Gilmer

I like to dredge my okra in a mixture called Louisiana Fish Fry (we can't post commercial links, but you can google it). It's got just the right flavor--just the right amount of salt. I also like the Joy of Cooking's dredging recipe: it's got a touch of paprika for that extra spark!

trachemys

Well, cow, I'm it...the only one

Lenina

Are we playing tag?

Love from Lenina

Hawkeye13

The only what?
The last turtle on earth

Good job on the thread so far folks--I enjoyed catching up

P.S. You're it LeeLee

(Hawk flies away quickly out of sight)

walkbeformakrun

I have a question for all the deep thinking Cow friends. Like Robot, Snark Bunny, AG, Turtle,,,

If an alcoholic posts on SR and Cow is not around, does it make a sound?

walkbeformakrun

I have a dream... had a dream, last night. I often have super powers in my dreams. I can fly. I can breath underwater. Stuff like that.

Last night my super power was being able to drink copious amounts of alcohol, while taking antabuse. I also was not slurring my speech, not getting irrationally angry/insulting everyone around me, really enjoying the drink and not getting drunk.

It was very realistic. When I woke up I had this pang of guilt, like I should confess to my wife that I drank last night, a LOT, and was going to be drinking again now going forward. Then I realised, wait,,,,, that must have been a dream!

LOL

courage2

Nice thread. Great floorplan and view. Too much okra, though.

Lately, I'm dialing back from AA. Finding meetings dull, formulaic, and full of minor socially uncomfortable moments that I could do without. I came to the end of the term of my service commitment & didn't get another. I've reached out to a few interesting characters but it's been so far a lot of trouble for little impact.

This isn't really a problem, but they ***tell*** you it's a problem, repeatingly -- that the sure way to start drinking again is to stop going to meetings. Plus, I cut out once before (fraught with a lot more psychic oppression) and relapsed then. Combine superstition, the persuasiveness of a powerful isolated personal experience, and general mistrust of self, and I'm not sure I'm doing the right thing. But I really dislike AA.

What do y'all think? Is it safe to go in the water without AA yet?

Just thought I'd post something about alcoholism here, so we don't all get moved to the outskirts of Cafe Central.

trachemys

Well cou, are you safe without AA floats?

walkbeformakrun

Cults do this. I'm not saying AA is a cult. Christianity does this too. Lots of groups do. It is like a Darwinian thing. If a group inserts this kind of thinking into its creed, then the group is more likely to survive. Survival of the neediest most demanding. LOL

RobbyRobot

Hey courage,

When you mean without AA, what are you meaning? Meetings? Program? Fellowship? Sponsors?

Sobriety is something we live, and not so much something we need to keep learning after we are living it, you know? Sure, I'm always learning about life and so on. Sobriety though is what it is in my life, and my seeking what I already have quickly becomes old and boring and wasteful.

So, I suppose you would do best to discover for yourself whether you have sobriety and recovery in your life - or - do you have AA dogmatic routines which you have possibly settled for being recovery?

Difficult choices demand honest introspection. Are you being sober to live, or are you living to be sober?

As you know, I've made, and still do, good use of AA in my own sobriety. I haven't routinely been to meetings in many years now.

What are your fears really stopping you from discovering?

courage2

At this point only a few things keep me going regularly to meetings. One is a sense of indebtedness to and fondness for my home group. That group is changing anyway due to an upcoming move, and in the meantime there's nothing to stop me from dropping in to say hi when I want or need a meeting. Another is the hope that I'll hear something or meet someone who will help me move forward as a person. But it doesn't seem like the odds of that happening increase with routine attendance.

A third is a sense in me old as the hills that my inability to fully buy in to constructs-- religion or political stance or a profession or AA--is a personal failure -- a wall I put up that if I could only push through, behind it I would find a different, better self. But you know, it's just not my style. I have other things -- maybe eccentric things to some tastes, but who do they hurt? -- to pursue that are more compelling. It's a little bit scary to let myself just become whatever person I am without the protection of drugs or alcohol or a program either, but to sit where I'm at with AA is frankly scarier, because it's become stagnant, which I can't abide.

RobbyRobot

I'm thinking unresolved personal failures of whatever nature can eventually become chain 'n ball baggage packed full of despair, delusion, and resentment. Being sober in itself is a truly life-saving achievement, and so ideally, this can be enough to clean the slates, and thus begin anew with a new lifestyle established on success without being intimidated with past failures. Its really a matter of vision and perspective. We can look forward with a purpose, or we can look backward with regret, but to do both is to invite new failure into the new life, yeah?

I think when you limit yourself by asserting you would be a better self "if I could only..." you soon enough set yourself up for routine disappointment which feeds dissatisfaction which creates a stubborn mindset against change and renewal.

When is sobriety enjoyed as an awesome life-changing success already in play? And so, "If not now, when?" is food for thought. Waiting around opens scary doors to becoming an "if only I could..." kind of limiting lifestyle

If I were to phrase my past abusing of alcohol and drugs, (and use of program too) as of being protective, and I'm *now fearful* of being without those protections, I would have to also admit to a deep want to be drunk, and it would be the actual want which I would in reality be fearful of, and not the delusion of stated protections. That which was killing me while abusing can hardly be called protections, and so, its disturbing to me to think of past drug abuse as being protective. With that said, yeah, there were many years I abused myself with alcohol and drugs to blot out my fears. Epic failure. I just made my monsters even bigger. Getting more drunk eventually didn't help with my eradicating my delusions. Feeding the fear monster only makes it hungrier, yeah?

Has AA become stagnant? Perhaps not. In your shoes, I would look deeper into myself for what I truly don't abide. Its too easy to hang AA out to dry. I have watched many others fail to sustain themselves in their early years of sobriety. As past members of AA, they faulted this and that, and whatever about their own failures within AA. Me, since becoming sober, I've always faulted myself although not with an attitude of "if only I could..." since when I solve my own problems, its because I own my own problems lock, stock, and barrel. The buck stops with me. Owning ourselves doesn't have to be a bummer.

Hey, I believe in you SnarkBunny

trachemys

Know what I heard?

Wa Waa wa Wa wa waaa wa...

"I believe in you snarkbunny"

Me, too.

walkbeformakrun

Like the adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon?

Gilmer

Courage, sometimes things grow better when fertilized with a bit of manure. Maybe the universe is calling you to grow in self-sacrifice. I believe that, when focused, that is a meritorious thing.

Why should these people be deprived of your unique viewpoint, especially if they seem mediocre? The benefits you bring to any table amount to a lot more than brewing coffee.

An ability to be content in all circumstances is a sign of complete peace.

AddictGuy

I really like the part in my dreams where I can breath under water, but whenever I fly I can only get a foot or two off of the ground and so I am not high enough not to run into things.

I do think that sometimes the "cults" can become an end in themselves, that on our journeys to get and stay sober we run into religions and they do each promote their own need to stand alone and supreme, to be saluted and self-perpetuated. The end is not the organization, the end is sobriety, and if we are sober and we are happily feeling all sober and it's going well, well, If you're happy and you know it clap your hands. If you're happy and you know it touch your nose. Just don't drink, and if you are headed back toward drinking you damned well better head back to whatever helped you not drink before and in a hurry. Before the big crash. Before that first sip.

I do think we can graduate from institutionalized sobriety and walk on our own, but I also think that is where many of us go wrong, so if you are planning on doing that, you better have both oars in the water first.

I sometimes dream that I am smoking dope and even in my dream I will be kicking myself that I did that, after all of this time, and even when I wake up it takes a while to realize that that didn't really happen and I don't have to go through all of the shame and regret after all. And, OK, yes, I hate to admit it, but even in my dreams, it was fun. But then again, if it hadn't been a dream, it would have so broken my heart.

courage2

y'all are the craziest crowd on SR, fer sure!

trachemys

Yep, I'm nucking futz

trachemys

But, I believe in you.

Calicofish

Wowzers - I do the exact same thing in my dreams about water and flying. I flap my arms like mad but I can't get over a foot or two :-)