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Experiment :)

Old 01-09-2015, 10:50 PM
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Experiment :)

Hi, my beloved Friends.

Here is something I would like to try. I feel good with my sobriety. But I want to try this for the joy of experimenting.

So I won't post until my sobriety 1 year date, Jan 25. There is no SR-related reason, nothing has ever hurt me here or repelled me... everything I've experienced here have been wonderful and, seriously, saved my life. It's really just something I decided to try now

See you all later
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Old 01-09-2015, 11:29 PM
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Enjoy your break Haennie

D
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Old 01-09-2015, 11:41 PM
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I will look forward to reading your one year post.
.....and if you want to reevaluate your experiment and post before the 25th that will be great as well....
Take good care of yourself Heannie....
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Old 01-09-2015, 11:54 PM
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It's a date. See you on the 25th.
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Old 01-10-2015, 12:53 AM
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One year us awesome! I've really appreciated your posts! Good luck
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Old 01-10-2015, 01:04 AM
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Will miss you Haennie, but have a wonderful break.

See you soon
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Old 01-10-2015, 01:29 AM
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See you in two weeks! Everyone needs a little break now and then. Good luck!
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Old 01-10-2015, 01:38 AM
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See you , Haennie!

Enjoy your break, but I will miss you!
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Old 01-10-2015, 03:12 AM
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Will you still be reading, just not posting?

I guess if you're not posting you can't really say!

(You could just thank a post to acknowledge that you're still reading, I suppose.)
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Old 01-10-2015, 03:28 AM
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See you on the 25th, haennie.

I'm no science whiz but I know how results of this experiment are going to read:

Haennie was missed.
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Old 01-10-2015, 04:14 AM
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Enjoy your break Heannie
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Old 01-10-2015, 04:32 AM
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Yes enjoy your break. You may discover you’re not an alcoholic and have more free time. Early on I could easily convince myself of that.

BE WELL
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Old 01-10-2015, 05:27 AM
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Can't wait!

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Old 01-10-2015, 07:47 AM
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Hi Haennie, I feel pretty similar, I'll have 8 months on Monday. I listen more these days rather than post. Congratulations.

Bunnez
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Old 01-10-2015, 03:46 PM
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Thanks everyone for the kind responses and for trusting me. But...

Okay... so here is the content of my unconscious mind (I was really not aware of this during the past few weeks) dissected and turned inside out.

I was told by a good friend on here privately that recovering alcoholics coming up on their first anniversary sometimes get into crazy emotional turbulence around this time. And that it’s common we don’t deal with this properly, and it often leads to relapses. I want to avoid falling into this at all cost, so here, I’m dealing with it and sharing it with you.

I’ve had many crazy thoughts and feelings recently, I think this has also been prevalent in my most recent threads. I’ve also had quite a lot of real life stresses during the past few months. One is my father’s condition that I wrote about on here extensively before, and I will discuss now some others.

I reacted to some posts yesterday in ways that, investigating more closely, reflected much more my own feelings than an “unbiased”, purely helpful comment to the OP. About relapses, or potential relapses. I have not felt this way about the relapse or craving posts for a long time now, and it’s better to honestly take a look at what might be driving my recent fearful reactions. I did not have this sort of relapse fear for a good while now until these past couple weeks -- I guess I'm suddenly scared of my own unconscious impulses and thoughts, initially unaware.

I think my stability and commitment has become a little shaky… There was a recent thread from hearcore a few days ago, I think I’m having somewhat similar feelings: a mix of existential angst, loneliness, not seeing clearly where I want to take my life next, yet a bit of overconfidence and not wanting to be vulnerable (or admitting it). I feel that these things are leading me to a somewhat dangerous ground, even though I don’t have conscious thoughts of drinking or doubts about my alcoholism. I absolutely firmly believe that permanent sobriety is the only way for me, and I don’t want anything to shake this determination. Yet my irrational mind does I guess, and luckily I’ve managed to recognize it with a bit of help.

I think I’m quite proud of my success with sobriety this year, especially given that I’ve never tried this before yet after many years of heavy drinking. I believe that this success is making me a bit complacent. I do recognize the hint of arrogance in my recent mental states and expression. I feel somehow that “I’ve made it” already, so I can get sloppier… yet at the same time I dread failure. I was suggested recently that I go to a few AA meetings now again to help me deal with all this irrationality. I did. I thought I did not have problems accepting that my alcohol addiction was much more powerful than my control... but maybe I still do. So maybe this is why I also thought about getting a sponsor in AA even though I have not used AA much in my recovery so far, and work the steps now. Is that unusual, someone starting after a year with no relapses?

I know I usually have very hard time overcoming failures, when I could not get something to work that I invested a lot into. I tend to have hard time accepting that I am not independent and self-sufficient, because these things were something I used to be so proud of when I was younger, until addiction failed it and changed my entire view on this self-concept and more generally also. But obviously I still have a lot of residual resistance. One good thing about me, I think is that I don't think or believe that I am unique, better, more resourceful, etc than any of the other addicts, regardless of stage of alcoholism, personality, status, whatnot. Despite all my eccentricities, I managed to give up that idea about superiority immediately when I decided to quit drinking and posted on SR my first serious thread, asking people to tell me how to get beyond Day 2. But I think I should get a bit more humble again.

Now the story of this thread. I've been thinking about my "progress" with recovery and am not always happy that I still spend so much time on SR; and while I don't feel like I'm addicted to it, I do sometimes feel it's excessive for this stage. Now this is probably the defense here... the "AV talk".

What happened yesterday (the trigger I did not discuss in this post) is personal life stuff, two things about my relationships, past and present. One is that the woman I was in a relationship with for a few years before I got sober is leaving... we have been close colleagues and collaborators since I moved to NY and it's been one of my best collaborations ever. Independently of the personal relationship we developed, it's been a wonderful complementary work connection, and I'm not only sad that she's leaving but also scared a bit because I'm getting a lot of her responsibilities now, and I don't feel entirely competent in all of it, and there will now be even more people relying on me. The other one is the guy I've been dating recently. I mentioned a bit before on another thread that I think my initial idea/motivation to get into a relationship with him was in part experimental... because I don't usually choose intimate partners the same way, not the ones I really care about at least. But I was thinking to myself, this is safer for now. Now I recognize this as yet another fear of following my heart's natural desire, fear that what I truly like/want will consume me once again. So I'm seeing him because it seemed simpler than a deep involvement, and am getting more and more unmotivated because a core feature of me is that I really don't like superficiality.

But still fighting it. Of course he can see this to a certain extent and his reaction now was to suggest that we go on a little trip together sometime soon, and I try to focus on him more. He knows about SR and suggested that I try to take a little break, we do more things together, etc. So this was supposed to be the "experiment", and I guess I did not explain in my post because I feel uncomfortable with all this, it's not what I truly want...

And I like to preach about authenticity. Ha!

So what do I want to run from? This is easy: my irrational motives. But where can I run from them, really? Yeah, I see now how this may be a straight road to relapse. I don't feel like drinking consciously, but I believe impulses could happen to me, they happen to everyone.

I think I'm angry at my irrational mind’s wishes. I'm angry at the lack of freedom to control my feelings and/or change them as I want.

Okay, so this is it, it’s out now and I feel a lot better. Not yet sure about how to resolve the practical issues that are part of this state of mind, eg. that I’m in conflict in myself about the amount of time I am spending here on SR. One idea I had was to now keep going to meetings for a while, so that might provide a dose of novelty, still serving the same purpose. But at the same time, it may not be a great idea to downplay something (SR) that has been working for me so beautifully. Can’t decide whether this is a healthy motive or an obsession I should tackle. But no, I won’t do the experiment as far as not posting for two weeks, it’s not a good project.

Thanks for listening, and I’m sorry about all the madness and the length of this post, but I guess that’s what the first year of recovery entails and it’s totally normal.

All this just reminded me of some discussion on SoberJennie's thread yesterday about authenticity, and what I said there... it is true that being true to myself is infinitely easier for me, and the opposite is very anxiety-inducing. Feeling a lot better now!
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Old 01-10-2015, 07:37 PM
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I spend a lot of time on SR too, not sure why. I don't like to believe in the ****** of "every" and "all" , that things always happen to everyone. When and if they happen to me it must be coincidence, because I am different and unique. I actually mean that , but the more coincidences like this that occur makes me think I may need to reevaluate that stance, still not convinced I will ever change my bias, but it may be worth investigation. It may be that I just never really considered "others" , or at least didn't pay attention to the fact that "their stuff" could be just as unique as mine, and somehow be similar. Anyways, right around my big 12 month mark, I decided for whatever reason to get a tattoo. I had never really entertained the idea, but then I did and my avatar is the result. Maybe it was the year mark jitters and I dodged a bullet in the way of deciding to drink , instead went a little crazy with ink.
Not sure if there is a point coming, just that SR for me has haennie in "it" and I would notice the difference.
Wish you well
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Old 01-10-2015, 08:28 PM
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Hi dwtbd... aw thank you for the kind words

I like tattoos... and I've wanted one in my whole life but never happened, because I never felt confident enough that I would always like the image. Had many ideas. Well, maybe I should finally get one for my anniversary, like you, to reward myself in a harmless way

On uniquness: well, we are all individuals for sure. To be honest, I am pretty aware that I have many features to my personality and thinking style that stands out from the crowd... it's been like this in my whole life. And because of this (I think), I never actually wanted to be unique the way many people crave being special. I don't wish this but has been getting a lot of attention in my whole life for my eccentricities and not being afraid of "being myself" this way. But in the context of addiction... I truly don't think that my addiction is unique, or my success with recovery so far is unique. Probably I feel this way also because I study addiction as a job and see the common features both behaviorally and also in how it works in the brain, affecting the same mechanisms. But yeah it does interact with individual genetic background, so it is indeed a bit different for everyone as well.

I think at this point my main conscious motivation to spend so much time on SR is because I genuinely enjoy reading all the stories and getting involved in so many interesting interactions. Being surrounded by hundreds of people so interested in personal development is also extremely attractive to me, I've always been into this also regardless of my alcoholism and recovery. I never once found anything disturbing or hurtful for me here, the way many people apparently feel sometimes. It's just that I sometimes feel I should spend a bit of the SR time and energy with working more on my 3D life now, or enjoying that more. But as I wrote above, when I tried recently, my heart drives me back to SR. Well, I say "my heart"... but in fact it's my brain, I do crave this, not the way I used to crave alcohol, more as I like some of the things that I like very much in other areas of my life. One of the reasons why I got into that relationship I mentioned was to potentially find something that could compete some of this out... being physical 3D reality and such. But from all I feel, it does not seem to be competitive. Oh well, at least I'm not fooling myself that I'm crazy for someone when I am not.

I've decided that I won't fight myself much for the time being. If this is what I want, so be it. SR won't threaten my life like alcohol did. I may just restructure a bit the time I spend here, designate specific time intervals each day.
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Old 01-11-2015, 08:44 AM
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Don't stand me up Haennie on the 25th

As always I figured there was a very good and well thought out reason, "It's Haennie, this has had some thought put into it"!!

See you soon!!
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Old 01-11-2015, 12:25 PM
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haennie always kind words for you , as to my conundrum I think it is a matter of switching 'unique' and its connotations with 'discrete' and its. That may do the trick
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Old 01-13-2015, 09:33 AM
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For those that read my long rambles on this thread: I just found out where my ex-gf is going in her professional life. This is her last week with us, and I'm organizing a farewell party for her for Friday... have been brainstorming with colleagues in the past few days about gifts to get her for her leaving. So we are getting a small sculpture that symbolizes both the group we were, and her breaking out -- handy now that I met a bunch of artists via my current bf We are also getting a "miniature garden" from a florist.

So where is she going? Brain and body imaging in a private company! I'm totally floored and so happy for her being able to make this move. Just what I fancied several years ago, when I wanted to work on consciousness. I'm so excited about the Friday celebrations also. Just wanted to share it with you here
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