Paul Garrigan's Blog, page 34

Talking to a Foreigner in Rayong about His Sex Life

I haven’t spent much time with other expats in Thailand since giving up alcohol seven years ago. It is not that I try to avoid these people – it is just that I have no interest in going to bars, and this is where expats like to socialize. I’ve also tended to live in areas where there are very few other foreigners – or at least I did up until now. Last month we moved to Rayong, and there is a substantial expat community in the local area. The other day I met one of my fellow expats, and it turned out to be an uncomfortable experience.

Flashbacks to Sitting on a Bar Stool

In an old post on here I discussed the dilemma of acknowledging other westerners in Thailand. I tend to smile at anyone who makes eye contact with me, but there are many expats who do not like this type of acknowledgement from other foreigners – it’s all a bit strange.

The other day I was on my walk when I happened to make eye contact with another foreigner – instinctively I offered him a smile. He was good enough not to return my acknowledgement with a blank stare, and we ended up having a conversation. We’d barely said hello, when he launched into this long story about his sex life. He filled me in about his exploits with prostitutes in Pattaya and about how he had moved to Rayong in search of a “good girl”. He was using words that I hadn’t heard in years – words like ‘short-time’ (going with a prostitute for a few hours) and ‘bar-fine’ (the money that punters pay to the owner of a bar to take away one of their bar girls).

I would have dismissed this guy as some kind of sex-nut, but I remembered having had thousands of similar conversations like this. During my drinking years, this would be the main topic of conversation among expats. I remember 12 years ago arriving at my first teaching gig in Bangkok, and the first words out of the mouth of the other foreign teacher was to invite me to go along with him to a brothel during our lunch break. I said ‘no, thank you’. I was far from a perfect teacher, but I knew that such school-break activities went well beyond unprofessional. The odd thing was though, that at the time his request didn’t seem that strange – I’d already become used to expats talking openly about their sexual exploits.

Maybe I’ve turned into a prude, but it just seems odd to me that other people would be so open about their sex life with complete strangers. My guess is that most of these guys would not behave the same way back in their home countries because there is a taboo about against paying for sex. I suppose the thing that bothered me most was the fact that this guy just assumed that I was the same as him – that I was another sex tourist. I found the conversation to be embarrassing, and I was just happy to get away from him in the end. I’ve no interest in being reminded of the type of conversation I had while sitting drunk on a bar stool.

Sexpats in Thailand

There are many people who come to Thailand for sex, but it would be wrong to suggest that this is the motivation for most expats. I’ve talked about this before in another blog post (People Move to Thailand to Escape Dissatisfaction and Not Just to Have Sex ), the sexpats tend to burn themselves within a couple of years, and they will then return home with their tail between their legs- that guy I met on the beach yesterday sounded like he was on his last legs in Thailand after just one year.

Update – I met one of my foreign neighbors yesterday evening, and he turned out to be quite a character. We had barely started chatting when he asked if I would give him the password to my WiFi – I said ‘no way’.

Letting Go of the Hole in My Soul

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I used to tell people that it felt as if I had a hole in my soul. Even as a young child, there was always this deep sense that things were not okay with me, that I was one of the walking wounded. I turned to alcohol because it seemed to offer a way to fill this hole, but ultimately it only made things much worse for me. I could have turned to more healthier pursuits for easing that sense of not-being-okay – like throwing myself into a career or finding religion – but I can see now that every path would have ended with suffering. My seeking to find wholeness was a fool’s journey because there was no hole to fill.

The Myth of the Hole in the Soul

When I talked about the hole in my soul, I was really saying that I did not believe that my reactions to life were normal. I didn’t like the ebb and flow of my emotions, and I didn’t like how I felt around other people. I developed the idea that there was a right way for me to be experiencing life, and the fact that this wasn’t happening meant that I was broken and that I needed something to fix me. Of course, the things that I was experiencing was called life, and the only thing that was abnormal was my ideas about how life should be. This basic misunderstanding sent me off on a painful quest to find a remedy for a disability that I never had.

Filling the Hole in My Soul

The key to filling the hole in my soul turned out to be surprisingly simple – I gave up on the idea that the hole existed. I stopped trying to fill this non-existing hole, and the sense of it existing completely disappeared. I no longer feel like the walking wounded, and there is this sense of complete wholeness where that hole used to be. I’ve stopped all the seeking because I know there is nothing out there that will make me feel whole – it is not possible for me to be anything less than whole.

Why is Relapse Even an Option?

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The reason I struggled for so many years with my alcohol problem was that I allowed relapse to be an option in my life. I took great comfort in the claim that relapse is a normal part of recovery, and I used this as my ‘get out of jail free’ card. During those times when I did manage to take a break from alcohol, I was never really free because the option to relapse was always there to tempt me back to the old way of doing business. It was only by removing this choice completely from the table that I could finally become free. Unfortunately, it took me a long time to understand that this option to eliminate relapse from my life even existed.

Entertaining Relapse

I know of many people who are still struggling to end their addiction – it is a desperately sad situation. The reason they are struggling is that they are still fighting. They don’t seem to understand that to quit means to give up – instead they are stuck in the situation of having to fight against the temptation to relapse. It would be so much easier if they would just surrender by removing the option of relapse completely from their life. That’s what I did and afterwards staying sober became incredibly easy. At that moment of surrender, my problem stopped being alcohol, and I was free to begin rebuilding my life. I no longer had to worry about relapse because that option was no longer available to me.

I empathize with people who are struggling to become sober because I dealt with the same shit in my life for almost two decades. I understand how hard all this can be and how overpowering it can all seem. When people say to me though, that they are worried that they might relapse I have to ask why they are even entertaining such thoughts. Let’s be clear, I’m not saying these individuals should feel any guilt for having such thoughts, but it does seem reckless to allow such thoughts to take up residence in our brain. This urge to relapse only ever has the power we give to it – and by being clear that it is not going to happen we take away this power.

This All Sounds Way Too Easy

I can understand how difficult it might be for people struggling with addiction to accept what I’m saying here. I would not have believed such claims myself a few years ago. I was packed full of ideas about how hard it was to recover from addiction and how relapse would always be there waiting to trip me up. The claim that I could just choose to eliminate the relapse option would have sounded sacrilegious to me – it was the complete opposite to the message that I was getting from the addiction experts. It did turn out to be this easy though, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. Once I let go of the whole relapse nonsense, it all became incredibly easy for me.

I Do Not Deserve to be Happy

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In this video and podcast I discuss the idea that I deserve to be happy. I don’t believe that anyone deserves to be happy – it makes as much sense as saying that people deserve to have sunny days. The great thing about life is that we are served a banquet of emotions, and the key to inner contentment is to partake of the whole banquet.

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Judging Other People is a Waste of Time

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Judging other people is about as useful as using a net to catch waves in the sea. This need to pass judgement has to be the least appealing of all human traits, and as far as I can tell it is the cause of most conflict in the world. It is just too easy to look at other people and decide that they are somehow getting life wrong – the saps. This judgement can then be enough to put me up on my high horse from where I decide that it is my duty to save these lost souls. It’s all bullshit of course. The only way that I can judge the beliefs of other people is by comparing those beliefs to my own beliefs, and for this to work I have to assume that my beliefs are the best ones – something that is impossible to know.

One of the most dangerous aspects of judging other people is that it becomes a form of scapegoating – a way for me to weasel out of dealing with my own shit. It means that I can pretend to be one of the good guys and to give credit for all the problems in the world to whoever ends up on my naughty list. It is so much easier to blame the shittier aspects of life on religion, political beliefs, or cultural character traits. I can kid myself that by trying to fix the world I can fix myself – sort of like the guy who wants the world covered in leather, so that he does not need to buy any shoes. What a joke.

More about Bullshit Beliefs

I’ve written on here before about my uneasiness with all beliefs – at best I see them as a necessary evil. Of course, I’m only talking here about my own relationship with beliefs, and I’m not trying to tell other people what to believe or what not to believe. I’m just saying that I’ve found that the fewer beliefs I hold, the greater my peace of mind.

I’m convinced that at their very best a belief can only ever be a partial-truth, so I tend to view all beliefs as basically bullshit. From my perspective, this judgment business is all about one group of people pointing out the bullshit of other people from the comfort of their own bullshit. I’ve lost my appetite for this type of carry on. I now know that it is only my ability to spot my own bullshit that can be beneficial to me, and by focusing too much on other people’s bullshit it is just a way to not focus on my own bullshit.

The Sound of Egos Clashing

For the last few years, I’ve wasted a fair amount of time on web forums. I’ve always been interested in spiritual stuff, and I particularly enjoy the forums where the believers and skeptics clash. During my twenties, my loyalties were with the skeptics/atheists, but for the last few years my allegiance has changed to the believers. In recent months, it has become impossible for me to ignore that these debates are just a massive waste of my time. Both sides in these arguments can be described as believers, and they both believe in things that can never be proven true. It is just a clash of egos, and a type of entertainment. I also suspect that these forums are damaging because the act of defending beliefs can make us more entrenched in these beliefs – I don’t see this as a good thing.

I’ve completely lost interest in all online debate forums. I’ve no real beliefs to defend anymore, and this means that I’ve no real urge to change the beliefs of other people. I want to only focus on my own bullshit because that is the road that will take me where I want to go in life. Judging other people is easy, but it is not very productive.

Sometimes You Gotta Be Tough

Of course, there are times when judging other people may be more justified. Those people who hold beliefs that make them a nuisance to other people do need to be kept in check, but this is less about judging them and more about social order. I’ve no interest in judging other people because they believe in things that I might find strange – the only point at which I might become interested is when these beliefs are causing problems for the rest of us. So, if you tell me that that your best friend is a garden pixie, I’ll try my best not to judge you negatively, but if you tell me that this pixie is telling you to do nasty things I will probably become a bit more judgmental.

The Best Reason to Quit Addiction is the Reason You Fell Into Addiction

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Breaking away from addiction will be almost impossible unless you have a very good reason to do so. If this motive isn’t convincing enough, or if it is too vague, you can expect this new sober life to be as wobbly as jelly, and it will likely all end in a mess. This reason for quitting has to be so compelling that you will be willing to do whatever it takes to create a life free of mind numbing chemicals. I found that the only reason that held this much power for me was the reason for why I fell into addiction in the first place.

The Reason for Addiction is the Best Reason to Quit Addiction

There was nothing wrong with my motivation for turning to alcohol during my mid-teens. I felt unable to cope with the challenges that were coming my way – everything seemed so hard – but alcohol looked to be a way to breeze through life and avoid all the sharp edges. For the first few years, getting drunk every day did seem to be giving me a free pass through life. I particularly enjoyed been under the influence at work because it felt like I was getting away with something. It didn’t take long though, before my life became far more unmanageable than it ever was before. I sometimes crossed the line into madness because alcohol did such a poor job of helping me cope with things.

The Drunks Curse of Pain Healing All Wounds

At the end of my addiction, I would have been happy just for the pain to stop. I knew from previous experience that this motivation would not be enough to keep me sober long-term. The problem with using pain and suffering, as a reason to quit addiction, is that the pain and suffering soon goes away. They say that time heals all wounds, but this can be a curse when you are using these wounds as a reason to remain sober. Once the pain goes, the memory of the pain begins to fade, and soon there is no longer any reason to be on the wagon.

I realized that the best reason for me to give up alcohol was the same reason for why I began abusing it in the first place. I wanted to experienced mental peace, and I became willing to go to extreme lengths to achieve this. I already knew by the fact that I almost drank myself to death in search of this mental peace that this could work as a powerful motivator for me. I made this my reason for quitting, and as expected it provided me with the motivation I needed to break away from alcohol for good.

Why Do You Want to Quit Addiction

I would urge anyone who is trying to break away from alcohol or drugs to think long and hard about why they want to do this. If you can’t clearly and succinctly state this reason, you are going to find it a real struggle when things get tough. It is best to write this motive down on a piece of paper, or on the computer, and to look at it critically to decide if it is going to be powerful enough to launch you into sobriety. If this reason for quitting doesn’t seem convincing enough to you now, it is going to appear even less convincing later on when you really need it. By choosing the right reason to quit you can guarantee your success – in many cases, the best reason to choose will be the one that lead you into addiction in the first place.

Go It Alone in Addiction Recovery

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I’ve managed to build a good life away from addiction, and I’ve done this by going it alone. I don’t belong to any type of support group, and the only path that I follow is my own. I did stay in a Thai temple for the first 10 days of my recovery, and the monks there helped me detox and provided me with some tools for living, but I have not required any additional help in the 7 years (almost) since checking out of that program. I’m not suggesting that other people should go it alone in recovery, but I do want to point out that in some cases it may be a better option.

Forced to Go It Alone

In some respects I had no choice but to go it alone when I finally decided to give up alcohol for good. At that time I was living in rural Thailand, and the nearest 12 Step meeting was six hours away by motorbike. I desperately wanted to stop drinking, but I had no strong desire to attend one of these meetings. I felt guilty because of this lack of motivation. I’d managed to stay sober with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous for a two year period during my twenties, but I no longer felt much enthusiasm for the program. I could see how it worked for other people, but it just felt like the wrong path for me. I kept hearing that Alcoholics Anonymous was my only real chance for recovery, and I worried that this might be true.

I started checking out online AA meetings in the year before giving up alcohol for good, but I became fed up with members telling me that I needed to get to a live meeting every day. I’m sure these people meant well, but 12 hour trips (there and back) on my motorbike through the Thai countryside didn’t seem very reasonable to me at all, and I disliked the accusation that I was willfully choosing alcoholism by failing to do this. I also knew already that meetings could not guarantee my recovery – during my twenties I’d gone to a meeting every day for 2 years, and I still ended up back drinking.

In the weeks before my final split with alcohol, I reached new levels of desperation. I knew that if Alcoholics Anonymous was the only option for me I was screwed. I’d had seventeen years of bouncing in and out of AA, so surely that program would have already worked if it was going to work. I could see that the AA saying, ‘if you keep on doing the same things, you will keep on getting the same results’ equally applies to their program. I did briefly consider returning home to Ireland, so that I could check into rehab, but this solution just felt wrong.

Giving up Alcoholism

Getting help at a Thai temple was a desperate attempt to end my addiction, but it worked for me. I’d reached a point of complete defeat, so it may have been that my recovery was inevitable. Before arriving, I made up my mind to not only give up alcohol, but to also give up being an alcoholic. I removed alcohol completely as an option from my life, so this meant that the possibility of relapse was gone. It turned out that giving up alcohol was incredibly easy once I removed the whole alcoholism garbage from my life. Drinking alcohol just became something that I no longer did anymore.

My life improved when I stopped drinking but all the reasons for why I’d turned to alcohol in the first place were still there. I needed to find a new way to deal with the challenges of being a human. The universe became my teacher, and the fact that I was no longer chemically anesthetized by the booze meant that I could learn. In the beginning I did benefit from guidance from books, YouTube videos, and podcasts, but I didn’t limit myself to content only from people in recovery. I understood that most of my problems were things that every human has to deal with, and I’m not some type of special case.

The most important part of this journey alone has not been about taking on new beliefs but in eliminating bullshit. I keep chipping away at my worldview to simplify things, and to make my approach to life more consistent with reality. I now know that all beliefs act as filters, and that real inner contentment comes from having as few of these filters as possible. Most importantly, I’ve found that there is nothing wrong with feeling up or feeling down and there is never any need to try to escape what I’m feeling.

Go it Alone in Recovery

I think it is great that there are so many different recovery paths. We all have to find our own way, and in many instances this may require belonging to a recovery group. I would suggest though, that if people are struggling with the available recovery options they could try going it alone. At the end of the day, we are all ultimately on our own path anyway.

Giving Up Alcohol Was Easy

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In this video and podcast I describe how giving up alcohol for good turned out to be incredibly easy. The reason why I struggled to stop for years with addiction was that I believed in nonsense, and I always left the door open for a return to addiction. In the end I not only had to stop drinking alcohol, but I also had to give up being an alcoholic. I removed alcohol as an option completely from my life, and things became incredibly easy for me.

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Sense of Wrongness is an Addiction Alarm

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I did not give up drinking alcohol because I was afraid or because it seemed the logical thing to do. I probably would have continued drinking indefinitely if it wasn’t for a nagging sense of wrongness that would not leave me alone. This uneasiness with alcohol may have been there from the beginning, but by the time I’d hit my twenties it was impossible to ignore. It spoiled drinking for me, and the more I tried to ignore this uneasiness the worse my life became. I can now see that this sense of wrongness was part of an internal alert system that could only be deactivated by ending the addiction.

Learning to Live with an Alarm Constantly Blaring in Your Head

I can’t see inside the minds of other people, but I bet that it is this sense of wrongness is the usual reason for why people will end addiction. It isn’t because they have come to their senses or that they suddenly realize that drugs are bad for them. People just become so fed up with feeling wrong all the time that they are motivated to do something to fix the problem. A life of getting drunk and high probably wouldn’t be that bad if it wasn’t for this nagging sense of moving in the wrong direction – it is always there like an elephant in the room, and there is only one way to escape it.

The main benefit of giving up alcohol or drugs is that this sense of wrongness goes away. This might not sound like much, but it is completely life changing and wonderful. The only reason it does not seem that big a deal is that we don’t even realize how much this sense of wrongness has been impacting our life. It is like there has been this bleeping alarm constantly blaring in our heads for years and now it has been switched off – ah, the blessed silence. Our load in life has been lightened, and we now have the freedom to move forward with a skip in our step.

The Addiction Alarm Has Been Installed by the Universe

It appears likely to me that the universe has a purpose and that humans (just like everything else in the universe) are part of this purpose. We can speculate that the force behind the universe is intelligent – we might even like to imagine that it is a man with a flowing white beard – but I don’t think it really matters in regards to what we are discussing here. The universe is moving in a direction, and the best thing that we can do is go with the flow.

The sense of wrongness that exists in the mind of an addict is a warning signal from the universe, and this discomfort will continue until we take the necessary action to turn off the warning signal. For whatever reason, the universe is against the idea of humans getting pissed or stoned all the time, so it has fitted us with alarms to discourage us from doing this. Now we could argue that the universe is a fussy prick, or that I’m some type of religious nut-job for even suggesting that the universe might have a purpose, but that’s the way it seems to work.

Acceptance is How We Turn Off the Addiction Alarm

I’ve been talking about acceptance in a few of my recent posts, and this is a topic that I misunderstood for a long time. This approach to the world has nothing to do with fatalism. It is not about meekly accepting whatever is going to come our way in the future without any attempt to move things in a positive direction. It is really about accepting what we already have right now and becoming willing to work with this.

While I was caught up in addiction the thing I needed to take notice of was the sense of wrongness – it was there and my attempts to ignore it only made things worse for me. I’d get drunk and the disquiet would fade, but it would still be there waiting for me when I got sober – by the end of my addiction the sense of wrongness was there no matter how drunk I got. It was only by acknowledging this wrongness that I was able to do something to end it. I realized that there was a reason for this alarm constantly blaring in my head, and the way to shut it off became obvious to me.

My Experiences with the Learn Thai Podcast

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In a post back in 2010 (And the Award for Slowest Ever Thai Language Learner Goes To… ) I mentioned how my Thai language skills had stagnated. It’s now been over two years since that post, and I can’t really say that much has changed. Intellectually I know that it would be good for me to keep progressing with my Thai skills, but, to be honest, I just don’t have the motivation to put in the required effort at this stage in my life – there is just too much other great stuff going on. I did put a lot of effort into learning Thai during my first few years living here, but for the last four years I haven’t made much noticeable progress at all. The only real effort I make is when my son says a word that I’m unsure about, and I need to hit the dictionary. I do read Thai newspapers and website content on a fairly regular basis, but this is more about looking for information rather than trying to pick up any new vocabulary.

Learn Thai Podcast

Recently I was offered the opportunity to revisit a Thai language tool that I enjoyed using in the past. The Learn Thai Podcast offers a unique learning experience that is suitable for people like me who are too antisocial to go to a real life class – I suppose it could also be used to supplement a class. The website for this program offers some free material, but in order to really get the most from this course is necessary to get a paid subscription. There are programs to suit beginners, intermediate, and advanced learners, and it is reasonably priced when compared to other Thai courses.

I first came across the Learn Thai Podcast a few years ago, and I found it easy to use. This is a practical program that uses authentic conversations that would occur in real life situations in Thailand. The lessons use native speakers who are talking normally, so that listeners can become familiar with how people are likely to speak in the real word – that’s important. The lessons are available in video and audio format, and these can be downloaded to a computer or mobile device – I used my iPad. Students who are super eager can also print off the script for each episode, and this will be useful for those who are learning to read Thai (although the Thai script is shown in the videos as well). I used this program for about a year, and my active vocabulary did increase without too much effort. The topics covered in these videos were diverse enough to keep me interested – I particularly liked the news story lessons.

Jay is the main man behind the Learn Thai Podcast, and he is a very friendly and approachable guy. He invited me to have another look at the subscription area of the website a few weeks ago. I hadn’t been back there since 2009 (?), and there were some noticeable changes to how the site is laid out. The interface has a much improved look, and it is easier to navigate around the lessons – downloading is also more straightforward and intuitive. There are many more lessons than were there last time, and he seems to be adding to the catalogue on a regular basis. I downloaded the news story lessons; so that I can listen to them sometimes when I go for my evening walks on the beach – hopefully, Jay will be adding more news stories in the future.