💌"Absinthe Minded"💌
[2 February 2026] a letter from Chasey Delaney (Updates) Newsletter..x
This letter isn’t about me feeling upset or depressed by things I might think I’ve done, or said something wrong. It isn’t about regret or despair coming from within. It’s my remembering what has been done wrong to me and THIS is how I’ve overcome some of it, how I learn to be this.. urm.. Strong?
Tuesday 3 February 2026
“If you like your newsletters without politics or preconceptions or seeking a break from the norm you may have just found your new hangout”
NOTE: THIS LETTER MAY BE TOO LONG TO SEE IT ALL IN YOUR INBOX. TO VIEW IT IN IT’S ENTIRETY YOU MAY NEED TO OPEN IT IN YOUR BROWSER OR ON THE APP.
Tuesday 3 February 2026
Dear Chasers..x
Frank Zapper said: “The taking of drugs is the license to be an arsehole, and its the same reason why people drink alcohol”
I’ve been drinking whiskey lately, not to get to drunk, not to get away with being an arsehole but the opposite. ‘To prevent me from making a beast of myself in all efforts to get rid of the pain of being who I am.' I can’t remember the person who said something similar to that quote but Hunter S. Thompson used it in his Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas film/book. I just want someone to see me explode and not run away for once.
Mental illness aside, it can’t all be about the plumbing of my psyche or the wiring of my brain. Everything seems to fall on me from a great height because of my personality and the way I carry myself, not to mention the way I present myself to the world, even or exclusively — my appearance has a lot to answer for.
I’m beginning to come to terms with it being a projection coming from me as opposed to what I had always believed previously, it being a reflection in the eyes of the beholder.
This is a letter or musing about how I feel tonight. Just one night at the beginning of the month, in which I might turn my shit around and decide that February 2026 is where everything actually changes for me.
Maybe if I settled with one guy telling me I’m pretty (if only to please me) I would be happy ever after and not have to feel this way, the way I do inside.
I wouldn’t try to fantasize about an alternative romance or darkly spun fairytale of finding a love that lasts longer than the length of my fucking forehead for instance.
It’s not even like I’ve been wishing for a remarkable skull of man to bury his bulky soul in me, or bring me the heads of my enemies, burn down their cities in my name and confess his undying devotion to me under the pale moon light! for fucks sake I’d ask him to get me a Burrito and that would do.
That’s just my depression, anxiety and regrets taking me away to the land of overthinking again. I’ve been indulging in sips of whiskey to relax my nervous system. It’s rather fruitless in the sense of it making me feel inferior to the most recent version of myself only that is the version of me who has driven me back to these ‘secret’ drinks.
At one point I rewarded myself with a quarter bottle of a cheap 30% whiskey as a treat for being so good at being me. I didn’t declare the gift to myself to anyone else and immediately felt cheaper than the drink itself. Bringing back memories of childhood finds when rummaging through unused cupboards, old wardrobes, bags, boxes and other abandoned storage things. Seemed to be an thing of mine when I was young. It became a favourite pass time, I loved ‘hunting for clues’ about me.
I’d find stashed empty bottles of Vodka in places I’d never usually see, like the tiny, and awkward to reach, cupboard where the gas or electric meter was stored in the kitchen, or behind the ancient fur coats in the rickety old wardrobe kept in the spare back bedroom.
Once I found a half full bottle under the nest of tables in the hallway where we slung our coats, when the coat hooks were full.. I was delighted and came running into the sitting room brandishing the hidden ‘treasure’ I’d found, proud of myself for not having swallowed it down. The thought at 8 years old had crossed my mind though. It was only that we were having minty lamb chops for tea and I could smell it cooking I didn’t want to miss out on it.
My guardians were not afraid to drink alcohol in front of me or anybody else but my main guardian was a very proud lady and respectable soul. She was so good to me and didn’t like people to think she was drinking to be happy. I knew why she did it. I asked her all the time if she was happy? It would be met with an instant look of disgust to be fair, like I’d just rocked up asking for the money out of her purse wearing my Granddad’s underwear! I was told to stop asking those kind of stupid questions.
She would plaster on a forced smile for me before shooing me away ‘for tea’ or whatever but I could see underneath a sadness that both transcended us and connected us to our unspoken grief. Her reasons will never be known or told. Mine are currently unfolding, thoughts pending, as my suffering this life hasn’t yet come to a close. I’m ‘THE’ living grief - all of my own and generations before me I suppose.
This prompted me to come clean and tell my partner that I had been drinking that day, needless to say if I had been any different, in my behaviour or remotely intoxicated, he would have guessed already. He told me he hadn’t even noticed. He was ‘proud’ of me for not getting drunk. I thought fuck my life dude. Surely, this would be a sign of something worse to come. I mean a woman of my moral stature. I have always been opposed to drinking for any other reason than to make a cunt of ourselves.
I didn’t need drink to help me lose my inhibitions. I could flip that switch any time, any day all on my own accord. Sometimes struggling to switch it off again, and now we have come full circle, in that I thought maybe this tipple of my favourite spirit, might trip the switch back to default and back to usual for me. You know how my brain is wired different? Maybe it would have the adverse affect. Instead it brought on more regrets, tiredness, and a heavy boredom I’ve not felt for a while. As opposed to igniting creativity it dampened it for me. This is why I have been away from writing last month.
I have been creating a trial PodChat series (one of which you’ll have seen), some others are below and ALL can be found here:
I came back to the keyboard though last night and wrote this:
continuation of letter:
My iron is too low for this weather. I’ve been shaking like a shitting chihuahua all winter! Imagining that someone who hates me could ‘shiver my timbers!’ LOL
What it boils down to is the lack of self esteem I had and how I went about changing my mindset. I pinpointed the problem to be down to a lack of expression on my part. I was unable to love how I want to love.
I poured everything I was capable of into my soul through a fictional, obsession or fantasy or misunderstanding between me and myself that I was in love with somebody from the t’interwebs.
A famous entertainer of sorts. Kind of like a magician, this man was the illusion and gateway to my delusional imagination. ‘In my dreams I’m beautiful and bad’ (Quote from Nightmare on Elm Street 3 - Dream Warriors).
I’d trained my mind into believing it was in love and this was where I sourced my self worth, confidence, creativity and resilience against the urge to end my life on a daily basis from. A well of wishful thinking and false belief system.
I felt like a failure in my real relationship. I was afraid I’d never love another person, I was aware another person would never love me. I didn’t need to be loved. In fact being love destroyed my soul because it sends me crazy with suspicion.
I just wanted to believe that I had a future ahead of me whereby I could be myself and bask in the glory of who I am, what I have overcome, and embrace the shining in me. The parts of me that make me feel alive, the same parts which makes me a target for dislike (and that’s an understatement).
People expect me to be nice. I try to be nice. I started to believe that my core niceness was coming through clearer as I aged. The older I get the more obvious the true colours of care, kindness and understanding will be present for more people to see.
Until I realised, no amount of coconut oil, mango body butter, candyfloss body mist, baby lotion and ‘happy’ perfume can stop me smelling like a cunt.
I am a bad bastard but that’s because I have to be - look what’s done unto me! Look what I have been faced with. See what happens or is said to me!.
‘Stroke a Dog it will love and lick you - Kick a Dog and it will bark and bite!’
The dickhead in me followed my heart and it led me down a dead end.
Like a say.. I’m putting all that behind me like a cigarette that I can’t get a drag out of, instead of keep on trying to re-light it hoping to get some better hit from it, I’ll just chuck it out the window with my dreams and roll another one up, with all my love.
Kind-Regards,
..your mate Chasey! ..x
Exit Song:::
IF life turns around for me soon, if I get time, I might drop 💌 randomly around Substacks- it’ll be on here ‘almost daily’🤞 NOTE- I have recently completely a major fete by doing a 7 Day Writing Sprint (props to me!) which ended when December did, here is a quick link or you can visit the BLOG DIRECTLY:
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Best wishes,!! and this is my plan for the future & my promise to you too..x
💌I’ll aim for writing on CHASEY DELANEY (UPDATES) twice a week instead of just the once a month. I hope you’ll be here next time with me too!.💌Thanks for taking time to read this!💌xx I also write on ChasingTheMuse publication.