00“What’s the use of staying sober?”<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Do I sometimes wonder; “What’s the use of staying sober?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sue de Bruyn a good friend asked me this question today. And
it seems it one of those questions we know the answers to and even know we knew
the question was there somewhere, but never really considered exactly what the
answer would be unless the question is physically asked. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the beginning of my sobriety this question haunted me
probably every waking moment of every waking day. However as time went by I
think there is somewhere in every drunks sobriety a fine line in time. A line
where the idea of alcohol and planning your life around it, and being
constantly conscious of the need for it is crossed in sobriety. It has
certainly been for me a line that I was not consciously aware of crossing until
I was confronted with this question. It was then that I realized within myself.
How I used to be and how I am now with regards to that constant awareness of
alcohol and the need for it that needs to be suppressed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Looking back on the year of 2011 I can honestly say that
every single reason to drink again was represented to me by life.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Things ranging from deaths of close friends, a struggling
business, having to let go of people that has been loyal to me because of the
necessity of cutting down on expenses due to a divorce, a wife that has had an
affair before and disguised a second one with blaming me for everything that
has gone wrong in her life while separating from me without having the decency
to ask for a divorce. But rather chose to pursue a second relationship without
honesty. Honesty that I had given her when I felt that need.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Those are but a few things, and if I had to start listing
the individual events, it would most certainly take me along the route of considering
drinking again, as has happened on numerous occasions. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However I think that line that gets crossed of being
constantly aware of a craving or need for a drink becoming less prominent leads
to another line, one where we become aware of the things we have gained by
staying sober. And for me the value in my darkest hour of sobriety far
surpasses the state of my life in its best hour while drinking. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thinking back on a chaotic life where there was no direction
no plan and no real friendship or relationship worthwhile and comparing that to
what I have found in sobriety makes the choice so glaringly obvious that the
action of drinking would equal having healthy legs amputated.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have gained three years of a sexual relationship with my
wife, as well as a relationship as a whole. I have also lost her through
choices of both my own and hers but the time she gave me still remains
precious. And that I still value daily. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have gained a life shared with my son, one that was marred
by drinking every day, the lack of respect from others because I was present
but absent. And I managed to turn that around in sobriety. Becoming a man he
can look up to because I am not constantly under the influence. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I went back to exercising, I lost my massive stomach (23 kg
so far) and go to gym, because the drinking time is now gym time. This gave me
an ability to do physical activities with my son that I would never have been
able to while drinking.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I can go swimming with him sober and not drunk and incapable
of looking after myself never mind a 5 year old.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My now separated wife agreed to joint custody. A trust I
would never have deserved or gotten in a drinking life.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The business
decisions I make I can make with confidence and without regret. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have gained a state of financial independence, I am not
rich and there are still months that are rough. But I can manage to stay credit
worthy. Pay my bills and even buy my kid a present every now and again. Even
though I am now paying for a household on my own that used to be supported by a
substantial second income. I am surviving, something that would not have
happened while I was drinking.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Sobriety have given me so much that the days when I
ask myself whether there is use in staying sober I only have to look at what I
have gained in sobriety to prevent myself from amputating my legs while they
are healthy and functioning. </span>Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-22468625275867047992011-12-12T13:20:00.000-08:002011-12-12T13:20:49.384-08:00What does alcohol do to you?<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Every person that has every drunk heavily knows what the
mother of all hangovers feel like. That is perhaps the one thing I miss the
least about my drinking days. That feeling of the morning after, thinking back
to those mornings now makes my stomach turn, and I ask myself how it could be
possible that did that this to my body every single day for close on 18 years.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I remember headaches, sore body, stiffness, bloated stomach,
heartburn, acid that normally made me wretch in the mornings. Not even
considering the emotional damage I caused to others and the financial screw
ups. Purely looking back on the physical side of things I look back and I see
an overweight, bloated ugly person that slept next to the person he loved with all
his heart with a stinking breath every night. That could not have been easy for
Debbie, and she has my every respect for how she managed to deal with me. Also
not without fault all the time but still she stuck around. Even today, after
she has left me as a sober person. I hold the highest regard for her endurance
and tolerance towards me and our relationship back then. I smell people every
now and again and it truly repulses me now. So I cannot imagine how she endured
it. Even that morning after breath and the taste of the stale alcohol in your
mouth seems so fresh in my memory.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I took the time and compiled a list of the diseases caused
by alcohol abuse. What I did to my body, the body that I have one chance at
carrying me through this life.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is the obvious side effect of developing alcoholism,
however I have a feeling that if you are reading this you either have an
alcoholic in your life, or you are pretty sure that you are an alcoholic, even
though you might not be ready to admit your status to yourself yet.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Listing </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Cardiovascular disease, malabsorption, chronic pancreatitis,
alcoholic liver disease, cancer, damage to central nervous system, damage to
peripheral nervous system, coronary heart disease, peripheral arterial disease,
heart attack and stroke, cardiomyopathy, hematologic diseases, stroke. Damage
to the brain includes, impaired adolescent brain development, neuroinflamation,
changes in dopaminegeric and glutamatergic signaling pathways, inhibition of
hippocampal neurogenesis (In short drinking makes you dumb, and you lose your
short term memory), cognition and dementia, tremors, sleep disorders, mental
health effects. There are digestive system and weight gain problems wich
includes, metabolic syndrome, gallbladder effects, liver diseases including
sclerosis of the liver, pancreatitis. Other systems are affected as well
including, alcoholic ling disease, kidney stones, sexual dysfunction, hormonal
imbalance, diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, skin defects. The immune system
is affected in the following ways. Increased chances of bacterial infections,
common colds are pronounced, cancers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The saddest of alcoholic related diseases is certainly fetal
alcohol syndrome, I have seen what a mother looks like when she comes to
realize that she has taken away her child’s chances of having a normal life and
has to look at the face of a child daily of whom she realizes she has in
essence been the cause of that child’s condition, and that she did it willingly
for her own pleasure. It is one of the saddest things I have seen in my life
and it leaves a lasting impression.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In short, I know that for me to drink, means I am going to
die. I will kill myself willingly if I drink again. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I first went to an AA meeting it was explained to me
that when alcoholics put alcohol into their bodies, something different happens
from what happens to the Muggels (normal people) this does not mean that I am a
weaker person or that there is something wrong with my mind or that I am
dysfunctional. It means that my body is a bit different and that I have a
sickness that causes my body to want more and more and more, where the next
person’s body tells him to stop drinking when he feels he becomes intoxicated,
my disease makes me want more. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some of the associated effects that alcohol has on people’s
lives includes. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Family violence, (this goes both ways, both because family
members and spouses will lash out at a drunk, and it might be the cause of the
violence) emotional abuse, (again goes both ways) impaired judgment, ( a loss
of a sense of right and wrong) and a multitude of other things too long to list
here.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some of the things I am so happy that I have not had to feel
in three years:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal">Trying
to remember what I did and said the night before.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Trying
to remember what my wife (or any other person) did and said the night
before.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Facing
the screw ups I made the night before.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Seeing
my wife run into the arms of another man from being happy to see him and
being to drunk to really care.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Falling
asleep with a baby in my arms in front of the TV.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Missing
the first two years of my child’s life.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">The
feeling of dread when I cannot remember what I did the night before.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">The
immediate physical damage to my body like cuts from glass and bar fights.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">The
feeling of utter stupidity when I realized I was not as liked as I thought
I was at the pubs, neither funny or even respected, but just tolerated
because I paid.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">The
worst of all, is the damage I did to others, and the hurt I caused
emotionally to the people who loves and loved me.</li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The reality is that alcohol does not only destroy the life
of the drunk, it destroys the lives of people close to him, the ones whom love
him, and the ones whom has to look at a person they love destroying himself and
them. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One would think that these things are enough to make a
person stop drinking and look for help. The sad fact is that in most cases it
is not. There is a feeling that only fellow alcoholics can recognize and
identify with. That is that you in some way realize your problem but feel
helpless, powerless and the very idea of stopping seems impossible and an
exercise based in futility. The fact is that it is not, it can be done and like
writing a final exam millions before you have done it. You are not too weak.
You are stronger than you think. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am an alcoholic and I can witness through the change in my
own life that I never want to go back to those days, I have been able to grab
at a second chance to life, and I intend taking it to the absolute maximum.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is possible to stop, it is possible to regain your life,
it is possible to become human again, it is possible to not be the problem and
cancer in other peoples lives, it is possible to be a person others can depend
on and it is possible to regain trust however long that process might seem.
Time and sobriety heals, and working through a few basics steps that helps you
deal with your problem gives you a second chance, and everyone deserves a
second chance.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My name is Christo Hoffmann, I am a sober alcoholic living
with my sickness and working at living life every day. I am thankful for every
day of sobriety that I give myself. </div>Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-16036241472956336882011-12-09T06:38:00.001-08:002011-12-09T06:48:00.620-08:00What makes me an alcoholic?<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I loved alcohol. Mostly whiskey, Brandy, Rum, Wine and… oh
hell. I loved alcohol in most flavors and tastes. I really could not care what I
drank as long as I had it. But I don’t think I would have been an alcoholic if it
tasted bad... duh!!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That is not the point though; I think what made me an
alcoholic is what happens when I put the stuff in my body. I never drank uncontrollably
as if it was my last drink ever… except that is, for my last drink. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I drank, my body, mind, and being told me that I needed
more. I have often seen people who can have a few drinks and when they start
feeling it say that they have had enough and that they are stopping now. That
was not me. When I reached that point I needed more drink, I needed to get to that
feel good place that I found safety in. Where life was good and I did not have
to face reality or any of the things that I had to face daily. I did not want to grow up.
I wanted to be a kid forever. Enjoy life and play. Really like a kid would want
to play with his toys constantly.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I understand that it is different for everyone. You have
binge drinkers whom will justify their alcoholism with the fact that they don’t
drink daily. But what sets them apart from other alcoholics is that it is
probably more difficult for them to stop. As the constant self ratification and the
justification to drink is found in the fact that they don’t drink every day. I
drank every day and I know that at stages I did exactly this; however the bad
things that happened when I drank did not stop when I binged. They still
happened. And this is also true for binge drinkers. This is but one example of the diversity of types of alcoholics.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I believe that you get as many types of alcoholics and
addicts as you get people. Each of us are unique in our personalities and our
beliefs, disbeliefs and our outlook on life. I will never know what it feels
like to be the next person, as I can never feel the next person’s elation, pain
and general discourse in life. In the same way I can never "feel" another persons addiction. I can identify though and I do know that when I drink bad things
happen. And the more I drink and the more regularly I drink the sliding scale of
the fuckups I cause or get involved in changes its gradient dramatically.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have heard a lot of people asking how they would know whether
they have a drinking problem or not. The test for this in my mind at least is simple.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ask yourself these questions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal">Do bad
things happen when I drink?</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Can I start and stop drinking at any given time while drinking?</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Can
you go to a function where alcohol is consumed by others and not drink without it
bugging you?</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Can
you stop drinking for extended periods and not crave a drink?</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">If you
have to ask yourself whether you are an alcoholic; is that not reason in it
self to admit to yourself that you have a problem already?</li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think that if you answer the above questions
honestly to yourself the answer to your alcoholic status becomes glaringly
obvious.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are a lot of misconceptions about alcoholics and what
they are. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
An alcoholic is not necessarily someone that finds his
residence on a park bench. An alcoholic is not someone that has lost
everything. An alcoholic is not necessarily an aggressive wife beater. An
alcoholic is not necessarily someone that drinks during the day. An alcoholic
is not necessarily someone that is uncontrollable in the presence of alcohol.
An alcoholic is not necessarily irrational. An alcoholic is not necessarily
someone that has lost everything in life. An alcoholic is not necessarily a man.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Although the above may be true, if an alcoholic does not do something about his
condition; he might become any or ALL of the above. There are very successful
people whom also carry the active alcoholic badge.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I never hit my wife, I became aggressive yes, and I drank uncontrollably
at times. I almost lost everything in life on more than one occasion. I did
lose people that I love very much, long after I stopped drinking even as the
effects of our actions while actively drinking has long lasting effects on our
lives.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is the lucky ones like me that find a way to stop, that
find a way to become a functioning human beings again. We learn to live with our
addiction; we learn to grow and to face life without our crutch. We learn that
life happens and we learn most of all that our best day drunk does not touch
our worst day sober in terms of happiness and contentment. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I became the Godless Alcoholic because I learnt to
live this live as a functioning human being with mistakes and good and bad
points like everyone else does. I learnt to be human. Because of the gift of
sobriety.</span>Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-39040318962699172212011-11-26T13:43:00.000-08:002011-11-26T13:51:22.476-08:00I came to believe that I am responsible to restore myself to sanity<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I sobered up, knowing for a while before doing so that I would die if did not. I knew that I would lose the two people I love most if I did not. I found out however that I had already lost the one. To explain to someone that the centre of your life has been ripped out and torn apart because of the person who is the centre of your life is difficult.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">To the day, the words ring in my ears. She said under a patio while I held a glass of whiskey in my hand. “I refuse to discuss my affair while you are drinking” I threw the glass away. Somehow, I knew that this time it was not just until tomorrow night. And when she said to me “No, not just for tonight” It came as no surprise. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I joined AA, they saved my life purely through a strange sense of belonging. But somewhere things got a bit confused. I stayed sober for more than a year before I worked up the courage to start working the program, step one was the easy one. Admitting my sickness to myself and the world, what came after that was the bitch. Having to come to believe that a Power greater than yourself can take your sickness away from you, is in itself a spiritual thing... It is intrinsically believing that there is a Power greater than yourself, that can literally lift your sickness and cravings, and everything that worked in concert to make you go down that road in the first place and make it seem obsolete.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I now know that that is a pie in the sky theory, the same as Christianity in which the program is based. As the second step in this road to recovery intrinsically keeps your head open to the possibility of a Supernatural power greater than yourself. And I did not and do not believe that there is such a being.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">On the night of my first years sobriety celebration I was told that I have come this far, and it is now time for me to start “making things right with the Old Man” The person who said this was my first sponsor, and he was brought to this meeting by my in laws.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">On the night of my second anniversary they made a scene and left, because I did not greet them first before a new member that needed someone to talk to. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Soon after this they told her in front of me. “You have lost your identity, you are no longer the independent person we knew” </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I predicted “ They have made you choose, and blood is thicker than water” </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Six months later she left, I stopped making any attempt of hiding my beliefs after their little reclaiming of their daughter. I lost my wife, sober for two and a half years. But only after I had to drag everything I needed to know about her infidelity from her like a dentist would a tooth. Only difference, it was a repeated process. Over and over and over. <br />
<br />
Through her leaving she degraded and belittled me through a process of new relationships, a process of taking things that was ours to an AA group that is based in Christianity and putting my private life in the open. This by the person that called herself a private person, not a public person. The deep seated hurt that I must have caused her to do that still haunts me.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Through all f this I made a lot of other mistakes, I made serious fuck ups. But not one that I would not repeat in essence. As those choices came to define me. They came to be things that has made me embrace my labels. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I worked the program with a different sponsor, someone that understood that I should not be pushed in that direction. And the program worked for me and in some weird way still does, but I have to understand that I am responsible for the happiness that has come my way through the heartache and pain and bitterness, that sober Christians helped me achieve and maintain for more than a year.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I am alone now, but I am happy, I am responsible and I am sober. For the first time in my life I know that my happiness is my responsibility, and I can not look at anyone else for it. That for me to drink is to die, and for me to consider drinking is to consider losing every ounce of happiness that I am responsible for. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">If I look now at what I lost, I realise that what I have lost is mostly other peoples acceptance. And in all honesty, I would rather look my son in the eye a sober, honest, kinky and polyamorous atheist, than a drunk lying, deceiving and pathetic Christian.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I am responsible for my own happiness.</div>Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-49858132811581143982011-10-03T17:18:00.001-07:002011-10-03T17:19:11.387-07:00The Rant about our inner animals<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I was robbed of my nuts, slow castration of the animal in my brain was painless through years of numbed alcoholic daze. But the final rip, tug and pull of the emotional abuse that severed the remaining strings of the manliness inside my heart, while she screamed and told me not to touch her in front of my son. Secured me, secured the animal inside.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">With that began a final journey the final straight of the athlete that had to run, run for his life to a finish line that seemed to lie in a next dimension.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">We are animals. We are animals. Do we know this? Some are lucky as they are never robbed, either through their own strength or just perhaps because they were lucky enough that she or someone like her did not cross their path. So some get to realise that they are animals in their instinct, need and desire. Some are lucky enough to remove some of the tenderness in the act of fucking and give heed to the animal. There is an intrinsic violent nature to the sex act that secures the existence of the species which should be natural. But somewhere we gave away our nuts, or it got ripped off by mutual consent. Some are lucky to discover that the act of penetrating and thrusting a foreign object into a females body is a violent act by nature, and no amount of cuddling or caressing can remove the intrinsic need of violence from us animals fucking.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">So some are robbed, some give away their male essence in their sex. Some just do not need the violent nature, and some need it in reverse. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">We find relationships, we marry. We start that lifelong relationship based on a presumption that its built on mutual respect, confidence in monogamy, confidence in commitment and expectation of a life together. We start life time partnerships on the premise that it will be exactly that. A lifetime relationship. There is no expectation that a relationship like that might end. Because we enter into it with exactly the opposite expectation; that it will last forever. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">But when one party in that relationship starts a secondary relationship, it is started on the premise that it will end. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">This lends an ironic sadism to secondary relationships and what they do to unsuspecting partners. Unsuspecting partners that expect exclusivity does not expect the rejection hurt and shock of the act that rips their nuts from their brains. Because they expect it to last, where as the secondary partner expects no such thing, they expect and are prepared for it to end. The secondary partner will always be emotionally stable while the primary breaks into pieces. As the end is expected. The end looms every day, and the end of the relationship makes every moment of that relationship valuable to those involved as any day could be the last, any fuck over an office table, or blow job on a kitchen counter or night in a hotel room could be the last. So the passion is not removed, the tenderness not reserved for them, the tender expectancies is reserved for the one waiting to be castrated at home to clean the kitchen counter, or to smell the wife reeking of another's cum as she walks in the house, or counting the blue marks on the loving tender wife that treats him with disdain when he dares ask why she smells like sex.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">None of this however removes the fact that we remain animals, and that sex is by nature violent. It actually helps in understanding exactly that.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">That we are able to be men. That we are able to fuck violently as animals do. That we can cause blue marks. That we can have them on their knees in front of us sucking cock on a kitchen counter, and bending over their office tables, or cum on their tits in hotel rooms because we are animals.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">And once we remove our little safety nets of lifetime relationships and what we expect from them. Including the white picket fence, little white house, with three kids, overdraft and two Alsations. And replace that with with a small fisherman's home, with a white picket fence, a pit bull bitch and a dungeon. Then do we stand a chance of discovering that we can fuck like animals, and love. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Then we realise that our own expectation of love and what we thought it was is exactly what fucked us in the first place. What is emotion? A gentle stroke? A soft sensual kiss? A slow penetration? Or a slap on that backside with sudden unexpected rough entry to the hilt? The political correct answer would be that there is no correct answer and as much as that might be correct in most cases, when the possibility of an endless relationship is removed. Which one sounds more alluring? Sensual love making or raw passionate fucking?</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">People choose monogamy or should I say they choose monogamy with an ever present possibility of being attracted somewhere else to animal behaviour. Others choose polyamory, and it does not matter how much we sugar coat it the claim to say that secondary relationships fulfills different needs with different people in an honest open fashion. Serves exactly the same purpose as a monogamous person fucking a lover. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">So I guess what I am saying is that it sounds easy to to say I am looking for lifetime monogamous happiness without the possibility of an end to the relationship; which idea belongs in Utopia, or I can enter each relationship as if it is the last day with that person. Each time we make love, fuck like rug rats. Each time we make love draw into the others inner animal and fuck their senses, senseless. As no amount of paperwork will remove the pedigree bitch from her cunt smelling like sex when she has fucked the leader of another pack.</div>Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-2335997787662697012011-08-26T14:55:00.001-07:002011-08-26T14:55:52.408-07:00Obsessed Drunk<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">I drank today…..</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I became obsessed, I became jealous and I became someone I do not like, but that was long ago. To change that I had to stop drinking. And I did. But I stayed some of those things in some way, and in a lot of ways with a lot of help. I know now, that trust is something earned and not given, and when shocked and not earned back. Chances are that those whose trust has been shocked will become obsessed and jealous. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So I am obsessed and jealous, sober obsessed and jealous. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I decided that to change that; I will have to live the fantasy of life, I will have to do some “addiction” replacement. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Living the fantasy meant that I had to take that first drink. That I had to step over that first line. Knowing that it takes only one drink for a person like me to fall back into the way his life was before. Knowing that because of one drink I will stand a very real chance of losing it all. A real chance of not having what I have now. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I decided that the obsession and the jealousy and the shocked trust had to be replaced, and to do that I had to take the first drink of a life that I could have had. A life that lay open wide and to be explored. Until I saw your green eyes and your beautiful smile. And became addicted to a person that I would drink from every day and every night, sharing the glass of a life together.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But we let that glass slip, it fell, it shattered into a million little pieces, and I had to walk through the shards to find the broom and sweep our spilled water away.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So I took my first drink slowly and precariously while giving you space and time. I loved the sweetness that life offered. I became addicted like my sickness and personality dictates. And I became sad that I will not share this with you. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I am sad, drunk, obsessed and jealous of life, as I need to live the fantasy of my life. Everyday. And for some people fantasy is something used to hurt those that love them the most. A private affair not to be shared.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">THE END</div>Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-54852406432374601982011-08-25T14:52:00.000-07:002011-08-25T14:52:37.914-07:00Alcoholism and atheism: Christo Hoffmann, The Godless Alcoholic.: Coming Home.<a href="http://godlessalcoholic.blogspot.com/2011/08/coming-home.html?spref=bl">Alcoholism and atheism: Christo Hoffmann, The Godless Alcoholic.: Coming Home.</a>: So I went there, dressed in my normal every day clothes. No leather pants, no soft shirt that shows the tattoo. Just normal. My third time ...Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-70149421676753244672011-08-25T14:50:00.001-07:002011-08-25T14:50:55.980-07:00Coming Home.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">So I went there, dressed in my normal every day clothes. No leather pants, no soft shirt that shows the tattoo. Just normal. My third time going to a pub as a sober alcoholic in two years and ten months. And the second time at a pub in the last week. The first time I took photographs of the band. An amazing experience going out. The photographs was not the idea, but was a good thing. It made me feel less out of place with my cold drink in my hand. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But this is different. It’s a kink event, a social. A regular meeting that happens socially in a pub on a monthly basis. And just because I have a sickness that makes me different from most in just another different way should after all not influence where I should be able to socialize or not.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A week before I was sitting in a different place. Where everyday Vanilla life was happening around me. Normal people dressed normal, as now. Walking past, going about their lives. And I was talking to someone, and the person was departing her Vanilla life’s philosophy to me. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And the thought in my head, in the crowd was: </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“You are so fucking normal. You have no idea how different I am from you. You presume to know me and know what and who I am. But the truth is that if you knew. I would scare you. I would make you afraid of me, and what I stand for. Not because what I am is scary, or who I am is scary. But because it falls outside your frame of reference.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">You don’t know anything about what my life, my lifestyle, my beliefs and non beliefs are about. But I know that if I told you. You would judge me. You would take the tiny bits of information that got stuck somewhere in your brain and carry that to the world. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Talking about how I believe things to be different, idealistic perhaps, innocent perhaps… No, those are not the things you will remember. You will not hear that I have more love to give than most. You will hear that I want to receive more than most, and your reference will not be that I want to just love. Your interpretation will defile the word. It will take away from it everything that Love stands for. As you will not be able to fathom that I have moral values, that I have a sense of right or wrong. You will take the bits of what stems from true love, submission, dominance, equality, passion, raw desire and a willingness and a need to please, not only sexually, and you will defile that with your judgment of me. Because you don’t know. Because you have never and will never know all of what it is that you grew up being taught to fear and judge. It comes naturally to you because you don’t know better.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">However now I am sitting behind a guy that wears a big black ear ring, tattoos on his calves and other places, his fiancée a petit beautiful woman. With hair colored like the pelt of a leopard. With a tattoo of a cupcake on her wrist to remind her of her daughter on a daily basis. Beautiful people, people that’s able to love on every level that the word can describe, Love in punishment, love in tenderness, love in dominance and submission. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Next to them sits a Man. Big strong, muscular, no fat. Dressed in sexy female clothes. With knee high boots, and an amazing person to talk to and listen to. Someone that will be judged like me. We sit there and I see the girl that has just told me that her backside is sore from her first flogging she got a few days ago, and I look around this room of people all listening to a very “normal” guy standing in front of us talking about his fetish, what he finds interesting about it. Why it turns him on, why he pursues his fetish. Foot fetish. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I look around at these people; I see them, but strangely. I don’t see how they are different. I see how each of them represents me in some way. I see how they are true to themselves. How being honest about what and who they are will get them judgment, rejection, heartache, tears and sadness. But I see that they know, if they are not honest, and open where it is safe. Then they will be unfulfilled. Their lives will lose tiny bits of who they are as time passes, their pent up energy will accumulate and break one day, or they will start screaming and kicking to get out. But survive they will, probably not if they don’t find places and people like this. People like me. Because as I don’t judge them for political, religious or sexual or relationship preference. In the same way they don’t judge me.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And I realize that right now, at this moment, sitting here behind a beautiful muscular transvestite listening to someone talking about sucking toes, and licking feet and how sexy a low bridge on a woman’s size four foot is. In the basement of a bar. I know, that I have never felt more safe, never felt no judgment and stood no chance of being forced out of any cupboard that my life’s preferences and needs and desires has given me. Than I do now. Because someone else had to be true to them self and force me into the open. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And I know. I am home amongst the freaks, the degenerates and the people that you will judge without blinking an eye. Because you don’t know them, or perhaps you do and aren’t even aware.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I am home.</div>Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-53432795534004746982011-08-13T14:56:00.000-07:002011-08-13T14:56:22.895-07:00The Core of Amends<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">MY CORE</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I drank, from my first drink at age ten I could not stop myself from wanting more. I got drunk that night and off and on over the years as teen ager every now and again when the drink was available it would happen. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">So the fact that I was alcoholic was established pretty much early on. As much as I was not a regular drinker until age 19 the alcoholism was pretty much cast in stone. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">When I did become a regular drinker, it was with a vengeance. Days in the Military as a young officer in an era where the armed forces was pampered in a country where the young men became part of a military fighting culture at young ages. This made for an organisation where a can of Beer was cheaper than a can of Coca-Cola. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Couple this with a very conservative Dutch Reformed Christian upbringing where even watching movies with an age restriction of 2-10 years old I was unthinkable. Keep in mind that these age restrictions was placed on everything that the Nationalist party of the time did not ban outright. And the chances that any child of the era could grow up freeing their minds to alternative thought processes was basically impossible. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">It certainly was the case with me. I ended up being a Sunday school teacher and firmly believing masturbating is wrong and profusely prayed for forgiveness every time this happened. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I think what I basically want to say is that I became alcoholic even before I ever had the chance to define myself as a human being. I never figured out for myself exactly what I was and how I regarded life and the act of living it. I drank, and during these drinking years never grew up. As we alcoholics stop growing emotionally when we drink and there is basically no time or effort to want to discover yourself, we just keep on existing. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">This was most certainly the case with me, and I most certainly had a basic idea what it was that I liked and what excited me and what drove me as a human being and much later on at the age of around 35 only started forming my own opinions around religion, however I never ventured into the arena of discovering any of these things as the alcohol just made sure that I kept hiding myself, the core me from the world. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">The fact was that I knew on some level that I was a polyamorous, kinky atheist, I just had not added the label of alcoholic officially as well. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Through these years I found a degree of happiness and fell in love with a woman that became the centre of my crappy universe. I formed my life around her, and at times showed her bits of the thing I thought I might be but never all of it as the alcohol stopped me from finding this person in myself. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">So the day came when my long standing secondary relationship with alcohol came to an end. That was the 10<sup>th</sup> of November 2008. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">That was the day I started discovering myself, that was the day I had to start facing the core of what defines me as a human being and what made me want to survive and live. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Over the next two years I plunged myself into subjects that I knew were things that I could not, or wanted to identify with. For a few months I plunged myself into finding out everything about alternative medicine for the reason that my wife had had an affair with a Homeopath. A long standing one which in a way saved my life. It still made me research everything surrounding the subject where I became a kind of lay expert in refuting the efficacy of any alternative medicine. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I followed this up with religion and specifically the one that I grew up in and soon came to realize that I was atheist, that I could not identify as a Christian and that I did not believe in what the religion stood for.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I then found a sub culture of kink and BDSM, which in itself was a journey that opened my mind to people in this world more than I think anything else ever would or could. In short I figure out I was kinky, and pretty much that this made me tick sexually. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Through this I found out about polyamory. It started out as a process where I justified my wife's un faithfulness, and I still believe that I am wrong in this. As she maintained throughout that she never stopped loving me. That she even loved two men at the same time. However that may be, I figured I was like that too, that I could love more than one person at the same time. A committed love and a love that would not judge. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">However it became clear soon, that as they sometimes say, love is not enough. Because through this all I changed, the person emerging from eighteen years of drunken life. Was not the person that went into it, or even resembled the person that I had been before.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">My wife was married to a different person totally. She still loved this person, but did not know him. She understood the things he did but could not agree with the things he did or identify with them. She stayed and shared a life and even understood him as she watched and supported and cried with me every step of the way through the fight of staying sober. My sobriety became our sobriety. My life however and what I became was not us anymore. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">She knew me, as she supported me in ways that most men can only dream to get from their wives, she made sacrifices and changed her life for me. But through all of it I emerged for the first time as the core person that was even hidden throughout childhood, through a whole life until the age of 37.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">She moved out a few weeks ago, I believe that she deserves her time for herself. I believe that she deserves happiness. I believe that she deserves a life. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">My sweetheart, I have changed. What I represent in this world has changed. But through 11 years with you at my side my love has not changed. We can find what works for us.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I have done things to you when I was drinking and I have done things when I have been sober. I can not change the past as much as I wish I could. But I can say that I want to make amends. For the drinking and the sober years. And all I need is to know how I can make it better as you are the one person in this world that has suffered the most at my hands. And the person that deserves my amends the most.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">For that I will always have regret and resentment towards myself. And can only hope that I will be given the opportunity to make it better.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I love you, as much as I love my sober life and our son.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">The Godless, Kinky, atheist Alcoholic.</div>Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-59345987643949565072011-06-22T01:10:00.000-07:002011-06-22T01:10:15.759-07:00Alcoholism and atheism: Christo Hoffmann, The Godless Alcoholic.: Spiritual Awakening.<a href="http://godlessalcoholic.blogspot.com/2011/06/soiritual-awakening.html?spref=bl">Alcoholism and atheism: Christo Hoffmann, The Godless Alcoholic.: Spiritual Awakening.</a>: "I drove today. There was nothing different from usual. There was nothing strange, weird or wonderful. Actually to the contrary. It was a col..."Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-78829521136153106842011-06-22T01:00:00.000-07:002011-06-22T01:05:05.607-07:00Spiritual Awakening.<div class="MsoNormal">I drove today. There was nothing different from usual. There was nothing strange, weird or wonderful. Actually to the contrary. It was a cold winter’s morning. It was really cold… Also the trees had no leaves. The sky seemed paler than usual, the grass next to the road seemed dried out more than it should be for the time of year. There was a dusty feeling from dry wind and cold and dreary winter as you can only feel at the tip of <st1:place>Africa</st1:place>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In actual fact, what I saw this morning was no different from what I truly hate about winter. As an African, born and bred, raised and part of this continent in the deepest sense. The dust of the earth has formed part of my <st1:stockticker>DNA</st1:stockticker> through generations I am sure. The cold from the few months of winter is something that almost feels like it goes against the very nature of the dark hot sweaty continent. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But today I drove in silence, a diesel motor accompanying the hum of rubber on tar. Window open and the drive silence that can sometimes be so calming suddenly just swept over me. I realized that for close on two and a half years I have been sober. I realized that for two and a half years I have not had a drink or a hang over or that indescribable sense of loss, regret, self pity, pity for those who have to deal with me, insecurity, self loathing and most of all that sense of something lost that you can not put a name to until you have lived life. After a night of drinking. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I realized in that instant how beautiful this winters day was. I realized in that moment how some must feel when they have a spiritual awakening. I would love to have given it the same name. But I decide to not do that. Every day of my life, it is part of my sobriety and sanity. It is what works for me. And I have decided to leave the rest.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I realized this morning, how beautiful the earth we inhabit is. I stood in awe of the wonderful things that surround me everyday, the mere wonder at how far the human species must have come through millions of years of evolution. The grand scale of everything surrounding me made me realize how grand sobriety was. How it seemed like a massive accomplishment now looking back at time and then realizing that it was no gift… that it was not something achieved from allowing anyone to take my worries away, but that it seemed this beautiful on this ugly day because life and what surrounds us is beautiful. If we only open our eyes and look, look at nature’s accomplishments. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When we look at another living creature and that realization kicks in that through millions of years of evolution the magnificence of each of that animals forefathers’ fight for survival has culminated in what you look at. That is no small feat. That is no small thing. That is something some would like to attribute to a higher power. That is something some would like to believe was created. I believe that those who can not open their minds and see what has evolved around them can not evolve in themselves. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My evolution from drunken Christian to sober atheist has been nothing less than miraculous. It has been nothing short of a roller coaster ride and it has been no small feat. But in the grander scheme of things, hopefully my evolution will result in those after me having less to evolve from than I did. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It is a beautiful morning in <st1:place>Africa</st1:place>, and it feels like I am home.</div>Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-64260888091857669002011-02-18T07:13:00.000-08:002011-02-18T07:13:22.235-08:00Rock Bottom<div class="MsoNormal">Sometimes when we love, we love with everything we have; the person we place our trust in is the centre of our existence. That person becomes the reason for everything. You work, because you want to give them the absolute best you can.</div><div class="MsoNormal">You arrange your life for their convenience, you do things to try and win their love, their approval. I know this sounds unhealthy, and thinking that will not be wrong. It is. However when you are living it, it feels right.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The day I met my wife, she became my reason to live. I know now that in my alcoholic mind I did everything I could to win her approval. However we alcoholics do not do things like other “normal” people when we drink. In my case this meant that I tried to do everything I could in support. I made sure there were cooked meals for her. I made sure the house cleaning did not have to be done by her. I made sure washing was taken care of. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But what I failed to realize was that as long as I was drinking, it did not matter how much of myself I gave to her in other ways, because I was not truly giving all of myself it everything else could and would never be enough. I was not giving myself, not in the true sense of the word. Instead I gave her heartache and sorrow of a kind that would make her see the person that she fell in love with become a degenerate. And then the inevitable happened. She pushed me away. And in that I experienced rejection. Rejection that was evident in the way she talked to me and the way she made love. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Unfortunately I was not the one she was making love with. She had found another man that could give her what she truly needed. A man that could offer her a strong shoulder. </div><div class="MsoNormal">A man that could listen. A man that could give her advice. A man that would not necessarily always give her advice but also sometimes just listen. Where she could get rid of emotional baggage, where she found safety and understanding. Where she found sobriety in another human being away from the crazy world that I had led her into. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">She had an affair, an affair of the worst kind. An affair where she found love. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">No amount of love that I could offer in that time could have ever compared to the love that she must still have had for me, I was a weak and egocentric alcoholic. Yet she stayed. In some way I should be thankful that she found someone else to give her sober orgasms. Because that quite possibly saved my live. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When I found out about her affair. I had reached a rock bottom where my life did not just smash to pieces in seconds. I had reached a rock bottom where the one person that I had placed on a pedestal and whom in my eyes was above all suspicion in the world. In a few long soul wrecking days she became a slut to me, became human. This opened my eyes to see her human needs. This woke me out of a drunken stupor for long enough to realize that I needed help to end the insanity and self centered egotistical life I had been leading. I was confronted not only with her humanity and flaws, but also with her need for a sober man. A man that could be a man and not a bag of wind. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Thus when I sobered up I went to a place where I could find crazy people like me. People who would understand the emotional sewerage that my life had become. People who would see themselves in me. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">That day my life began. That day I realized how much I did love my wife. That day that I thought everything I knew was gone.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I only now realize that I stood at the first day of the rest of my life then. The things that came after this has been utterly amazing and thrilling and life changing. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">That is where my rock bottom was, where I began to become human again. The day she found honesty, was the day I found the small road to sobriety. And what a road its been.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-18789614994435251752011-02-10T02:21:00.000-08:002011-02-10T02:21:41.265-08:00Alcoholism and atheism: Christo Hoffmann, The Godless Alcoholic.: The Narrow Road by Christo Hoffmann<a href="http://godlessalcoholic.blogspot.com/2011/02/narrow-road-by-christo-hoffmann.html?spref=bl">Alcoholism and atheism: Christo Hoffmann, The Godless Alcoholic.: The Narrow Road by Christo Hoffmann</a>: "Matthew 7:13-14:“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through..."Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-2140034159834883132011-02-10T02:20:00.000-08:002011-02-10T02:20:06.667-08:00The Narrow Road by Christo Hoffmann<div style="line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Matthew 7:13-14:</span></strong></div><div style="line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><em><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.“</span></b></em><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I found atheism in sobriety, a place where for the first time in more than eighteen years I was able to look at life and what it involved for me, together with my expectations, desires and dreams with a clear mind. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Growing up in a very staunch Dutch reformed household with a father that is a Church elder to the day and Mother whom has also always been a very deep believer. I stood at a point in my life where I realized that nothing that I was taught as a child to be infallible truths necessarily had to be just that. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Being confronted in a program that promised a life of sobriety that told me in its first step that I had to accept that I was powerless over alcohol, also said to me that I have accepted a lot of things for a long time that was not necessarily true. The fact that I never wanted to accept that I was powerless and now was at a point where this acceptance was glaring was a clear and rational indication that not all acceptances are always necessarily true to the point of blind belief. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Standing at a point where I had to start investigating for myself for the first time ever what I would take as my personal truths and what I would discard became a necessity. My road to sobriety include a place where I had the opportunity to identify with people in tha same situation as me, a place where I could sit listen and learn from others whom have walked this difficult road. You see for an alcoholic, consumption is a two way not a one way. The drink consumes you as well, it takes over your life, your thoughts not necessarily that you think about the actual drink all the time, but in a sense where you plan your life around drinking. You find your comfort zone for drinking, certain places, certain times and certain situations. So when sobering up, you have to find ways and means to stay sober. For me it was these meetings on a weekly basis. Where I literally lived a day at a time for a week at a time until the next meeting. Here I could talk about emotions, and here I could mostly listen to how others have stayed sober. Here I could see first hand that I was not alone in this. A Fellowship formed so quickly that I still stand amazed to the day at how these things worked for me. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The down side when stopping in terms of the double carriage two way road that you walked with alcohol suddenly becomes a one way. And not in a good sense either. As much as alcohol consumed you while you consumed it now becomes a situation where you are consumed by the need for it. You always sub consciously planned your life around having it, now you have to consciously plan your life around not having it. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I entered a twelve step program after being sober for a few days only. I did not need to be convinced that I was powerless over alcohol. That was pretty much a given for me. But the confrontation with a second step that asked me to believe that a Power greater than me could restore me to sanity was a glaring problem for me. At that stage although I was pretty sure that I had issues with religion, I would still have called myself Christian. Although I had started asking questions and looked at certain issues regarding the faith I was raised in a bit more critically I had until then not really, truly investigated how I felt about it myself. The problem was that I could not knowingly commit to a step that would have to lead me on a lifetime of sobriety through abstinence if I knew that I would be doing so in direct conflict with feelings I was uncertain about. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So the lonesome walk along the path of questioning Christianity as a South African Dutch reformed man started, I discovered things over the next few months about a religion I was raised in. About a book I was told since I could remember, was holy. Things that shook my world apart, the utter inner confusion about a situation where you are confronted with the atrocities of what you supported in mere association brings to you a sense of reality regarding a religion that killed, that is killing, that leads people along a path of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>suppressing who and what they are while giving them guilt to live with a religion where people “know” that they will live forever if they do not succumb to what is natural to their bodies and minds. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I learnt that I could be a moral person living responsibly in society and that I could make a difference in the lives of others without having to say Amen, Bless you or I will pray for you. I suddenly realized how utterly laughable it was to stand in front of a perfectly healthy plate of food while it is getting cold because I have to wait for someone to join in the prayers that would ask for food to be blessed. I found out that the food tasted the same and that “un blessed” food would really not cause you to do strange things.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Then came my narrow road. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I live a society that is mostly Christian. The last study I can find dates back to 2007 which shows the following.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Christianity 73.52%</div><div class="MsoNormal">Non Religious 8.08%</div><div class="MsoNormal">Other (Budhism/Chinese) 0.03% </div><div class="MsoNormal">Islam 1.45%</div><div class="MsoNormal">Hinduism 1.25% </div><div class="MsoNormal">African Traditional 15% </div><div class="MsoNormal">Judaism 0.17% </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is purely for interest sake and to show that the broad road in terms of belief and religion in <st1:country-region><st1:place>South Africa</st1:place></st1:country-region> is not the one of the perceived Christian point view. Most South Africans are indeed religious. And most South Africans are indeed Christian. I did not go further to include the denominational Christian breakdown although I am pretty sure that a bit of research into this will reveal the Dutch reformed to be the biggest. In other words: For me growing up and now leaving behind me. Was the broader accepted religion in society in <st1:country-region><st1:place>South Africa</st1:place></st1:country-region>. </div><div class="MsoNormal">I got to a cross road where I knew that I was an atheist. The irony of realizing that in order to be true to myself I could not live in a closet about it was striking when seen in context with the Dutch reformed Church being the broad more traveled road as quoted in my situation. Atheism is definitely not the easy road in South African society, often viewed with hostility and even a sense of serious pity as well as the unspoken condemnation that invariably accompany all of this. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I entered from this cross road the narrow path, the one of atheism in my own situation. My own set of circumstance that dictated that I had to follow an even narrower road to achieve sobriety. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><em><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In short: I entered through the narrow gate. For wide was my gate to drunken oblivion inside Christianity that led to destruction through which many of my fellows enter daily. But small was my gate to sobriety and narrow my road that led to life. And still only a few find it. </span></b></em></div>Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-29710061329996085592011-02-03T11:10:00.000-08:002011-02-03T11:10:03.481-08:00Rehab (Written May 2010)<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">I was early this morning. I came here early in a self serving fashion bringing to these people that must have found their rock bottom. What I have. I know because I am them and without living in a rock bottom you will not willingly submit yourself to this place, and the bars in the windows with the medication and the withdrawal and the Librium to get through it.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">So self serving in my sobriety I walk in with the idea of departing information to them. I walk in confident in my sobriety, ability and where I find myself in life and love and on this planet surrounded by some others like myself. My own personal reminder of what still haunts me and drives me and eats my dreams at night. </div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Self serving, while serving. The idea not so foreign. Even not always rewarding. However it helps waste precious time sometimes and eats the idle seconds at others. </div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">The quiet of this place is eerie. The raw bark of the young Witstinkhout’s all around, bare with a few burnt brown leaves clutching in their tops to the last juices it’s allowed from within the tree. A reminder of what these people in here have in common with them and me.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Like always, I am their centre in the small group. The questions always the same but asked by different people on a weekly basis. Small nuances in the way they ask it; bears stark witness to what causes them to ask. I know; I was there….. I lived their lives before in my own fucked way, and in my own reality of white noise. </div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">When I was broken I was and in some way will always be a part of each of them in my, connected, disconnected way. They are me.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">The grey woman, reserved. Aptly quiet and shaking. The loud Policeman with the swollen stomach and stories of hemorrhoids and his need for his lifeline and not understanding that we are each other in a stupidly connected fashion. The Guy with the shades and broken knuckles but shaky hands. The girl that closes her eyes to memorize telephone numbers instead of writing them down. Unaware that I notice… and understand her so much better suddenly. The older lady provocatively dressed and cleavage spilling out and drawing even my unwilling eyes. Hiding her thoughts behind the sunglasses as she fiddles with their position, holding her shaking fingers out and saying. “I do not know why I am shaking” She looks up and I realize again, we are all each other. </div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">The tiles in our kitchens might differ but we still walk each on our own tiles in the condition we leave our kitchen in. We all have a chipped plate in a cupboard somewhere. Or an old piece of crockery or teaspoon that’s gone a brassy color due to age. We all collect memories and fuckups and ponderings on them. We all deal with them in the same fucked up way. </div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Half way through; the Policeman has tears rolling freely down his cheeks. His daughter is eleven and he knows what she has to deal with because of him. Because he was there in that same place with his own father. I just had to remind him of it. </div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">The grey lady is following close in his footsteps. Her son died in rehab through punishment for running away from them. The people that was supposed to have helped him. Another legacy of a place called Nauwpoort… When her tears come it’s because she has been reminded that although he was only sixteen he still lived before that ugly death. He had good memories for her, if she could only look back past his last days to happier ones he has left her. </div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">The knuckle man wants to know what he must do to safely be normal and not fight when he gets aggressive from booze. He soon walks of when the answer is not what he wanted to hear. His rock bottom has not found him yet…..</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">The quiet girl listened attentively. Taking in more than she thinks I give her credit for. I know.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">The “hot” older lady continuously strokes her empty ring finger and confirms without touching her sunglasses, that she needs one on one counseling. I reluctantly give my number but know already that her answers; to her questions is an elusive few lines that will not depart my lips. </div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">I assume a lot when pondering these people. </div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">But I know that I do not assume one thing about the lives they live. The fuck ups they face and the warmth my addiction will have on them when they again start using. </div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">I know because I am them in my own connected, disconnected way.</div>Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-44312364053015784412011-02-01T23:10:00.000-08:002011-02-01T23:10:35.737-08:00The Godless Alcoholic and others: Power and acceptance – Alcohol gave me wings but t...<a href="http://godlessalcoholic.blogspot.com/2011/02/power-and-acceptance-alcohol-gave-me.html?spref=bl">The Godless Alcoholic and others: Power and acceptance – Alcohol gave me wings but t...</a>: "For a long time, I felt that I found power in alcohol. I felt that when I drank; I became a person that was liked, and could socialize bette..."Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-28621926349128978722011-02-01T23:09:00.000-08:002011-02-01T23:09:28.243-08:00Power and acceptance – Alcohol gave me wings but then took the sky away.<div class="MsoNormal">For a long time, I felt that I found power in alcohol. I felt that when I drank; I became a person that was liked, and could socialize better. I found the power that alcohol gave me to feel that I become more acceptable so deliciously alluring. I am not distracting from the fact that I was never able to drink like a normal person, but the perceived acceptance and reverence I got from people when drinking was only in my own mind.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I found this acceptance from strangers in pubs, bars, strip clubs and not with people whom truly mattered. The people that I found my drunken acceptance from really would only see me when I had been drinking and my alter ego came rushing out. They did not see me the following day with the red eyes and stinking breath, or the aches and moans of a body that would no longer allow the amount of poison put into it. Or the heaving from a stomach that would only see food when a sober moment allowed it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I also thought of myself as this life of the party, the funny one with the funny sayings and witty comments. Now I know, they probably laughed out of pity or social obligation and not because I was such a delightful person. To me I was the man, to the people I interacted with socially I was just a man… a drunk man.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Then eventually the inevitable happened. Alcohol had given me wings, but as time passed it slowly took the sky away. Until one day when I came crashing down, I fell in a heap of self pity, self loathing, anger, sorrow, resentment, and to quote an old friend. I felt like a turd at the centre of my own universe. That day when I realized that I was such a massive failure through years of addiction was the day that I knew that everything I loved and lived for was given away, not by my own hands directly, but by my arms that was too busy holding a beloved whiskey glass that they no longer had time or energy to hold the ones dear to me. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">That day that I realized how utterly powerless I was over alcohol and its effects on my life was the day of absolute rock bottom. That day I started a journey into another universe, the beginning of a road that would lead me along a path of discovery, amazement and new things to experience so dazzling that not even my wildest drunken fantasies could ever have produced. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A road filled with tears, my own, the tears of those close to me, gut wrenching emotional agony. Ecstasy so utterly amazing that words will not describe it. The beauty of joy after the pain came to me only when I had been sober for a long while. The initial sober times, where you wonder how you will survive passed, only to be replaced with my acceptance of how much this new life of sobriety had to offer.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Still I stand amazed daily at the new things around me, the beauty in the people that surrounds me in this world. The beauty in what is referred to as creation by some, is so beautiful in every aspect, from the dirtiest slimy mud to the softest beach sand. I have so much to explore and discover in others, in myself and in everything around me that even in dealing with everyday screw ups, I seem to find some kind of positive. Even if it just means that I have learnt something new today. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I realized that I had to accept that I am powerless over alcohol in order to stop fighting it. I realized that with the acceptance of my powerlessness came a rational way to see what I was doing to myself and others. A rationality that makes sense to most is a rarity amongst alcoholics, the disease of irrational behavior. Which makes us repeat the same self destructive behavior over and over has in a way of learning to live with it, acceptance of your own powerlessness at its core. Acceptance that as long as you stay away from the first drink you are able to stay away from those that come after it as well as the accompanying screw ups which inevitably follow.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Live, learn, experience life. </div>Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-69811614670034454302011-01-01T10:24:00.000-08:002011-01-01T10:24:37.232-08:00The Godless Alcoholic and others: The Value of Sobriety<a href="http://godlessalcoholic.blogspot.com/2011/01/value-of-sobriety.html?spref=bl">The Godless Alcoholic and others: The Value of Sobriety</a>: "Having been a man that lost his legs and could never learn to walk again. I feel these days that I am not doing too badly with my prosthesis..."Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-59309672757521061362011-01-01T10:21:00.003-08:002011-01-01T10:21:33.846-08:00The Value of Sobriety<div class="MsoNormal">Having been a man that lost his legs and could never learn to walk again. I feel these days that I am not doing too badly with my prosthesis. That is metaphorically speaking of course. See when permanently intoxicated or for a large part of the time that you have to spend in reality that is. You become a non functioning member of society, you exist. You fill time and space but none of this actually brings anything positive to anyone else’s lives. And that is ultimately what defines our legacy as human beings; being remembered. Hopefully this manifests as a positive in most people’s lives. However we will always have to put up with the odd Stalin or Hitler where this memory does not carry the positive impact that I have in mind here. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As I see it, for the most I had none to little of anything positive to be remembered by when I was constantly feeding an addiction. The process of sobering up probably in itself did not have too much in the way of positive things too leave others with either except for the fact that the collateral damage in my day to day life had a lot less of an impact than before. I suppose that this in itself was a positive thing. Just that I was no longer impacting negatively.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">However as time goes by and wounds heal, I grew emotionally, I started to see my own flaws and actions in the past for what they truly where. I started realizing somewhere along the line that I was no longer craving. I still do not remember any defining moment, or any place in time where I thought that this is it, I am now actually recovering. But somewhere along the line it did happen. Along this path I had to walk to find freedom from what bound me to a hopeless existence. I found value in sobriety. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-indent: -36.0pt;">I suddenly and with clarity, had my light bulb moment of recognition for what sobriety is</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-indent: -36.0pt;">doing for me in my current situation and life. Of how it is positively impacting on others,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-indent: -36.0pt;">and not to others meaning only those that were negatively impacted on before. But also</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-indent: -36.0pt;">others; meaning, people that I met not even knowing about my addiction. These people </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-indent: -36.0pt;">would have been negatively impacted had I entered their lives as an alcoholic. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When I contemplate the value of my sobriety, the first thing in terms of value to that comes to mind is actual monetary value. This is rather glaringly obvious as I can promise you that I am spending a hell of a lot less money on booze, and the affiliated entertainment than when I was drinking permanently. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The second thing that comes to mind is actual relationships. And this means that I can now talk to my wife. We can discuss things like a budget … yes that sounds strange but I eventually realized that some married people actually do discuss things like that. We can spend time talking about what we feel important in our life together. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I was able to soberly contemplate and face my own personal views on politics, religion, life, love, my love for the creative side of life, sexuality, relationships and so much more that spending time talking about each individually might mean that I am left having to write a full book. </div><div class="MsoNormal">The only thing that is left to consider in respect of what value I place on sobriety is the whole life experience. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The ability to live each day, not hiding in a state where I could not care about what happens to me or others that I have an influence on in their lives, the opportunity to make a difference. The opportunity to be able to be counted, the opportunity to being listened to, the opportunity to speak with confidence in the first place.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This life I am living has so many wonderful things left for me to explore, experience, ponder on and to give. That even the consideration of going back to my sad existence by taking a drink, seems senseless. But then the whole addiction in the first place was senseless.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I can not say that I will never drink again. But I do know that today I will not drink. Today I will live this life, today I will experience and tap this wonderful world for every last drop I can extract from it. That is the value I find in staying sober.</div>Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-41523252246933459852010-12-16T11:41:00.000-08:002010-12-16T11:41:53.246-08:00Vonda Shepard - Baby, Don't You Break My Heart Slow<iframe width="425" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/uEuCS33-ebM?fs=1" frameborder="0"></iframe>Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-61566704002368180292010-12-06T01:34:00.000-08:002010-12-06T01:34:16.308-08:00The Godless Alcoholic and others: About making amends and Humility.<a href="http://godlessalcoholic.blogspot.com/2010/12/about-making-amends-and-humility.html?spref=bl">The Godless Alcoholic and others: About making amends and Humility.</a>: "When we start drinking regularly and heavily we stop growing emotionally. This statement might seem trivial to most especially those who doe..."Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-28309597416143239092010-12-06T01:32:00.000-08:002010-12-06T01:32:28.913-08:00About making amends and Humility.<div class="MsoNormal">When we start drinking regularly and heavily we stop growing emotionally.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This statement might seem trivial to most especially those who does not suffer from an addiction. See so called normal people are not as lucky as I am… This might sound even weirder! However it is true. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I believe that a person going through life without falling or lagging behind in emotional growth, as well as life experience; because of an addiction get to experience this growth and life experiences at a normal rate. I did not get to take this road of emotional development at a normal rate that could I could grow emotionally with the rest of me. I had to keep myself in a permanent alcohol induced state for about eighteen years. The reasons for this being what they may, have no consequence now. Neither does it serve a purpose to go and find excuses for that. The fact remains that I did not allow myself this development through choice. As hard as reality might have seemed at times during those years and as much as I could escape from my life because using my drug of choice, alcohol. I am still now faced with the reality of having to deal with an exponential emotional growth, and realization of this emotional Nuclear Bomb that I have dropped on myself by sobering up. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Humility is defined as the quality or condition of being humble, being of modest opinion or estimate of one’s own importance, rank, etc. Humility is defined also as being synonymous with, submissiveness, meekness, or lowliness. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">For me I learnt the true meaning of humility when I had to go back to people whom I have wronged, when I had to face them and offer not only an apology for my own screwed up actions when I was drinking. But also had to ask them what I could do to make it better. After al an apology without some kind of ratification to the injured party is normally not seen as an apology at all. Yes sure I have also been the recipient of an apology, but only after doing this myself, have become aware of the importance of not only receiving an apology but also being able to feel better through the person’s actions that was in the wrong. Saying sorry is easy; making it better is damn hard!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is something that caused me to take a long and hard look at my life while having been an active drinker. A drunk. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The experience of looking back over ones life and starting from where you feel you should have started being a responsible adult, and listing the people you have wronged in itself, is an earth shattering humbling experience. The cold shivers caused by knowing you have to go and find some of them for the express purpose of confronting them with your screwed up actions is even worse. And when you get to talk to them, and tell them what you have done, you feel small. Really small. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Some people take this as might be expected. “Ok, what do you want from me? “Or “tell me your real reason for doing this” or even “I thought you knew that I never want to speak to you again.” And then also the absolute worst is to be ignored totally. In this action you get faced with true humbling humility, you get to feel what some people that are in your past might have felt like. And it is not an experience that you want to repeat. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There is of course a very selfish spin off to this, as we human beings are selfish and self centered and egotistical by nature. And that is not only because of the selfish reason of achieving sobriety by doing it. But also the knowledge gained from the humiliating actions you have chosen to take in order to get there. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">You start expecting people around you to do the same thing…. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">By going back and looking at how you have wronged others you realize again that through this all, you have not always been only wrong. That sometimes you to have been be done in. Or wronged or been on the receiving end of someone else’s actions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have struggled a lot with this, as I immediately realized this and saw the problem in this for me. I still struggle with it. I have not always been the bad guy only, to the contrary I was mostly a good person with a bad addiction and prone to the lies, deception and neglect to those close to me that paved my road of addiction.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But now suddenly having had this experience and knowing that I wanted to live such a life that I did not want to repeat it and do it to myself again. I started feeling in a strange way free on the one hand and in the other so bound by my expectations of wanting to experience this from the point of view where I could also be apologized to and asked how those whom have wronged me could make it better that it became a struggle in itself. Because facing my own feelings about this, I realized that there were people that have hurt me very badly, people whom I still believe that I can legitimately expect from to do this. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">However that is based not only purely on my own opinion and experience but also the disadvantage of being so lucky to have done this myself. I have had some apologies from certain people but strangely did not feel any better. I think I got almost a feeling of a massive let down as I had to apply my own selfish reasoning to their apologies. The one where I found humility, and meekness, where I felt I had tried to rectify and make better what I had done wrong. And this is not something that any person can ever judge another about. This is not something that you can ever ask someone to do. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Any apology that does not get offered, but rather elicited or said in self defense or even self preservation is ultimately no apology at all. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It took me to have the expectation of being apologized to and ultimately receiving a half hearted apology said in self preservation purely because of that expectation to see clearly what my amends to others must look like. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">I do still do not believe that living humbly in the true sense of the word is always such a good thing, but I do believe that experiencing a bit of humility here and there goes a long way in keeping me aware of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the consequences of my actions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Sometimes just listening to the song by Blue October - </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GytHl0H5-S8" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Hate Me</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> gives me a new realization of these shortcomings I have and most </span>probably<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> will always have.</span>Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6432116278140342042.post-72321285969505625172010-11-25T04:20:00.000-08:002010-11-25T04:20:50.655-08:00The Godless Alcoholic and others: Who is to blame?<a href="http://godlessalcoholic.blogspot.com/2010/11/who-is-to-blame.html?spref=bl">The Godless Alcoholic and others: Who is to blame?</a>: "As humans we have this little problem. It’s called blame. We blame things on each other. We blame things that go wrong in our world on angr..."Christo Hoffmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338608081386561988noreply@blogger.com0