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Many people move here thinking that life will be all beaches and barbies! Well a lot of it is, but you also need to deal with the practicalities of life. This series of articles is designed to make this easier for you. |
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Closing Time - At The Bar Of Life.
Our scene is set. Members, drawn together by grim common denominator sit semi circle upon uncomfortable wooden chairs in a room… in never land. I get up to speak…“Hi, my name is.” But my voice cracks and falters. I start to weep. All because I cannot control my drinking. And the scene? Yes it is almost like that, the room, the chairs, the cross section of people, although I expected to be sharing the hour with down at heel souls whom had arrived via the very fringes of our society. Not so my fellow attendees, whom invariably are well dressed, intelligent, sensitive…. the opposite of my expectation. Maybe they have made a special effort, like going to church in Sunday best. So where did my journey in alcohol start? Peer pressure as a schoolboy trying to get into the pub during mid-teen years? Or perhaps early days at work with new acquaintances? Perhaps it merely crept up in more recent times? I didn’t even like the taste until about ten or so years ago but then effect drinkers like me know that taste is a secondary consideration. My only hope at the bar of life was closing time, when service is no more. For it had to stop. And it did. The dark day finally dawned, a broken elbow, a hangover from hell and an emptying wallet courtesy of my good time amigos made this individual aware that the privilege of drinking alcohol had to be withdrawn. Now with the help and support of Alcoholics Anonymous at first in Lanzarote and now in Caleta de Fuste, a new course in this life has been set. Although only some four months sober, the awareness that danger is just that first drink away keeps this guy dry. And a strange set of coincidental circumstances, financial and logistical, made calling a halt much easier. Now I am getting my life back, and making new “real” friends. Some know my situation, some don’t, the former have shown me respect, and evidently prefer the new me…maybe they have been with me all along…. Paranoia has dissipated; the sepia tinge of depression is fading away. Of course I will never be completely free, the alcoholic in me will always be in a perpetual state of recovery, I can never say I have recovered. But I am on that road.
Last orders please.
A new A.A group has started in Caleta De Fuste. It meets every Wednesday 1015 – 1145 at the Cultural Centre. For more details please contact 618 474 098 For more information on Alcohol related problems take a look at the AA website
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