Obsessive thinking - 12 steps, counselling, cognitive behavioral therapy, drugs

[gravity]

I have been sober for 20 months & have been working the steps with the guidance of my sponsor.

It seems that my sobriety has revealed perhaps a deeper issue – extreme obsessive thinking.

When I was drinking, I thought obsessively about alcohol – my next drink, quitting drinking, losing my job over drinking, losing my family over drinking etc. – alcoholic obsession.

And in the past 20 months, I have been doing the same thing over different issues. The stock market collapse (I’ll lose everything!), a relatives drinking situation (she is going to die!), major home renovation emergencies (my house will be condemned!), winter driving (I’m going to get into a major accident!), and currently my marriage (I am losing her!). And you know, it all turns out to be delusion but it seems so real at the time. And it is affecting the people around me, especially my poor wife.

I take one normal life challenge (or even a harmless event) and turn it into the absolute worst case scenario. The anxiety can get so bad that I shake (happened only a few times) and of course have a hard time sleeping. I am not in this mental state all the time but when it hits, it can last a couple of days. The feelings I experience are some of the worst I have ever felt (mind you, not as bad as coming to after a bender). Conversely, I have been able to handle real difficult situations with a sort of calmness & grace (eg. my fathers death, my cousins suicide).

My sponsor suggested prayer & stepwork which does help to a point but some days are just so difficult. Keeping busy helps too but this is only a band-aid solution. And I have to admit that I have recently had those thoughts: “This is just so hard. A couple of drinks will take the edge off.”

Yesterday, I called the local counseling unit. I spoke to the head counselor and based on what little I told him he indicated that he really wants to work with me. He will call me Monday to set up an appointment: assessment (maybe I'm getting ahead of myself - eg. self-diagnosis) & treatment options (possibly including drugs). I do feel very hopeful but realize that I have to be patient (one day at a time is critical right now).

I have a couple of questions:

Has anyone quit drinking & worked the steps and discovered that there are deeper psychological issues at play? What did you do (beyond the 12 steps) & how did things work out?

Also, do you think that there is any conflict between, say, the 12 steps and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?

Personally, I believe that this ties into Step 7: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. Perhaps my Higher Power is pointing me down the counseling path to remove my obsessive thinking. And I am getting another lesson in humility!

Any comments appreciated.

By the way, not my intent to worry anybody. I'm sorta okay right now & I’ll get through this. My Higher Power is with me.

[FightingIrish]

I have been right where you are. I'm 23 months myself. I was obsessing about the very same things you are. I finished the steps around 6 months sober, but I was still having these thoughts.

Anything my sponsor or anyone else said to calm me down resulted in my response, "yes, I know, but..." It wasn't that I was disagreeing, I knew how irrational my thoughts were, but I could not stop feeling that way.

I have never really benefited from therapy, but I am open to it. I saw a psychiatrist who prescribed for me. I went on a mood stabilizer - lamotrigine - which greatly reduced these episodes with no side effects whatsoever. I stopped taking it about a month ago and I feel great.

What I also did during that time was to practice what I had experienced once during the steps. I am still discovering work that I can do...amends, service, carrying the message.

In general I noticed that these moods struck me when I wasn't feeling particularly useful. When I wasn't getting external validation from work, friends, family, you name it. So while I think the medication greatly helped, without the step work I don't know if I'd have been able to be free of medication in such a short period of time.

What I have found is that the thoughts are still lurking around, but they "throb" less.

Hope this helps.

M

[Boleo]

Originally Posted by gravity

Has anyone quit drinking & worked the steps and discovered that there are deeper psychological issues at play? What did you do (beyond the 12 steps) & how did things work out?

Also, do you think that there is any conflict between, say, the 12 steps and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?

After working the steps I realized that the "— that our lives had become unmanageable" part of step 1 was always in my life, with or without alcohol.
The root cause of ALL of my problems was DT's (Delusional Thinking).

I now use step 10 to watch for DT's.
I use step 11 to ask God to remove my DT's
I use step 12 to turn my thoughts to helping others.

I don't know much about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy but I do know that everything that I learned in college about psychology was useless for recovery. My daily program can be summed up in the following:

"Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone. Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help."

[Puddy]

I thought I was going bat$hit nuts in sobriety and got prescribed pills for it.

They blocked me from a spiritual experience.

Then I lost my sobriety. One pill led to another pill, a pill for this, for that, counteracting one, supplementing the other. I was blocked and my alcoholism took over in the form of pills. A lot of those pills bind to the same receptors that alcohol does.

Then I had to be taken out of my house on a stretcher and taken to a hospital detox ward.

Then I had to spend the next 6 months a suicidal zombie while my brain corrected from these pills.

Just my story, a cautionary tale. Make of it what you will.

[freya]

Originally Posted by gravity

extreme obsessive thinking

Ah yes, "binge thinking," what a fun pastime!

NOT!

...and for me the only effective answer has been practice, practice, practice.....

I actually realized and had begun to work on this dangerous, wasteful habit before I even came into the rooms. Back when I was getting divorced, I used to obsess over everything....my financial worries, my work worries, my worries about my kids, my worries about being alone, etc...etc...etc... to the point that I would be awake most of the night more nights than not and, thus, ineffective, unpresent, and exhausted most days.

The first thing I ever read that really caught my attention and made sense to me around this issue was in a Melodie Beattie book, and it was a story she tells about driving through a terrible blizzard in which she could literally see only few inches in front of the car at any given moment. At first she kept tring to see further ahead than she could and, of course, kept getting more and more scared and worried and driving less and less well. Finally, it occurred to her that there was nothing she could do that would allow her to see any further and that she had best concentrate only on making it safely through the few inches she could actually see. She was amazed at the difference this made -- both in her stress-level and in her progress.

Of course, the metaphor here is for keeping it in the moment and concentrating on doing as best we can only the next right thing insofar as we can see it in that moment.

So, for me this lead to the practice of trying to keep my attention on what is actually in front of me right now and not trying to look any further.....most especially not trying to look any further in a catastrophizing way, which, fro some reason (very indicative of the fact that this is a sick behavior) always seems to be the way I'd do it. I mean, let's face it, in truly sick fashion, I never bothered to stay awake all night futurizing that I was going to win the lottery and/or become k.d. lang's girlfriend!

Once I came into program, of course, I got lots of new tools and strategies to use to help me try to keep myself out of the (imagined) wreckage of the future....but the honest truth is that very often in the beginning and still sometimes even now, I literally have to deliberately and consciously resort to using those tools on an every-few-minutes basis: Bring it back to the moment, do what's in front of me, turn the outcomes and the future over to HP; Bring it back to the moment, do what's in front of me, turn the outcomes and the future over to HP; Bring it back to the moment, do what's in front of me, turn the outcomes and the future over to HP; Bring it back to the moment, do what's in front of me, turn the outcomes and the future over to HP; Bring it back to the moment, do what's in front of me, turn the outcomes and the future over to HP; and so on, and so on, and so on...every single time I notice myself going down that futurizing and catastrophizing road...even if it is every friggin' 5 minutes!!!!!!

Practice it, practice it, practice it...and if I'm having a particularly hard time practicing it successfully....then call people and go to more meetings and get more support and energy for practicing it....and, of course, it also helps to remember to ask HP's help in removing this self-destructive defect.

And really, for me, this has and still works. At this point -- and we're talking 5.5 years in program plus however far I'd gotten with this prior to coming into program -- I almost always recognize that I'm starting down that road pretty quickly, and it very rarely takes me more than a few attempts to it turn around and get back on-track. And, in all honestly, it's rare now for me to keep myself awake even 1 or 2 nights a month -- even if there is something "fairly legitimate" to be obsessing about.

Finally, there are 2 things that I've heard in the rooms that have been really helpful to me in this area:

Worry does not rob tomorrow of its pain and sorrow; it only robs today of its pleasure and joy.

and

I've lived through thousands of crisis and catastrophes, and a couple of them actually happened!

When I used to really struggle with "binge thinking," I found it very, very helpful and enlightening to contemplate -- almost like in meditation -- the very important and real truths that are expressed in those lines and doing so really helped me realize what I was doing to myself and how much I was depriving myself of when I engaged in that behavior. (I also find "The Fear Prayer" to be a great tool for combatting this!)

Be patient with yourself, it does take time and constant practice.....but it really is worth the work!

Good luck with this!

freya

[Ago]

What Boleo and Freya describe is actually the very definition of behavioral cognitive therapy, which, as I understand it is replacing old thoughts with new ones, replacing destructive thoughts with healthy ones. There are very specific instructions in a variety of places how to do this, one is the BB of AA. For me I had to expand a little bit as was suggested by the BB and the 12 x 12.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (or cognitive behavior therapy, CBT) is a psychotherapeutic approach that aims to influence dysfunctional emotions, behaviors and cognitions through a goal-oriented, systematic procedure. CBT can be seen as an umbrella term for a number of psychological techniques that share a theoretical basis in behavioristic learning theory and cognitive psychology.[1]

There is empirical evidence that CBT is effective for the treatment of a variety of problems, including mood, anxiety, personality, eating, substance abuse, and psychotic disorders[2][3]. Treatment is often brief, and time-limited. CBT is used in individual therapy as well as group settings, and the techniques are often adapted for self-help applications. Some CBT therapies are more orientated towards predominantly cognitive interventions, while others are more behaviorally oriented.

The root cause of ALL of my problems was DT's (Delusional Thinking).

I now use step 10 to watch for DT's.
I use step 11 to ask God to remove my DT's
I use step 12 to turn my thoughts to helping others.

My daily program can be summed up in the following:

"Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone. Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help."

So, for me this lead to the practice of trying to keep my attention on what is actually in front of me right now and not trying to look any further.....most especially not trying to look any further in a catastrophizing way, which, fro some reason (very indicative of the fact that this is a sick behavior) always seems to be the way I'd do it. I mean, let's face it, in truly sick fashion, I never bothered to stay awake all night futurizing that I was going to win the lottery and/or become k.d. lang's girlfriend!

Once I came into program, of course, I got lots of new tools and strategies to use to help me try to keep myself out of the (imagined) wreckage of the future....but the honest truth is that very often in the beginning and still sometimes even now, I literally have to deliberately and consciously resort to using those tools on an every-few-minutes basis: Bring it back to the moment, do what's in front of me, turn the outcomes and the future over to HP; Bring it back to the moment, do what's in front of me, turn the outcomes and the future over to HP; Bring it back to the moment, do what's in front of me, turn the outcomes and the future over to HP; Bring it back to the moment, do what's in front of me, turn the outcomes and the future over to HP; Bring it back to the moment, do what's in front of me, turn the outcomes and the future over to HP; and so on, and so on, and so on...every single time I notice myself going down that futurizing and catastrophizing road...even if it is every friggin' 5 minutes!!!!!!

Practice it, practice it, practice it...and if I'm having a particularly hard time practicing it successfully....then call people and go to more meetings and get more support and energy for practicing it....and, of course, it also helps to remember to ask HP's help in removing this self-destructive defect.

I find the program's steps 10,11, and 12 mostly sufficient to meet my obsessive thinking but I am of the opinion that you can't have too many tools in your toolbox.

For me, I found actually meditating helps this IMMENSELY, because while I can't "turn my thoughts off" while I meditate, the more I try to "stop" a thought, the more it returns, and the stronger it gets, like "don't think about the pink elephant", sorry, now I'm stuck thinking about pink elephants, the practice of meditation teaches me how to allow thoughts go by like a New York Stock Exchange Ticker Tape, my thoughts only get me in trouble if I "entertain" them, I am not responsible for my "first thought" but I am responsible for what I do with it.

Do I entertain it? Do I bring it down and hold it to my chest and hang on to it as it drags me down it's destructive path, or do I just watch it go by, sometimes over and over and over until it gets bored and wanders away.

There are specific instructions in how to deal with this in 10, 11, and 12

The best book I ever read about meditation was "The Relaxation Response" it was written by a Harvard Professor and removes the mysticism from meditation using Transcendental Meditation which was already stripped down to become incredibly effective.

The physical and mental medical benefits from meditation are HUGE. It's like letting air out of an overinflated tire, your blood pressure goes down, your stress levels go down, your thinking straightens out, I can't convey how important the "meditate" portion of step 11 was to me.

Google it, read about it, it's amazing

Here's how

1.
Sit quietly in a comfortable position.
2.
Close your eyes.
3.
Deeply relax all your muscles,
beginning at your feet and progressing up to your face.
Keep them relaxed.
4.
Breathe through your nose.
Become aware of your breathing.
As you breathe out, say the word, "one"*,
silently to yourself. For example,
breathe in ... out, "one",- in .. out, "one", etc.
Breathe easily and naturally.
5.
Continue for 10 to 20 minutes.
You may open your eyes to check the time, but do not use an alarm.
When you finish, sit quietly for several minutes,
at first with your eyes closed and later with your eyes opened.
Do not stand up for a few minutes.
6.
Do not worry about whether you are successful
in achieving a deep level of relaxation.
Maintain a passive attitude and permit relaxation to occur at its own pace.
When distracting thoughts occur,
try to ignore them by not dwelling upon them
and return to repeating "one."
With practice, the response should come with little effort.
Practice the technique once or twice daily,
but not within two hours after any meal,
since the digestive processes seem to interfere with
the elicitation of the Relaxation Response.

Also, I have a friend who has been teaching me about DBT, to me it appears to be Buddhism mainly stripped of it's spiritual leanings, just the disciplines

I muddle along the best I can with it but it has actually been extremely helpful, here's are some DBT skills:

DBT Skills Overview

DBT SKILLS
1. WISE MIND

· when you are balanced between emotional mind and reasonable mind...You are not allowing your emotions to control you, but at the same time you are still allowing yourself to feel the emotions.
2. Observe

· just sit back and observe your emotion. How is it making you feel physically and emotionally?
3. DESCRIBE

· tell yourself in words how it is making you feel.
4. PARTICIPATE

· allow yourself to feel the emotion, just don't hold on to it, let it go. Don't stuff it inside and not feel it at all either.
5. NONJUDGEMENTAL STANCE

· don't be judgmental against yourself or others. Don't let yourself think that an emotion has to be either good or bad...just remember it is your emotion and it just is...
6. ONE-MINDFULLY

· don't think about the past or the future. Just concentrate on the here and now.
7. EFFECTIVENESS

· focus on what works for you. Don't try to rush, or you will get overwhelmed, just focus on doing things the way you know they will work for you.
8. OBJECTIVE EFFECTIVENESS (DEAR MAN)

· this is an acronym to be able to work out a problem with someone you are upset with. Here is the meaning of DEAR MAN:

D= describe what is bothering you.

E= express how the situation is making you feel.

A= assert yourself, don't assume that they already know what is wrong with you, tell them.

R= reinforce. Let the person know how important it is for you to be heard...

M= stay mindful. If you have to make yourself sound like a broken record. Don't allow the person to go into another topic, stay on the discussion at hand...

A= appear confident. Even if you don't feel confident inside, if you look confident on the outside, the person will be more willing to listen to you...

N= negotiate. Try to compromise and come up with a solution that you both can agree on.
9. RELATIONSHIP EFFECTIVENESS (GIVE)

· another acronym to try and keep a discussion with a loved one calm:

G= be gentle. Be courteous in your approach. Don’t come off screaming and yelling.

I= interested. Seem interested in what the other person has to say and listen to their point of view...

V= validate. Let the other person know that you understand how they are feeling also...

E= easy manner. Put a little humor into the discussion. It makes both people feel more at ease to talk.
10. SELF-RESPECT EFFECTIVENESS (FAST)

· another acronym for allowing yourself to not be used and taken for granted.

F= be fair to yourself and the other person. Don’t be judgmental...

A= no apologies. We tend to OVER apologize. Try to keep the apologies out.

S= stick to your values. Don’t allow yourself to change your feelings to make the other person happy.

T= be truthful. Don’t lie to yourself or the other person. You have your own mind, use it. Don’t think that you need to let other people make up your mind for you to please them.
11.REDUCE VULNERABILITY (PLEASE)

· one more acronym to keep yourself feeling good physically and mentally so you aren't as vulnerable to stressful situations.

P & L= treat physical illness. If you are sick, go see a doctor, get the help you need to feel better....

E= balance eating. Your body feels good if you eat right. Don’t eat too much and don't eat too little...

A= avoid mood altering drugs. Staying away from drugs, alcohol, caffeine, sugar and such also makes you stay clear headed and feeling better....

S= balance sleep. Again like food, sleep is important. Make sure you don't get too much sleep and make sure you get enough sleep...

E= get exercise. Exercise is a good way to relieve stress and makes you feel better inside. I love to walk.
12. BUILD MASTERY

· whenever you do anything at all that makes you feel like you are in positive control or that you accomplished something, you have used build mastery. Cleaning the house is even a build mastery.
13. BUILD POSITIVE EXPERIENCE

· go visit a friend or a family member. Help someone out. There is a page in the workbook that gives a huge list of ways to build positive experiences.
14. OPPOSITE-TO-EMOTION

· do something you don't want to do. Like if you know you need to go to the store or to an appointment, but you don't want to. If you do go, then you are using opposite to emotion. Some people who are feeling sad put in a comedy movie to try and lift their spirits. This is also opposite to emotion.
15. DISTRACT

· if you are feeling stressed and too overwhelmed to deal with a current situation, go read a book or play the computer or take a walk to distract your mind until you can calm down and come back to handle the situation. Be careful...using this skill to an extreme can be a result of stuffing your feelings and not just distraction.
16. SELF-SOOTHE

· do something that makes you feel good. They say to do something to use each of your senses. Taste, smell, touch, sight and sound.. but to me, anything that makes me feel good inside I consider self-soothing.
17. IMPROVE THE MOMENT

· use prayer, meditation, or just sit and concentrate on your breathing, or just picture a nice place in your head to try and calm yourself down, when you feel overwhelmed.
18. PROS AND CONS

· make a list of the pros of a current situation and of the cons to help you decide what you should do.
19. RADICAL ACCEPTANCE

· this is a lot like the Serenity prayer...you use this to accept the fact that some things, you just can't change. Allow yourself to accept that your feelings are yours and you have a right to them. They are not good or bad they just are...

There are many tools in recovery, don't be afraid to experiment and find what a good 'fit" for you is.

[keithj]

All good stuff posted so far. Thanks everyone.

Gravity, yes, I did notice some deep psychological problems in me after I'd taken the 12 steps and had a spiritual awakening. First and foremost, I noticed that I was mentally ill. I joke about it, but my perception of reality is a little skewed. I think that everyone else is the world is as concerned about me as I am. I think that when I walk into a room, people start thinking about me.

The reality is that I'm just not all that important. Really. I'm not. Some folks get uncomfortable when I share this with them (it's sounds morbid or something), but the reality is that if I fell off the planet tomorrow, only a few people would be affected or even notice. It's just the truth.

So my obsessive thoughts tend to be along the lines of things that might happen to me. Even worries about other people tend to be rooted in how it will affect me. These thoughts are usually manifestations of self. And the steps are really effective at dealing with the common manifestations of self. If some thought or worry or concern sticks with me or keeps coming up for more than a couple of days, I'll formally write out a mini- 4th step inventory, take it to my sponsor, do a specific 6 and 7, and carry it through to 9 if needed. One surefire way of getting out of self is intensive work with other alcoholics. 12 step work is a good thing for me.

Others have mentioned meditation with far better information than I can offer. I will tell you that my personal prayer and meditation practice is grossly heavy on the meditation side. It seems like the more I am able to clear my mind of my thoughts, the more my life runs on inspiration instead of my will.

My experience with CBT and other related psychological/social approaches all occurred before I took the 12 steps. I don't know how CBT might look through my eyes now, but I certainly don't recall any major incompatability with 12 step work. There's good stuff there. Some of it stuck with me (the catastrophising) and I use it all the time without giving it much thought. Because I tend to problem solve and analyze, it's important for me to remember that I can't think my way out of alcoholism. Ultimately, my only role is that assigned me by my higher power. It's not my job to fix me. It's my job to grow closer in my relation to that power.

I think what you describe, gravity, is very common for people in recovery.

[Music]

Personally, I believe that this ties into Step 7: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. Perhaps my Higher Power is pointing me down the counseling path to remove my obsessive thinking. And I am getting another lesson in humility!

There are people in AA who become "obsessive obsession addicts." That is, they're never comfortable with serenity. There always has to be some kind of a crisis going on for them to be involved in to the point that they conjure up their own crises. Step seven suggests that after I've asked my Higher Power to remove my shortcomings, I'm supposed to let Him. How can He or anyone else remove what I keep coming up with. The first lesson in humility is to admit the shortcomings and then let God remove them, not some counselor who's out to make a buck off your inability to Let Go and Let God. Excessive WORRY over things we have no contol over brings about excessive thinking about the things we can't do anything about. Try getting out of God's way so He can do His job.

[tommyk]

Just for me, and my various 'issues':

Physical health: exercise, lots of it, makes me sleep like a rock at night.

Mental health: doctor visits, a mild medication, regular checkups are crucial.

Spiritual health: meetings, constant 12 step study, helping others.

[bballdad]

Gravity,great thread.It shows us that even thoug the obsession to drink has been removed,there still remains some work.
I call it "the rest of recovery from my alcoholism".The kind of rexcovery we will be experienciong the rest of our lives.In reality,it may only be recovery from other things that was present before my drinking.

Has anyone quit drinking & worked the steps and discovered that there are deeper psychological issues at play? What did you do (beyond the 12 steps) & how did things work out?

of course, I discovered it after years sober,and even at 15 years sober more was reaveled.

Also, do you think that there is any conflict between, say, the 12 steps and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?

there is no conflict between the 12 steps and CBT that I have seen.I have heard of alcoholics get sober on CBT without having a spiritual awaekning.

I have used CBT on anxiety,stress,and other things.Stress and anxiety can cause depression,and obsessive thinking.We alcoholics are stressed out folks,(even sober)even tho we may not know it or even dare to admit it to others.CBT has really helped me with stress and anieity,to identify it,and see where it comes from,and how to deal with it.


I see good CBT as a indepth inventory and identification of old ideas and thinking paterns,the stuff you cannot get from AA.Deeper than AA.


15 years sober I noticed something one day.I was thinking of my childhood and how I felt before I took my first drink and as a kid,and how the booze made me feel.
I then noticed some of the things was still there.
The 12 steps and the rest of AA helped a lot,and I felt if I continued on the way I was,I would slowly and progressively get better.I decided to speed it up and tried a certain kind of CBT and it helped a lot.

If you stay the course you are on,you will slowly get better,if you want to try some CBT,it will not hurt your AA and help you in all probility,thats my experience.

good luck with it...

[Cubile75]

Good stuff...

I was introduced to CBT in rehab, I went through the program twice. I was not really ready for it as I was still fairly resistant and arrogant. I took it very seriously though, and because I'd been through it twice, I helped lead role playing workshops for those who were there for only one cycle...

I liked it, but like I said, I wasn't ready... I needed spiritual relief, like Keith, and I found it through some wonderful, crusty, straight shooting AA's who were 12 stepping at the rehab. I did not, nor did anyone, find the 12 steps and CBT in conflict... I thought CBT was intuitive and it was useful to have it reviewed and the acronyms, or rather, mnemonics, as Ago outlined.... to help organize it in one place in my brain.

But, like Ago also mentioned, meditation. Now that was really powerful for me, especially during those stressful early days of sobriety. I read a book about it... I think... "The Tao of Recovery", something like that... Like Ago said... thoughts move through consciousness like a NY Stock Exchange ticker tape... Neither try to block them or hold on to them, remain emotionally neutral...

Mindfulness... That was huge at the treatment center I attended... Also very helpful. I don't know if I can adequately outline it in the time I have right now... but it was along the lines of what Ago (there he goes again!! ) mentioned... breathing, etc... Really helped get mind and body in a neutral place.

But for me, right now, 11+ months, I am still buried in the big book and finding the spiritual solution... That's just me and where I am at...

Good thread Gravity, thanx...

Mark

[Rusty Zipper]

grav,

happy to see you tossed this one out...

for me, i did have that thinking pattern up to the age of 48 (hit rooms)

and i repeat, for me...

after working my ass off on the steps, and living them,

i do not have that thinking anymore...

now, dont get me wrong...

i still can obsess over certain things and issues...

just the time it fills up my brain, is way less, and less...

so i would say, the pattern is over...

what was, was, and now is the new pattern...

nights

my grat pack buddy!