Tippingpoint

I do have to concur with the sentiment of your post Frances. I'm very thankful to be part of this group where the common themes are of moving forward and more typically positive.

While I sometimes appreciate a good reminder of how thing once were, I have to say that I've been finding the Newcomer and Alcoholism threads to be a bit of a grind to get through these days. And while I appreciate that these folks need support and encouragement, I just don't think that it is good for me to try and fill that role.

I have all the love and respect in the world for those that do - Dee for example - I just find that, at least for now, I think I'd rather be looking forward rather than back.

I just got home from a fast 7k run and I'm relaxing in the hot tub with an ice cold Perrier. Have a great weekend everyone!

Tippingpoint

Brilliant stuff!

What can you tell us relative neophytes about year 3 vs year 2 vs year 1.

I'd love to hear your perspective!

Rusty Zipper

Itchy

FBL,
Congrats bud. I gotta tell ya that time is flying! You had about what I have now when I first came here to SR and sober about a week. Now you have three. Being sober is now my norm. I have no dreams about alcohol and no cravings. I don't know about you but I am no longer feeling at risk or at effect. Now my life is back to my norm of being at cause, not effect. I see the same or similar in your posts. It seems to have happened years ago and it did seemingly when I wasn't looking.

Itchy

Tipping,
I almost left SR twice, not in a huff, but because I felt much like you do about newcomers. I als was sick and tired of the fear and tired resignation you could read between the lines of the chronic relapsers until I realized they had never quit and were just taking a break. I quit.

Manz

I sit here reading all of the inspiring posts, the satisfaction you all have about where you are in your lives, looking forward....... a great sense of comfort for where you all are and it makes me feel soo pleased for you all. Yay!

I also sit here with a feeling that there is a hole in my happiness that doesn't seem to fill up despite the fact that I truly to see all the wonderful small things I have. In my head (logic) I list all of these wonders daily, and honestly am so thankful for all of them and that I am able to appreciate them sober. I love the fact that I am doing many things that bring me a feeling of giving back. But in my gut (emotionally) I feel like weeping sometimes because of this sense that something is missing. I guess that may always be there no matter how much I fill my life up with rewarding things, with all those simple moments that make me smile....like Weeman's smile and lettuce from my garden in winter. I am going to hope that the feeling goes and quick smart, and that the hole will be filled soon with all the work I am doing on me.

Ok, sorry to offload, but sometimes it is easier to do it here because there is not anyone that I would like to do it with here in the real world.

I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend, my Saturday was spent on a bake stall that Weeman's school class was holding to raise money to save the local old elephant from death, but rather send her to a retirement village for old zoo critters. Weeman and I baked 2 dozen cookies and 2 dozen muffins to boot!!

ReadyAndAble

Yep, I know about that feeling. I guess everyone does sometimes, but I have definitely felt it at a very intense level. Maybe the biggest thing I've realized as part of recovery is that perception is everything. I used to hate Sundays because that's when my daughter headed back to her mom's house for a few days. I drank extra heavy on Sundays. All I could see was this giant hole in my life. Now it's different. Now I view her time away as a chance to focus on my wants, needs, and responsibilities, which in turns makes it easier to be completely focused on her when she's here. I think the joint custody arrangement is working really well. And the thing is, absolutely nothing has changed. Nothing except me.

Dee74

The only thing I have to offer is the hoary old observation that when the time is right someone or sometimes some thing comes along...

I know it's not much but I believe it, I've experienced it - and it's better than 'plenty of fish in the sea'

D

Rusty Zipper

for me, what i have come to see, is that all holes can be filled

it's what their filled with that really matters

a blessed day to you all

instant

I have been learning of late that emotions do ebb and flow, but there is something underneath that acknowledges that reality, and allow me to count the blessings. The good times when they are around are wonderful.

Never had much need for emotions when I was drinking.

But tonight is DVD night with the family, I can quietly celebrate the freedom

FBL

Thanks all for the well-wishes on my sober journey. At first I thought I could never make it 3 days, let alone 3 months. Three years seemed so far away that I couldn't even conceive it, yet here I am. Alcohol turned me into a negative, bitter, paranoid, self-loathing person that I grew to detest. Since getting sober I've re-discovered what I feel is the real me -- an optimistic, caring, fun-loving person. I feel comfortable in my own skin for the first time in my adult life. I sometimes wish I would've done this years ago, but what's done is done. I like to think that all those wasted years were a lesson that I needed to learn. I believe that life is what we make it. I never want to go back to being that person that I was when I was drinking.

frances2011

"Being in cause, not effect" <---wow. Thank you Itchy.

CONGRATS to FBL....three years! I can't wait to discover what's ahead for me.

******{Manz}}}} I am holding a bright light to add light to your journey. I believe that the awareness of wanting, desiring, something more for ourselves...in a humble, knowing, hard-working, way.....sends a beacon to the Universe. I made a Christmas wish on a star on Christmas Eve 1998.....to find True Love....and it came true.

I am glad for our Overs thread and I'm lucky that my monthly thread is strong.

I relate to how tough a place Newcomers can be to visit. I never thought about "haven't quit" versus "relapse" like Itchy said. Sometimes I find inspiration there and wisdom and new friends.

Off for a SHORT run. Yay.

Tippingpoint

I think that there is a lot of truth to this. I was going through my old June 2011 thread last night and clicking on the profiles of some of the great people that were in that thread that have disappeared - primarily with the hope that one or more of them had found their way back...but they haven't.

Itchy

Everybody seems to be where they need to be on their journey to where we want to be. I learned long ago that when I start to feel like I was not getting my needs met, that it wasnt that I was not enough, but that I was too much.

I went to college full time at 30 years old on a break in service to get my first degree and a commission as an officer. My first was psych, and I was "discovered" by the head of the student well health clinic (counseling) and was trained and became a paraprofessional counselor staffing my clients to the PhD who was my mentor. I was very good and enjoyed it, doing everything from crisis intervention to marriage counseling. It was interesting to note that we were forbidden to take any addiction clients as they were long term and we were a well health short term clinic. We referred out to AA and NA so I knew nothing about all the controversy as it was 1982 when I started counseling. I was however very experienced and gained practical experience with RET which I combined with Reality Therapy very successfully. I also drew from both humanism and behaviorism which many consider to be mutually exclusive. They aren't.

I learned a great deal from my clients. Several powerful truths that could have been very seminal in some areas like Maslow and Piaget and their theories.

The largest single issue we dealt with was loneliness. Since most of the clients in any counseling situation that is voluntary, and for loneliness issues almost exclusively women, I discovered things I wish I knew when I was a teenager.

We had a large non-traditional (read older adults going back to school) student population so as many as half of my clients were my age or older.

The first surprise I had was that the best looking women at the school had many more problems with lonliness, and not because they were conceited about it. It seems that they ended up with many shallow relationships. Rather than falling into stereotypes I began to see a trend and began to ask questions that pretty much verified several things. First that many of the people considered the best looking most attractive are not really aware of how attractive others see them as being. This was true for both male and female
clients. In trying to understand why they keep getting short term relationships and one night stands I began to see that all of the women had a common denominator in that they were attracted to men who had an element of danger. They even sometimes used the term "bad boys!"

When we examined what they wanted it was a long term relationship with Mr. Right. Every time. But bad boys by definition are never going to be the gentle nice guy. And certainly not going to be gentle and kind and thoughtful beyond to get what they want. And I see the same boys/men bragging or doing just that.

With each we would write down their template, the cookie cutter that they applied to men that they were attracted to, and determined if the "type" that they found exciting and were receptive to further interaction was likely or not to be the type they would want stay with after one exciting good time. So I would assign their homework to do and report back on the following week to engage some guys she would normally not be attracted to.

Before jumping to conclusions no, they did not have to engage dirty, smelly, ugly to them or anything else they found repulsive. The object was to design a new template by intentionally getting to know some of the quieter wallflower type less dramatic guys and using them to find visual cues as well as personality traits that might combine physical attraction with the gentle loving side.

Like alcoholics who keep doing the same thing over and over when it does not work, people do that when trying to meet people for more life and fun things beyond the shallow. We don't necessarily choose our same sex friends for their looks or being vad and unpredictable. We won't find a friend and partner with some if the templates some people use for their life choices.

When I find myself feeling that something is missing, I first look at my templates, and my expectations and check my premises. It is irrational to expect a long term resposible relationship from someone who attracts us with their craziness and lack of responsibility.

Many times in life I also find myself having unrealistic expectations. Expecting another to make me whole is not realistic. Or expecting my sobriety to somehow make my life better, when in fact ir only gives us the opportunity to look in the mirror and make only the changes that are likely to help us get what we want. I need my sobriety to be able to move in a different way than before. Sometimes the scariest things aren't the bad things, or remorse. Once I think in terms of my own premises, the scariest things are the things that are again seeming possible, but from failing and drinking the failures away, I find I am afraid to try.

Long ago I learned all about how long term relationships are unlikely when my expectations do not meet my selections.

I am desiging the most important relationship in my life now, and my sobriety is essential so I can have a long term relationship with myself, and like me.

So it is even more important that I don't select only for excitement and danger, nor that I think less of myself for not being the best or comparing myself with any other. I gained some wisdom in my alcoholism, both things I will never do again, and other things like being gentle and quiet for another in distress so my serenity enfolds them unconditionally.

I need sobriety to find serenity, and get it back when I misplace it. Because my biggest lesson from my detour through alcoholism is that happiness is a dynamic always fluid and sometimes elusive. Sober I can accept peace in the betweens, and not drink myself into not caring to regain happiness, when we want to.

None of us needs to be happy to survive, we have all proven that. We do need it occasionally to have a full life. Just as we don't need sorrow, but we want to know how to survive it, and hope of happineess again, like the sun follows the long dark winter night, cycles back just like we remembered it.

instant

Thanks FBL. I am noticing that I feel more comfortable just being around others, I am less driven, and more accepting of the natural flow of things.

It's amazing to think that your three years started with uncertainty and fear of 'not lasting'.

Tippingpoint

Saturday night.

My oldest son is having a sleepover...4 of his best friends. They're in sleeping bags in the basement. Lots of giggles and laughter drifting upstairs - lots of silly, good fun.

It takes me back to my own youth...times of innocence. Those 16 years or so before I discovered alcohol and before it became such a big part of my experiential consciousness.

I often think of this last year in those terms...a return to innocence.

I'm just sitting here trying to remember how long my Mum would let us carry on like idiots before she'd finally come down and yell it us to get to sleep? I figure I'll give them another half hour or so...

Dee74

until you reach this point LOL



D

LDT

I love what you said, Tipping ..... " a return to innocence". That's exactly how I've felt. Perfect way to describe my sober journey so far. Thanks

Manz

Yes I also like that "a return to innocence". Returning to a time where I was like a child, accepting, believing and caring in others and myself, not concerned with "mights or maybe"...just being and enjoying the now.

R&A.... thanks. I too feel this hole when I drop Weeman to his dads, but now it is not always, just sometimes. and I know that the sometimes will stretch far far apart. but when the feeling hits ...... I really feel it deeply.

Ah well, this is how we grow.....or how I grow anyway. Experiencing the "pain" and learning more about myself along the way.

BTW.....

ReadyAndAble

Ha, I like that guy, Manz!

Super thought-provoking stuff, folks. It really is a second childhood in many ways—certainly I have a sense of wonder and appreciation that I haven't experienced in many years. Taking myself and my life less seriously, too.

Thanks Itchy—that's exactly my thinking of late. There are very few things in my life that I can control. But I'm beginning to realize that I can often control how I view them. And changing how I view something is in some ways more satisfying than if I had changed the thing itself.

I often think about these words from Woodie Guthrie: