Bubovski

Now in my seventies I drank to varying degrees for over fifty years.
What a waste, what a paradox, what delusionary behaviour!

Many recovering alcoholics speak of experiencing a whole new domain
as their sobriety increases.What was seen as boring in the past may take
on whole new dimensions of interest.
I too have experience this phenomenon and see fit to maintaining such.
After all those damning decades change is most refreshing and 'time' an elusive but marvellous commodity.

EndGameNYC

Admirable, to say the least.

EndGameNYC

This thread reminds me of new people to SR who complain that at twenty, thirty, fifty, sixty years of age and beyond, something like, "What's the us of getting sober? I've wasted my life, and it's almost over."

One time, a friend of mine was complaining that she hated her work and wished she had gone into another field, or had studied something else in college. I asked, "Why not go back to school?" She told me that when she finished in about three years, she'd already be forty-five years old. So I asked her, "How old will you be in three years if you don't go back school?"

jdooner

I also find this topic interesting: http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...e-machine.html

Soberpotamus

That's motivational, EndGame. I remember you posting this last year. Anyway, it stuck in my mind

EndGameNYC

You've got a great memory, Jennie. I thought I might have posted something like that before, but I couldn't remember when or in what context.

Aellyce

Interesting thread and very relevant to my experiences. For me, it wasn't sobriety that changed my perspective of time first drastically, but active addiction. Before alcohol and the strong desire for the associated instant gratification had become a problem, I often struggled with being in the present and enjoying the present moment for its own sake not thinking about anything else. Often "missed the experience" so to speak. Why I got interested in meditation originally, many years ago. I have never been a person who tended to get stuck in the past and/or would dwell on past events much, never had much problem letting old things go, and I am happy to be this way. But before I got trapped in my addiction, I always had a very strong future orientation. It was like every experience, event, piece of knowledge, realization, whatever I did or happened to me, was like being in school, as if everything happened for purposes that would be found and fully realized in the future. The classic "becoming" vs. "being". I was a planning freak, and actually very good at planning, thinking about possible outcomes, contingencies, I loved envisioning the future and trying to believe I can create my future. It wasn't an uncomfortable, anxiety-ridden process, not consciously at least. I enjoyed this future orientation.

Now heavy drinking very seriously tapped into this and damaged it. For a long time, this effect was one of the most painful consequences of my addiction for me: it really interfered with my planning abilities and even the desire for thinking about "what's next" because gradually little else mattered much but getting my buzz daily. I felt that especially my professional life suffered from this because before I was well-known as a person who would always want to initiate new projects and directions, make plans, I also had lots of successes with obtaining funding for projects, etc. I found myself in a vacuum from these as a severe alcoholic, as well as some people around me who were used to my always being someone who would jump in when to planning and envisioning something, and expected this from me. Very, very uncomfortable for me for a long time. I got used to it, though, and with time, I discovered a pretty new way of being - living for the moment. Of course doing this drunk was far from ideal.

So now that I have been sober for several months, I feel that this is getting to another level and to a very pleasant state of balance between enjoying the moment instead of "waiting" for the future to happen, and still being able to make plans again.

All this future orientation is typically associated with anxiety (thinking about the future due to worries and fear of uncertainty). I've always had anxiety, so that makes sense. What does not fit so well is that I experienced the most crippling anxiety during my worst drinking times. So it's more complicated than that... Anyhow, this is how my subjective perspective of time has been affected by my addiction and my sobriety.

Jeremiah2911

What a great thread!!! (Do I hear an echo, echo, echo?). Time is so very precious and, as others have said, i have lost half of my family (we were 6, now we're 3) and my kids and grandkids are growing and life is just flying by. I DO NOT WANT TO LIVE IT DRUNK. I want to enjoy the birth of my next grandchild (3 months). I want to watch and enjoy the changing of the seasons. I want to laugh and laugh with my friends and family AND remember it the next day! If there was one thing that made me CRAZY, it was when my husband would call me and say, "Do you remember what you said to me last night?" ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I don't remember ANYTHING past 8:00! Having to admit that just killed me. I do NOT want to do that every again! TIME IS PRECIOUS...prayers to the families and friends of those teens. Very sad

CAPTAINZING2000

It's less of a percentage of your life each year.
The days seem as long but, the months and years have flown by the older I've gotten
Make each day a great one and you can have fond memories of them.

Aellyce

All this effortless, pleasant, focused, motivated, active "being in the present" reminds me of the Flow concept by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. I love that stuff and how the mental state is explained in his model.

Flow (psychology) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

jdooner

I would add that as time progresses the relativity of time seems to lessen. In other words during the early months the time I got back seemed like I halved my age in relative terms. However, as I have adjusted to what I consider my new normal, the relativity of time seems to have adjusted and reset.

I need to be careful that I don't trade additions and let other activities creep in and fill this time. While healthier than drinking this can easily turn into an addiction. Surfing the web comes to mind.

Aellyce

Let me know if you find a really effective solution, JD!

jdooner

This was my discussion with my therapist today. I am aware of it and now I need to figure out an action plan.

EndGameNYC

I'm sorry, but can you please say that again?

Aellyce

Ha ha ha. I sort of recall you liked European culture?

EndGameNYC

True, but I don't like choking when I attempt to pronounce their names.

aborkie

We all know what alcohol does to our memory. We can't even remember conversations from the night before. When we sober up we can think, remember the past, think about the future et. We are aware again and truly appreciate time and how short our lives are.

bigsombrero

Ding ding ding!

It was a progression, too. My times to "get through" events became longer and longer. As I got heavier into alcohol and depression, I started giving myself way more time to get clean: "Next week I'll start fixing things" became: "In 6 months I'll make some changes". Finally, I was telling myself "In a few years I'll work something out".

When I got clean, my mindset changed. "I just need to get through today" was my early mantra. Today, free of the physical addiction, I think to myself "Just enjoy today" and I am doing a much better job of that! I am done planning out months and years down the line. I am done worrying about what others are doing. I am done measuring myself up to old colleagues and friends. I am simply living each day to the fullest!

Funny thing happened along the way: when I started living for today, my future got a whole lot brighter. Weird how that happened.

Aellyce

I've read through this whole thread now carefully. I definitely also relate to the subjective sense of "time slowing" in sobriety (vs drinking) and for the same reasons that a few of you explained. The other part of it that many of your seem to feel, however... the sense of regret that time in the past was wasted and the panic that time is running out... this I just don't recognize in myself somehow much. I've been thinking about this now for an hour and am trying to be honest. It does make sense that if I don't have a tendency to dwell on the past much and replay old things and regrets intensely, then I don't perceive the past time as "wasted" so much, even the drunken years. That may also be an indication that I am not very prone to depression, which I know... I only experienced lasting depression in my heavy drinking times.

But why don't I have this worry now that time is limited, running out, and possibilities are closing?! It seems to me that it would be a healthy and normal feeling, not necessarily related to addiction/recovery, but aging... and I am not particularly young. Yet this feeling is very vague in my mind. What sort of psychopathology is this then? Or just some form of mental suppression? I really don't know. Anyone?

My father is a lot like this. He is now 83, and just started truly sensing his limits about 2-3 years ago, due to physical decline (mentally he still shows almost no sign of dementia and very little cognitive decline as far as I can tell). He always had like hundred plans for new projects and plenty of ideas for starting and trying things even in his later 70's. I recall getting annoyed sometimes when talking to him in more recent years that he would always ask mainly about my future plans, where do I plan to move next, what will be the next stage of my work, etc.

And recently he seems to just have accepted that suddenly his resources have run out or are getting close to it. Interestingly, when we talk, now he almost always asks me about what I am doing here and now. At first, for a while, I thought it was my selective attention and I was projecting my changes on him, but I truly listen and it seems genuine. He never had addiction problems, never used drugs, very rarely drank. Obviously I imagine that I was strongly influenced by him in my childhood and this strong focus on possibilities and not accepting(?) limits has gotten ingrained in my thinking and my personality in my youth, but I feel it's more than just that and/or some genetic inheritance. I just don't know...

Fly N Buy

Haennie,

Lot's of introspective thought!
The feeling I have at mid 50's is almost like Scrooge in Dickens classic tale. Specifically when the character awakens and asks the boy out the window on Christmas Day, while the fresh (cleansing) snow falls - what day is it? Good I haven't missed it!

While I am vigilant and jealously guard my time - or better yet, freely give it away on trivialities, it is the now that matters. We all die - the peace for me is my faith. Without it, I might be panic stricken. For me earthly trappings and constraints are now just a distraction and mirage.

One more kiss, hug , high five! In the now is all I desire. I yell today - I did not miss it!!

So, if you are not panicked - good! Why should we live in that state!

Peace
Thanks for the helpful responses.