walkbeformakrun

I just turned 29! Although I've done that more than 20 times already, if you know what I mean. lol.

Lenina

Rut roh, I guess I'm the granny in this bunch...62.

Love from Lenina

SoberLeigh

Nope; I'm 63.

Please, someone take the title from me.

trachemys

I be 55, and have my eye on one of these:

Zero DS Electric Motorcycle || ZERO MOTORCYCLES

If I behave I won't kill myself.

SoberLeigh

Cool bike, Trach. Really cool color combination - black and orange - Go Orioles!!!!!

Soberpotamus

Looks sleek and modern, Trach. So it's electric?

Anyway, I'm terrified of them. Lol. Even the nice, quiet ones. I rode on a BMW bike once and was thrilled to be let off finally. Guess they aren't for everyone

SoberLeigh

I share your fear, SJ.

Soberpotamus

I guess I feel I've pushed my limits in life enough already, lol. I kinda want to live these days

BackToSquareOne

I wonder about something, is it just me or has anyone else noticed that after being off substances for a long period of time it becomes crystal clear how mixed up the thinking really was. I mean that there really was an "alcoholic mind" or "crazy brain" or whatever you prefer to call it in operation that just overpowered the mind and once you see through that in a big enough way you can't be fooled again by it.

I don't mean in a case where you feel so bad that you perceive you're using the substance to survive, save your life or whatever. That can happen and I guess in those cases one could argue the substances served a purpose. There may have been times in my life where that arguement held water but that was a fleeting thing.

I guess my point is that after enough time off substances the con game, alure or whatever of those things is just so completely seen through that the odds of you falling for it again are slim to none. Does anyone think my theory of the day holds any water?

dwtbd

Btso
This 47 yr old pup, thinks your cistern is unbroken, I see it as not be able to unknow what I now know, though it takes a lot of self honesty to see and know, after that even evading what I know is hard.

Soberpotamus

BackToSquareOne... sure, I get that. And I agree. I think there's an awareness of the craziness of it all, once you get enough time and space from it, such that going back is going to involve some level of craziness that would have to trump the craziness of the alcoholic thinking itself. I think once we're aware, we can't unsee. It would involve a huge amount of denial, to go back to drinking. Not sure I could do it. I guess I could, temporarily maybe? But I don't think I'd be fooling myself long-term.

Cow

For me, I always know I crazy, always know I alcoholic, always know I crazy alcoholic. Never any delusions or denials. Maybe that why it so easy for me to go in and out of it. Is just normal to me.

BackToSquareOne

I don't know, a lot of the Buddhist teachings focus on thoughts and feelings and seeing them for what they are. If I see depression as a feeling and welcome it, it does seem to loose some power. I guess that more and more I realize that many of my negative thoughts are only thoughts, not true truths.

I so completely see through alcohol that I don't think it could lure me back in again, I know it would lead to the hell of withdrawal and detox and I never want to revisit any of that. I agree with you Cow I always knew I was an alcoholic so why did it take so long to quit? Could it be that enough time off all those things does change your thinking? Maybe the whole knowing--doing thing comes into play here. You might feel differently after a long enough time off all those things

soberlicious

I agree BTSO. That's why I asked way back about how long a stretch she has gone without substances. If I'm remembering her answer correctly, it's only been a couple of week stretches at a time. It seems to me the cycle of addiction has not been broken. Thinking does change when one is completely outside of the cycle. Mine did anyway.

courage2

I'm kind of with Cow on that one. I knew I had drug addiction and alcoholism at least 20 years before I quit. My alcoholic thinking is at the core of my identity and it's going to take a long, long time to change that. I don't really expect I'll ever have enough sober time to think that I won't see the allure. Not necessarily the allure of booze, not directly -- it's any cheap fix, the rush, the superficial act that generates a chemical reaction in my brain that convinces me temporarily that I'm alive. Or, alternatively, that slows down my mania with a smooth warm glide. Those are really hard feelings for me to find in sobriety -- I'm trying to learn how to find them, but what I can't unlearn is the knowledge that I can get those feelings fast & cheap in drugs or liquor etc.

So, as Dee said, vigilance.

I qualified tonight at an AA meeting. That's always kind of an interesting experience -- one you surely don't get any other way!

Dee74

I totally defined myself by my drinking and drugtaking. My heroes were the guys who lived on the edge.

But when it come right down to it I didn't want to die at 40.

I chose a different way and - noone was more surprised than me - I found a me I'd forgotten about.

Drinking and drugging was my way of trying to fit into a world I didn't understand and felt I didn't belong in.

ironically when I stopped worrying about that I started to understand and belong...

D

Soberpotamus

That's what I think. I couldn't imagine it would be this way. From the inside, looking outward... there's speculation but not the experience of the thing. And that's huge for me. I was such a thinker. In my head type person. Psychology and philosophy background. It was quite humbling to get sober and stay sober. I learned a lot of "elementary" things very quickly. Things I could've learned in my twenties.

Cow

I total am open and welcome to be sane after prolong period of abstinence. (Assuming that ever happen.) However, it must be remembered that while I has not have prolong period of abstinence since, ever, I had other addiction and addictive behavior and disordered behavior as child, long before alcohol, and currently has co-addiction to stimulant. So, I not sure was ever or will ever be somebody underneath all this that gonna be sane.

For me, was never, my brain not normal because of alcohol, so much as it is I use alcohol cuz my brain not normal.

Which of course become progressive Catch 22.

Soberpotamus

Cow, I not normal either. Lol! Not kidding I'm sure that many would consider me to be kind of "out there" on the fringes of society. But I am ok with that. I too had a traumatic childhood, minus the sexual abuse. I wasn't from a normal family. We were very dysfunctional. So I gravitated to alcohol, no doubt. The alcohol fit my brain like a lock and key, I'm sure.

courage2

I was the weird skinny green kid reading Shakespeare and smoking weed at 9 years old. At 3 in nursery school I snuck upstairs and checked out Mrs. Duncan's medicine cabinet.