AddictGuy

I just don't make commitment to anyone else because I can't make them to myself. Robby talks about taking responsibility for myself. I am going to have to look into that. :-)

AddictGuy

I am feeling a disturbance in the force today, my droogs. The dark force. I have given and taken today. I am in the arena, with blood and sweat on my face. Robby and I have chatted. He talked about taking responsibility and no rationalization is a get-out-of-jail-free card. I am coming for the dark force within me that so adamantly entwines it tentacles around my soul. I am coming for him and he knows it. He's restless. I can feel it. I may not know just which room he is in within me, but I am walking down the right hallway. I feel it. My breakthrough is at hand.

Lenina

AG, you did the right thing. You came to SR. Hang here, read the stories. Post as needed.

Love from Lenina

tokidoki

AddictGuy, it is probably of little help to you... *but*, just want you to know that I too am feeling some "disturbance in the force". It may be just the change of seasons. Am a teacher and the young people have been acting strangely. Living in "the driftless zone", am used to huge temperature differences, but this year is extreme... Whatever, need to commit even more to sobriety. My thoughts are with you.

Lenina

Well, the equinox is upon us, an eclipse is upon us as is a new moon. Lots happening.

Love from Lenina

AddictGuy

Ok, I know. I know. I mixed my metaphors. It reminds me of an episode of House, you know, with Dr. House? 13 just hated sports metaphors so naturally he was always using them around her. He was trying to explain how some disease was coursing its way through someone. He said: Say that there's a quarterback. Then he paused and he said, ok, wait, say there are two quarterbacks. And then his story never went any farther. After all, how could it? He bent reality to breaking.

I know my metaphors might have been hard to visualize as a coherent whole, but that's nothing compared to trying to visualize two quarterbacks. :-)

I found this one cold snap around here to shiver me to my timbers. Everyone wants to talk about Spring now, yet I find it hard to settle myself completely and let go after "That".

But ..... .

Oki doki, Tokidoki. We shall gather strength from each other and send each other power vibs. And may our grandest restraint goals be realized.

AddictGuy

And my dear LeeLee, let's not wish our lives away. The equinox is not until Thursday. I should know. I am an expert on these things. I Googled it.

Lenina

AG, then being a google expert, you will understand about the shadow. We feel these shifts in advance and as they pass. It's not just one big boom. It will come and go. Just acknowledge and go about our business.

love from Lenina

courage2

My minion told me there's a solar storm. You wouldn't believe what the NYC streets are like right now, or I guess you would. But you don't want to be out there. Give it a few more hours, and it will be nothing but sidestepping piles of vomit on the sidewalks. I hate St. Patricks Day. Pikers.

Walkbefor, re Antabuse. I'm all for it. I take a couple of pills every day without which I don't know what I would become. And I don't have any desire to know. Alcohol doesn't work for my best interests anymore, alcohol & drugs seriously work against them, and I outlived my hormones, so now it's either just me and my bad biochemistry twisting in the wind, or me and my meds. I'm pretty happy not to have to suffer the worst of my biochem.

AddictGuy, I'm not sure what you're expressing, to be honest. You remind me of someone I'm very fond of, though. For what it's worth. Rather than wish you success in your struggles against the dark force inside you, I hope you let it go. It's as much a captive as you are.

Lenina, how does it feel to be the voice of sanity on Cow's thread?

Cow would definitely get a bovine chuckle out of me & my shrink today. He was doing a Swiss-German act on hold with the pharmacy. I think he totally screwed up my Rx orders, but it was worth it for the show!

Now for Robby: Without an escape into being chronically drunk, I'm confident I would have certainly off'd myself to escape myself. Here is the thing though: I was deluded big time. Being suicidal is itself a delusion, yeah? Being drunk, another delusion. Taking protection from that which was in fact killing me?.. delusional at best. -- yes. I realize that. I was persistently and adamantly deluded about myself for decades.

So now, with an enduring sobriety, such protections, and such delusions, are disturbing to me. I'm grateful I can perceive the rational differences in my sober life and my past delusional drunkenness. I'm now mindful of myself with clarity of experience of being on both sides of my alcoholism ie active and in remission. -- ok. I can see why you would be disturbed that I still struggle with what I simply call "bad thinking", but I do. Rather than however long you had of active alcoholism, and 3 decades of sobriety, I have ~3 decades of alcoholism, and a year of sobriety. I'm grateful you come here to point out my delusions to me.

Yet, all I was actually doing was buying myself some time. I ended up almost drinking myself to death anyways, you know? Epic failure was, and always will remain, my till-death-do-us-part friendship with booze. -- mine was less epic, more like a boring slightly twisted soap opera, maybe like Dark Shadows.

Stagnation. .. It may seem unimportant using such language. I caution you though against taking a negative view of yourself. For me, you're actually laying the groundwork to support your fears. Feeding the monster isn't helpful. It may seem simplistically foolish to be mindful of not trash talking yourself, but it is absolutely worth food for thought. -- a) you're right, the negativity is kneejerk and a character defect that literally makes my head hurt to contemplate. b) It's just barely worthwhile to point out that I didn't say I was stagnating in sober life -- just in the way I'm approaching AA. I think that's what I said, anyway.

rather than simply to take measures against being broken or whatever. -- I used to tell people I was broken or damaged. I recognized even then (when I was floundering on my way to my last bottom) it was a cop-out.

Robby, you're going to have to start charging me by the hour. And speaking German.

AddictGuy

Hey bunny,

I am not sure who was talking where in your post, at least not in the Robby part. It's not the format I have come to know here. You'd be surprised how it can effect the understanding of an exchange when you don't know who is saying what, but I can see you were really getting after it, so rock on, bunny.

As for me, hey, I am all ears. If I had it all figured out, ok, I am sorry to say this, but really, why would I come here for help? And yeah, that's right. Let me put it this way, Help! I am getting a strong sense and this is a good thing, there are some people here who have figured out, or have been taught things I don't know. I can only get so far reading my own mail, so to speak.

Sure. I have some perspectives on some things and maybe that will be news and helpful to some others, but I just don't know all I need to know yet to set myself free. You talk about how I need to release the dark force as opposed to clinging to it, or something and it is every bit the captive that I am. Well, bunny my friend, would it surprise you to know I have never even heard of such a thing? And the dark force thing was just a metaphor anyway. . . . or was it? :-)

Robby's got me reexamining taking responsibility and I am considering the role that self-love or self-loathing plays in these things. I assume that I love myself, but you know? I could be assuming wrong. I do know this. If I try enough keys, surely some of them will unlock some of these doors for me. And there may be other doors behind the first doors but I refuse to turn back as long as I have life energy, so maybe if we all can just hang out and you let me keep trying your keys, I think we can get those doors open too, until I can finally reach the sunlit open spaces that I long for with everything within me.

Perspectives abound. And I am willing to throw everything at this including the kitchen sink, except that I am an atheist and that is not negotiable. Robby was talking about how he had turned his soul over to drink. Me, I am just trying to possess my own soul and as long as I have the addiction issues I do, that will just not be possible.

Love

AG

AddictGuy

Well LeeLee, maybe I understand about the shadow thingy and maybe I don't (it could be a real thing, or she might just be testing me. How to play it? How to play it?). You know I know, so I don't have to say anything about it (or something).

So there.

AG

courage2

AG, what was your DOC, and how long have you been sober, if at all? I can't tell from your writing where you are with recovery -- you write about coming here for help and wanting to set yourself free. Does that mean you're still using?

AddictGuy

My dear bunny,

I have been off alcohol, tobacco and pot, what I call the baddies for about 4 years, but, and I hate to give it any credit, but it has to be framed somehow so I'll say coffee owns me while it debilitates me to a decisive degree and it has owned me, except for a few short-lived exceptions all my adult life. I have been able to function but, and this is true especially as the years go by, it takes a larger and larger toll. A larger and larger bite out of my energy and wellness. Even my want to. I accommodate it. It keeps me safe from the big bad world out there. Safe, sick and at home, all while the world wonders why I don't come out and play. It even keeps me out of relationships. It "is" my relationship. Mom wanted me home and all to herself. So I am home, Mother. Don't cry. Your little boy will never, ever grow up and abandon you.

Ok, I know Mom is not here, rest her soul, but I am just saying that by way of illustration. Based on the counseling I have had, and how insidious and long-term early distortions can be and remain, what I am referring to could have a profound and stubbornly persistent influence on just what is going on here with me.

I am angry. I am not safe with it, but I don't feel safe talking about it like this either, but here I am doing that anyway. So just don't talk down to me. Don't charge me by the hour. Cow was saying -- we had a couple of talks outside of the room -- she was saying I should share more of myself with you all. This was after I got her attention and told her that I was amazed at her degree of forthcomingness and longed to dare to be as candid myself. It's hard for me to keep in mind that I, and we all, are anonymous because it leaves me feeling so splayed and vulnerable in light of this wound -- this weakness I am revealing. I feel like I need to protect this thing about me that hurts so badly and wrecks my life, but then protecting it is like enabling it, and of course, that is exactly what I don't want to do. I no longer know where it stops and I begin.

Me coming here and revealing myself like this is rattling this status quo. It is threatening this symbiotic relationship, and that is good. But it so deeply unsettling that I just want to run from this place.

I got screwed up early, my friends. Those that introduced me to the world twisted me like a pretzel. And I have been reacting to that ever since. It has made me many things. It has made me a superlative musician in my little circles, it has made me, what has been said, so profound so often. It has made me an eternal searcher, it has made me a haunted man, it has made me strong in my weakness, it has made me a poet, it has made me a superlative scholar, it has drawn people to me and it has driven people away. It has made me nearly peerless, which for all of the bragging rights that might bring me, that is in itself isolating.

I've been beaten, I've been tortured, I've been molested, I've been bullied, I have been ostracized and yet now, I am drawn to bullies to show them that at least once in their lives, someone might just get in their faces and show them it is not their birthright after all to victimize whomever they choose. When confronted by me, they always fold . . . always. And it might not have even been me they were messing with. I have had friends tell me, Look, AG, life is too short. You can't take on all of the a**holes. They worry about me, but I like to think that I have nothing to lose and so how about we go for it.

I would go on and on but I don't want to crash the web. I want to leave room out there for someone to download a movie or two.

OK, so this has become a rant -- a stream of consciousness. Think Ginsberg and Howl.

LeeLee was saying that she got a counselor who guided her and loved her and all. Someone that brought her, so to speak, in from the cold. If only.

You, whoever "you" might be, may say, AG, you need to find a shrink that will put you on some exotic meds. And, to make a long rebuttal short, I might, with all due respect, suggest that you slip off into a closet and suck eggs. Or as Steve Martin might suggest, "Put a live chicken in your underwear."

And so here I am, to help when I can, and if multiple feedbacks are any indication, I have. And I am here to be helped. To be brought in from the cold myself.

I feel warm about Robby, I feel warm about my LeeLee. They are sweet to me. I love my Cow but . . . . . I am ready to accept any of you and be accepted by any of you. I feel warm about many strangers here. And then for some of the others of you . . . we shall see.

Other than that I have no reflections on the matter. :-)

I am sorry, bunny. What did you ask? :-)

AG

AddictGuy

So, now, all of you, tell us all something about yourselves that hurts forever and yet you tell no one.

Gilmer

Very difficult.

courage2

AG, to rattle one's status quo is healthy, if status is painful or sick. I appreciate your bravery in posting. SR is usually a safe place to do it -- I expect we've all had a some odd experiences here, but I've had very few relationships here that bordered on the unsafe, and that was due to my lack of boundaries, not SR.

You write about anger and fear, emotions that can drive self-destructive substance abuse to dangerous places. Are you doing anything (besides posting here, which is a good step in itself) to work on yourself and how you relate to the sources of your anger & fear? I've been trying to rethink many of my old assumptions about myself and my life, so that I can move forward. It seems like as long as I look at my self and my past in the same old way, my self and my whole surroundings (which bear the imprint of all my past) are triggers. Avoiding people places and things isn't enough, I have to (persistently) confront and somehow reimagine myself. Still working on that

I don't think anyone here myself included has suggested meds for you. Or disrespected you. Although I advise you not to expect the gentle treatment I'm doling out now on a regular basis. We're a clan of oddballs and we squabble among ourselves and tease.

As for confessions, I'll pass. As Gilmer says, it's difficult, and I don't think it would be helpful to me.

walkbeformakrun

Hey Bunny,

Being averse to taking meds is only part of the problem. The other part is that when you are dealing with someone as forgetful as me (I forgot my wallet again today) you run the risk of falling into a drunken state simply by forgetting to take the meds. Unless I build up some secondary line of defense. It is just not all that safe for me to rely upon the meds for this.

RobbyRobot

I think honestly sharing amongst ourselves is importantly cathartic to whatever degree may result. I also think it's not always so though across the board for every facet of our lives. I have not shared everything of myself on SR, or anywhere else of a public nature actually. Some things are best left unsaid on a public recovery forum. Knowing what to not share is as importantly critical as knowing what is worth sharing, imo.

So yeah, as Gilmer has already said, "very difficult" indeed.

Gilmer

I have shared some personal stuff in the past--not here, but on other threads. The reason I shared it was to try to help others who were struggling, but I felt dirty afterward, as if I'd puked all over the board. Plus, the story involved other people in my life, and I didn't feel I was being fair to them, amplifying a section in their history that they'd long since overcome. Some old wounds are better left in the past.

People on my SR haunts generally have a pretty good idea of who I am. About some things, loose lips sink ships. I am content with things as they are. This is a very safe and happy place for me. I don't want to torpedo my sanctuary with my own hands!

RobbyRobot

Hi AG,

I'm thinking dynamics of self-love and self-loathing certainly effect our positive or negative appreciation of responsible ownership of our own lives. I know about not loving myself. I remember all too easy. I made myself out to be judge, jury and executioner all-in-one. This created serious guilt, shame, blame, and fed my anxieties to no end. I believed myself to be justified in my hatreds. In-house justifications are slippery slopes at best I've learned whilst turning my life around. For me, I absolutely believe self-loathing is a learned skill.

Self-love is a different story. Self-love brings complications of selfishness and self-centeredness into play, imo. I appreciate LOVE as an external living power (GOD). I am responsible to my appreciation as a Christian. Self-love is not at odds with my personal agnostic philosophy, as much as it is at odds with my core identity of existential self. A little self-love goes a long way is what I'm saying. Too much, and things turn steadily south. Less is more, for me anyways.

As for soul, this for me is not something that is a part of me, rather I am within the boundaries of my soul. Nonetheless, my soul is mine to own or mine to disown by free choice. By selling my soul, I meant I disowned my responsibility for my own life.