Diary of a Mad Cow, Part X: "The Adventures of Sober Cow"
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Join Date: Oct 2014
Posts: 5,785
Originally Posted by Cow 
Snoopdrunk, I actual just ask therapist to give me calendar to put gold star and red star, for clean day, not clean day. Is something from First Grade, I know, but, I would like to put on fridge. Cuz, if nothing else, I am competitive. She thought that great idea.
Woe is Moo.
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 2,746
She bringing it to me on next visit. I not gonna say, that gonna be "rewarding" enough to does trick, but it something visual to see every day. But I still needs to find more substantial non-feeling base reward paradigm.
Is either that or has to go with negative reinforcement punishment route where Trach push button that zaps me every time I go for substance. Hey, it work on dogs.
Is either that or has to go with negative reinforcement punishment route where Trach push button that zaps me every time I go for substance. Hey, it work on dogs.
p***enger
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: NYC
Posts: 19,047
Be patient, don't expect a new reward system to feel properly rewarding from Day 1. It's a matter of training and untraining. Think of how long it took you to develop into the perfect case of caffeine/alcohol cross-addicted cow that you are! Basic behavioral psychology says that the best way to switch motivation systems is ZERO reinforcement on the old system. And, by the way, the worst possible way to extinguish the old motivation system is variable reinforcement -- some days clean, some using.
So, total and prolonged suffocation of the using-reward system.
Then you need to dangle some carrots. As you are more and more deprived of the using-rewards, the carrots -- which seem pretty worthless now -- will start to look more attractive. And you can upgrade rewards when the ones you train on lose interest, if ever.
My early rewards were pretty basic. Cigarettes. I also became a really avid user of a corporate use-based reward system, I won't tell you what corporation because it might trigger you, it has a * and a $ in the name, I bet there's some great SoCal juice bars that have similar systems. Talking to my sponsor -- that felt like the worst kind of shriveled old raw carrot at first, but I learned to look forward to it, especially at cocktail hour. Eventually, over 2 years, I've filled most of my trigger times (read all my waking hours) with "things to do besides drink".
Most of my self-rewards don't impact me emotionally. Some make minor changes in my brain chemistry, like food or meditation. Some are just distractions. Drinking didn't affect my emotions, either, except to depress them and add guilt to them. I didn't look for the habits I developed to substitute for booze in the early days to be emotionally rich -- that's a much longer game that I'm just beginning.
So, total and prolonged suffocation of the using-reward system.
Then you need to dangle some carrots. As you are more and more deprived of the using-rewards, the carrots -- which seem pretty worthless now -- will start to look more attractive. And you can upgrade rewards when the ones you train on lose interest, if ever.
My early rewards were pretty basic. Cigarettes. I also became a really avid user of a corporate use-based reward system, I won't tell you what corporation because it might trigger you, it has a * and a $ in the name, I bet there's some great SoCal juice bars that have similar systems. Talking to my sponsor -- that felt like the worst kind of shriveled old raw carrot at first, but I learned to look forward to it, especially at cocktail hour. Eventually, over 2 years, I've filled most of my trigger times (read all my waking hours) with "things to do besides drink".
Most of my self-rewards don't impact me emotionally. Some make minor changes in my brain chemistry, like food or meditation. Some are just distractions. Drinking didn't affect my emotions, either, except to depress them and add guilt to them. I didn't look for the habits I developed to substitute for booze in the early days to be emotionally rich -- that's a much longer game that I'm just beginning.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Los Angeles, California
Posts: 8,326
((((Cow)))) we are addicts! If pain, humiliation, embarrassment or shame worked, we wouldn't be here! Tell me one addict who doesn't feel shame and usually physical pain? I did! Did it keep me sober? No. My tummy would hurt and my head would ache. I'd feel like crap. I'd look like crap with a puffy, red face and bloated, poochy-outie belly. And if the physical pain didn't help me stay off the alcohol, one would think vanity would. I am very vain and pleasure seeking. You've noted my extensive daily grooming process. So you know.
And I think when we take care of ourselves, when we know we deserve to feel good, smell good and find we no longer have to punish ourselves, we do get better.
And besides, you are woman. Not a dog.
I'm sure you've had a decent massage in your life. Feels good, doesn't? I can't always enjoy the massage as I have that well-known, total hypochondriac malady of fibro myalgia. It often hurts me to rubbed. I do like a nice facial. I do enjoy the warm whirlpools. Maybe these would work for you as rewards? Your body is capable of feeling pleasure, right? The anahedonia is mostly mental/emotional?
Love from the Evilly Clean LeeLee Trach is evil enough on his own LOL
And I think when we take care of ourselves, when we know we deserve to feel good, smell good and find we no longer have to punish ourselves, we do get better.
And besides, you are woman. Not a dog.
I'm sure you've had a decent massage in your life. Feels good, doesn't? I can't always enjoy the massage as I have that well-known, total hypochondriac malady of fibro myalgia. It often hurts me to rubbed. I do like a nice facial. I do enjoy the warm whirlpools. Maybe these would work for you as rewards? Your body is capable of feeling pleasure, right? The anahedonia is mostly mental/emotional?
Love from the Evilly Clean LeeLee Trach is evil enough on his own LOL
Woe is Moo.
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 2,746
Leelee, usual during massage I stay pretty much in head, although body does trust and eventual relax for massage lady. So I does that regular, cuz I think is good/healing for me. Anhedonia is mostly mental/emotional but for instance even ...(is it past 10PM?)... such thing as orgasm is almost entire intellectual. 
Bunny, It does seem lot of alcoholics lean on cigs and caffeine, which unfortunate for me. Maybe "things to do besides use" is best I can do. But I has such list now and sometime I look at list and is like ...really? ...take walk? ...why?... what is point of such drudgery as take walk? ...how that different from sit here at look at list that say "take walk?" ...what is point of anything? ...Urich, please gather sawdust scrapings from shed, so I may use to thicken our meager peasant stew...
I really should has been born in Russia in 1800's.
Bunny, It does seem lot of alcoholics lean on cigs and caffeine, which unfortunate for me. Maybe "things to do besides use" is best I can do. But I has such list now and sometime I look at list and is like ...really? ...take walk? ...why?... what is point of such drudgery as take walk? ...how that different from sit here at look at list that say "take walk?" ...what is point of anything? ...Urich, please gather sawdust scrapings from shed, so I may use to thicken our meager peasant stew...
I really should has been born in Russia in 1800's.
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Posts: 211,464
I'm so sorry for your loss and your pain silentrun.
__________________
I'm not even going to dignify the cow is a troll or this thread is harmful stuff with a direct response.
If the mod team believed that was so, this thread would not be here.
I don't like everything I read on SR, but I get that we all have our own journeys and approaches, beliefs and truths.
who knows? I might have been a 15 years relapser here with 100 parts to my thread had SR been around a little earlier.
If you don't like the thread... don't read it.
Dee
Moderator
SR
__________________
I'm not even going to dignify the cow is a troll or this thread is harmful stuff with a direct response.
If the mod team believed that was so, this thread would not be here.
I don't like everything I read on SR, but I get that we all have our own journeys and approaches, beliefs and truths.
who knows? I might have been a 15 years relapser here with 100 parts to my thread had SR been around a little earlier.
If you don't like the thread... don't read it.
Dee
Moderator
SR
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,464
Originally Posted by Cow
...Urich, please gather sawdust scrapings from shed, so I may use to thicken our meager peasant stew...
I really should has been born in Russia in 1800's.
I really should has been born in Russia in 1800's.
ok not really....
D
Too many bathing scene!Marchia in Aeternum
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Georgia
Posts: 11,094
Originally Posted by Cow
She bringing it to me on next visit. I not gonna say, that gonna be "rewarding" enough to does trick, but it something visual to see every day. But I still needs to find more substantial non-feeling base reward paradigm.
Is either that or has to go with negative reinforcement punishment route where Trach push button that zaps me every time I go for substance. Hey, it work on dogs.
Is either that or has to go with negative reinforcement punishment route where Trach push button that zaps me every time I go for substance. Hey, it work on dogs.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: Midwest
Posts: 419
Cow,
I have been wondering what had become of you. I get to go to your therapy sessions through you.
They say we need to be honest and candid. I think you are as much that as I have ever seen. Some of us don't even know how to approach that, so it's good to have such an example.
It's all true about the wacked out childhood. We grow up with madness and then we are expected to go have a good life and to "go get 'em" once we are adults. Right. It seems to be so much about our orientations and we get "oriented" in childhood, even if our orientations are basically self-invalidating insanity.
Who knows if there is even anything "back there" to discover. I say just invent yourself. And, like you were referring to -- the importance of having some goals and some rules. This is who I want to be. This is who I do not want to be. This is what I will do. This is what I will not do. These are the daily steps I will take to try to make that happen. This is my little list. These are my priorities.
I find that I am always deferring to some "someone" who lives in my head and who got there from childhood when i was being formed. I now think it is a composite of the hateful, selfish, screwed up people who were my family who introduced me to the world, people who I could never pleased and who I feared for good reason. And since then they have just taken on the faces and the voices of so many of the people I have met and hated and tried to love ever since.
And, of course, it is the challenge of a lifetime. It is our lives. And so what can we do but fight for our lives? I have at least been on this journey of self-definition and self-awareness forever and thankfully I have gone not just down wrong, time-wasting, life-wasting paths but I have also found good paths to traverse as well. My journey makes progress and there is a goodness about that -- a light that begins to shine a little more and a little more all of the time, especially when I don't bury it under substances. There is a liberty and freedom of mind that waits for all of us. We can find, little by little, that there is indeed something beyond the fracturing, exhausting madness. I think often of like a scientist looking for the cure of some disease, perhaps even his own, who is always at his microscope, looking at all of the little things that wiggle and making notes, and thinking -- looking, studying, thinking. Seeing how one thing relates to another. Putting together the pieces of the puzzle one at a time -- a massive puzzle and each little piece that fits and stands up to scrutiny and leads to yet another piece as things slowly, slowly ever so slowly over the years starts to make just a little more sense. And there is joy in that. Even if it is just a little joy -- little joys now and again, so that we are not totally broken forever. We find our answers. We heal. I am glad you have someone that will carry the ball for you that you like. Sometimes, when we can't even trust ourselves, we have to just trust someone.
I have been wondering what had become of you. I get to go to your therapy sessions through you.
They say we need to be honest and candid. I think you are as much that as I have ever seen. Some of us don't even know how to approach that, so it's good to have such an example.
It's all true about the wacked out childhood. We grow up with madness and then we are expected to go have a good life and to "go get 'em" once we are adults. Right. It seems to be so much about our orientations and we get "oriented" in childhood, even if our orientations are basically self-invalidating insanity.
Who knows if there is even anything "back there" to discover. I say just invent yourself. And, like you were referring to -- the importance of having some goals and some rules. This is who I want to be. This is who I do not want to be. This is what I will do. This is what I will not do. These are the daily steps I will take to try to make that happen. This is my little list. These are my priorities.
I find that I am always deferring to some "someone" who lives in my head and who got there from childhood when i was being formed. I now think it is a composite of the hateful, selfish, screwed up people who were my family who introduced me to the world, people who I could never pleased and who I feared for good reason. And since then they have just taken on the faces and the voices of so many of the people I have met and hated and tried to love ever since.
And, of course, it is the challenge of a lifetime. It is our lives. And so what can we do but fight for our lives? I have at least been on this journey of self-definition and self-awareness forever and thankfully I have gone not just down wrong, time-wasting, life-wasting paths but I have also found good paths to traverse as well. My journey makes progress and there is a goodness about that -- a light that begins to shine a little more and a little more all of the time, especially when I don't bury it under substances. There is a liberty and freedom of mind that waits for all of us. We can find, little by little, that there is indeed something beyond the fracturing, exhausting madness. I think often of like a scientist looking for the cure of some disease, perhaps even his own, who is always at his microscope, looking at all of the little things that wiggle and making notes, and thinking -- looking, studying, thinking. Seeing how one thing relates to another. Putting together the pieces of the puzzle one at a time -- a massive puzzle and each little piece that fits and stands up to scrutiny and leads to yet another piece as things slowly, slowly ever so slowly over the years starts to make just a little more sense. And there is joy in that. Even if it is just a little joy -- little joys now and again, so that we are not totally broken forever. We find our answers. We heal. I am glad you have someone that will carry the ball for you that you like. Sometimes, when we can't even trust ourselves, we have to just trust someone.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2014
Posts: 2,775
Originally Posted by AddictGuy
...It's all true about the wacked out childhood. We grow up with madness and then we are expected to go have a good life and to "go get 'em" once we are adults. Right. It seems to be so much about our orientations and we get "oriented" in childhood, even if our orientations are basically self-invalidating insanity.
Who knows if there is even anything "back there" to discover. I say just invent yourself. And, like you were referring to -- the importance of having some goals and some rules. This is who I want to be. This is who I do not want to be. This is what I will do. This is what I will not do. These are the daily steps I will take to try to make that happen. This is my little list. These are my priorities.
Who knows if there is even anything "back there" to discover. I say just invent yourself. And, like you were referring to -- the importance of having some goals and some rules. This is who I want to be. This is who I do not want to be. This is what I will do. This is what I will not do. These are the daily steps I will take to try to make that happen. This is my little list. These are my priorities.
Omnivore
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Winter Water Wonder Land
Posts: 516
Originally Posted by Cow
[FONT="Comic Sans MS"][SIZE="3"][COLOR="Purple"]
I has to find reward system that not involve "feeling good" cuz probable not gonna get that ... ... but what else is there really? "Thinking good"? Not rewarding really. "Doing good"? Reward of that mostly "feeling good" about it.
Ok, I'm prepared for the bitch slap if everyone else already thought of these and its just not good enough to be considered a "reward."
Originally Posted by Cow
I wish I had more physical job. I think I need to go work on farm for a year. I think that be good for me.
Oh, wait, you are an artist and well paid. Ok, try farming! I suggest starting with 100 acres, a very good tractor and a line to migrant labor for the late summer/fall. If you make wise cracks while I work I will even come for the picking season myself.
Speaking of art, I finally got on Fb and see "Ima Cow" is cancelled. Your other stuff is hilarious but is there any way to see old Ima Cow episodes? Maybe the archives of the Smithsonian?
Woe is Moo.
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 2,746
WB4MR, one would think those thing would be enough, yes? Historically, for me, they has not. I want forest!
All of Cow show still on FB, but now under name "Chuckles Bovini". Show is a meta show within show. So even though "Ima Cow" was cancel on the show, the show still going, you see? FB force me to change name cuz FB is try to go super hardcore about forcing everyone to use they "real name." Funny, they do this to me after I reject their "sponsorship" offer for "Ima Cow." Really tick me off. But at least they leaving my page alone now and all content still there. So “Chuckles Bovini” is Ima Cow is Cow. All contents still there. Any other “Ima Cows” on FB is NOT me. Glad you enjoy. I have link to show in profile contact page here at SR that still work if you has trouble to find.
AG, Thank you for very thoughtful input. I digesting it and everything everyone say.
Is Rumi quote I love: "You say you grow restless when you don't drink the dark world's wine, but if you could know even one living moment, you would draw out that thorn and walk."
And I always think, yes, that what I need, a 'living moment' to have even a taste, so that be my inspiration, my carrot ...but, some of us not get the 'living moment.' Maybe it come some other day, down the road, like many of you say, but truly, no one can know, and it not can matter. Fact is, whether I ever get to has 'living moments' or not, I certainly not gonna have any sitting like stone in same place decade after decade. Is only thing possible and only thing left to do is draw out that thorn and start walking.
All of Cow show still on FB, but now under name "Chuckles Bovini". Show is a meta show within show. So even though "Ima Cow" was cancel on the show, the show still going, you see? FB force me to change name cuz FB is try to go super hardcore about forcing everyone to use they "real name." Funny, they do this to me after I reject their "sponsorship" offer for "Ima Cow." Really tick me off. But at least they leaving my page alone now and all content still there. So “Chuckles Bovini” is Ima Cow is Cow. All contents still there. Any other “Ima Cows” on FB is NOT me. Glad you enjoy. I have link to show in profile contact page here at SR that still work if you has trouble to find.
AG, Thank you for very thoughtful input. I digesting it and everything everyone say.
Is Rumi quote I love: "You say you grow restless when you don't drink the dark world's wine, but if you could know even one living moment, you would draw out that thorn and walk."
And I always think, yes, that what I need, a 'living moment' to have even a taste, so that be my inspiration, my carrot ...but, some of us not get the 'living moment.' Maybe it come some other day, down the road, like many of you say, but truly, no one can know, and it not can matter. Fact is, whether I ever get to has 'living moments' or not, I certainly not gonna have any sitting like stone in same place decade after decade. Is only thing possible and only thing left to do is draw out that thorn and start walking.
p***enger
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: NYC
Posts: 19,047
Originally Posted by Cow
but, some of us not get the 'living moment.' Maybe it come some other day, down the road, like many of you say, but truly, no one can know, and it not can matter. Fact is, whether I ever get to has 'living moments' or not, I certainly not gonna have any sitting like stone in same place decade after decade. Is only thing possible and only thing left to do is draw out that thorn and start walking.
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: The Deep South
Posts: 14,636
One "reward" might be that you get to go to bed every night and wake up every morning knowing you beat it. You beat the alcohol. You say you're competitive, so. There
It was definitely a reward for me to KNOW that I was finally doing it. It didn't make me leap for joy or even feel "good" per se, but I KNEW. And no one could take it from me.
It was definitely a reward for me to KNOW that I was finally doing it. It didn't make me leap for joy or even feel "good" per se, but I KNEW. And no one could take it from me.
Omnivore
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Winter Water Wonder Land
Posts: 516
Originally Posted by Cow
So “Chuckles Bovini” is Ima Cow is Cow. All contents still there. Any other “Ima Cows” on FB is NOT me. Glad you enjoy. I have link to show in profile contact page here at SR that still work if you has trouble to find.
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