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Diary of a Mad Cow, Part X: "The Adventures of Sober Cow"



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Diary of a Mad Cow, Part X: "The Adventures of Sober Cow"

Old 01-26-2015, 09:12 PM
  # 381 (permalink)  
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Seriously though, you would be great for each other.

Online friends are all good but the next logical step would be to show this side of yourself to people in person
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Old 01-26-2015, 11:54 PM
  # 382 (permalink)  
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Hawks, yesterday I talk to new AA group as whole, and then plus also with several member after meeting about realities of my addiction cycle. I was total honest with them even though they not entire understand me. And I total honest with several friend in person who is addicts, and with therapist. So I not know what you mean about be more honest in person. I think I making steps toward direction of honesty. Since you equate me twice to woman who talk too much at meeting, is you maybe think I should stop my with my endless diary on SR? Just come out and say it, man. Cow can take it ...although once my Borg super powers in place, I total will smite you ass.

Bunny, I intellectualize "fear." When it immediate fear, like "Is I gonna ride down Hill of Death or not," then is quick flurry of mental conversations. Otherwise, is always apathy, for instance, I was tell to get endoscopy in October for inflammation/infection of liver/stomach/pancreas, but I has yet to do it. I also ignoring MRI for neuropathy, and I not get ovaries out despite 4 generation family history of ovarian cancers and doctor advice to do so many year ago.

I does lot of thing that would be consider risky without concern to get caught. Including illegal thing. Including "immoral" thing that you guys, I sure, would, and has, feel disgust for. I not sure what I afraid of. I sure is something. I always had say, I afraid to die without ever have live. But, this also intellectual revery and not seem to cause me to change anything.

Okay, let end with something good. I go over to friend house today to feed doggie while she out of town and as usual doggie freak out and not happy to see me. So, I get down on floor and make cute with doggie. Despite her prolong protestations, she start to tolerate me. So I pick up doggie up and we watch tennis together while I scrathes her belly. At some point doggie surrender to pleasure of my scratchings and then cat come up and take nap on my legs. I give them both treats before I leave. And so, I was of service today.
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Old 01-27-2015, 12:23 AM
  # 383 (permalink)  
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ok cool, I imagined you being a wallflower at meetings and just letting it all hang out online.

Not the case, so that is good.

Keep up the good work
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Old 01-27-2015, 12:50 AM
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Originally Posted by Hawks View Post
ok cool, I imagined you being a wallflower.
Oh heavens my dear, no. I not shy flower anymore. But I was total shy flower for many many year, until teens. Booze make me bold ...yadda yadda yadda... and now I semi-functional alcoholic addict with probable fatwa on my head for my often political obscene comedy show.

So, what you story? How you going? How you find way to crack on?*

*Impressive demonstration of Aussie idioms. Also know "stuff up" and "punch up," latter of which I refrain from explanation.
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Old 01-27-2015, 01:37 AM
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Well, so far as drinking and recovery goes, it was easy.

I drank again and again and again and again and finally the steps of AA looked like kissing a kitten compared to what alcohol was doing to me.

Life is good now, comfortable in my own mind, it's ok to be me, the world is no longer drab, colour has come back, don't worry about much, I've made peace with God, after warring with him most of my life as a vocal atheist.

(ironically I was scared of and talked a lot about something that supposedly, I didn't believe existed..... Crazy huh?)

I have days when I'm glad to be alive, haven't thought about suicide for about 4 months.

It's been awesome so far, and all I had to do was have the willingness to stop trying to do everything my way and take actions I didn't believe in and take direction from a another recovered Alcoholic.
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Old 01-27-2015, 04:54 AM
  # 386 (permalink)  
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Originally Posted by Cow View Post


I understand my decision making organ is not only manipulated by addiciton, it also physical damage and altered, and the anhedonia make it so one choice not that different to me than other choice. Cuz is nothing driving choices but my intellect. Like I was tell them last night, nobody story "inspire" me, or give me "hope", or makes me feel I "belong" and I can do it too. I just there because I try find way to strengthen my power to make better choices even if I not feel motivated by anything to do so. Everybody say you not can "think" you self sober, but, you know, it kind of ALL I GOT.

The motivation thing for me is purely intellectual also Cow.
It is terrific that some people are finding real peace and healing with sobriety such as you Hawks, but I would have to say my "healing window"
is pretty much passed at nearly four years of sober time and though I do feel more in control and "peaceful" the emotional numbness seems like scar tissue
that will not dissolve with all the thinking and therapy in the world.

Was my addiction killing me? Yes.
Is my life "better" sober? Yes.

But I guess I thought there would be more "fun" in life,
more spontaneous pleasure and wonder than I've found.
I keep putting one foot in front of the other, and fire up my
synaptic dance with plenty of pithy material, but when I walk
in the woods I see the beauty from a distance and that seems
tragic somehow.

Appreciation is a far cry from apprehension.
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Old 01-27-2015, 05:42 AM
  # 387 (permalink)  
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Fascinating really, how we've internalized or experienced recovery quite differently. And in some cases, there is a vast difference of how we claim to have subjectively experienced or processed it.

Regardless, I do hope Cow hangs on long enough to experience a permanent sobriety. Cow, keep on talking and sharing your diary with us, please. You have plenty of Moo fans and friends, no doubt.
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Old 01-27-2015, 06:30 AM
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Originally Posted by Hawkeye13 View Post
...But I guess I thought there would be more "fun" in life,more spontaneous pleasure and wonder than I've found.
Fun in sobriety? Humm...well, I got sober at the age of 35 and my 20's were gone.

When I got sober I wasn't looking for fun (I already was in a relationship) as much as I was a way to earn a decent living. I was broke, living in a flop house and going nowhere. The only good thing I had was a girlfriend who was on the verge of leaving me.

In sobriety I've done everything I talked about doing when I was drinking.

Granted not much panned out but it wasn't for a lack of trying. And although I'm still working hard for a living there's been midlife crisis for me.
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Old 01-27-2015, 06:43 AM
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Originally Posted by Ken33xx View Post
Fun in sobriety? Humm...well, I got sober at the age of 35 and my 20's were gone.

When I got sober I wasn't looking for fun (I already was in a relationship) as much as I was a way to earn a decent living. I was broke, living in a flop house and going nowhere. The only good thing I had was a girlfriend who was on the verge of leaving me.

In sobriety I've done everything I talked about doing when I was drinking.

Granted not much panned out but it wasn't for a lack of trying. And although I'm still working hard for a living there's been midlife crisis for me.
Well, I'm married nearly twenty years, and I was a "high bottom drunk" in that I managed to keep an excellent job and no "public" displays, so I guess by "fun" I mean more "joy" in the daily routine and just in being fully conscious.

I have many good things going for me, for example, I have a beautiful farm and a house my husband and I were / are building which got stalled during my "caregiving" years with my alcoholic mother and perhaps that is part of the problem. I need to finish the things I've started and get a plan for the next however many sober years. Maybe it is a midlife crisis as well and I should simply focus on gratitude.

I don't know. It's kind of like being in a perpetual crappy ennui state, but not as aesthetically meaningful as you read about.

I think we all start where we are, and it is fantastic you have found your sobriety, have a terrific girlfriend, and are digging yourself out of the financial problems drinking so often brings.
It sounds like your elevator is truly going up
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Old 01-27-2015, 06:46 AM
  # 390 (permalink)  
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Hawkeye, I have found recently the thing I need to combat the perpetual ennui state that seems so common for us - and that is going back to my reading and creative writing now that my brain is better functioning. I feel a strong drive again. Haven't felt this since my mid-twenties.
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Old 01-27-2015, 08:34 AM
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Is you really make DECISION about booze, and then never choice ever come up in you mind again? If so, wow!

no, Cow.
that was the point of my answer to Jennie. i didn't make a decision THIS time.
i had made the forever-decision a gazillion times before, and sometimes lasted a few days, maybe a couple of weeks. most often, not even a day.
THIS time i had decided to try again after a little cabin-holiday i was going on, in about three weeks from then. i was tired of failing; couldn't face failing again for a little while and so i set a date for a few weeks away.
then the clarity hit me.
it wasn't a decision. it was simply the only way to go. there was no more question, no more decision.
it was a surrender to the rock-bottom truth of it all.
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Old 01-27-2015, 09:22 AM
  # 392 (permalink)  
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Learned new word "ennui". I would kill for some ennui right now. I am about 2 seconds from putting my hand thru a wall and I need to be calm to deal with a situation that doesn't get to be about me. I'm not punking out...I'm not punking out...this will end....
True powerless and no choice for me was being a kid Cow. I try to remember how far I have come and get myself in so deep I can't get out.
Ahhh **** damn **** ****. Take that swearbot.
Maybe I could just cry for a little.
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Old 01-27-2015, 10:30 AM
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I'm sending peace and calm and ennui to St. Paul, MN.

And, yes, by all means, cry. Wail. Stomp your feet and punch a pillow.

Thems is healing waters.

XO AO
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Old 01-27-2015, 10:34 AM
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Sounds pretty rough, Silentrun. Sorry you are hurting.
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Old 01-27-2015, 11:23 AM
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I'm with Fini on this one.

I had to be "separated" from alcohol by taking the steps and putting a power greater than myself between me and a drink.

That was the choice, take actions.

Not just choose to stop drinking.

If I could have just changed my mind and decided to stop drinking...... I would have done it a decade or more ago.
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Old 01-27-2015, 11:35 AM
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Originally Posted by Hawks View Post
If I could have just changed my mind and decided to stop drinking...... I would have done it a decade or more ago.
I do believe there are some fallacies lurking here. And I'm sure you'll vehemently disagree with me
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Old 01-27-2015, 11:41 AM
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(((silentrun)))
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Old 01-27-2015, 11:53 AM
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Originally Posted by SoberJennie View Post
I do believe there are some fallacies lurking here. And I'm sure you'll vehemently disagree with me
Experience is what counts SJ.... That was my experience.

I spent years trying to find a way to quit.

I was in trouble with booze before I left school at age 15.

I'd been hospitalised 3 times as a resuLt of my drinking by then.
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Old 01-27-2015, 12:11 PM
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I should add that with drugs, coke, pot, speed and Lsd, I did just make a decision / choice.

I quit them on sheer will power and fear of consequences.

I will never use again and I will never change my mind and I have a decade of abstinence to show for it.

Booze though, the harder I tried the worse it got.
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Old 01-27-2015, 12:17 PM
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I'm with Hawks and fini on this one. I also made a choice to quit speed and other drugs. Alcohol didn't feel like a choice. If it had been my choice, I'd still be drinking. I didn't want to quit, ever. It was self-preservation instinct at the end that made me run from booze like it was something that was out to kill me -- which it was. Holding on to that conviction required support and reinforcement, so now it's a choice. But at my bottom I didn't have a rational mind that was capable of choosing. It was something... else.

silentrun, whatever is going on, I know you'll be ok, & no punking out.
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