July Getting/Staying Clean/Sober Thread vs. "Fireworks and Toss your Works"

[FLA]

Thank you everyone, and FLA, I live in Orlando, so I know Tampa and know the streets.

Yesterday was just a perfect shitstorm:
1. I have a burnt out low beam headlight in my primary car, a Subaru Outback. I'm in the parking lot of Advance Auto Parts, open the hood, throw my keys and the packaging for the bulb in the drivers seat and the car fucking locks. So I had to call AAA, and that was my fourth service call and why I was fucked on the truck tow. Oh and Subaru very ingeniously designed the headlights so the average user cannot change the bulb. I watched a youtube video about it and it involves taking the fucking tire and front wheel well cover off to access it.

2. I went to the business meeting at the agnostic/atheist AA meeting. I should have followed my gut and not gone. I had a bad feeling about it, but I went anyway, because I thought it would be a good thing to appear more involved. Nope. The business meeting was nasty. Very ugly with people sniping and yelling at each other. Historically this group has been very open and democratic about who chairs meetings, but it's become a clique and I'm not in the clique. I tried to stay for the regular meeting but only got about 20 minutes in when I thought "fuck this circle jerk" and left.

3. When I got home is when I noticed the truck. I live in a condo (I own my unit) and we passed a hefty assessment to fix the place up, consequently rents went up and at the end of every month Uhauls are all over the place because people are leaving (in general a good thing). That's when I noticed that someone had hit my truck and nearly pushed it into the next car. The fuel pump on the truck is bad and it doesn't start, but the registration is current and it has a condo association parking sticker on it so I figured I'd just let it sit until I had the time to deal with it, but because some dickwad hit it and literally pushed it, I had to deal with it right then and there. I was out of service calls with AAA so I had to go and get $50 out of the ATM at Wawa (gas/convenience store for you non-east coasters) for the tow. I gave a serious look at the beer/wine cooler, but then the longer I looked at it, I got a little nauseous, so I left with only my cash.

The mechanic I've been going to for years is in my old neighborhood and ironically right next to the AA group I went to for years. It was about 11 at night when all was said and done, and they have a 10:30pm meeting. There were a few people there, I bitched about my day, and I felt a lot better. Now that it's morning, I feel ok. Don't even remember waking up once last night.

Like it or not we're all in this together, so if I can share something embarrassing about myself to help you, it makes me feel better. I ran out of benzos and bupe abruptly. Thankfully I had enough sense to be on really low doses so 6 days in, it's not that bad...yet. I had done AA diligently for 3 years after my 2013 baker-act incident but stopped last year. For some reason my sponsor didn't shun be like the ones I had from Jacksonville seem to have. So being in a mildly uncomfortable withdrawal, I decided to quit acting terminally unique and go to an AA meeting last Friday. To me they are depressing as fuck although I did go out for coffee with my sponsor afterwards and we had a nice talk. He thinks we made the mistake of letting the relationship turn into friendship and he felt I needed someone that would be more harsh towards me. I would offer to drive up to Orlando and see if I could help you out but living with my wife is like living with someone in the Einsatzgruppen and she would never allow me to drive up there by myself. I can truly take or leave alcohol. On the rare occasion I'll have a beer but very rarely more than one. Maybe saying I think opioids are about 100 times better says something about drug snobbery but I guess we all have our DOC's here.

 

[FLA]

So I'll get a job... but lord have mercy on the first person that crosses my path!!!!!!!!!! (Maybe then they'll say, "Gee, maybe we should have taken him more seriously.")

Please don't do it. I'm here for you and on your side. It sounds like your friend has pride issues. Could you go to the Salvation Army or something like that? I can't for the life of me see why people have to starve in the US.

 

[aihfl]

Hey FLA, thank you for that. Today still sucked - I had to go to Costco because one of my tires had a slow leak. Turns out the nail was immediately next to where the tire had already been repaired once before, so it was shot. 75 bucks for a new tire ($138 minus the road hazard credit). But it's better than yesterday and tomorrow hopefully will be better than today.

Yeah, AA meetings are depressing as fuck. I used to enjoy this atheist/agnostic meeting, but as of late, it's become like every other unpleasant AA meeting on the planet, so I've started going to a NA meeting up in Longwood. To borrow someone else's words, my AA experiences have been uniformly bad, whereas in NA, they're only sometimes bad. With the exception of an old dachshund, I live alone, and most of the time I enjoy the freedom and autonomy, but not good for when I need to unload and a meeting is a good place for that. My DOC had to do strictly with accessibility. I got detoxed of opiates back in 2014 at Shands in Gainesville, and the pill mills had pretty well been shut down by then, so it wasn't difficult to quit, and I don't tend to abuse benzos unless I'm trying to potentiate alcohol (read: with my tolerance I can't get drunk enough so I need benzos for the AL to have more oomph - I've had some mad blackouts). The Ativan is prescribed PRN and that's how I use it unless I've been drinking. It takes some effort to go to a doctor and get a script and have it filled, but alcohol is as easy as walking down to the Quickie Mart on the corner.

Less than two hours to go until yoga and some nice soothing, relaxing stretches and I'll be right as rain.

 

[Lamurion]

I've been painting some pictures showing my inside. Wow that's depressing. I don't know what messed me up emotionally that led me to taken soo many different drugs. And what I missed that I enjoyed opioids so much.
But well almost 5 months and only 2 occurences of really strong cravings so I'm doing ok. Discovering a lot about myself, even though a lot of that does hurt. Maybe I'll meditate another time :D

 

[Erikmen]

I often feel I don't recognize who I became after quitting. When I was struggling with cravings and trying to get up from my sadness, I felt like I was moving on, getting back to my old self. But I now understand there's no old self, there's only what I have become. Not bad, but different, perhaps a bit serious. I do have my good moments though.

 

[Pagey]

Started writing again tonight. It might not sound like much but I haven't written anything in almost two years, since my accident.
I'm still trying to understand the person I'm trying to become; I used to be high a lot when I wrote. But trying to navigate that sober is new. I hope there's enough in me to do this sober. It would feel like the only outlet I've got.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

Started writing again tonight. It might not sound like much but I haven't written anything in almost two years, since my accident.
I'm still trying to understand the person I'm trying to become; I used to be high a lot when I wrote. But trying to navigate that sober is new. I hope there's enough in me to do this sober. It would feel like the only outlet I've got.

I love writing! Great to see you around Pagey. How's life been treating you? What are you using?

 

[FLA]

Hey FLA, thank you for that. Today still sucked - I had to go to Costco because one of my tires had a slow leak. Turns out the nail was immediately next to where the tire had already been repaired once before, so it was shot. 75 bucks for a new tire ($138 minus the road hazard credit). But it's better than yesterday and tomorrow hopefully will be better than today.

Yeah, AA meetings are depressing as fuck. I used to enjoy this atheist/agnostic meeting, but as of late, it's become like every other unpleasant AA meeting on the planet, so I've started going to a NA meeting up in Longwood. To borrow someone else's words, my AA experiences have been uniformly bad, whereas in NA, they're only sometimes bad. With the exception of an old dachshund, I live alone, and most of the time I enjoy the freedom and autonomy, but not good for when I need to unload and a meeting is a good place for that. My DOC had to do strictly with accessibility. I got detoxed of opiates back in 2014 at Shands in Gainesville, and the pill mills had pretty well been shut down by then, so it wasn't difficult to quit, and I don't tend to abuse benzos unless I'm trying to potentiate alcohol (read: with my tolerance I can't get drunk enough so I need benzos for the AL to have more oomph - I've had some mad blackouts). The Ativan is prescribed PRN and that's how I use it unless I've been drinking. It takes some effort to go to a doctor and get a script and have it filled, but alcohol is as easy as walking down to the Quickie Mart on the corner.

Less than two hours to go until yoga and some nice soothing, relaxing stretches and I'll be right as rain.

I think the Yoga will do you right. I hated every second of the 30 minutes I just did on my treadclimber, but I know it makes me feel better. In 1981 when I got my 2nd of ultimately 3 DUI's, I was doing a lot of placidyl's (green meanies) and drinking at a wide open totally naked tittybar with beautiful girls in Jacksonville. I remember it being about 10:30 PM and the next thing I remember, it's 4:30 AM and a policeman is opening my car door. I just poured out of the car onto the pavement. I had rear ended someone. When I saw the mugshot, the first thought was, who is that? Second thought was I've never seen someone that fucked up. They were afraid to leave me in a cell alone for fear I might die. I have absolutely no reason to be the way I am. I had a loving, wonderful childhood. My mother and father and extended family adored me. I had many wonderful friends. I got a degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech in 1979. My grades were not exactly stellar but I did it. Imagine what I could have achieved if I hadn't been fucked up half the time? Those are the kind of regrets people cry about at AA. I loved it when people would say something like "you will not be able to be successful at a school that hard with no trigonometry, physics or chemistry background". Maybe I'm lying to myself but I don't think I have many regrets. Maybe I could have married somebody who was not in the Einsatzgruppen. Maybe I resent having to take care of my schizophrenic brother who I looked up to, went to the original Woodstock, had a band called the Canterbury Tails then blew his mind on acid. But most of the time that stuff doesn't really bother me that much. I just like to alter my consciousness sometimes. Imagine this, I have a degree in electrical engineering and I can't figure out how to post a picture of my doxies in this post. You can see them on my avatar. My wife bought them a toy squirrel yesterday because they get frustrated at the squirrel's that sit on our fence and seemingly taunt them on purpose. We put the toy squirrel on the fence, made sure they saw it, then knocked it off the fence near their paws. They ripped that $10 squirrel literally to shreds in 10 minutes. They were so frustrated for a kill, we wanted them to win for once. It was a stroke of genius on my Nazi wife's behalf. She was hated where we worked and met at the NAS Jacksonville because women weren't supposed to be engineer's in the 80's in the south. The other reason they hated her is because it was painfully obvious she was smarter than her co-workers and management. Her mistake was she had to throw it up in their face.

 

[neversickanymore]

Started writing again tonight. It might not sound like much but I haven't written anything in almost two years, since my accident.
I'm still trying to understand the person I'm trying to become; I used to be high a lot when I wrote. But trying to navigate that sober is new. I hope there's enough in me to do this sober. It would feel like the only outlet I've got.

Good to see you Pagey

 

[FLA]

This month has been a drag so far, and it's just the first day. At least the fall should be better.

Good morning Captain! Is there an August Getting/Staying Clean/Sober Thread yet? So far August has also been a drag, until I can fall asleep, lol.

 

[RDP89]

A 1 day lapse doesn't have to be the end of your 35 days. Some of us have a very hard dealing with cravings and a lapse can be managed by quitting. I don't think I'd be able to ever use opiates/buprenorphine again without immediately relapsing because I had no self control with it. I would use if I had it.

Do you know what you're self-medicating?

Good question. No, not really.
I was diagnosed with a.d.d. in second grade and put on methylphenidate which I hated. Other than that I haven't really been evaluated other than some half ass ones. I am prone to depression, but not severe, just kinda existential depression and
lack of purpose, I guess.
I lack motivation, and that's one area where drugs do help at times. I guess I just get bored and lonely and frustrated with the lack of purpose and motivation, and use to fill that void. I've had an obsession with psychoactives since before I'd really even taken any(besides the ritalin), it's like I had already decided I was going to be a drug user before I'd started,(I was around like 11 at that time.)lol.

 

[RDP89]

Maybe I could have married somebody who was not in the Einsatzgruppen.

Just very curious, but how could you possibly bring yourself to look past that aspect and be with this person? Sorry, just having a hard time wrapping my head around that.

 

[aihfl]

FLA, yoga has been wonderful for me. I got in the habit of going while in rehab. The choice was either go to yoga or sit in another goddamn process group, so I picked yoga and continue to go every opportunity I have.

I had a difficult marriage, too and we met on the job. I am actually friends with her now to some degree, but during any extended interaction she continues to irritate the living shit out of me. I wouldn't call her a Nazi, but being half-Italian and half-Jewish the constant whinging and needling was hard to take. Being married to her reminded me of the story out of the Big Book, "If you had my wife, you'd drink too." In fact, someone had brought that stupid Kung Fu movie parody Kung Pow into the break room and every time she (or anyone else) started to whinge, we mocked them by reenacting what the princess in the movie does when confronted with a crisis:


I have no idea how to post pictures on here. You can only do it via a URL to some other website. Today is shaping up to be better than the last few days. One of my recovery pals shanghaied me into going to some singles thing this evening. It was only ten bucks so if it royally sucks, it's only ten bucks, but I intend to eat my fill of hors d'oeuvres before slipping out. But right now, I need a girlfriend like I need a fifth and I've been to these things before and the men tend to all be complete and utter douchebags.