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[a-august-a]

Evil

This is an evil world we live in. It doesn’t matter how good or bad a person you are, if you are not strong enough then you will be stomped upon, used, ridiculed, laughed upon. Think before you do good for anyone, and put your mind into throttle because in the end your intention will not matter, the result of your action will. If you are strong then you will get up on your own. There is not going to be a helping hand without a selfish motive who would pick you up.

[a-august-a]

Creep

Whatever makes you happy, whatever you want, you’re so fuckin’ special, I wish I was special.... but I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo; what the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here; I don’t belong here;

[a-august-a]

I don’t give a damn, or do I?

I am no advocate of ethics or integrity, however I do believe in it. The sudden impulse of doing something unethical, the financial and egoistic gain associated with it, and an i care a damn attitude can sometimes be vehemently overwhelming.

I have been a victim of such practices on numerous occasions and it does prompt me to do the same. It is not a feeling of revenge or self pity or maybe it is. It is not a feeling of “everyone is doing it” or maybe it is. I am yet to figure that out.

Have I ever been unethical? Yes, I have. I will not attribute this to me being a human full of imperfections and faults, however it has a lot to do with circumstances. So the golden question - can circumstances force anyone to act in a way that is against ones basic nature? They can I assume.

It is probably best defined by character, however what defines character is something which has varying definitions. Character is sometimes loyalty, honesty and a lot of fancy terms that one often reads about. My definition of character still remains as a trait or an attitude of doing something while being aware of getting nothing in return.

[a-august-a]

Mind your mind

Last night I was reading my favourite book. Yeah, it’s my favourite and it is the probably the sixth time I am starting again. I am apparently obsessed with it to such an extent that I can write a book about that book and christen it “the book that changed my life”. Besides the various one liners and sentences there is a line which has the words “I cannot live with myself”. This always make me and the author think who is this I and myself? Two different people or two different entities perhaps. How on earth is that possible is the question. To live without something or someone you definitely need more than one.

But at times when we are alone, we realise that we are not completely alone. There is this self that is always with us. At times, we want to liberate ourselves from this self so that we can live an unbiased life. Like a prism that splits the 7 colours when light enters it, our mind splits into various thoughts when encountered with a situation.

There is no single way of doing this, and you will have to find your own way by identifying triggers that lets your mind dominate your self. How I do it? Like everyone I have my likes and dislikes and am well aware of things, situations and people that will irk me off, so I sense that trigger in advance and walk away from it. Most psychologists will call this as an escapist attitude, but as I said whatever works is what matters.

[a-august-a]

I want...

Have you ever sailed across the ocean? On a sailboat surrounded by sea with no land at sight? Without even the possibility of sighting land for days to come? To stand at the helm of your destiny.

I want that one more time....

I want to be in the Piazza del Campo in Siena to feel the surge as 10 racehorses go thundering by.

I want another meal in Paris at L’Ambroisie in the Place des Vosges,

I want another bottle of wine, and then another. I want the warmth of a woman in a cool set of sheets.

One more night of Jazz at the Vanguard, I want to stand at the summits and smoke Cubans and feel the sun on my face for as long as I can.

Walk on the wall again.

Climb the tower, ride the river, stare at the frescos.

I wanna sit in the garden to read one more good book.

Most of all I wanna sleep. I wanna sleep like I slept when I was a boy. Give me that. Just one more time.

[a-august-a]

Don’t drive faster than your guardian angels can fly...

Most alcoholics are very lucky people, realistically speaking. Imagine the number of times we have been at the wheel under the influence and have reached in one piece. The numerous falls in drunkenness, suicide attempts, illegal activities and so on couldn’t get to us. We all have done it to the maximum and came out alive. This is sheer luck and nothing else or less. I was in a hospital for 4 days after a fall at home with blood all over. Till date I have absolutely no idea what happened, how it happened and how many ambulances were used to ferry me to different hospitals. I remember telling the doctor that I am an alcoholic and would not need any anaesthetic, just stitch me up fast so that I can go home. There was no rush to go home from the hospital, I just wanted another drink.

Today when I am told what happened that day makes me grateful for being alive. I have learnt a very important lesson - you can be lucky a 100 times but you have to be unlucky only once.

[a-august-a]

An uncertain certain

In early recovery when one is getting used to idea about living without alcohol is the feeling of boredom. Suddenly there is nothing to do, the smell of rain is no longer an excuse to drink, anger doesn’t prompt you to pick up the bottle. The mind has been conditioned so gravely by alcohol that it keeps asking you to go for it. This is what I call as the ideal time to relapse. A fear that every recovering addict lives with every day.

Alcoholic anonymous says there are triggers, smart recovery programs says make a list of all your triggers and write down a solution - different theories and views to look at it. However, what works is the question. You can pick up bits and pieces of every recovery program and make your own customised program as long as it works for you.

I was invited by a rehabilitation center to give a brief lecture about alcoholism and in the middle of it a young lady asked me a very interesting question. She said in here we have rules, we have a to do list, a routine, what do we do when we get out? Would we able to do the same or not?

I told her probably not. The example I gave her was a personal one - I have been thinking of joining a gym for a long time now and I am doing exactly that - thinking. I said it’s not about what you add to your list but what you take off from it. That’s the way it will work and trust me it does. You can read a hundred motivational quotes, go to programs, attend meetings however in the end you will have to write your own custom recovery program to get rid of your boredom and distract your mind.

[a-august-a]

Self Confidence

The only person who worries about winning is the one who is scared of losing. Feel the fear and learn to trust yourself. Imagine for a minute that you do not fear anything, that you are ignorant or you are like a child who stands on the edge of a cliff without a worry in the world. How would that make you feel? Confident? Probably yes. So, what’s the key for developing or realising self confidence? Honestly, there is none. You can probably google it and find a million so called inspiring quotes- the ones you forget the moment you close the browser. You can also talk to psychologists who are experts in creating a problem even if it really doesn’t exist. Then of course you have friends and family who can assist, however only to a limited extent. Having said that, what can be done? Sometimes we link self confidence to happiness and that’s a very natural perception, and it is exactly that- a perception. If one is able to deal with a negative situation or emotion by assuming that you created it, then trust me you will handle it with much more confidence than you think. Most people spend their entire life imprisoned within the confines of their own thoughts. They never go beyond a narrow, mind-made, personalised sense of self that is conditioned by the past. A dimension of consciousness far deeper than thought is self confidence. The ability to distinguish the mind from the body is self confidence. Understanding and living your present without linking it with the past and without imagining the future is probably the key. The reason I chose the word “probably” is not because earlier I mentioned that there is no key for self confidence. It is because that everyone has a choice to become self confident, some take it some don’t. A beautiful example of a self confident entity is a vibrant looking and good smelling flower because it knows what it is regardless of what others think about it. This doesn’t mean you climb the Eiffel Tower, show a middle finger to the world and shout I am who I am, take it or leave it. All it means is that for others to realise what you are, you have to realise that yourself in the first place. The day you do that you will be at peace, you might or might not have happiness but you will have joy- the joy of self confidence.

[a-august-a]

Seduction and Fantasy

This is about seduction, amazing pleasure, and a world inside your head that is both fantasy and real. This fantasy world is not easy to give up, and, like all fantasies, it can be trouble if you can’t get back into the real world where you need to live, work, pay bills, and take care of loved ones. Substance abuse, the brain, and addiction create this dreamland of fantasy, but it can quickly turn into a hell, and it often does.

When is someone a drug abuser or an addict? If someone uses drugs casually and infrequently without significant problems and can take them or leave them, that person might best be called a user, which is still a dangerous situation. If taking drugs causes significant distress and problems in the person’s life, then abuser might be the best descriptor. If drugs are in control of a person’s life, or if they can’t stop, or if they do drugs in spite of personal distress and negative consequences, then they might be drug dependent or addicted.

Coming back to the fantasy world, it is worth mentioning that addictive substances be it alcohol or drugs, condition the mind in a way that it is forced to believe one is living in a fantasy. This can be both pleasant and unpleasant and depends on various factors. Imagine a situation where an alcoholic or drug user is well aware that he is poisoning himself but still continues. This does not happen because of unawareness or ignorance of the effects of abuse - it happens simply because the mind has been led into believing that after one more drink or one more sniff it isn’t going to matter anymore.

[a-august-a]

The art of self- pity

I work 10 hours a day and a person deserves to unwind by having a few beers in the evening, right? Or, today has been a bad day, let’s have a drink. My favourite team won the match, let’s celebrate. We have heard these too often from different mouths. These are considered normal behaviours for normal people, however, for alcoholics these are nothing but excuses. Welcome to the world of self pity, the mother of all excuses. Our mind is a great listener and gets influenced very easily. It’s easy to talk to it into doing something that we wish to do, and sometimes talking out seems impossible. When an excuse to drink is a feeling of self pity or being wronged, then all hell breaks loose as the mind is convinced that now It has a valid reason for picking up the next drink. Someone once told me, if you want to feel bad then you will, your mind will never stop you from doing so. For addiction raddled brains this is absolutely true. The so called “bad factor” could be as silly as a driver honking unnecessarily behind your car or as serious as a death of a loved one. I will share a story of a guy I have known all my life. He is “considered” to be a good natured person and behaves normally under most circumstances except when drunk. That’s normal you would say, and I agree too. He had been drinking heavily for almost a decade, to an extent that he became an alcoholic. When asked about his reason for drinking by a psychologist during one of his therapy sessions he said I don’t know. I just like to get high. Drinking with him one day he talked about his childhood, how he lost his father, how no one understood the pain he felt, how he did things for others but nobody did anything for him. It was really a long list. I just nodded in agreement. Later I realised that it was his excuse to drink. There was nothing really wrong in his story. He is successful, doing reasonably well and has everything to look forward to. You might think there is no reason for him to become an alcoholic, however alcohol is so cunning, baffling, and powerful that it spares no one. Today he is sober for some time but as it’s said once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. The social stigma of being one will always be there and nothing can be done about it. He is sober today, fighting the serious disease of addiction by any means possible and is aware that it would take just one more drink for him to go back again into the dark alley of alcoholism and a point of no return. No more excuses, no more self pity, just a desire to be normal.

[a-august-a]

Understanding before Sympathy

There are no quick fixes for the disease of addiction, which is why addicts deserve sympathy and support, even when they lapse. We don’t condemn a diabetic for having a sugary dessert or forgetting to take his or her medicine; we don’t revile the person with hypertension who gains weight instead of losing it. Instead, we sympathize with and understand the inner urges that caused them to “oops,” and we encourage them to take their medicines regularly and stick to a health-enhancing eating and exercise plan. We are understanding, in spite of the fact that people with critical diseases such as diabetes, asthma, and elevated blood pressure often do neglect to follow their doctors’ orders. Less than 50 percent of patients with these diseases take their medicines as prescribed, and less than 30 percent comply with lifestyle changes recommended by their doctors. The relapse rates for these three illnesses—measured by the number of people who have to go to emergency rooms, the hospital, or their doctors’ offices on an emergency basis—is 40–60 percent a year. And these frightening statistics are for people who do not have a chronic brain disease. Think how difficult it must be for those who do have addiction-addled brains to follow their doctors’ orders! Why should we treat addicts differently, and so much more harshly, than we do other people with chronic illnesses?

[a-august-a]

Alcoholism Explained

A lot has been written about alcoholism and different people have different opinions about it. In this post I would like to highlight a few important aspects of alcoholism, that are either unheard of or lesser known.

American College of Physicians, the US National Institutes for Health and the World Health Organisation classify alcoholism as a disease.

A disease? You may ask, what makes it a disease? Drinking alcohol may cause various diseases but is drinking really a disease?

To understand the above confusing statements one needs to understand what alcoholism is or primarily who is considered an alcoholic. There are people who drink everyday, sometimes in excess or sometimes moderately - are they alcoholics? No they are not. Wait a minute, I just mentioned the words “in excess” - you may think that definitely makes one an alcoholic- no even that doesn’t. So, what does?

It’s simple actually. An alcoholic is a person who’s life becomes unmanageable due to drinking. Period. The quantity may or may not matter as each individual is not only constituted differently biologically speaking, and different people have different tolerance levels for alcohol. Generally speaking, the same quantity of alcohol affects women more than men because of their respective body chemistry.

Medical science has become advanced and we know what alcohol does to our bodies. Let’s look in brief what happens when alcohol enters our body and what makes it addictive.

Now comes the more unfortunate part - just like some diseases, alcoholism doesn’t have a cure. There is no medicine for it. One cannot complete a course for a said duration and be cured. You might have seen advertisements that claim to get rid of the habit, however none of them are true.

Habit, that’s the keyword here. The problem is not drinking alcohol, smoking, or consuming any other narcotic. The problem is habit or addiction. The substance can be any. Not only substance abuse habits like shopping, online gaming, gambling, sexual behaviour and others have known to cause problems for humans.