Oh Well? Part 2
 

Continues from here:
https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...o-well-21.html

D

Re: Oh Well? Part 2
 

Most of the site issues seem fixed. Let me know if there are still bugs :)

D

Re: Oh Well? Part 2
 

Will do. Thanks, Dee!

A Day in the Life of O
 

Part 1 of How it Is In Sober Living - The List
This is my whiteboard list:
...AM- Meditate- Intentions- Chore- Breakfast- Meds
...Noon- Lunch- Walk ...PM- Dinner- Meeting- Gratitude List- Inventory- Meds

Re: Oh Well? Part 2
 

yes, bugs. just lost a whole post using quick reply when message told me it was too short and i tried to go back

Re: Oh Well? Part 2
 

I'm still having issues with formatting, particularly inserting blank lines.
Just cleared cookies and restarted my phone. Didn't help. Well, it did eliminate weird characters that were being inserted. :kiss:And allowed an emoticon.
Now I'm on my laptop, having gone through the same clear cookies, reboot routine.
Using Chrome. Thinking that might be different than what happens in Explorer.

Re: Oh Well? Part 2
 

Alrighty then, in Explorer.
Testing to see how this works.

Fingers crossed! :)

Conclusions: Chrome and Explorer are doing ok on my laptop after clearing cookies and reboot. However, I still can't get line spacing to work.
On the up-side, I don't wind up with run-on paragraphs that I get when posting on my android phone.

Re: Oh Well? Part 2
 

That'll be $1, please. 50 cents for 20 minutes labor, premium pay for testing on a Saturday.

A Day in the Life of O
 

As I mentioned previously, it's not easy for me to accomplish my simple whiteboard list. It's simple, but not easy. Some days I don't have much focus, others I just get lazy. I do hit the majority of the list every day, though, and I think that's pretty good. It's really nice when I get it all done - I feel accomplished and proud of myself. I consistently take my medication, do my chore and attend a meeting (have to! it's a rule!),and eat at least two meals/day. Running around 75% on walking and meditating, but closer to 80-90% on meditation, intentions, inventory and gratitude list. That's all right. Rather than sabotaging myself and adding new things to the list to not get done, I am sticking with what I've got until I'm consistent with these nominal but vital tasks.

The house manager is a bit high strung. Not to say anything aside from giving you a sense of her: She's just over a year sober, 37 years old, separated from her husband due to alcohol compounding other issues, and works in IT. But is so not a nerd. At All. When I first got here, she really had her boot on my neck and I inadvertently crossed her a couple of times. Since then, we're all good. She doesn't bother me and I don't bother her. What I see is a person who puts enormous pressure on herself to do everything right and who is afraid of getting close to any of us. I understand. She's been burned before by women living in the house that she thought were friends; when she had to correct them on some house rule or another, it seems they copped a super-special bad attitude because of that "friendship." So I just try to be a decent person and available when she (infrequently) wants to vent.
There is a 22 year old living in the basement who has close to six months sober. She and I seem very similar in temperament, but she's more... pliable than I am. We both take medication for anxiety and depression and both suffer from the "not good enough" syndrome. And we're both working on it. I like her quite a bit.

Until yesterday, the only other person living in the house proper has been a woman who was in rehab #1 at the same time I was. She's 30, I think, and pretty immature. Everything sucks, she scoffs at the job she got (it's a big come-down)... she's just negative. But peppy. So that's a little weird. I deal with her as if she's eldest because they are very similar.

A new woman moved in yesterday. She's sharing the room with Ms Negative and has really been humbled by her last relapse which was apparently the week before last. She and I have had some really great conversations already.




There is an apartment upstairs where two women who used to live in the house now live. I believe one is 8 months sober and the other is just over a year. I like them both. It's funny/interesting that the woman with the longer sobriety seems much less secure in herself than does the other. But she also has man problems, so that'll do it.

Oh my, I just previewed this post and it's not pretty.
Doing so introduces those peculiar A characters and keeps them. Oy
I just cleaned up and hope it sticks. Either way, I'm going to start a new post because this one is going to drive me batty if I try too hard to make it perfect-looking.

Bugs
 

It appears to me that if I were to go edit that last post, I'd end up with one big paragraph again, so that's not happening. :)

Re: Thanks Techies!
 

Posted in the Technical forum some further findings:

1. Thanks to a suggestion by Dee over in that Thanks Techies! thread, I found that switching to the "NextGen" skin (lower left hand corner, just under "forum jump") resolves my random character and double-spacing issues. However ALL text is now bolded.

2. At least in this particular interface, "Quick Reply" is missing a place to type your quick reply so results in a message that my post needs to be at least one character. :)

Thought you'd be interested - at least fini. :)

Sober Living
 

When I asked at rehab what the benefit would be to me when the recommendation of going to a sober living home, I never got a satisfactory answer. I got definitions. You'll be living in a place with other newly sober women. You'll be held accountable and tested. Ok, I get that, I know that. But how is it going to prevent me from getting a wild hair, going out of my mind, driving to the liquor store and then driving home with bottle in hand? No response.

What they didn't tell me and perhaps couldn't have known to tell me is that living here is a very practical physical 24/7 manifestation of my determination to be sober. That I'd develop s sense of obligation to this little community to do the right thing. That I'd learn lessons in humility by doing things that are completely unnecessary on the surface but make a difference in my soul. Things like sweeping and swiffering the wood floors every day, even when there's not a crumb on them because I did it yesterday and we're all very tidy. Things like writing where I'm going on the whiteboard and wiping it off when I return (I could be lying, but I don't). Things like having to attend a meeting every day in the company of a "senior" member of the house, though you can trust me to attend AND pay attention. But really, the bottom line is that I am simply here. It's a constant reminder of my purpose. It keeps the focus in the right place. Like in rehab, I'm not much concerned with the stresses I feel at home - gotta mow, oughta paint, the carpet is awful and should be replaced, etc. (Though I do need to mow the lawn at some point...) I live in a clean, safe home that's only reason for existence is to help women in early sobriety.

So, Snazz, it's good. If there were 10 women in the house (the capacity) rather than 5, it would likely be a different story. Our chances of getting a dud or two would increase, bringing with it all of that female drama. But I landed here at a good time. It seems that people who were drinking when this thing began are mainly continuing to drink, some of those that were sober have started up again, and a very small minority are looking into recovery right now. Sad for them, tragic really. But it's good for me. Living here is a perfect balance of solitude and socialization. I can hide out in my room if I choose to do so, but haven't since my first weekend here. Weekend days, it's not unusual for just one or two of us to even be in the house. During the week, I work from here but make an effort to move around - a couple of hours in my room and then a couple of hours in a common area.

Silver linings abound. :)

Re: Oh Well? Part 2
 

Thanks Ob. Just what I was going to type.
I don't particularly like the Next Gen styles but they do seem to have the most functionality right now.

D

Mr Text
 

Ok, one more post and I think I'm caught up!

Mr Text has remained backed off. Although I can't bring myself to completely ignore his text (or sometimes 2) per day, I have deliberately held off on responding for hours, mostly along the lines of "You have a good one too." Sometimes I forget altogether and I've altogether left off responding to the night text when there is one.

Remembering he only texts, you might imagine how taken aback I was that he called yesterday evening. I didn't respond, but his voice message said "Please call me back when you have a minute if you can." And when I did, he told me that one of the guys in our AA circle had died and this is a message he'd never leave on voicemail or send by text. No idea exactly what happened, we'd both seen him recently in online meetings and he seemed fine. The guy was only 63.

So sad. We can't even go to a funeral. The good news is that he'd been sober for a good long while and had reconciled with his kids and his ex-wife and got to know his grands. That's a pretty good place to leave things if one has to leave. Maybe when this is all done we can have a memorial service for him.

Anyhow, I think the Mr Text thing (if there ever was a thing) is no longer a thing. So that's good. Because I wouldn't like to hurt his feelings or embarrass him in any way. He's a good man.

Thanks! But no "Thanks"
 

This interface is also missing the "thanks" button.
:(

Thanks, Dee

Re: Oh Well? Part 2
 

well, there is the immense issue of having turned into a question mark!

Re: Oh Well? Part 2
 

the sober house experience sounds perfect, looking from here.
love all your descriptions and insights and enumerating of silver linings that are not at first discernible.
am now trying the gen-skin whatever; typing in it, the font is too tiny.
and i do jot intend to keep posting with a giant question mark!

Re: Oh Well? Part 2
 

Hey Fini

I'm find the Classic Desktop Next Den skin to be the closest to fully functional right now - the font is tiny but I hope we might be able to get some choice in that eventually.

'WOL' is pretty close to fully functional too and more familiar.

You currently don't have an avatar chosen.

Give it a go instead and see what happens?

Re: Oh Well? Part 2
 

Haha. Fini, I'm a question mark too and I find comfort in knowing we are both questions marks. It was a little alarming at first. Like, a big HUH making me question my relevance. Lol. But I'm growing attached to the enigmatic nature of it all.

More User Testing
 

I'll post this observation over in the tech thread, but I also just noticed that the "NextGen" skin doesn't stick for subsequent log-ins. Almost lost an entire post before I noticed/remembered. Also, I tried to get fancy when I noticed and switch skins right there to edit. My post then "disappeared," but thankfully was still there when I hit the back arrow.