Hope1989

Good morning or night, depending on your timezone.

Me myself, at the moment, can't really sleep. So I went down and lit a cigarette and started thinking about what I use to think when I wanted to get sleepy before bed.

I remember when I was younger, around I don't know, 12 to 20 years old, that I use to think about the girls I liked (in a romantic way), about being a football (soccer) or basketball player and winning cups. I use to think about all the great stuff I could accomplish and it gave me satisfaction and fell asleep.

Fast-forward to now, those "thoughts" are not even near the same. On my mind what comes to my mind is the most degrading stuff I can think about drinking in a very ****** place (club, ***** house) you get the idea, about doing drugs and sex (and not in a romantic way). This, however, does not actually produce me pleasure but anxiety. Sometimes I think that if I had nothing that I valued in this world I would like to dive deep into that world.

This reflexion is what actually kept me up. It made me very sad how much my thoughts changed over time. I want my old desires back, I want the good things that really touched me.

I am not sure if you guys have given much thought to this occurrence. If you have, I would very much like to know your thoughts and experiences about it.

All the best,

Hope

Purina

Alcohol makes people violent. And after sustained alcohol abuse it can change your normal personality. We start to see people are rivals or enemies. When you go to a bar or nightclub we see fights break out all the time and over almost nothing.

When i was drinking I used to want to watch YouTube videos of violence such as road rage compilation or street fist fights and so forth. If watching TV I wanted to watch Horror or action movies of violence.

If at a bar and a fight broke out I wanted to run over and get a front row seat. But in a sober life if I was at the cinema and a fight broke out I would want to get AWAY from it and to avoid any potential trouble.

you will see that as you accrue more clean time that your inner peace will grow and you will be less attracted to "evil things". Its because alcohol turns us into monsters basically.

But now free from the poison your true personality will start to emerge and you will find more love, warmth and peace surrounds you and your new friendships will be nice people like that.

Kid50

BrianK

Glad to see all these posts above. Yesterday as I was journaling I reflected that I've never had more than 90 consecutive days sober in 20 years...I actually don't know who I am without alcohol. Focusing on becoming changed from the inside out, even physically and chemically, is uplifting. I feel like there's a lot more to this puzzle of sober living than what we can even be conscious of, so that when challenges come we can know there's a lot more working in our favor "below the surface."

LiveLikeGold6

This was a very deep and thought provoking thread. I am learning right along with you but i can recommend a book called power thoughts by joyce meyers. Its about choosing and filling your head with good thoughts.

Guener

I'm not sure if we can go back to exactly where we once were before drinking/using. All those prior experiences inform our minds and emotions in ways that are difficult to define. If there is a form of psychiatric change in us, then we may be faced with living differently forever in terms of how we perceive the world about us and within us.

This is not to say that we cannot find peace or new harmony in how we engage with ourselves and in society, but it does suggest that we have to make an effort to get there. Remember when we were younger that it took a concerted effort to learn how to find our place in our circles and in our environment? Perhaps it is something like that, growing to find how we fit in and how to be happy. I guess that means that we have lost some time from our behaviors that caused us to slip out of sanity and into the degrading situation(s) you describe, but so be it.

I find myself looking at things with the same kind of adolescent perspective that requires making decisions at the basic level on a regular basis: am I doing the right things, am I being honest, how do I see my place? My ex fiance told me that I was emotionally stilted, and I can see how she would come to that conclusion. But this gives me an opportunity to start on fresh ground to be something better than I am now and to leave behind all the detritus I accumulated while being a drunk.

D122y

When I was a drunk I used to get sick all the time.

Some of it was detox, binge drinking, some of it was immune system weakness from booze.

The fact that I hardly get sick anymore is a reason by itself to never drink again.

I sleep way better these days. 1 hour of sober sleep is better than 12 hours of drunk sleep.

I try not to stir up trouble throughout the day, that helps me sleep. Exercise helps.

I also take naps. Naps helped me learn to fall asleep.

The internet taught me to focus on my breathing when trying to sleep. I only think of breathing. Slow breathing. 4 seconds in, hold for 7 seconds, 8 seconds out. 478.

Only breathing. Next thing I know, I wake up.

thanks.

Dee74

One of the gifts of recovery for me was getting back to the way I used to be. - not exactly the same cos I'm 42 not 12 now - but that same kind of optimism and positivism.

My mind is no longer a yucky place to be

Give it a little time Hollydoll

D

D122y

So last night I am talking about how I fall asleep and how I don't make trouble at work.

Well I made trouble at work, sort of, and now I cant sleep. I stood up to the boss, bully boss as well. I tried to not say anything, but I was not sure if he had all the facts about an issue.

Turns out he knew everything. I believe him because otherwise he is a liar and that will bug me. So, he was on top of everything and i didn't need to do anything.

But, i still cant sleep.

Maybe I am just not that tired yet.

Thanks.