Paul Garrigan's Blog, page 28

Not Thinking Too Much is the Path to Happiness

In this video and podcast I talk about how mental chatter functions as a parasite. These thoughts pretend to be me, but they only get in the way of who I really am. I have found that reducing this mental chatter is the path to happiness. Press play to watch the video – you will find the podcast of this edition below.

Press play to listen to the podcast of this episode:

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Juice Fasting in Thailand

One of the nice things about juicing in Thailand is that fresh fruit and vegetables are easy to come by. The only problem I did find in the beginning was that most of the juicing recipes online are created for people who have access to a western grocery store. I’ve need to do a bit of experimenting in order to create tasty and nutritious juices for my fasts.

My Ingredients for Juice Fasting

Thai Cucumber (แตงกวา /dtaeeng-gwaa)

This is the ingredient that I use the most because it creates a lot of juice. The Thai cucumber tends to be much smaller than the ones found in stores in the west. This vegetable and antioxidant properties, and it is a good source of vitamins A and K – it is also contains a reasonable amount of potassium which is vital for many metabolic functions in the body.

Thai/Chinese Celery (ขึ้นฉ่าย /kheun Chai)

People who juice fast in the west seem to use a lot of celery. I didn’t find this to be practical here because the Thai celery doesn’t have much juice. I stink in a few stalks in every juice. It is sometimes claimed that celery is the world’s healthiest food because it is low-calorie and has anti-inflammatory properties. It is also a reasonably good source of vitamin C.

Carrots (แครอท /Khae rot)

I used tons of carrots the last time I did a juice fast, but I’ve since learned that this meant I was consuming an excessive amount of sugar in my juices in one hit. I’ve cut down to one carrot per liter of juice this time. Carrots are said to contain antioxidants benefits and they are a good source of Vitamin A.

Ginger (ขิง/king)

I add a slice of ginger to every juice. This is meant to be good for blood circulation, and it is meant to help the body fight off mild infections like the cold (very handy now during the Thai rainy season). Ginger is also good for upset stomach which is probably useful when you are drinking liters of juice each day.

Wing Bean (ตัวผู้/tua puu)

It was my wife’s suggestion to add tua puu to my juice. I’m not sure if it makes much difference to taste. Winged beans are said to be a good source of calcium as well as other minerals. I have often seen them on sale in Thai markets, but this is my first time trying them.

Chinese Cabbage (ผักกาดขาว Pak Gaat Khao)

I don’t get much juice out of this Chinese cabbage, but I’m working on the assumption that the more green stuff in there the better. Cabbage is meant to be good for lowering cholesterol and it has antioxidant properties.

Broccoli (บรอกโคลี/brawk-koh-lee)

Broccoli is expensive in Thailand, but I use about one head per batch of juices. This vegetable is packed with a wide range of vegetables and minerals, and it has plenty of great health benefits too.

Tomatoes (มะเขือเทศ /ma-kua-thet)

I read somewhere that it is a good idea to have a good mix of colors when choosing ingredients for a juice. Tomatoes are cheap in Thailand, so I always add a couple to every liter. Tomatoes have anti-inflammatory properties, and they are also said to reduce the risk of heart disease.

Apple (แอปเปิ้ล/aaep-peern)

During my last juice fast I used a lot of fruit, but this time I’m focusing mostly on vegetables. The only exception to this is apples. I already consume about a bag of apples a day, so I’d probably go into withdrawals if I didn’t add them to my juice.

Cost of Juice Fasting in Thailand

It came as a bit of a surprise to find that juicing is actually more expensive than eating standard food – or at least it is in Thailand. The first expense is the juicer. Last year I picked up the Philips HR1861 at Fashion Island in Bangkok for THB 3,600. It is very good at juicing, but the feeder tube breaks too easily. I had to pay an additional 700 THB for a replacement after just two months.

I am now on day six of my juice fast, and up until yesterday I spent 1,800 THB (about 42 Euros or US $56) on fruit and vegetables. I spent another 400 THB on vegetables today. This means that I’m spending about 360 THB (8.50 Euros or US $11) per day. My wife does most of the cooking, but I would say that my meals and snacks usually come to about 250 THB per day – so juicing is a bit more expensive but well worth it.

Other Juice Fasting Related Articles

Rewards of Juice Fasting

Fasting to Beat Food Cravings

From Intermittent Fasting to Juice Feasting

15 Days of Juice Fasting and the Gateway Experience

Almost One Week of Juice Fasting

Blowout on Day 10 of My Juice Fast

Fast Diet Review – Evaluating My Fasting Experience

Rewards of Juice Fasting

It is now near the end of day four of my fifteen day juice fast, and I’m enjoying this process far more than I expected to. It is turning out to be much easier than my last attempt, and this is because my intention is clearer this time. I see this as a bridge to a healthier way of living where I will be better able to do the things I want to do. I don’t see juice fasting as any type of sacrifice but as the start of something new and exciting.

Juicing Fasting on My Birthday

I turned 44 yesterday. I usually treat myself to a guilt-free day of eating for my birthday. This means that I end up feeling stuffed and a bit sickly – I call this a special treat. This year I was juicing so I got to miss out on this self-inflicted unpleasantness. I had a nice day. I got up at dawn for a walk on the beach, and it felt good to be doing something positive with my diet. Eating a creamy cake, stuffing chocolate down my throat, or swilling a few bottles of cola would not have added anything to my day – it would only have taken away.

I eat junk food because I’ve learned to associate this type of diet with reward. When I’m in a bad mood or I feel stressed, my automatic reaction is to stuff something into my mouth – this is referred to as comfort eating or feeding my feelings. I would be happy to put up with all the negative effects of poor diet and overeating if this type of coping mechanism actually worked. It doesn’t yet I still continue with the behavior.

The problem here is that having knowledge about the ineffectiveness of comfort eating is not enough to create change. My brain is hardwired to associate shitty food with reward and comfort, and it is not going to give up this association easily. I need to retrain my brain to stop driving this bad behavior, and this juice fast is part of that process.

What I am Doing Different This Time on My Juice Fast

They say that if you keep on doing the same things, you will end up with the same results. I’m determined not to give up half-way through this juice fast, so I’ve made some changes to my approach this time including:

• I’m being more careful about what I put in the juices – I’m using less fruit and more green vegetables.

• I’m treating this juice fast as something to be enjoyed and not just endured.

• I’m engaging in a moderate amount of exercise each day – enough to make me feel good but not so much that it would require increasing the number of juices I need to consume.

• I’m using the Day One app (electronic journal) to track my juice fast, and this is encouraging me to think more carefully about my approach to things (thank you Angelina for suggesting this).

My Expected Rewards from This Juice Fast

I need to be careful around expectations because they tend to get me into trouble. I felt like a complete failure after my last juice fast because I intended for it to last 15 days, but I gave up after 10. If I’d expected for it to be 10 days, I would have been delighted with the result but instead it became a source of shame. The expected reward this time is the actual fast itself – I’m doing it to enjoy the feeling of healing that I’m experiencing right now. By learning to love the comfort of a body that is functioning healthily, I can rewire my brain to want the same.

Other Juice Fasting Related Articles

Fasting to Beat Food Cravings

From Intermittent Fasting to Juice Feasting

15 Days of Juice Fasting and the Gateway Experience

Almost One Week of Juice Fasting

Blowout on Day 10 of My Juice Fast

Fast Diet Review – Evaluating My Fasting Experience

Homeless in Thailand

I doubt there are any foreigners who come to Thailand with the expectation of ending up homeless and searching for food in bins. Unfortunately, this is the way things turn out for a significant number of people who come here. An article in yesterday’s Bangkok Post (Homeless Foreigners on the Rise) gave an optimistic estimate of 400 homeless foreigners in Thailand – I’d be very surprised if the number wasn’t significantly higher than this.

My Experiences of Homelessness

I’ve never been homeless in Thailand, but I did live on the streets of London for a brief period of my life. This occurred due to an alcohol-related mental breakdown in my mid-twenties. I had been a bit depressed in the run-up to this, but I had also plenty of good stuff going on in my life such being accepted at university. I can’t blame my homelessness on any one event – at the time it just felt like everything just started to fall apart. I wanted to die, but I no longer had the energy to do anything with this yearning, so I just lived on the streets. I felt alone and afraid, and my thinking became so mixed up that it was impossible for me to figure out a solution. Luckily there were other people there to help me get back on my feet.

I moved to Thailand in 2001 and for my first five years living here I was caught up in a downward spiral driven by addiction to alcohol. I’d arrived from Saudi Arabia, where I worked as a nurse, with a healthy bank account and no real plans. I honestly believed that living in this beautiful country would give me a new start in life. Like lots of others before me, I mistakenly believed that my problems were due to my surroundings so living in an exotic place like Thailand would fix me. It didn’t. My life went into free-fall, and I’d almost certainly be dead now if it wasn’t for the help from Thai people and Thamrkabok Temple in 2006. I could easily have been one of the homeless foreigners in Thailand.

How Do Foreigners End Up Homeless in Thailand?

A common sentiment among expats in Thailand (at least if the online forums are representative) is that homeless foreigners are getting what they deserve – or as they say here ‘สมน้ำหน้า/ som nam naa’. They are just ‘weak minded’ people who have been gullible enough to allow a Thai partner to cheat them out of all their money or they are drunks who shouldn’t have been allowed to enter Thailand in the first place. Plenty of expats can’t even bare to make eye contact with other foreigners, so it is hardly surprising they have little sympathy for these ‘losers’. Of course, the reality is that things are nowhere near as black and white as these people would suggest. Nobody comes to Thailand with the intention of ending up homeless, and these guys will have undoubtedly appeared perfectly sane and sober when they arrived.

It is tempting to believe that homelessness and addiction only happens to inferior humans. This provides a false sense of security as well as smugness. The reality is that mental illness can strike anyone and when it does that person can lose everything. As well as experiencing homelessness first-hand, I’ve also done volunteer work with these people. Some of these guys were doing really well in life – it just took a couple of things to go wrong and their life went out of control. I remember one old fella who had been an Oxford University professor, but he was unable to keep it together after he lost his wife.

Moving to Thailand Increases the Risk of Mental Illness and Addiction

Leaving the normal routines of life in the west will increase the risk of mental illness and addiction. This is because we are away from the constraints on our behavior, and family and friends are not here to raise concerns about our deterioration. When we step off the plane it can feel like the normal standards do not apply. The fact that we don’t understand the rules of Thai culture gives us the false impression that there are no rules. We now see nothing wrong with getting drunk during the middle of the day, and there is no pressure on us to hide our excesses. We are given the freedom to fall apart and those of us who have been struggling to keep things together for years will be happy to make the most of the opportunity.

What Should Be Done to Help Homeless Foreigners in Thailand

Homeless foreigners are human beings who are struggling in life. They should be treated with compassion and offered help. Foreign embassies and consulates should step in to provide safe accommodation and food until these people can be helped back on their feet or repatriated to their home country– they should definitely not end up in jail waiting for deportation. I’ve found the people of Thailand to be very kind-hearted, and there are local temples like Thamrkabok where addicts can seek sanctuary and help.

Fasting to Beat Food Cravings

I am fasting to overcome my food cravings and regain a sense of control over my diet

I am just about to embark on another 15 day juice fast. I attempted the same challenge last year, but I gave up on day 10. I hit a wall due to low energy levels and feeling a bit unwell – my willpower was not sufficient to keep me going. I didn’t particularly enjoy this juice fasting adventure, so why am I considering repeating it? Two reasons – I want to regain control over my diet and I want to overcome food cravings.

The Goal of My Juice Fast

One of the mistakes I made with my last juice fast was that I didn’t have a clear enough reason for doing it. I had some vague ideas about health improvements, losing some weight, detoxing my body, and enjoying improved mental focus. These goals were not enough to keep me motivated because:

- I knew that any weight loss would only be temporary

- My failure to properly research juice fasting/feasting meant that by day 7 my mental clarity had actually deteriorated.

- My ideas about health improvements were so vague as to be practically meaningless.

- There are experts who say the detox claims for juicing are exaggerated. These guys may well be wrong, but they did sow enough doubt in my mind to weaken my resolve.

- I didn’t feel particularly excited enough about any of my motives for the juice fast (this meant I had to rely on willpower alone).

My reasons for doing the last juice fast were not powerful enough to keep me motivated. This meant that I made a half-arsed attempt and ended up with a half-arsed result. This time my goal for the juice fast (and the 10 weeks of intermittent fasting afterwards) is going to be something a bit more meaningful:

I am fasting to overcome my food cravings and regain a sense of control over my diet.

Fasting to Combat Food Cravings

I escaped an alcohol addiction seven years ago, but I’ve used food in much the same way as I’ve used the booze – trying to eat away my feelings. At first I consoled myself with the idea that eating too much is preferable to being a drunk but that was where there were few obvious consequences of spending too much time at the fridge. I didn’t really notice the negative impact of this behavior on my life until I hit forty. I started to put on weight and the impact of junk food on my mood and health became more noticeable. For the last four years, I’ve been caught up in a pattern of eating well for long periods and then going on a junk food binge which will last for months. It only takes one chocolate bar or can of coke to trigger one of these binges.

The idea of never eating another chocolate bar, fast-food meal, or cheesecake scares me, and this is exactly how I once felt about alcohol. It is this fear that has led me up the path of compromises. I’ve tried to moderate my consumption of sweet things, but this only lasts for a few weeks. I’ve also tried to limit junk food to once a week, but I can’t maintain this long term. It is now obvious to me that my only hope is to quit eating my favorite comfort foods for good. I see this coming period of fasting as part of the process of escaping my food cravings.

Of course, I could give up sugary things without fasting, but this challenge will reset my eating habits and give me a running start into my new life. I’ve no interest in entering the debate about the detox effects of juicing, but I do know that my body did feel like it had been cleansed after my last period of fasting- even if this was a placebo effect, it was still an effect.

Fasting to Increase My Sense of Control Over Life

I attempted intermittent fasting and a juice fast last year, but I failed to see both of these challenges through to the end (I talk about this in my post Tired of Being a Habitual Failure). I don’t like failing at things because I know that it negatively impacts my self-confidence and makes it harder for me to achieve my next challenge. Overcoming my sugar addiction is going to require plenty of motivation, and by completing my fasts it will increase my sense of control over my diet. I’m creating a snowball effect that will make breaking away from rubbish food easier to manage and maintain. You could call it an extreme detox - just like I needed to overcome my alcohol addiction.

Tired of Being a Habitual Failure – I Give Up Too Easily

Question – What do Muay Thai fighting, 10 day juice feasting, and 15 week intermittent fasting have in common?

Answer – These are three goals that I set for myself within a twelve month period, and I failed to achieve each one of them.

I’ve achieved far more in the last seven years than I managed with the other 36 years that make up my life. I’ve turned my dreams into reality, and I’ve become better at dealing with adversity. I’ve plenty to feel proud about, but when I turn a more critical eye on my track record I notice a worrying recent trend – I’ve failed to achieve my last three goals.

First Failure – Fight Muay Thai

In 2011, I set myself the goal of fighting Muay Thai while writing a book about my experiences. I put aside my reservations about being an out-of-shape-middle-aged-wimp and made the decision to take on the hardest challenge of my life. Over a period of six months, I managed to build up to training full-time at Muay Thai – intense exercise for seven hours a day, six days a week. I got over my fear of being punched in the face, and my amazing adventure was documented in my book Muay Thai Fighter. It was a wonderful experience, but I still walked away feeling like a failure.

I’ve lots of excuses for why I didn’t get to step into the ring for a real fight. I did have problems with injuries, and I mentally wasn’t ready to face this challenge. Sadly, all of these problems were due to poor planning and over-estimation of my own abilities. I’d been told that even a young guy would need to train full-time for at least three months, but I kept on trying to cut corners. I also know that my excuses aren’t worth shit – I failed to do what I set out to do and it still stings.

Second Failure – 10 Weeks of Intermittent Fasting

This time last year, I set a goal of intermittent fasting for 10 weeks. My aim was to reduce my risk of heart disease (this killed my father at age 60), improve my mental clarity, and lose a bit of weight. I had two days every week where I ate less than 500 calories. I found this easy to manage for the first few weeks, but I became a bit disillusioned because of my failure to lose much weight. By week eight I was experiencing hunger pains, and I no longer had the motivation to keep going, so I just gave up.

Third Failure – 15 Days of Juice Fasting/Feasting

Last September, I challenged myself to a 15 day juice fast. I’d already comfortably managed a five day fast, so it didn’t seem like too much of a big deal. By day 10 I was feeling physically ill, so I once again decided to give up on a goal I’d set myself. At the time it did feel like the right thing to do, but it still goes down in my record as another failure.

Repeated Failure and Self Efficacy

Self-efficacy is the belief we have in our ability to achieve something. The higher our self-efficacy, the more likely we are to achieve a goal. The way to increase our self-efficacy is to achieve things, and the way to reduce it is to fail. Each of my failures has meant a hit on my self-efficacy, and this can mean that I will be more likely to give up the next time I’m faced with a challenge. Failure is an important element of success but only if I have the inner strength to keep picking myself back up again.

Enough with the Failure Already

I’m not happy with my recent record of failure. I don’t like the fact that on each of these occasions I gave up so easily – it is not how I like to view myself. I can’t undo the past, but I can try again. I’m going to attempt do the 15 day juicing fast and 10 week intermittent fast – only this time I’m not going to allow failure to be an option. I would also love to have another shot at fighting Muay Thai, but this seems to be an impossible dream at the moment. Maybe if I achieve the first two goals, a path will become obvious for how I can achieve the third. Even if I can make up for two of these recent failures, it is going to give my self-efficacy a much needed boost.

Living Sober Without Expectations

In this video and podcast I discuss the dangers of expectations and how they can lead to depression.

Press play to listen to the podcast:

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Insane Lottery Dreams Cause Me to Suffer

Today I’m going to describe an incident that I feel deeply embarrassed about sharing. This is something I haven’t even told this story to my wife – it is just way too insane. I’m going to admit to this experience because it so perfectly highlights how my thinking tricks me into feeling unnecessary pain. It is an extreme example but maybe you guys have experienced something similar.

Daydreaming on the Beach about the Lottery

Two Saturdays ago, while walking on the beach here in Rayong, I began to daydream. I imagined my mother winning 2 million Euros on the national lottery and offering me one quarter of it. I began to plan how I would spend this windfall. I’ve been struggling financially for the last few months, so it would be a huge relief to get this type of news. I knew that the chances of this scenario coming true must be pretty close to zero – I don’t even know if my mother does the lottery these days – but it felt like a virus had infected my brain, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I’m prone to intense daydreaming. I like to think of it is a sign of creativity, but this may be an overly optimistic view of the situation. I’ve had this lottery daydream before, and it always occurs during a time of financial insecurity. I never dream of winning the prize myself. One reason is that I once heard an economics lecturer refer to it as ‘idiot tax’ so I enjoy a sense of superiority by not playing it. I also hate the idea of being in the spotlight as a winner as this would attract strangers looking for handouts.

My typical daydreams only last a few minutes, but this time I was still thinking about the lottery win when I got home from my walk. I actually sat down with pen and paper (well, iPad and stylus) and began calculating exactly how this money would change my life. I figured that even after we had bought a fancy new house and, and sent Timmy to an international school, there would be enough money left for me to stop working for 8 years. I would be able to quit writing for other people and focus 100% on my blog – it would be fantastic. Of course, I’d take a month off work for a well-deserved rest first. Oh yeah, and I’d begin para-motoring lessons right away. This fantasizing still felt like harmless fun.

Lottery Winning Calculations

It was getting close to my bedtime, and I was still playing around with my lottery winning calculations. I was getting a bit grumpy because I realized that the 500,000 Euros my mother might send me probably wouldn’t be enough to achieve all of my goals. I then decided that I’d been going about things completely the wrong way. I checked the Irish Lottery website and discovered that this week’s payout was over 5 million Euros. This changed everything – I now had well over a million to play with.

I couldn’t get to sleep that night. I kept on visiting car websites – I decided to buy the Toyota 4Runner – and the Apple Store – I would purchase the iMac and a MacBook Air. I felt myself getting more and more excited, and the logical part of my brain could only look on in bemusement. I imagined that my mother would probably ring me at 4am in the morning with the good news. I wouldn’t mind getting woken up – in fact, I didn’t have to mind because I was still awake when 4am came. My mind was buzzing like it was soaked in amphetamine – I dread to think what would have happened if I had actually bought a lottery ticket.

After the Lottery Comes the Depression

All the time, I knew that my daydream was completely ridiculous, but I still felt a huge sense of loss the next day. Part of it was that I felt so tired from lack of sleep, but it was also the feeling that I’d been cheated out of something. I didn’t realize how much I needed this lottery win until I started to dream about it so intently. It moved the goal posts in my life and everything around me seemed to be less as a result. The car I’d bought new a few years ago no longer seemed so attractive, and my two-year-old desktop computer, which has served me well, now looked to be a piece of junk. This silly daydream had left me with a miserable hangover.

I now see that all of my depression and anxiety occurs due to unrealistic expectations of reality. My dissatisfaction with life has nothing to do with reality – just the picture I have of how reality should be. My usual path into depression is a great deal more subtle than this example, but the process is just the same. My unrealistic expectations slap into the wall of reality, and I end up feeling cheated and disillusioned.

I’ve Just Blown My Chance of Benefiting from a Lottery Win

I feel reluctant to share this post for a number of reasons. Not only am I embarrassed by how crazy my thinking can be, but there is a sense that sharing this story is somehow crossing a line. Maybe there was still a slim chance that this lottery dream story could come true, but I’ve now greatly increased the chances that it won’t happen. Receiving money from a mother who has won the lottery is within the realms of possibility, but for this to happen after I’ve shared this experience on here would be entering the realms of the supernatural – maybe I should have kept my big mouth shut.

The truth is that a lottery win would provide a quick fix for my financial problems, but I doubt it would make me happy. I prefer to earn my money, and I know that I’d never feel comfortable about living the good life with cash I hadn’t earned. Maybe this is more magical thinking, or possibly even cognitive dissonance, but I view lottery wins as ‘bad luck money’.

Journey into Madness with Kurt Cobain

“Teenage angst has paid off well, now I’m bored and old”

Nirvana – Serve the Servant

Kurt Cobain committed suicide on the fifth of April 1994 while I was in the middle of my own mental breakdown. It was around this time that I quit my job and soon afterwards ended up begging on the streets of London. I desperately wanted to follow Kurt into death, but by then I no longer had the energy to commit suicide – you would need to have suffered from depression to understand what I’m talking about here.

Kurt Cobain and Me

“Hey wait, I’ve got a new complaint, forever in debt to your priceless advice”

Nirvana – Heart Shaped Box

I’m not going to try to blame Kurt Cobain for my own mental decline – that started long before Nirvana. I felt attracted to his music because he was vocalizing my suffering. There was just something a bit spooky about the way his lyrics summed up my life so well. He even seemed to know the names of my relatives:

“Mom and Dad went to a show, dropped me off at grampa Joe’s. I kicked and screamed, said please, oh no”.

Nirvana – Silver

Kurt knew what it was like to come from a broken home and to feel like this event had set the tone for the rest of your life. The anger and sadness that came with the realization that you have been betrayed and abandoned by the people you love. The complete misery of sitting in what you once believed to be the ‘family car’ only to realize that this was now the car of the ‘new’ family. The despair of being fucked over by those who raised you to believe that anything was possible but then pulled the rug right out from under you. Kurt knew how I felt because he experienced the same thing.



“I tried hard to have a father but instead I had a dad”

Nirvana – Serve the Servant

First Taste of Nirvana

I first heard about Nirvana in 1990 after reading about them in the NME . I didn’t think much of them because they seemed too much like a heavy metal band – I hated heavy metal. It wasn’t until the release of ‘Smells like Teen Spirit’ the following year that I paid them any real attention. I bought the album Nevermind, and it completely blew my fucking mind.

I doubt there was ever any band that spoke so powerfully for a generation than Nirvana. Kurt Cobain was the real deal. He wasn’t just some performer going around smashing guitars as part of an act. Kurt didn’t need to fill his songs with swear words because his rage didn’t need any special-effects. He was the embodiment of Generation X – a generation of people who were too fucked up to even pretend to be normal.

The Death of Kurt Cobain

I didn’t feel sad when I heard that Kurt Cobain had blown his brains out – I felt excited. He had just done what I’d been dreaming of doing for months. You know you have it bad when you wake up crying most mornings because you are so disappointed to be still alive. Kurt had just gone and told the universe to go fuck itself in the strongest terms possible. He was even more a hero to me than ever.

Kurt Cobain Didn’t Need to Hate Himself and He Didn’t Need to Die

“I just want you to know that I don’t hate you anymore

There is nothing I could say, that I haven’t thought before”

Nirvana – Serve the Servant

I can understand why Kurt Cobain committed suicide. He must have felt that he had no other choice – just like how it seemed to be my only solution at the time as well. I was completely wrong. I later found that it wasn’t coming from a broken home that was fucking me up – it was my perspective. Kurt hit the nail right on the head in the chorus of his most famous song, “here we are now, entertain us”. That was our problem right there.

When you grow up with an unrealistic sense of entitlement, you are doomed to misery. In another post I tried to pin the blame for these expectations on hippy parents, but TV shows like the Brady Bunch were probably as much to blame. When what you are brought up to believe to be normal is actually unobtainable, it is easy to feel cheated by life.

Kurt seemed to spend the last few years of his life trying to fill the hole in his soul. He tried to do this with fame and heroin, but he never stood a chance. That hole could never be filled because it never existed in the first place. Reality was already enough, but it is impossible to see this when you are expecting something more.

From Alcohol to Depression with Bill Wilson

It came as a bit of a blow to win the war against alcohol only to end up in a new battle against depression. It is like experiencing the victory of conquering a mountain only to find that you are actually standing on a hill, and the real mountain is still there before you. Maybe my alcoholism was only ever a symptom of my underlying problems with depression – it’s as likely as anything else.

Bill Wilson Suffered From Depression Too

Bill Wilson was the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, and he also had to deal with depression for decades after he gave up the booze. I read his autobiography a few months ago (), this describes how he had periods of living under the dark cloud that lasted months at a time. On the days when he managed to drag himself into work, he’d just sit at his desk with his head in his hands. Bill Wilson helped create one of the most popular self-help movements ever, but when it came to depression he was powerless.

I’m not an AA-person, but I find Bill Wilson to be a bit of an inspiring character. He managed to achieve guru-status, but he didn’t fall into the trap of claiming to be perfect. Bill was more interested in looking for solutions to his continuing problems, and he was willing to share his findings with anyone who would listen. There are many within the AA movement who would like to portray him as some type of saint, but it is exactly because he never pretended to be this that makes him so interesting for me.

Bill Wilson’s Letter About Depression

Bill Wilson candidly discussed his problems with a depression in a letter he sent to a close friend. I found the following paragraphs particularly interesting:

Last autumn, depression, having no really rational cause at all, almost took me to the cleaners. I began to be scared that I was in for another long chronic spell. Considering the grief I´ve had with depressions, it wasn´t a bright prospect.

I kept asking myself “Why can´t the twelve steps work to release depression?” By the hour, I stared at the St. Francis Prayer … “it´s better to comfort than to be comforted.” Here was the formula, all right, but why didn´t it work?

Suddenly, I realized what the matter was. My basic flaw had always been dependence, almost absolute dependence, on people or circumstances to supply me with prestige, security, and the like. Failing to get these things according to my perfectionist dreams and specifications, I had fought for them. And when defeat came, so did my depression.

Bill Wilson hit the nail on the head here as far as my depression is concerned. I’m convinced that my symptoms occur because of my tendency towards self-absorption. I’ve always been a dreamer, and this means my life is full of disappointment because reality never lives up to my dreams. There is this persistent feeling that I’m being cheated out of something and that I’m being treated unfairly by the universe. I carry around these unrealistic expectations, so I’m constantly setting myself up for a fall. It is this steady stream of disappointments that mean the dark clouds are always there waiting for me.