{"id":712,"date":"2024-08-31T15:37:28","date_gmt":"2024-08-31T19:37:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/?p=712"},"modified":"2024-08-31T15:37:28","modified_gmt":"2024-08-31T19:37:28","slug":"quitting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/?p=712","title":{"rendered":"Quitting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I stopped writing about my drinking problem a long time ago because it was so very boring and basically it’s the same old story, repeated ad nauseam <\/em>through the human condition. Some of us are heavy drinkers and alcoholics, and others of us have no need to drink excessively or at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drinking ends up cutting you off from the world. That may be its point. That’s why so many go to meetings and share their stories. Like the joke, “I’m not an alcoholic. Alcoholics go to meetings.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But two days ago I had a dream which was kind of hard to interpret, except that I had, for a moment, an enormous sense of relief. I can’t remember where I was but I was doing my usual thing of trying to hide my drinking and I went downstairs where there was a kind of bar and restaurant. Some guy came and sat next to me and he said, “Let me ask you. What is it with the drinking?” And that’s when I felt such a huge sense of relief and I was just about to start telling him that I was an alcoholic and I was trying to hide, like most do, but then my family came in and sat down and started talking and showing me pictures and things and I never had the chance to come out. And then I woke with a sadness. But maybe knowing this feeling of relief was really the point of the dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My cousin’s husband is just like me. He cannot talk about it. He will stop and has stopped, but he can’t bear the shame. I think that’s what they call a dry drunk. George Bush was one too. But maybe that’s enough. I don’t think people should feel ashamed of anything, except cruelty, and those types of people never feel shame. But maybe avoiding shame is okay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I must stop very soon. It’s affecting many things now — my walk, my gait, going out. Oddly not so much my liver but it might be inflaming my liver a little too. Anyway, with so many people younger than me dying of various things, I really have to become a teetotaler. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I stopped writing about my drinking problem a long time ago because it was so very boring and basically it’s the same old story, repeated ad nauseam through the human condition. Some of us are heavy drinkers and alcoholics, and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":713,"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712\/revisions\/713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}