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The JULY sobriety thread

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^^ That's so awesome, I love hearing success stories. Keep up with the positive attitude, it only gets better from here! It took me about 2 months to start feeling better psychologically as well. But now that I'm happier with my life it's so much easier! Why not keep going to meetings, if only once or twice a week? It's always great to make new friends that are in recovery and understand how you feel, thats one of the biggest things keeping me sober right now.. I've never had a support network as strong as I do now. And I just dropped most of my 5th step on Saturday (sharing your personal inventory with another person, my sponsor in this case) and It was quite an experience.. Just putting it all down on paper and sharing it, seeing patterns, realizing a ton of things about yourself like why you think certain ways or react certain ways.. It was quite humbling. Before I worked the steps I always hated hearing people tell me how much they work.. But it's so fuckin' true haha it's ridiculous. There's a reason it's kept millions of people sober worldwide - and not just sober, but HAPPY!

Anyway, keep up the good work! Whatever works for you works for you. :)
 
yeah.. ever since a couple of days ago I have been swirling in uncomfortable thoughts... just really slipped out a today and it seems when i slip back in i'm knocked right back out.. worthless emotion filled thoughts akin to some blathering mid life crises.. I think this has to do with a couple of things... first the woman i see once and awhile, has to go, I mean she smokin but I'm sorry but she may have been clean for years and years but she never altered the addict tendency to use manipulation.. where i have gotten to Im almost immune to manipulation, but because manipulation most often uses emotions as its prime weapon I'm just sick of dealing with it... That and she hasn't realized yet that all the bullshit they try and sell you will not lead to happiness, this combined with discussions with my son on the very same topic.. but the thing is that he is young, under ten.. so although it is hard for me to explain to him that a life full of consumerism and material goods isn't the way he is going to find what he is looking for.. she however isn't young and she is still under the belief that ending up with all that shit is "winning" or success, and that a life of constant toil for more and better garbage is where its at.. so she in her manipulation, and she is controlling as hell (not that it works on me at all), so she is always cutting me down (as that is what controlling people including assprinces try and do) yeah so seemingly backed by her divine consumerism wisdom and fueled by her manipulation and need to control.. I have been bombarded by negative bullshit in an attempt to drive me to her desires, witch is more and bigger garbage..

so I think i have heard that i am lazy, undriven, unable to step up, a burn out, will never amount to anything more than what i've done already, etc etc, because I am no longer driven towards the crap she is.. just to remind myself and her if she happens to lurk on this forum.. it is funny you can call someone these things, for money are your prince, well wise one how can this be if in my earlier pursuit of this i made and collected so much of your prince that i am left in NO doubt that having even more wealth will make no difference and that this way of life is satisfying as an addiction, sure you get something new your happy for a minute, but then you are back to unhappy, and just like a drug you will have to just get something of supposedly more value to get your fix now.. and just like the last purchase the happiness gotten of that product will fade just as fast.

Yeah.. there are a couple different thoughts you can have when you look around and have everything they told you would bring a good life.. that moment when you look around a realize you have it all, everything, the best the latest.. the cars, the house in that place, the clothes, the hot but ugly on the inside partner, the money, the drugs, the freetime, the plane tickets , the affaire.. One thought would be.. well shit this is as good as it gets and i'm living the life so the reason i'm miserable must be because of a brain chemistry imbalance, so I'm going to pump a antidepressant down my throat and then i will appreciate the happiness this material stuff should certainly bring.. Or you can look around like i did and realize I was once again looking in the wrong spot;).. the reason I dont show much interest in goals set towards or status derived from dedicating ones life to working ones ass off in the pursuit of material bullshit and status.. Is because I already know there isn't much there, you know how I know this.. I've already been there:\ Hope it doesn't take you your whole life to figure out something a lazy, unmotivated, burnout, that will never amount to anything, was able to figure out by the time I was twenty five.. call me if you ever have that i'm done being shallow moment:p

anyway sorry that turned into a rant but having said this I feel much better and it truly ties into my sobriety in this way..

So it has been the combination of her persistent blather on this combined with the situation with my son.. I was able to come to this realization before my son was born.. children in a consumer society where so many people and even more children base the success and worth of people on the material world they have gathered.. So since he was never able to see me in material glory and since I just got rid of all my junk.. I really have no interest at acquiring a bunch of junk even to assure my son that his father has great worth. So I'm afraid that i will just have to explain my decisions, the why and the how, share with him what i feel is important, education, travel, experience, family.. though I think this may be something he will only understand much farther down the road.. In fact i dont know if it is something you can understand with out experiencing the amazing missionary of looking around at a collection of everything you though would make you happy and everything the told you would make you happy and still being supremely miserable... so this is just a work in progress.

so back to how this made me misserable and how i keep slipping out of today... her coment as well as my sons inabilty to undertand have me questoning my self and falling back into destructive and god awful waste of time thought... all the sudden im thinking man am i really those things.. am i letting my son down by not presentiong a socially acceptable father sucsess story...

after writing and reading this FUCK NO i'm not, just because i've already been there and already know what little there is to be got from that life style, and even though the whole damn world seems to be buying into this shit.. yeah that still doesn't mean I have to do something I know is pointless... he will mature and I can guide him.. I am working towards new goals that i am confident will lead to the places I want to go and keep me in the places I want to stay.. with the accomplishment of these goals there will undoubtedly be benefits that are more akin to his present thinking.. so all will be well..

and with that i'm back in today and still sober and on the right path.. following my heart, it always knows where i need to go, even if the whole world seems to screaming "DUDE your crazy and going the wrong way" and the thing with following my heart is there so little anxiety as i'm always doing the right thing.
 
after writing and reading this FUCK NO i'm not, just because i've already been there and already know what little there is to be got from that life style, and even though the whole damn world seems to be buying into this shit.. yeah that still doesn't mean I have to do something I know is pointless... he will mature and I can guide him.. I am working towards new goals that i am confident will lead to the places I want to go and keep me in the places I want to stay.. with the accomplishment of these goals there will undoubtedly be benefits that are more akin to his present thinking.. so all will be well..
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Right on, brother! I'm with you 100% on this. My refrigerator is never full for longer than a week at a time. My clothes are the same ones I've worn for the last ten years. I build my own furniture for the most part, and try to keep it simple. I was just recently thinking about the difference between my kids and my home, and theirs and their mother's. They've got the new rent-a-sofa and televisions in every room--five different kinds of glassware, laundry machines that together cost more than my work truck... All in all, I hope the simplicity of our home and the lack of kipple is something they appreciate...and I think they do. :)

By the way N-S-A -- how's that no caffeine thing working out for you?
 
Wood worker?

I made it from friday at eleven am two monday at 432 am.. yeah the alarm goes off at 430... but I didn't have any severe symptoms.. just was a little tired and lazy.. but I went to the has to be the fifth sleep DR. in my life and this man seems to be really smart and gave me not the answer I wanted to hear but the one I have been thinking for a long time.. the answer he gave me was that for those of us who have circadian rhythms that are a little unorthodox and do not jive with "REAL" life we can attempt to alter them a little, with light, melatonin and stimulants, but in all realty and in the experience of him and another long time sleep dr there is no way to change what is hard wired into us and this seems to be one of those hard wired things.. so I will be happily back on the caffeine until I am able to find work with times that suit me.. maybe that book i'm working on will finish and publish itself and I can spend my time writing=D
 
Hmmm, that's the truth isn't it? I like my coffee, no doubt about that. Have since I was a young teenager. I am a carpenter, electrician, mechanic, painter, and plumber. lol Until recently, a shade-tree chemist, too. lol
 
^^ Congrats serotonin! That's awesome keep it up!

That was an awesome post NSA. I always love to hear about other people who know material worth isn't the path to happiness. I can't remember a specific instance or time when I came to this realization to be honest, I'm 21 and I have never had the experience of being successful and buy whatever I want, however I have been humbled by having dozens of homeless friends and basically living on the streets in my addiction (even though I technically had a studio, it was more of a squat house...) And the homeless friends I had who weren't addicts were honestly some of the happiest people I'd ever met. Of course there were many I knew who were homeless and addicted/miserable, and this doesn't mean I'm aspiring to be homeless, just trying to say it was humbling. I don't plan on chasing material success in my life - I plan on being of service and helping people to the best of my ability because helping people and being a good person is the only thing I've really stayed passionate about as long as I can remember.

And I can't do that if i don't stay sober. ;)
 
Being homeless wasn't so bad for me. Gave me a sense of freedom. Every day was a new adventure. Winter in stl sucks though lol.
 
^I agree :). Love the positivity. It does uplift the turmoil abit. <3 Love me some face

I'm losing track and I'm afraid to look back to see how long it's been. I'm worried it hasn't been as long as I thought it has.

Forward is the only way ;).
 
I am almost certain that if something majorly shitty happened in my life, I would be abusing again. Part of me is secretly hoping for something bad to happen so I have that excuse. I sure am crazy.. haha.

Any ideas? I guess I should deal with this NOW before something actually does happen.
 
^^ You're absolutely right you should!

And not just for when thing's go terribly wrong, but when things are going GREAT is also a time of relapse.. Celebration/reward and all.

As far as what you can do right now to prepare for the worst - Start calling people. If you attend meetings get a phone list, don't feel weird about calling random people because anyone serious in the program would LOVE to get a call from a new comer checking in. If you don't attend meetings, call other people in your support network - friends, family, therapist, anyone you can talk to. Just practice calling them to say what's up and check in, because when shit goes down and you aren't used to making the call it'll be almost impossible.. That phone will weigh 1000 pounds.

If you don't have a good support network, you might consider giving meetings a shot? At least temporarily, to see how it works for you and to meet some people in recovery? I'm trying to tone back my AA/NA preechiness though, so if you'd rather not please don't. :)

Either way, it's awesome that you recognize the state of mind you have right now. Being self aware and honest with yourself is very important in sobriety.
 
Don't worry about being preachy. You sound fine. Keep doing what you do! Your opinion is valued even if it is saying something similar to what you said before in a different context because repetition reinforces the idea that it is actually worthwhile to do. I can make the connection that AA/NA might give me a support group but hearing you remind me reinforces that idea and makes me more likely to do it I think.

I think I've learned how to deal with the celebration aspect.. it's more when I'm having a bad day I want to use/drink. The closest time I was to relapsing was when I was having a really bad day. Bad days are my triggers. I've been trying to regulate my diet by eating well and eating often to keep me less grumpy and I think it's working pretty well.

My support network is garbage. My girlfriend is the only one who knows. Needless to say it's been super hard on her. I was extremely private about my abuse. I don't anticipate something happening between us but say if we broke up for example I KNOW I would sprint to the nearest liquor store while on the phone with an ex-dealer.

I may attend AA/NA meetings again if for this sole reason. I need to be proactive if I'm going to have a successful recovery. Will I actually do so? Hopefully..

I'm usually quite good at being honest with myself. My addict portion of my brain is telling me, "Why are you posting this!? I want to go get fucked up if something bad happens to you! Stop trying to get better!" Where as my sober portion is saying, "Be proactive. Don't use. Don't fall back into your old ways."
 
^^ Isn't it a trip how that works? The addict side of our brains is literally trying to kill us!

I'm really happy your considering going back to meetings. You said it with the proper diet/rest. Remember HALT! - Hungry-Angry-Lonely-Tired - If you feel one of those, a relapse could be close! So be careful.

Remember not to make your Girlfriend your Higher Power! It does NOT need to be a Judeo Christian God, not at all. However don't EVERRRRRR make it your significant other. That's the worst thing you could do in recovery haha. You really need a solid support network man. It's so critical. There was a long time where the only support I had was from the girl I had been dating for 4 years (recently broke up), and whenever shit was bad between us, guess what? I used...

It's really great you're developing the ability to be honest with yourself however. It sounds like you're doing really well - keep it up! :)
 
caseface99 said:
^^ Isn't it a trip how that works? The addict side of our brains is literally trying to kill us!

I'm really happy your considering going back to meetings. You said it with the proper diet/rest. Remember HALT! - Hungry-Angry-Lonely-Tired - If you feel one of those, a relapse could be close! So be careful.

Remember not to make your Girlfriend your Higher Power! It does NOT need to be a Judeo Christian God, not at all. However don't EVERRRRRR make it your significant other. That's the worst thing you could do in recovery haha. You really need a solid support network man. It's so critical. There was a long time where the only support I had was from the girl I had been dating for 4 years (recently broke up), and whenever shit was bad between us, guess what? I used...

It's really great you're developing the ability to be honest with yourself however. It sounds like you're doing really well - keep it up! :)
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Interestingly enough, I told my buds--we're brothers, really, when it comes down it--that I was downward spiraling. They couldn't believe it. It was an extremely difficult but cathartic thing to do. Later, I told my girlfriend...and then I told her about the real substance abuse. See, before I just excused it all on alcohol. Now, people know it's more than that. Stims, psychedelics, alcohol, nicotine, the works. I never had the (mis)fortune of being introduced to opiates (except opium, on marijuana, which tasted good but didn't do much to me), so that one is really something I'm pretty ignorant of (experience-wise.)

I'm going to be talking to my priest about it soon, also. (I'm Catholic -- struggle with drug use and the Law, aint easy!)
 
Hey, whatever works right? I'm glad you're being proactive about the situation. :)


Looks like it's time for another one..

August Sobriety Thread, anyone?
 
Sometimes I just repeat this in my head when the addict voice gets strong. "I have 4 options. Dead, homeless, jail, or sobriety. There are no alternatives." And boy does that addict voice fight back!

Yes.. I can't rely on her. But I also can't do this alone. Good thing I have a third alternative.

Feel free to start up an august thread.
 
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