SoberLeigh

Sending love, Cow.

biminiblue

:-/


(hug)

Gilmer

This bunch is always here for you, Cow! You don't have to hide out from us!

Coldfusion

Cow, we all care about you.

Cow

Glimmer, of course is exacerbates all medical issues. Is nothing to say except...

Thank you guys for you continue support and acceptance in face of total unrelenting disappointment and exasperations.

So how is you guys, doing?

Gilmer

Pretty good. Got a friend who is in distress, and I'm taking her out to dinner tonight so she can unload the burden.

Studying was poor and slow today. I keep forgetting everything I crammed the week before!

Coldfusion

I'm laid up with a sore paw. I should be up on the roof repairing my chimney so we can heat our home this winter, but I think climbing a ladder is the last thing I need right now. And my wife is sick in bed with a cold.

I am worried about winter because there is snow on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, and this is often an indicator of cold weather:

SoberLeigh

Taking care of my grandbabes today.

RobbyRobot

Yeah. Acceptance and support is a given. Disappointment too?

I dunno. Is it just me? Sometimes I believe you return to drinking or coffee with a sigh of resignation?

Cow

Hi Robot, I was actual looking for "sigh" emoticon. Cuz that what really sum it up. Yes, most of time, I return to self-medicating with just long, sad, inevitable sigh.

I was talking about you all "disappointments," in that I know you wishing for me to achieve sobriety and something better from life. I feel bad to be such consistent big fat bummer.

Soberpotamus

Cow, it's your health and life at stake. Not a disappointment. Just really hoping you get some help to stop soon, no, like stop yesterday. Super worried for you. And feeling helpless to help you.

RobbyRobot

Hi Cow.

You know, speaking for myself, I'm not wishing for you "achieve sobriety"... is that acceptable? I do wish for you a better life. I myself think and believe its always gonna be a bumpy ride for you. I'm still in your corner, I'm just being truthful...

Please don't feel bad. You're not a constant bummer for me, anyways. There is more to life than sobriety, even though sobriety is a gateway to a better life. Life experience is yet still more, you know?

Cow

Robot, I think that total reasonable sentiment from you perspective. And plus also is most "digestible" encouragement anybody ever give me. Cuz, I think you right. I think you assess my situation pretty accurate, and you still supportive without me feeling burden of you distress that I continues to struggle.

SJ, please not worry. ^see above!

I does know, that to has any kind of fecund experience of this life, I gonna need to get to the sobriety. I know that. I want that. Even though I still agree with Seinfeld that ALL of us and everything we does is just "killing time," is still true that you can kill you time in alcoholic anhedonic depressive malaise or you can kill you time in enjoyment of experiences and relations and appreciation of life. I want latter. Given my complication, maybe very slim chance for that no matter what I do. But for sure, 100% not possible without sobriety. Gotta go with odds.

RobbyRobot

Yeah.

When I quit, I didn't care about sobriety. I cared about not getting drunk. I didn't care about living a good life. I cared about not dying on the streets. As time went on with my quit, I cared less about my wrongness and more about what kept me alive enough to quit in the first place.

I've never chased sobriety. Even to this day, sobriety is something I do, and not something that does me, you know? Sobriety yet still remains a ways to a means for me. I'm okay with the responsibilities and consequences of such a philosophy.

I did quit drinking for ever. Yes. I did. Back in 1981. I've not ever though attempted to be sober more than was actually required for me to have a well lived life. A well lived life keeps me sober, you know?

Sobriety doesn't in itself keep me sober. Difficult to explain?

RobbyRobot

A thread was started in newcomers about are SR members friends? I didn't post for many reasons on so many levels, you know? I didn't want to disrupt the thread. I found myself at odds with a lot of the sentiments in the thread. Not because I don't believe the contributors, but more because I do believe in their sincerity.

I have friends here at SR. I even met and married an SR friend, lol. So yeah, I understand how it works here. And yet, many in the thread said they are more honest here at SR than in real life. Hmmm. For me, I'm more honest in real life than I'll ever be or have been on SR.

Weird.

courage2

Hi Cow. I wish that you will get better, and sooner rather than later, and have a chance to live well. I don't think you're wise to hide out because of relapse behaviors -- anyway, you can't relapse, because you've never really stopped, have you? That's nothing to be ashamed of -- you haven't been, maybe still are not, ready. Don't think about it in terms of disappointments and struggles -- those are words in a play, but you're a real person, drinking your life away.

So getting better's what I wish for you. Some of us can't get better on our own, because we don't believe we can. We say we want to quit, but we're also "resigned" to the "inevitable" -- your words. The real ambivalence is ambivalence of self, not ambivalent desire.

Maybe that's why the various programs talk so much about surrender. Some of us require an act almost like sati, throwing the alcoholic self on the fire and letting someone else take over until a sober self has learned to live.

RobbyRobot

I think everybody who is addicted is ready to quit as its not ever been about being ready, speaking for myself. My dying alcoholically messed up my quitting, so to speak. I wasn't into living and so quitting was really not on my plate. I was still ready to quit though, since being drunk was no cake-walk.

I think people sometimes like to believe they are not responsible for all their actions be they drunken or not, or somewhere in between either side of the sobriety experience.

I think telling anybody who professes they want to quit that they are not ready is more about lack of insight from the teller than lack of readiness from the drinker.

neferkamichael

Cow, rootin for ya.

courage2

Ouch! I can tolerate the sting but don't agree -- there's something that I can best call readiness, and not every addict has it. It's like the old joke that you always find the thing you lost in the last place you look. You only know readiness after you let go, because it was the state that preceded the letting go.

RobbyRobot

I'm not into stinging you, friend. We just don't agree on what an addict has and doesn't have I suppose. For me, every addict wants to quit and is ready to quit. That being said, quitting isn't as easy as just wanting. Addiction can destroy wants without mercy. My addiction destroyed my want to live you know? As for quitting, not surprisingly my addiction only made me want to quit even more. Being addicted has consequences. Wanting to quit and still not quitting is such an obvious consequence. Normal drinkers don't want to quit. Only addicts ever want to quit, yeah?