RobbyRobot

Hello Friends and Welcome to our new thread "Authenticity V" which is a continuation of the threads below from last posted to original first:

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ticity-iv.html

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...thread-ii.html

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...icity-iii.html

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ticity-ii.html

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...henticity.html

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ys-thread.html

I'm very appreciative of the amazing contributions and visitors to these threads. I'm humbled and honored.



Robby

Soberwolf

Been waiting for this thread thanks so much Robby

RobbyRobot

Hey y'all

Another great day of opportunities to make the day awesome!

Looks like it's going to be warm and sunny here and so Melissa and I hope to get into the pool this afternoon.

Going out today to purchase some fireworks for Canada Day here July 1st. My three step-sons and their friend is visiting too on Sunday for a few days. Awesome times!

brynn

Good morning Robby and friends.

Hope it's okay to say this, but I'm hanging on to this thread and drawing strength from all of you this weekend. I feel like a leech glomming on to your strength and insight and well, your human-ness.

Sorry if I missed it, but how did your trek to the marina go Robby?

fini

good morning Rob and all of us.
i've been busy with family stuff and it's seriously cut into my cyber-time.

just wanting to say hello; i read every day when i can and soon hope to have more time for contributing.

Another great day of opportunities to make the day awesome!

ja. doing the "awesome" ex-husband amends in about three hours. opportunity. thanks for that ever-helpful perspective. seeing responsibility as opportunity instead of burden makes such a difference.

RobbyRobot

Hi brynn. Yes, its totally okay my friend. Please don't feel like a leech. I know all about deep hurting too. Sure, when we hurt like hell, we often feel we are imposing on others, I know though we don't worry about imposing around here!

Feel as free as you can and share what you will in these threads. As you know, I'm hurting too . So are several others here. It does lighten our burdens to share amongst ourselves.

My trip to the marina was successful. My wheelchair is just a couple of inches too wide to fit the actual dock, so I've come up with a solution which will allow me to get along the 40ft or so to our boat. I'm still too weak in my leg to safely walk the distance, so I'll just hang my leg over the side of the dock and kind of move along sideways, lol. Weird enough, but I can't take a chance I'll fall. In a few weeks I hope to have enough strength in my leg to walk around more "normally"

I'll also have a friend accompany us so he can take over the tiller if for whatever reason I'm too fatigued. It's important my passengers are safe at all times. I'm very grateful I'm not prideful and so I can be honest to myself on my physical limitations and so still enjoy the day's adventure!

A little help from good friends really makes all the difference. Sometimes it's a lot of help.

How are you feeling today brynn?

Soberpotamus

G'morning Rob, Melissa, & Friends

RobbyRobot

Hi fini,

I hope your amends with your ex allow for you to unburden all that which is already past. I'll be thinking of you. Please let us know.

RobbyRobot

Morning Soberpotamus and Wolfie

Soberwolf

Have a wonderful time Captain

brynn

I smiled thinking of you coming up with an alternate way to get to the boat! Well done and quite crafty!

Yeah, pride is overrated....it's cost me way too much in terms of keeping me from asking for help or admitting faults (huge one for me). I'll never forget someone very close to me once saying 'welcome to the human race, Brooke'. It struck me that I must come off as above it all or worse, above other mere mortals, when in fact I'm struggling and flailing like everyone else, it's just happening under the surface. Ugh! Very eye opening.

I know you're hurting, too, Robby....in ways I can't even pretend to fathom. That's one reason I'm drawn here. Not to be a voyeur to your hurt, but to learn how to LIVE while life is happening to us. To learn how to just BE while the storms are swirling in and around us. Those of you that have chosen sobriety for a lifetime and are living deliberately and confidently are the ones I want to emulate and the ones I want to hang with so I can learn how to truly live.

(((Fini)))) thinking of you today and sending you hugs and strength.

Della1968

EndGameNYC

Hello, Robbie and Melissa. And hello to all the people following and contributing to these amazing threads. I have something to say about that, but I'll get my own stuff out of the way first.

I pretty much crashed after my sister got her good news last Thursday. I hit my autopilot switch to get myself through the week, and it worked. (Or maybe it was my reserve tank?) I just wanted to stay home and sleep and have my stunt double take care of my responsibilities. But I'm not an actor, and I don't have a stunt double. What I did was ignore my fatigue, teach my ass off (yes, I live on the edge), and nap a little bit on most days. I also caught up on my work at another job. I've had very little in the way of emotional reserves to offer help for other people these past few weeks, and I need to acknowledge that when it happens. (Otherwise, I'm just acting out in ways that are not helpful for anyone.) I also pushed myself through my training and my workout sessions since I knew this would leave me in a better physical and mental state.

As I wrote previously, my sister told me that she was "given" a max of twelve months to live following her initial diagnosis in March only after she got her good news last week. About her not telling me this, I took into account that she was likely struggling with that prognosis, even trying to dismiss it, and that she was probably also attempting to "protect" me and everyone else in her life from what that meant, given that she told no one. So I didn't push her on this. People in denial need to sit with it for a time before they're ready to deal with it. It's a natural defense against trauma and other potentially overwhelming emotional content, and should only ever be confronted when the person lingers too long; when the protective function of denial turns into a destructive way of living by allowing the person to avoid facing a reality that needs to be addressed.

A couple of days following her good news, and at a moment that seemed "right," I brought up her having withheld information about her prognosis, and I told her that it was a good idea that she tell me were there to be a next time when they "give" her a terminal date for her longevity. She pretty much said that she couldn't even tell herself, and that she didn't want to throw me into turmoil with the news. One of her concerns early on was that I would drink in response to her brain surgery, the presence of small tumors in her brain, her eventual diagnosis of cancer in her lung and a tumor on her adrenal glands, and the dire effects of her chemotherapy. As we all know, people who've never had the experience simply don't know very much about either alcoholism or recovery. I felt confident enough at the time to tell her that my drinking is off the table (it is), and that her being ill only gave me another reason to stay sober though, in reality, I didn't need another reason to stay sober. It's become a way of life for me.

The soap box portion of my post is that, a situation like the one I've described is precisely why we need a plan to both achieve and then protect our sobriety. I mentally give something of a "pass" (although I'm not completely certain what that means) to people who've relapsed following a major triggering event, usually following the death of a loved one. But this is never truly a "pass" in the sense that the person gains absolutely no benefit from having relapsed. It's only another occasion to drink. I've known people who've relapsed several times within the same year because their grandmother died every six-to-eight weeks or so. Or who've had a distant relative who's recently passed away, and by virtue of their death, had suddenly become the most important person in that person's life, even though they don't know his or her name. Or someone they once met several years ago for a total of five seconds who, again, by virtue of dying, became that person's best friend in life, and was therefore another occasion to drink. Dishonesty -- lying -- is always the ugly underbelly of addictions.

"Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters."

This is the now-famous opening sentence in M. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth.

I like the book for what it is and for the message it carries, and not because it’s a great or classic work in psychology or psychiatry. It is not. But Dr. Peck’s "great truth" has slowly and methodically turned from what it is, an immutable reality of the human condition, into an enemy of the people, a reality that must be eradicated in order for us to live a happy life. Any sentiment around the notion that life is not or, worse, should not be difficult, is a denial of being, a renunciation of, a turning away from, if you will, life itself: "Life shouldn’t be so hard." "Why is my life so hard?" "Why is it that everyone else has it so much easier than I do?" It’s Eric Fromm’s Escape from Freedom and, by definition, a repudiation of our responsibility as conscious beings to make the most of what we have. An enactment of Camus’ assertion that ?Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is." It is a crime against Existence and an insult to our basic humanity to make it our goal to avoid suffering throughout life at the cost of living a meaningful life. In terms of living life, there is no easy way out.

My point is, drunk or sober, bad things are always going to happen in life. If our sobriety, our basic humanity, is contingent upon things going well, then we're pretty placing ourselves at the mercy of just about everything we cannot control. Which is substantial. Get a plan, stick with it, and stop looking for reasons (rationalizations) to drink. Life is filled with unwanted circumstances, loss, abuse, neglect, heartache, pain, and suffering, unless you can find a way to avoid all of it. (Locking yourself in your room is only creating your own despair; a type of extended suicide, like having surgery without anesthesia. Death by a thousand cuts, or by being buried alive.) All these unwanted and challenging life events are, at minimum, instructive: they reveal character rather than build it.

The one thing that every failed attempt at getting sober, at living a life with purpose, have in common is the word 'can't'. Or its variation, 'won't'. When we do this, and whether we like it or know it or not, we are thus defining ourselves by our limitations, labeling ourselves as incapable, as disabled, as much as so many people decry the use of labels, whether our limitations are physical or emotional. We label ourselves by what we do, and by what we don't or won't do. We jettison our responsibility to make something of ourselves, of our lives, and therefore surrender our freedom.

. . .

About this thread...

You've given a very rare gift here, Robby. By speaking openly about your process of facing death, you've allowed for everyone else to talk about their gravest issues, the things we don't ordinarily talk about with anyone else or under any other conditions. People have actually wrote things to this extent..."I've never talked about this before..." and such. I suppose that when you're able to talk about your own process of dying, your own death, everything else is fair game. The "ripple effect" in this thread is startling.

There's a truism that goes something along the lines of, "We approach death in the same way that we approached life." You're truly an inspiration, my friend, and you've touched many more people and in so many different ways that none of us can even calculate. None of us who've had the privilege to be a part of your process will ever be the same, and we certainly will not forget.

Soberwolf

Excellent post EndGame

Evening Robby & Melissa

silentrun

"Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters."

NOW you tell me. Great post.

Thinking of you all.

Soberpotamus

My mother used to talk about this book. It's one of those I never picked up and read, for some reason.

I'm glad you posted this, EndGame.

Those opening lines you quoted - that could very well be the defining revelation of my past 2+ years of sobriety It sums it up quite nicely.

trachemys

Every day this thread gets better. Richer, deeper, just better.

And I love it that the guy from Ottowa throws "y'alls" around like a native Southerner. Is Ottowa in southern Canada?

Dee74

Have a great weekend everyone

D

RobbyRobot

Same wishes for you D

Yeah Trach. Ottawa is south-east Ontario. Toronto is more south and like 4 or 5 hrs by car. Ottawa is like 2 hrs from Montreal. I do like that southern talk.

trachemys

I was once described by a californian backpacking partner as "the only person I've ever met that talks nine words a minute". We had a great time together once he learned to pay attention.