I'm not sure why the fire within burns so fiercely. It can manifest itself in many ways. Some glaringly obvious, like losing your temper, others less so, like being critical of yourself and others.
Sometimes the fire burns, other times the pilot light merely flickers. For me it is always on. My trick is not to let it catch.
I find it hard. Particularly when tired or when things aren't going my way, or when I'm unhappy at my own behaviour. The merest thing can set it off.
I'm not sure why I'm so ultra critical. Maybe it's because I'm a Virgo. Virgo's are notorious perfectionists, otherwise known as 'anal', but I won't go down that route. That's for another blog and a meeting of Sex Addicts Anonymous. I'm not into star signs anyway. Anal is another matter.
Perhaps it's because I'm an alcoholic and one of the glaring defects of the alcoholic personality is huge intolerance and impatience.
Perhaps it's because I'm a control freak/ego maniac and want things my way.
Or perhaps because I struggle with acceptance? I am like the director of the show and if things don't go the way I want them I get all clucky and agitated. I can't accept.
Perhaps It's because I struggle with a higher power and playing God all the time is just collision course for misery and unhappiness. No-one is going to do things the way I want to ALL the time, so perhaps it's better to let the big fella run the show and chill the fuck out?
Or perhaps people really are massively annoying and the world is full of idiots and deserve to be given 'the treatment'.
God knows, I certainly haven't got the answers today. I know one thing. There are more of you lot than there are of me and I better learn to live in harmony with the world otherwise I'm on collision course.
That is where the 'fuck it' button becomes so appealing. The ultimate escape from a tight spot. One push of that mighty button and you're gone for good.
I can understand why people do. We are faced with so many ridiculous pressures everyday it's no wonder occasionally on bad days the 'fuck it' option becomes the best one.
My Father did the ultimate 'fuck it' in 1985 and walked out of normal life and into heavy alcoholism. Full flight from reality.
Yes he missed out on loads of beautiful things and died a lonely alcoholic sad tragic death, but at least he did it on his terms. He didn't have to worry about tax returns, house prices, mortgages, life insurance, commuting, power point presentations, mobile phone bills, twitter followers and everything else that is modern life.
On some days I look at people who have stepped out of the 'rat race' and think they are the real heroes. Did they press a final 'fuck it' button from real life?
Yesterday I had a huge fuck it moment. I helped my Mum in the afternoon as she moved into her house. I drive down from London on one of my sacred days off to help her buy some things. I got there, built a coffee table, unloaded a few things and then we went out to buy her a TV.
After a couple of futile trips to Tesco and Asda we decided to drive to Reading to Currys. It was by the Majeski stadium, and I noticed there was a football match being played. It was 4.30pm, soon there would be 20,000 people trying to get home. I smelt danger.
"This place is going to be mobbed Mum," Trying to warn her off so we buggered off home,
"But it's just here darling, we won't be long."
Internally "Fuck".
She was desperate to get what we needed, I knew she would have been disappointed had we left there and then. I drove onto Curry's knowing what was to come.
We quickly purchased a 40 inch TV, phones, printer and Ironing board. We were packed, in the car and off home by 5.20. The trouble is so were 12,000 other people.
As we sat in traffic for 30 mins, gridlocked I could feel my temperature rising. A dinner date in London was looking distinctly dubious and my anger grew minute by stationary minute. On the road to no-where.
My Mum was busy telling me how she was looking forward to watching X factor on the big screen and all I could think in my head was......FUCK IT!!!!
Fuck X factor. Fuck doing chores. Fuck traffic and Reading and Real fucking life. Fuck it! Fuck it all. Fuck it all against a big wall and then piss on it. Fuck it. Big fucking huge Fuck it button. If one was there I would have pushed it. All fucking week working, caged up in London, queuing everywhere. Home to train to office and back. Caged. No space, no open expanse. Just frustration. And now. In Reading. In traffic. More fucking waiting. Fuck it. Fuck this. Fucking Fuck it......I thought. I was frustrated. You may have guessed.
(I'd like to point out those were my stream of conscious thoughts. They weren't real. They were not logical. I do not think them now. I didn't express them. They were deep frustrated thoughts.)
I then understood why my old man did what he did. If it wasn't for AA and recovery and sharing my feelings I would have to drink. I couldn't live with my 'Fuck it' button solo. Man my head is built to well up frustration.
Real life is really annoying sometimes. I am not very tolerant sometimes. I am critical and judgmental and impatient. I can be a nightmare but we all have our bad days right?
Bottom line is I turned up for service, helped out my Mum, kept my trap shut, didn't mow anyone down in Reading, put up a coffee table, put her 42 inch TV up so she could watch X factor and buggered off.
For me yesterday was a classic case of having smart feet. Turn up and your head will finally follow. Plus of course, no matter how tempted, DO NOT push the fuck it button. It nearly always ends in tears (and 42 inch plasma's being broken. Luckily I didn't press mine yesterday despite being sorely tempted.)
Nicholas E Evans.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Getting over Writers Block
They've all had it. Shakespeare, Ginsberg, Rankin, Rowling and now Evans.
Writers block. The inability to write a single word let alone a sentence, paragraph, blog or even God forbid, a book.
I've had 'the block' for the past month. If I'm being honest, since I went to Glasgow this summer.
Even before, when I started my full time job, it's been a struggle to marry a brutally honest account of struggles with recovery/addiction with a 'grown up' job.
The two just don't mix. It was easier when I was in the midst of a mid-life crisis. When I was skint & wondering what my future was. It's so easy to be honest when you're on your knees.
But then you get a full time job, start earning a regular wage and suddenly it's easier to forget/hide/put issues on the back burner. "As long as I'm earning." you say to yourself, Suddenly those burning issues become less important when the wages roll in. Same if you get laid I suppose. "Well, I cant be THAT bad can I?"
Block.
In addition your head shifts. Suddenly priorities change. What seemed like important issues no longer become so. The daily job becomes all consuming. Space in your head is full of work not spiritual questions. The urge to bare your soul decreases. Suddenly you think things through. What are the ramifications?
Block.
I'm the kind of writer who writes from the heart. I don't plan or structure a topic or theme. I don't prepare a beginning and end. I just write. Thoughts, streams of consciousness, feelings. I attempt to turn my head inside out. Sometimes this is good, other times not so. Thoughts should sometimes remain thoughts. I have put mine out there which I forget others read as the truth.
So when you have a little time. When you consider the impact. When it doesn't become immediate. Emotional. Revealing. When you over think the result I can't write. I couldn't write. I didn't write.
I had no urge.
Block.
And believe me over the past few weeks I have experienced all kinds of feelings, addictive emotions and actions. From chronic low self esteem, regret, less than, comparison, staring at the past, masculinity, acting out, pain, emotion, bulimia, co-dependency, joy, pain, laughter, financial insecurity and also some good stuff too. Weddings, family, praise, promotion etc.
There have been so many reasons to write. So many life events that have been hilarious, horrific and everything else beginning with H. But nothing. I couldn't write.
Block.
Life has happened both good and bad but boy has it been noisy in my head. The addict in me has been raging. Sometimes when I have known. Other times when it has controlled me.
I just haven't been able to write about it. Some of it because I'm embarrassed, some of it because I'm ashamed, some of it because of my position and some because I just haven't known how too.
Block.
After 13 years of sobriety I have begun to realise how deep some of my other addictions/replacement behaviours are ingrained. It just depends if burying yourself in work and status is enough to paper over these cracks for a period of time or if they are to be addressed. How long can one keep up the façade? Days, months, years even?
I was recently called the sanest insane person they had ever met. A neat description. Sadly I took it as a compliment even though it really wasn't meant that way. Still nothing.
Block.
I have to be honest. I've been suffering from low esteem recently. I attended a member of my family's wedding. It was genuinely beautiful. Very joyful. Full of love, spirit and tons of God (bit too much for me to be brutally honest but hey, who am I!!)
What did it do? It made me think of me. Being a self centred alcoholic of course it did. It's normal to evaluate your own life when you attend weddings. Especially ones who are 19 years younger than you. But it's not normal to really max out on it as I did. That's very 'addicty'.
What did I evaluate? Well that my entire life was a fuck up of course. That I was 42, hadn't committed, no kids, no mortgage, no roots and had spent my entire sobriety self seeking around as much pleasure I could find from outside sources. I essentially convinced myself I was a waste of space, that my sobriety was useless and I had fucked around for too long. I had pretty much hid from life. Only an addict could come to such a ridiculous, negative and harmful conclusion on their own. Get why addicts kill themselves now?
Christ the self hatred and regret bit me hard. And what did I do? Well, not the normal thing of brush it off and move forward. I'm an addict and prone to terrific bouts of self pity, self hatred and self sabotage - so I used anything and everything to punish myself. Lots of wonderful wacky and way out ways. Some severe, some really subtle that nobody in the outside world would ever know. But they were there.
And that's why I couldn't write. That's why I had.....
Block.
Because I don't know what or how to change. I didn't have the emotional answers. Yes I had the intellectual ones. Look back but down stare. You can move forward from today. Make goals and stick to them. Bla blah blah. But I didn't have the answers I so desperately want to write a successful blog and book. The pressure I placed on myself was too much to write. I just didn;t and still don't have that urge to change. I haven't yet hit a bottom.
Hence, what's the point in writing. If its the same old shit every time. I need to change. Boo. I want to change. Boo. I can't change. Boo. Boo hoo.
Block.
It's a pretty desperate place to be.
Block.
But in my experience you have to go through the ringer. You have to put yourself through that time and again to realise and understand. You are where you are. No point in sugar coating it. No point in 'faking it to make it'. Just hope and pray to become willing to change. Just hang in there and try as you might until you do. Just hope that you get the grace of God and it drops. Just make a decision one day and BOOM.
There is nothing I can do about the past except learn from it.
The wedding brought up all kinds of emotional stuff from childhood. It made me think much of my emotional maturity is still stuck there. Sometimes I am a kid in and adults body and the self sabotage are just adult ways of having a tantrum against yourself.
This is the shit I've been in. All whilst playing a normal person in an adult world. Work, family, relationship etc.
Block.
This morning I started reading Brene Brown, 'Daring Greatly' - Dare to be vulnerable. It made me think of certain things.
I did my day at work, had a meeting with someone rather inspirational. A workaholic who has built up an empire, lots of money and a life but was racked in pain about where to turn next. It gave me the energy and impetus to write.
She said to me, 'you really need to write a book Nick' You're writing and expression is amazing. You have such a gift". Yet another person to add to the list. "So why don't I?" - I thought to myself.
I'll tell you why. The real reason? The deep truth. The truth that I didn't even know myself until today. Because I'm scared. That's why. Good old fashioned fear. Fear of success. Fear of trying. Fear of hard work. Fear of failure. Fear of doing. Just fear.
I don't have the answers. Maybe I never will, but you know what? It feels fucking good to be back writing. I've missed it. I really have. I've missed me too. And you. I lose my identity when I don't write. I become normal. And god forbid, my ego hates being normal, even though I am. Even though I am one of you. Even though I really am not special and different my ego will tell me that by writing I am, and even just a sniff of that in my mind makes me feel a whole lot better.
Because no matter how good or bad this piece is. I've done it and God, isn't it good to die trying rather than wondering?
Thank you Brene Brown, I've dared to be vulnerable and thank you Amy at 4pm, you really inspired me.
I'm back. I just hope I stay
Nicholas E
Writers block. The inability to write a single word let alone a sentence, paragraph, blog or even God forbid, a book.
I've had 'the block' for the past month. If I'm being honest, since I went to Glasgow this summer.
Even before, when I started my full time job, it's been a struggle to marry a brutally honest account of struggles with recovery/addiction with a 'grown up' job.
The two just don't mix. It was easier when I was in the midst of a mid-life crisis. When I was skint & wondering what my future was. It's so easy to be honest when you're on your knees.
But then you get a full time job, start earning a regular wage and suddenly it's easier to forget/hide/put issues on the back burner. "As long as I'm earning." you say to yourself, Suddenly those burning issues become less important when the wages roll in. Same if you get laid I suppose. "Well, I cant be THAT bad can I?"
Block.
In addition your head shifts. Suddenly priorities change. What seemed like important issues no longer become so. The daily job becomes all consuming. Space in your head is full of work not spiritual questions. The urge to bare your soul decreases. Suddenly you think things through. What are the ramifications?
Block.
I'm the kind of writer who writes from the heart. I don't plan or structure a topic or theme. I don't prepare a beginning and end. I just write. Thoughts, streams of consciousness, feelings. I attempt to turn my head inside out. Sometimes this is good, other times not so. Thoughts should sometimes remain thoughts. I have put mine out there which I forget others read as the truth.
So when you have a little time. When you consider the impact. When it doesn't become immediate. Emotional. Revealing. When you over think the result I can't write. I couldn't write. I didn't write.
I had no urge.
Block.
And believe me over the past few weeks I have experienced all kinds of feelings, addictive emotions and actions. From chronic low self esteem, regret, less than, comparison, staring at the past, masculinity, acting out, pain, emotion, bulimia, co-dependency, joy, pain, laughter, financial insecurity and also some good stuff too. Weddings, family, praise, promotion etc.
There have been so many reasons to write. So many life events that have been hilarious, horrific and everything else beginning with H. But nothing. I couldn't write.
Block.
Life has happened both good and bad but boy has it been noisy in my head. The addict in me has been raging. Sometimes when I have known. Other times when it has controlled me.
I just haven't been able to write about it. Some of it because I'm embarrassed, some of it because I'm ashamed, some of it because of my position and some because I just haven't known how too.
Block.
After 13 years of sobriety I have begun to realise how deep some of my other addictions/replacement behaviours are ingrained. It just depends if burying yourself in work and status is enough to paper over these cracks for a period of time or if they are to be addressed. How long can one keep up the façade? Days, months, years even?
I was recently called the sanest insane person they had ever met. A neat description. Sadly I took it as a compliment even though it really wasn't meant that way. Still nothing.
Block.
I have to be honest. I've been suffering from low esteem recently. I attended a member of my family's wedding. It was genuinely beautiful. Very joyful. Full of love, spirit and tons of God (bit too much for me to be brutally honest but hey, who am I!!)
What did it do? It made me think of me. Being a self centred alcoholic of course it did. It's normal to evaluate your own life when you attend weddings. Especially ones who are 19 years younger than you. But it's not normal to really max out on it as I did. That's very 'addicty'.
What did I evaluate? Well that my entire life was a fuck up of course. That I was 42, hadn't committed, no kids, no mortgage, no roots and had spent my entire sobriety self seeking around as much pleasure I could find from outside sources. I essentially convinced myself I was a waste of space, that my sobriety was useless and I had fucked around for too long. I had pretty much hid from life. Only an addict could come to such a ridiculous, negative and harmful conclusion on their own. Get why addicts kill themselves now?
Christ the self hatred and regret bit me hard. And what did I do? Well, not the normal thing of brush it off and move forward. I'm an addict and prone to terrific bouts of self pity, self hatred and self sabotage - so I used anything and everything to punish myself. Lots of wonderful wacky and way out ways. Some severe, some really subtle that nobody in the outside world would ever know. But they were there.
And that's why I couldn't write. That's why I had.....
Block.
Because I don't know what or how to change. I didn't have the emotional answers. Yes I had the intellectual ones. Look back but down stare. You can move forward from today. Make goals and stick to them. Bla blah blah. But I didn't have the answers I so desperately want to write a successful blog and book. The pressure I placed on myself was too much to write. I just didn;t and still don't have that urge to change. I haven't yet hit a bottom.
Hence, what's the point in writing. If its the same old shit every time. I need to change. Boo. I want to change. Boo. I can't change. Boo. Boo hoo.
Block.
It's a pretty desperate place to be.
Block.
But in my experience you have to go through the ringer. You have to put yourself through that time and again to realise and understand. You are where you are. No point in sugar coating it. No point in 'faking it to make it'. Just hope and pray to become willing to change. Just hang in there and try as you might until you do. Just hope that you get the grace of God and it drops. Just make a decision one day and BOOM.
There is nothing I can do about the past except learn from it.
The wedding brought up all kinds of emotional stuff from childhood. It made me think much of my emotional maturity is still stuck there. Sometimes I am a kid in and adults body and the self sabotage are just adult ways of having a tantrum against yourself.
This is the shit I've been in. All whilst playing a normal person in an adult world. Work, family, relationship etc.
Block.
This morning I started reading Brene Brown, 'Daring Greatly' - Dare to be vulnerable. It made me think of certain things.
I did my day at work, had a meeting with someone rather inspirational. A workaholic who has built up an empire, lots of money and a life but was racked in pain about where to turn next. It gave me the energy and impetus to write.
She said to me, 'you really need to write a book Nick' You're writing and expression is amazing. You have such a gift". Yet another person to add to the list. "So why don't I?" - I thought to myself.
I'll tell you why. The real reason? The deep truth. The truth that I didn't even know myself until today. Because I'm scared. That's why. Good old fashioned fear. Fear of success. Fear of trying. Fear of hard work. Fear of failure. Fear of doing. Just fear.
I don't have the answers. Maybe I never will, but you know what? It feels fucking good to be back writing. I've missed it. I really have. I've missed me too. And you. I lose my identity when I don't write. I become normal. And god forbid, my ego hates being normal, even though I am. Even though I am one of you. Even though I really am not special and different my ego will tell me that by writing I am, and even just a sniff of that in my mind makes me feel a whole lot better.
Because no matter how good or bad this piece is. I've done it and God, isn't it good to die trying rather than wondering?
Thank you Brene Brown, I've dared to be vulnerable and thank you Amy at 4pm, you really inspired me.
I'm back. I just hope I stay
Nicholas E
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