Am I making a mistake?
Member
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: middle of nowhere
Posts: 2,849
Oh my goodness, what a poor business approach if that's what she's going for. :/ and just plain tactless.
Try not to worry about what she said and feel good about yourself and how far you've come. Some people lack sensitivity and common sense.
Try not to worry about what she said and feel good about yourself and how far you've come. Some people lack sensitivity and common sense.
Member
Join Date: May 2012
Location: US East Coast
Posts: 14,287
Originally Posted by thomas11 
...
She said I looked gray and my skin tone is poor. Here I've been doing everything I can to restore my health, she comes and smashes it to pieces in 1 minute flat.
She said I looked gray and my skin tone is poor. Here I've been doing everything I can to restore my health, she comes and smashes it to pieces in 1 minute flat.
Member
Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: Midwest
Posts: 4,860
This forum is exactly for what you described, Jeff: feedback and counsel.
As others have noted, only you can really know deep down whether it's OK to go to a bar. I don't really have to answer that question for myself because I reached a point in my life where the bars are something my peers outgrew. I think that happens at my age.
I would offer this. We all need camaraderie and a social gatherings. I've been feeling that a bit myself lately as I've not been doing much of it. So I get the human need to be around friends and engage in friendly conversation.
That said, you've drank a couple times -- admittedly, that's not a lot -- when you've been in social settings where others were drinking. And, when all is said and done, bars are for serving drinks you cannot get in places like Caribou or Starbucks.
So that's my way of saying I'd be darn careful. When the benefits and risks are considered, I think the risks outweigh the benefits.
When you're feeling like you want company, how 'bout getting the gang together for a weekend breakfast, the kind where friends can linger over coffee? It's one way of meeting the needs to socialize without putting yourself in a place that might not be good for you.
As others have noted, only you can really know deep down whether it's OK to go to a bar. I don't really have to answer that question for myself because I reached a point in my life where the bars are something my peers outgrew. I think that happens at my age.
I would offer this. We all need camaraderie and a social gatherings. I've been feeling that a bit myself lately as I've not been doing much of it. So I get the human need to be around friends and engage in friendly conversation.
That said, you've drank a couple times -- admittedly, that's not a lot -- when you've been in social settings where others were drinking. And, when all is said and done, bars are for serving drinks you cannot get in places like Caribou or Starbucks.
So that's my way of saying I'd be darn careful. When the benefits and risks are considered, I think the risks outweigh the benefits.
When you're feeling like you want company, how 'bout getting the gang together for a weekend breakfast, the kind where friends can linger over coffee? It's one way of meeting the needs to socialize without putting yourself in a place that might not be good for you.
p***enger
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: NYC
Posts: 19,044
Hi Jeff. I'm with Scott on this. If you don't feel odd about the bar visit, why did you post about it? When I think and overthink a situation about alcohol, I know it's my alcoholism that's bothering me.
At this point, for me, a couple of years sober, hanging out with people who are drinking is ok briefly, once in a while. Bars are never my first choice in where to meet, and I try to be proactive by making lunch and coffee invites. If I'm tired or stressed or feeling sorry for myself, those aren't good times to experiment with a bar atmosphere.
It's not that I'll drink there -- it's just the experience will take up more headspace than I want.
At this point, for me, a couple of years sober, hanging out with people who are drinking is ok briefly, once in a while. Bars are never my first choice in where to meet, and I try to be proactive by making lunch and coffee invites. If I'm tired or stressed or feeling sorry for myself, those aren't good times to experiment with a bar atmosphere.
It's not that I'll drink there -- it's just the experience will take up more headspace than I want.
Guest
Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: Northwest
Posts: 4,215
Oy, your neighbor...
I had a guy walk into the store where I worked, give me a big flirty smile, lean closer, stare deeply into my eyes...and say, "Wow you have a lot of toxicity marks in your eyes." Turned out he was referring to the fact that I have blue eyes with brown flecks (family trait) and in his infinite back-to-nature, hippie wisdom, those flecks were signs of toxins. Stoner idiot.
But I share this because that incident was...drumroll...40 years ago and it still grinds me a bit, mostly because I just stood there and took it. So the next time your neighbor, who apparently also went to Birkenstock Medical School, offers her opinion, challenge her rudeness.
Sheesh.
I had a guy walk into the store where I worked, give me a big flirty smile, lean closer, stare deeply into my eyes...and say, "Wow you have a lot of toxicity marks in your eyes." Turned out he was referring to the fact that I have blue eyes with brown flecks (family trait) and in his infinite back-to-nature, hippie wisdom, those flecks were signs of toxins. Stoner idiot.
But I share this because that incident was...drumroll...40 years ago and it still grinds me a bit, mostly because I just stood there and took it. So the next time your neighbor, who apparently also went to Birkenstock Medical School, offers her opinion, challenge her rudeness.
Sheesh.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2015
Location: USA
Posts: 701
Your neighbor is simply one of "those" people. What on earth makes people think it is appropriate to make some of the comments they do is absolutely beyond me. I am naturally a thin person, and after I quit drinking I lost even more weight. I am tall but have a very small bone structure. it's just "me". The rude comments get very old very quick. Someone last week even asked me if I was sick! No, I am perfectly healthy. I have learned to just ignore people for the most part. Some are especially gifted at showing their ignorance.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2015
Location: MN
Posts: 8,704
Originally Posted by Ariesagain
Oy, your neighbor...
I had a guy walk into the store where I worked, give me a big flirty smile, lean closer, stare deeply into my eyes...and say, "Wow you have a lot of toxicity marks in your eyes." Turned out he was referring to the fact that I have blue eyes with brown flecks (family trait) and in his infinite back-to-nature, hippie wisdom, those flecks were signs of toxins. Stoner idiot.
But I share this because that incident was...drumroll...40 years ago and it still grinds me a bit, mostly because I just stood there and took it. So the next time your neighbor, who apparently also went to Birkenstock Medical School, offers her opinion, challenge her rudeness.
Sheesh.
I had a guy walk into the store where I worked, give me a big flirty smile, lean closer, stare deeply into my eyes...and say, "Wow you have a lot of toxicity marks in your eyes." Turned out he was referring to the fact that I have blue eyes with brown flecks (family trait) and in his infinite back-to-nature, hippie wisdom, those flecks were signs of toxins. Stoner idiot.
But I share this because that incident was...drumroll...40 years ago and it still grinds me a bit, mostly because I just stood there and took it. So the next time your neighbor, who apparently also went to Birkenstock Medical School, offers her opinion, challenge her rudeness.
Sheesh.
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: The Deep South
Posts: 14,636
Originally Posted by Ariesagain
So the next time your neighbor, who apparently also went to Birkenstock Medical School, offers her opinion, challenge her rudeness.
Guest
Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: London
Posts: 367
Thomas, I think my skin tone looks pale since I stopped drinking, but compared to the red bloated face I used to have I am happy. Wait till you get some rays on your skin and treat yourself to a face pack !
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2015
Location: MN
Posts: 8,704
Originally Posted by thomas11
Totally off the subject, but don't want to start a new thread. This neighbor gal of mine who is a little eccentric just pulled in my driveway while I was letting the dog do his business. She's suddenly into holistic medicine and told me all these things I should be juicing and drinking to help with my injuries.
She said I looked gray and my skin tone is poor. Here I've been doing everything I can to restore my health, she comes and smashes it to pieces in 1 minute flat.
She said I looked gray and my skin tone is poor. Here I've been doing everything I can to restore my health, she comes and smashes it to pieces in 1 minute flat.
Member
Join Date: Oct 2013
Posts: 11,432
I think End Game is right--sounds like a bit of a warm-up to drinking,
and just because you made it in and out of the bar safely this time
has been no promise in the past, nor should you assume it's OK.
As courage pointed out, seems like you are giving it a lot of head space
which shouldn't be the case if it really was non-triggering.
Bars are boring because they are filled with people getting drunk.
Drunk people are pretty boring to sober people.
You just aren't on the same page--try other venues.
Even a breakfast place where the drunks can get their requisite
Bloody Mary or breakfast beer.
Your neighbor sounds like stupid drunk.
Funny about that correlation, isn't it?
Hang in there Jeff--I think you've worked hard to get
feeling good and looking good and I bet it really shows.
Everyone is pale after Winter unless you hit the tanning booth. . .
and just because you made it in and out of the bar safely this time
has been no promise in the past, nor should you assume it's OK.
As courage pointed out, seems like you are giving it a lot of head space
which shouldn't be the case if it really was non-triggering.
Bars are boring because they are filled with people getting drunk.
Drunk people are pretty boring to sober people.
You just aren't on the same page--try other venues.
Even a breakfast place where the drunks can get their requisite
Bloody Mary or breakfast beer.
Your neighbor sounds like stupid drunk.
Funny about that correlation, isn't it?
Hang in there Jeff--I think you've worked hard to get
feeling good and looking good and I bet it really shows.
Everyone is pale after Winter unless you hit the tanning booth. . .
Member
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Somewhere in California
Posts: 1,136
"I know right now if I drank one night, I'd wake up with a hangover that would likely be gone in a few hours (nothing like the all day withdrawal process of a couple days drinking)"
If this doesn't sound like a thinly veiled rationalization to drink, I don't know what does.
Be careful. Maybe this time you made it. That does to mean that in the future you won't meet up with these friends or others and, having the chance right in front of you, succumb to the urge to drink. I would stay out of bars and the like until you've been sober for at least a year.
If this doesn't sound like a thinly veiled rationalization to drink, I don't know what does.
Be careful. Maybe this time you made it. That does to mean that in the future you won't meet up with these friends or others and, having the chance right in front of you, succumb to the urge to drink. I would stay out of bars and the like until you've been sober for at least a year.
quat
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: terra (mostly)firma
Posts: 4,823
I'd third the notion that there may be a little 'something' yet to your thinking centered around hanging out in a bar. That something is a thinking shift , a somewhat subtle shift after it occurs but prior to being adopted fully that subtlety can work against us ,eg ammo for the AV.
Going to a bar and not drinking predicated on the idea that we are consciously aware of the immediate negative effects of intoxication i.e. hangovers , withdrawals is not the same as going somewhere ( a bar, the beach , bowling Ect) and being fully committed to permanent abstinence. The idea that hangover isn't 'worth' it can be beaten down , if the door is still open even a crack, the AV will just pile on more and more justifications "you've stopped before..hangover won't kill ya..cmon it's the Guys, just tonight eff it back at it tomorrow, look how good you are at stopping ".
From you description of that night, I'd suggest you won those arguments , so good on ya for that. But on some level it doesn't feel like the shift has cemented at least fully. The biggest evidence for that is the question, yeah?
A sign that a shift is cementing(ed) is when hangover avoidance isn't such a huge factor in the 'argument'.
I am a huge believer in being able to make and keep the "Big Plan" from day one, but there are some subtleties that only time can bring, and doing things that bring the argument to the fore should be seen as risk factors.
Going to the VFW to see the guys is easier when the VFW is an address and not in your head a place where everyone has the opportunity to drink and we successfully escape no matter 'easily'.
Going to a bar and not drinking predicated on the idea that we are consciously aware of the immediate negative effects of intoxication i.e. hangovers , withdrawals is not the same as going somewhere ( a bar, the beach , bowling Ect) and being fully committed to permanent abstinence. The idea that hangover isn't 'worth' it can be beaten down , if the door is still open even a crack, the AV will just pile on more and more justifications "you've stopped before..hangover won't kill ya..cmon it's the Guys, just tonight eff it back at it tomorrow, look how good you are at stopping ".
From you description of that night, I'd suggest you won those arguments , so good on ya for that. But on some level it doesn't feel like the shift has cemented at least fully. The biggest evidence for that is the question, yeah?
A sign that a shift is cementing(ed) is when hangover avoidance isn't such a huge factor in the 'argument'.
I am a huge believer in being able to make and keep the "Big Plan" from day one, but there are some subtleties that only time can bring, and doing things that bring the argument to the fore should be seen as risk factors.
Going to the VFW to see the guys is easier when the VFW is an address and not in your head a place where everyone has the opportunity to drink and we successfully escape no matter 'easily'.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2015
Location: MN
Posts: 8,704
Well.....I had penciled in tonight to go to another bar to watch live MMA fights. Never have seen them in person. I just sent out the texts and emails to the guys to say I am going to take a pass. Everyone's input has convinced me to do so. Another testimonial to the value of this forum.
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
