taplow

Sorry I sort of passed out or something. I was midway replying to one and suddenly it's hours later. I've had a look through and there's some good replies here which I'll read and consider properly. I've got to eat so I'll do that and come back. Thanks everyone.

taplow

I feel more my usual self now after sleeping. Earlier I was a bit crazed, and it wasn't just normal drunkeness. I wasn't upset or angry or anything. I just felt like I was acting more, well more. I'd like that to happen again really. It's strange to say, but I sort of knew where I was. I was midway replying when I just suddenly disappeared.
Some brilliant replies here. I feel a bit humbled and thankful. I have actually taken stuff in - at the start I said I never do. Everyone out there is just me in different clothes and there's a lot of wisdom. I am lost but isn't everyone? At the moment I'm in a bit of a haze.
I feel like I'm different lately. More and more over the past weeks I feel sort of odd. I'm sort of disturbed and a bit all over the place. I feel unsettled and a bit lost but somehow I think it's what I should be. I can't help feeling differently lately like I've realised that I'm only now living in a real world. I don't know.
Drink is really just the symptom here. Oh, I'm gonna have another sleep.
How can you help me if I don't know what I want. I think I just want to shout. Thanks everyone.

Steely

Don't know what to say taplow. Are you OK?

Obladi

Typically, I follow good forum etiquette and read all the way through to the most recent post so that I can offer my response in a real-time fully informed sort of way. Not so this time. I'll respond first, then go looking for your likely later disclaimer that you were just joking around or you didn't really mean what you said or you're just fine now, never mind.

tap, I get it, man. I get it I get it I get it. You are not insane - you're having thoughts that are perfectly rational given your experience and background. Sure, you might intellectually understand that some of what you think is irrational, but it's hard to really feel that if you haven't gotten to the heart of what "it" is and where "it" comes from. You are one the verge of something. You are on the verge of breaking on through to the other side where you can express and own your stuff and sit in it and survive. Living in the "just now" is exactly where you need to be, where I need to be. Always. Not only for the "not drinking" thing - that absolutely works, by the way - but also for the living thing. For feeling all the feels and expressing them to other people. For following those feels to their beliefs or thoughts. For following those thoughts and beliefs to their basic genesis in your life. For learning how to bear yourself.

Break on through to the other side...

xo
O

courage2

Thanks for your posts. I like them, weird as they may be. I'm weird too. Finally got that.

Coupla things you say turned out to be the opposite for me: Things I had to give up to get sober: the ideas that I had to understand. Totally gave up on understanding. Or having value. Value came along way after.

And, My life wasn't particularly happy. I'd say, so what? If I'd hoped to be a happy person when I got sober, I found out otherwise. Sobriety didn't change my personality, which is a bit grim. It did however help me *not* make myself and everyone around me more miserable than they had reason otherwise to be.

Obladi

And I had the opposite experience but the same as courage. I was in a pickle for sure. Didn't know why I was drinking when I didn't want to and couldn't stop drinking long enough to figure it out. In my case, I did need to figure it out and that came through a lot of thinking, writing, reading, considering, exploring and failure. It might've happened a whole lot faster if I hadn't interrupted the whole exercise repeatedly with drinking. I'm sure it would have. But I didn't know, had to experience it myself I guess.

We're all different. Some people will tell you you're getting in your own way by trying to think your way out of this and they're correct. You (I) have to Not Drink to figure it out. Especially, I need to Not Drink through the times when it feels like there's no other choice. You may well be correct too. I certainly feel i was correct in understanding the alcohol was only a symptom. I had to bridge the gap from being defenseless against the first drink and the thinking that was getting me there. Hard to do when I didn't even know half the time what I was thinking. Hard to do when I thought I knew what I was thinking but didn't realize it was grounded in subconscious thought.

I'm so pleased to see my crystal ball was on the blink, tap. I hope you really do see that there are people here who want to help you and that in fact can help you. At least we can make some great suggestions you might consider exploring even though you don't want to.

O

courage2

^^^ I like that, Obladi. I'm gonna apply it to my own experience as, when I was drinking, I thought I was figuring stuff out, but my thinking was actually 98% delusional -- it was that 2% scared of suicide that got me sober, and even that wasn't exactly "thinking" -- it was gut-wrenching. I had to not-drink to start thinking.

Dee74

Some good advice here I'll not repeat (too much) but I remember quite recently you had a decent stretch of sobriety.

You were still essentially the same Taplow.
I think you were even starting to enjoy not drinking a bit.

But that can be scary too.

I made getting sober a lot harder than it needed to be because I was terrified of being myself with no safety net. I'd nearly fully convinced myself that being a drunk was essential to who I was.

i tried every delaying tactic in the book - if you had my life you'd drink too, what I do isn't hurting anyone else, I'm one of those tortured genius types, and I need to understand this before I can solve it.

Complete nonsense of course but I believed it....nearly...there was still one part of me that insisted I could do better.

I don't need to understand how I broke my leg in order to get it set. Afterwards I can examine how I broke my leg and resolve not to let those series of circumstances happen again ..but the first step is to resolve the broken bone.

Alcoholism is fairly similar, or it least it as for me.

Looking back, I'm glad I gave faced the fear, stopped drinking the hemlock, and gave myself that chance to heal.

I hope you will too Tap.

D

taplow

I'm a real proud mess. I think this is a special time to go off the rails. It's like I'm in the Invasion of the Bodysnatchers out there. Most people are very limited and I think I've got their measure. I've just screwed up and thrown out a whole head full of junk concerning relating to people which has freed up some space. The drinking is still going on. I think that fighting myself in an effort to stop is no way to stop and it's got to die a natural death. Maybe it's what I am. There's not a lot else there at the moment.
courage2, I'll disagree with you on the understanding thing. No hang on it's you that's disagreeing with me. Understanding is everything. I don't just want to act in ways without knowing why. The drinking thing is just secondary to the important business of understanding who you are. I have to know or what is there? I think acting without understanding, well it's like getting someone to visit a prostitute on your behalf. Also, I'm not much for happiness either. It sort of paints a picture of rosy contentment. But then maybe happiness is just a negative thing meaning the absence of pain.
Also courage2 when I see your posts, for a brief moment I think that you're really this sexy couple of the avatar. I'm hoping it's the blonde who's posting while he's, I don't know, mixing a cocktail or whatever them kind of people do. I know that they don't sit there watching TV. Anyway, great picture. I guess she's saying, "why you've got me all me all wrong Johnny."
Obladi, no I'm not saying I'm irrational. I think I'm just a bit intense at the moment. What I was saying was that how to my mind an insane person believes something that is obviously untrue. It's not there, it's not happening yet they insist it is. That's irrational and that's not me. I only have to walk round to the supermarket and I think I'm one of the few sane people around at the moment. I am fairly individual, more than most. I used to think I was lacking something. Yes it might have made me feel lonely for long periods, but now I'm starting to see that the need to group together requires a trade off with the need to think for yourself.
Breaking on through is something I don't quite understand. I get it in general terms but I don't understand the detail. What you've written maybe requires some understanding that I don't have. I think I'd need it a bit more widened out. Maybe it relies on a specific view of what is the person. I actually do feel that I'm on the verge of something. I feel that one step and things will change, but I don't know in what way. I've been feeling that the whole world will come collapsing down and I'm starting to want it to happen. Can I be more particular? No, I just feel incredibly unsettled.
But Obladi, I wish you well, as I'm sure you know.
Dee, thanks. I like your broken leg metaphor. It makes perfect sense and suddenly I don't understand what I was going on about upstairs.

Be123

Taplow, hope you are ok.

Just my two pennies on the understanding thing...

...the brain works by making connections. You cannot Undo those connections. You cannot over ride those connections. You may wish to, you may wish real hard - but you just can't. It's physically and chemically impossible. It is literally impossible to stop a bad habit.

So if you rely on understanding or thinking your way out, you are relying on doing so using the old, faulty connections.

What you can do is make new connections and create new pathways and create new habits. This is where the action comes in. By doing different stuff - and especially responding to stimuli differently (such as stress) - you can and WILL create new pathways in your brain. Over time they will become your go-to pathways and the old, drinking ones will cobweb over (theyre still there, mind, if you do ever choose to drink again!!).

I guess what I'm saying is - if you want to understand stuff you need to have a brain that can do so. I don't believe an addicts brain can (that's just my belief) so you need sober time to do so. To get that sober time you need to do things differently, and I take great comfort in doing what I'm told is good for me (and as I do I find myself understanding Things much more!!)

Surrendered19

Hi Tap. Glad you are still posting.

"I think that fighting myself in an effort to stop is no way to stop and it's got to die a natural death. Maybe it's what I am. There's not a lot else there at the moment."

That is pretty grim Tap, but I understand. When I finally quit it was because I simply ran out of options. I reached the point where I had to decide if I was going to die a very unnatural death or if my drinking was the thing I had to kill so that I could live.

I got lucky because I never had that one drink that put me past the point of no return. I think I was close though. I still shudder thinking about it.

I hope you can come out the other side on this and that your drinking is the thing that dies and not you.

Please keep posting.

taplow

Hi Be123, thanks for posting - you come over so nicely. I understand it as what you're saying is that I need to build new habits to replace the already ones. Why though is that different to overriding them? It's the kind of same thing isn't it? I know that the brain is very plastic. Just redesigns as it interacts with the world. 7% of a pregnant woman's brain is completely rebuilt. I'd need to know what sort of brain to build - I'm not pregnant by the way. But yes, building a new way of life, well I think it would be more of the same. Sorry, where was I? Saying about thinking my way out not being any use is something I'd agree with. With thinking you're just burrowing deeper and deeper. I believe now that thinking got me into this septic isle. Oh I don't know.
Thanks Surrendered19. I'll be okay. Hope you are too.

Fusion

Tap, I don't "fight myself" in order to not drink. "I" the human Neo-cortex etc., with executive control of my limbs and thoughts, dismisses and ignores "myself - that I call my AV", when "myself-AV" suggests a drink as an answer to a problem, or a reward. The "myself-AV" which I perceive as being that discrete part of my brain that I've trained/programmed to drink as a stress-reliever/reward etc. That part of my brain is powerful as it belongs in my sub-conscious, mostly, limbic-system and memory bank, the same part that learnt and will never forget how to ride a bike, drive a car.

BUT, "I", my higher pre-frontal cortex etc., can override, dismiss and ignore, the AV limbic-system's cravings, urges and thoughts which point towards a drink. I think I've sent you a neuroscience link before, but there's plenty of material on the web, Annie Grace, Jeffrey Schwartz, Neuroplasticity, Stanford University research etc. Obviously, there are steps you can take to support your decision to dismiss/ignore the urge to drink, and make your life more tolerable. But stopping drinking, usually comes first.

taplow

Tatsy Hi. You're too clever when I've been drinking. I'll have to try and make some sense when I'm sober. I'd logged off here but then casually looked on and saw your post. I'm always interested in what you say. It maybe needs tomorrow to understand it. Look after yourself.

BeABetterMan

You’re spending too much time in your own head Tap. You have made yourself the center of the universe. It’s a dangerous place and brings little joy. It’s only when we let go that we find peace. In AA we say “self knowledge avails us nothing.” Your quest to know everything about yourself will not end how you hope. First, you’ll never know everything you desire. And even if you were able to, what then? Thinking is what got you into this mess, it will not get you out of this mess. Only action contrary to what you’ve been doing will change things. Only letting go of the delusion that you control the world and everything in it will free you. When I realize I have no control over the people, places and things in my life, my life becomes much more manageable.

Fusion

I'm not clever, Tap Just found a way out of addiction that worked for me and my brain. Try and reduce intake tonight a little, hey? Doing so certainly won't harm you.
Look after yourself too, Tap. See you in the morning.

nez

I understand respiration and the importance to me of taking in oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide. How much impact does my understanding of the process and its value to me, register in the 1,400 minutes of day to day life. Even if I do my utmost best at being fully conscious, aware, and understanding of the process, I am lucky if I can manage to do so for 15 minutes or about 1.04% of the 24 hours available to me in a day.

My understanding of respiration plays basically zip-a-dee-doo-dah importance to everyday life as it goes on.

I struggled for years because I needed to know why and understand. I was placing far too much emphasis and importance upon the 12 pound orb that sits atop my shoulders. I was letting 7% of my physical body control 100% of my life. What about the other 93% of my physical body and human experience, did it not deserve a say? Humility gave a voice to other 93% of my body and human experience and put things into perspective.

My understanding and needing to know why, is not the end all and be all. It is merely the chattering monkeys in my head telling me that it is so.

taplow

Tatsy, thanks you're wonderful. BeABetterMan, I obviously didn't make myself clear. I don't want more thinking, I want less thinking. It's thinking that got me into this. I kind of went into thinking overdrive some time in my teens and sort of stayed like that. Recently I've realised what's been happening. I am the thought. Any effort to stop thinking is just more thinking. Understanding that - which I think I'm doing is a whole different dimension. You can't think your way out of thinking. This is the least I've been the centre of the universe in my life which is why I'm all over the place, which is why I'm feeling, oh I don't know.

nez, that's really deliberately missing the point I think. You surely know what I mean by saying I want to understand what I am. You're clearly one of those people who go through the small print to win every point. To show off you use an irrelevent analogy using fine details of oxygen and carbon dioxide percentages sleight of hand rubbish - a pointless sophistry that's there purely to bewilder. Well I can't be bothered anymore. Surely it's better to discuss and share than act like a librarian with attitude.
Oh, and the chattering monkeys are the actual point. So I think they're entitled to chatter about themselves.

BeABetterMan

You can’t “stop thinking”, it’s what you’re thinking about that’s holding you back. You’re obsessed with self. Look outside of yourself. Ask other people how they are doing. Ask others how you can help. Listen, don’t talk. When we are in your state we don’t know much about much. We’re operating on brain chemicals. Up and down. Sadness and rebound. Get out of your head at all costs.

taplow

BABM - that's better.
Are you saying it's a general "you can't stop thinking," or are you referring to me alone - because that would be assuming sort of knowledge about me. How do you know I'm thinking about myself more than you're thinking about yourself?
I respect you BABM, I've read your posts here. But I think you're wrong about me. I don't see myself as just a man with a drinker's brain. I think that the drinking is just a symptom.
I'm going to sleep now. But thanks, I appreciate your help.