scotch blog post

We’re not suppose to romanticize or glamorize alcohol or drinking or drug stories during meetings when sharing but this aint no meeting so i’sa spin some yarns here so gather ’round sumn other okay just kidding I’ll type with real words, not in minxlish. I’ll try.

I’m watching the last man on earth right now and they’re drinking Scotch on a boat it brings to mind the kind of person who you drink Scotch with, someone you just know you’re being drug down to Hell with them for a Scotchy drunkies and there is no fightin’ it, with that there powerful spirit dawg you is in it. Scotch is like the K-hole of drunks. If you don’t know what a k-hole is it’s when you do Ketamine and you’re in a bubble and you cannot get out that’s why it’s called a hole. Not a good time. Mormons do it tho which is weird. They can’t have caffeine or alcohol but they do Ketamine “treatments”. Maybe that’s just the Mormon housewives show and not actual reality. A lot of my education sadly derives from reality television.

We did Scotch Fridays at the office. We even had a Scotch log and to be in Scotch Club you had to get a bottle on a Friday no one had got before and enter it in the Scotch spreadsheet log, that’s about it (we took turns but sometimes there would be two bottles to go around, deadly) then you get fucking gassed with your coworkers in the board room and if you’re the only woman like me then you are in charge of cheese and crackers for the piss tanks who turn into little toddlers, fuck, emails stop dead sharp at 4pm on Fridays — you have zero ability to write shit about fuck whilst on Scotch (I attempted to do our tweets, bad call lol) and then welp, lets call the plug and get his ass on over here ahh good times, good times, work hard play hard. Hangovers at an office are the worst days of your life. Shaking like a leaf, no sleep, you look rough and you don’t remember meetings you’ve had… sending emails out to coworkers about deliverables you’ve already heard word back on wtf.

I was never a Scotch person. Scotch people are made not born. You gotta brace yourself for the most disgusting shit you will ever taste and I’m not sorry either to admit that. I’m an alcoholic and I have tasted the shit rainbow of every kind of alcohol known to human, it’s all poison. You acquire an affinity for that you don’t get born craving it.

Peat? Smoke? Barley? …burning gasoline no different than moonshine make ya go blind? Yeah no that ain’t delicious. Have it with ice, that’s me. Some, a drop of water, some, just neat.

I like to twirl my glass around like some bastard in a sumptuous den wearing a cable knit chooch cardigan sweater fuck can you say dry drunk much? I guess after 197 days without booze you start to romanticize it a little bit.

On the train into the city Friday I sat beside the right chick it was perfect social harmony killing time til we got to Union station, she says, I smell alcohol and I said it isn’t me! This is the only time ever without a shadow of a doubt that it isn’t me she says oh youre an alcoholic oh good I love alcohol I laughed and said um I don’t think you know what you think that means but I said yes i love alcohol too, too much so I cant drink it anymore. I love a nice drink in a pretty glass a gorgeous cocktail perfectly crafted, mixologist porn I can recite circles around you about booze. I liked that she admitted to loving alcohol but she can drink it “normally” sorry, “enjoy” it responsibly, as alcohol marketing would have you hear.

which brings me to my next reveal which I was saving for THE BOOK.

At the beginning of the pandemic when I moved from Toronto to Burlington I worked for the LCBO, I was an essential worker. Me. Queen Smirnoff at the Liqbo (and I kept it secret from the internets). I am planning to deconstruct my time period of secretly working for 3 years in the lions den of hooch as a lush. I had to resign. They will come for me when I say what I got to say. I mean. I didn’t sign any NDAs and I don’t plan to lie about it — it’s my truth and my story. So fuck them I’m not scared. I learned a lot. It was good, it was bad, then it was ugly. I realized I am a very anxious person and being around alcohol as an alcoholic was like that girl who fell in a volcano, bitch, you too damn close.

However, obviously being an alcohol expert came in handy when recommending drinks from wine to tequila, beer, fucking everything, you name it, I drank the store. I am a living breathing database of wine, spirits, beer, ciders & RTD (ready-to-drink) knowledge. What do you wanna eat with that shit? I know that too. How hammered do you wanna get and money u wanna save blah blah all useless to me now. I’ve drank my last drink but I can still talk about it like how I fixate on foods and tv programs and internet garbage. Everything is alcohol to me now.

The inspiration of this post was Scotch. Mostly the drunken overpowering feeling of a Scotch drunk. The first couple sips you know what you’re getting into. Do not make plans, you are going nowhere. You will sound and look like Homer Simpson. Nothing you say will make any sense, you sound like a total idiot, and you won’t remember any promise or plan you made. And you’ll do it again despite the mega-hangover.

Vodka though. She was the one that really took me out. That’s a tale for another time.

Adios muchachos. Enjoy your Sunday.

If you’re struggling just know I have been there before and I am here to talk and tell you that you’re worth it and not alone and you can stop drinking. If you’re irritated just walk away, don’t let that glass of wine be the only thing that can get you through your life.

ps. leave me a comment here and tell me where you found this blog, my visits are skyrocketing right now so someone linked me someplace, but where? fucking tell me! actually might just be organic natural traffic coming from all my social feeds okay whatever i’m just a very curious need to know things type of person.

xo raymi

the year of self love

Here we are folks welcome to the first day of the rest of my life.

Only took me 42 fuckin years to get it right but best late than never.

I have so much anxiety coursing through me right now I have already blown my own mind several times and I haven’t even done shit yet. I have mentally carved out several anecdotal okay not anecdotal because this is what anecdotal actually means…

an·ec·do·tal
/ˌanəkˈdōd(ə)l/
adjective
(of an account) not necessarily true or reliable, because based on personal accounts rather than facts or research.
“while there was much anecdotal evidence there was little hard fact”

Now I’ve just gone and confused myself. What I mean to say is for many years now I’ve been gathering up things to say here… explanations, stories, thoughts, but I am such a giant prefacer that it never fucking happened and then all this time passed and more things occurred so it’s like, where to even begin man.

Slow down, slow down.

Okay here goes.

I am proud of myself for being here right now. For getting out of the house. It’s just so easy to stay home watching Netflix and that was so close to almost happening but I told myself no way you delayed this yesterday no more leeway ya dumb fuck.

I am also proud of myself for still being alive too even though I never really think about it I am super good at cognitive dissonance which is why I got so good at drinking which I had to stop doing otherwise I wouldn’t be here right now typing this today. I am going to get back into the habit of blogging again so that I am in the habit of writing period and then can finish my book. THE BOOK.

Have finally landed on a topic of interest. Me, myself, and I but finally the angle has presented itself in a fell down got back up again humourous, angry look at addiction kind of way – a recovery book of sorts. Over the years I have attempted to write THE BOOK but this blog got in the way, the immediate gratification rush, the dopamine ohh fuck ya lets look at the stats who is looking at me RIGHT NOW!? LETS GOOOOO!

My regular blogging routine was to drink and smoke pot and get into a groovy groove state of mind and blabbity blah my stupid crap on repeat. I stopped blogging two relationships ago I allowed the haters to get into my mind and as I was in a failing relationship it made me fall out of love with blogging because I felt embarrassed and cringe but not anymore by any stretch. The glow-up is fuckin’ real. See what you’ve got to do is cloak yourself in some self confidence and picture yourself floating up in the sky like a Sailor Moon moment it’s super gay and awesome and your superpower protects you from letting the real or imagined perception of others affect you.

My friend said the sobriety looks good on me it’s like my superpower now and I was like fuck yeah it is. Today is day 88 and in Morse code it means “love and kisses” lol so there you go.

I am going to be careful with what I write here because I need to write THE BOOK but this so far has been great I don’t know what scares me so much it’s exhausting and distracting. In MY BOOK I touch on how I choose to no longer be that stressed out anxious shy fucking person anymore I need to get back to the old Raymi the 19 year old balls to the wall shameless psycho, you know?

Like fuck yeah I am crazy I own it. I am so done caring what other people think of me that ship has sailed bud, you like me, you about me, that’s rad, you ain’t, that too.

I was watching a show at my mom’s with Kevin over the summer, I think this was a relapse period, forgive me, there’s been plenty and don’t get me started on the apology tour lol jk anyway I was watching a Netflix reality show with people competing for a million dollars and they had to do all these insane missions and tasks to make it to the next round, one of those missions was flying in a helicopter to the Alps to get ice for a cocktail from a glacier. I know, this show rules but any way I was thinking I couldn’t do that. Regular Raymi can but drinking Raymi cannot. What I was thinking and feeling in that moment was every single moment of my life included alcohol along in it how was I suppose to fly in a helicopter and get ice? How can I do or enjoy anything in life if I don’t know where my next bottle of vodka is coming from while I am doing that thing and how do I hide it?

An addict is so severely dependent on their drink that they will put it first in line of importance in front of everything else in their life. They are mentally, physically, spiritually fucking dependent. If you don’t break the cycle it will get you in the end. There are so many other ways to die but this one’s probably the saddest. Addiction is an illness we are born with and not to get all AA but you have to admit that you are powerless over alcohol in order to move the fuck on and drop the bottle.

I went to AA and other groups but I have discovered that I can’t focus on myself when I am trying to save others too like I have all these suggestions for them. It’s okay to be selfish. I am done feeling guilty about putting myself first finally. I gave up on myself. I went into ahhh I’ll get around to leveling up at some point mode. If you don’t save yourself no one else will.

I let alcohol eclipse everything else in my world. I missed out on so many experiences which chaps my ass the most. Anxiety and fear take over instead. Fuck. I am SO glad those days are behind me now and I am focused on the here and now and tomorrow and catching up on lost time.

Boundaries become a new addiction and realizing you ain’t taking shit no more from anyone and the things you use you let slide ain’t happenin’ no more. It takes some people a little bit of time catching up with the new you. They are arguing with the old you and get confused so try to be patient but if you need to cut them off go for it because this is your journey.

I fell in love with myself again and I am still working on me. I quit smoking cigarettes for many years then picked it up in rehab and YES I will be talking about rehab in THE BOOK. I was smoking cigarettes like a fiend from rehab up til early December and now I’m done with smoking thank God. More on that later too in THE BOOK I guess man I love this new THE BOOK excuse I have invented for not finishing sentences or thoughts no but really there’s things I am saving for that not here.

But why THE BOOK at all I have asked myself what am I looking to achieve from it the book industry is dead who will give a fuck. ok the OG Raymi fans will plus me, I will. I am passed the point of needing a thing to make me big to save me or rock the world I am happy and secure in being an under-achiever and not even in a smug sense I am the kind of person now who is content with simple ass things it’s such a cliche so like, if i put some effort in I know that I can actually publish a book. I have all the skills, the talent, the contacts but do I have the drive THAT is the question am I afraid standing in my own way hell fucking yes ding ding ding.

My therapists, have been working with several, keep closing my file because they are like you are no longer fucked up you’re good now goodbye there’s just one left we spoke yesterday and I was like oh no not you too I need you! We talk about goals, my goals. So this is “a goal” as they tout in therapy and as humans it is supposedly good for us to have goals so we can cross them off our lists.

Growth is good. It feels good. It feels good to look back at the POS you use to be and be like girlllllll! Always keep around you friends who will call you on your shit and be able to laugh at yourself too oh fuck we love laughing at me trust me there is no escaping the roast fest what is my life. That’s the beauty of being a drunk you have a lot of stories and the bad parts your brain has deleted for you from a black out, win-win. It’s okay to repeat yourself too and forget you have already told that story. I was reading Chandler’s autobiography in rehab, sorry Matthew Perry, and it was wild and sad to read it because he wrote it before the relapse that killed him published it then died so I am reading this brief window of sobriety he has and knowing he’s dead while reading his new book was fucking harsh. He repeats himself a lot in it. Drunks do. I journaled while in rehab which I will transcribe into THE BOOK. Some stories are too painful for me still like stuff from when I was twenty but it’s okay I don’t have to do it all at once I am just happy to be here and thanks for listening I appreciate you.

your pal Raymi

ps. it wouldn’t allow me to upload a picture to this post and I am hoping that’s because I am on public wifi I had a nice picture just for this post will troubleshoot later. ANNOYED