Overman

Checking in. Pretty anxious lately.

Full-time school, internship, and part-time work has left me over-stretched and overwhelmed at times. But the good part is that I'm leading a much more structured life than before. I don't want to overwork myself or stress myself out, but I need to keep busy. On day 424 and trucking along a bumpy road.

I've been exercising more often, which is great because its expediting my weight loss. I've now lost 56 lbs since my sobriety date. Need to find more leisure time activities, so Im going to join a local gym to have access to the weights. Need to tone out and repair my once fit body. I've really let it go to waste over the past 10-15 years!

gneiss

Rough weekend. It's game day here, and I have to go out in it. This town lives and dies with the university, and the football team most of all. Ya know all those laws about public intox and consumption and such? The cops look the other way on game day. And it's against a team from Texas, so the drunken tomfoolery is worse than normal.

*Not gonna drink*

Zencat

Having a good morning...getting ready to go to my weekly mutual self-help support meeting that consist of the faithful many. Yet I will allow my secular beacon shine and bask in its humanist glow .

Asta1

Hi Everyone, Thought I would introduce myself. I may have posted here a couple of times already. Anyway, thought this thread would be a nice fit for me since I am an atheist/agnostic (depending on what day it is!). I'm on day 9 and really feeling good right now. SR has been so helpful in keeping me away from the liquor store.
Hope everyone suffering from the flu or other nasty ailments get well soon. Don't have a chicken gumbo recipe but have a good chicken noodle soup one, with a whole boiled chicken and lots of noodles. Anyone interested, let me know & I'll PM it. Have a great sober day everyone.

cambridge

Gneiss - it wasn't Texas/OU weekend, was it? I remember those days well.

Just thought I'd stop in and say hi. Finally decided on an avatar, so I'm serious now. Had a really shite day mostly, but ended well with some of my new sober friends, X Factor, and stir fry.

gneiss

OSU/ Texas Tech. Only thing worse is OSU vs OU. But that's in Norman this year.

I had a drink today. I'm mad at myself. Not just for that. I got a little out of line and my roommate's mad. This is part of why I stopped drinking. I was worried game day would be too much. Now I'm miserable, at home, and missing the game. Not a good way to end. I guess it's a reminder of why I don't need to do that crap. So here I am, on hour 1 (I figure the alcohol left my system an hour or so ago). I'm trying not to feel like I fail at life right now. I know I'm not supposed to beat myself up, and this is somehow part of the process. I just get frustrated that I can't get it right.

tyler

Welcome to the Secular Connections board here on SR. This thread is a great place to post what happens to be on your mind at a particular time, good or bad. We've got a nice group of folks who frequent the thread. Glad you're here.

shockozulu

Welcome to Secular Connections. As for the soup recipe I'd love it. Check your PM box!

Zencat

to the secular zone Asta1. I hope your experience here will be a beneficial one.

Cooking brownies w/o any funny additives...clean and serene "just for today" (well this evening actually)

windysan

mmmmmmmmmmm brownies

Zencat

Waking up regret free is a totally liberating experience. Just for today I will not pollute my liver with with dope.

cambridge

Hi everyone! Ok, so I just got to see the Queen and say hi to Stephen Hawking. I really cannot concentrate now at work! This is way too much celebrity for my Texas brain.

Still, I will not drink today.

gneiss

Awesome, Cambridge! The Queen's cool but in my nerdy brain Stephen Hawking has more capital.

Alright, everyone who has read my ups and downs with my roommate will be happy to know that I asked him this morning to find somewhere else to live. I told him he was welcome to stay through the end of the semester (it's only 3 weeks anyway, then after finals he can look for an apartment). I told him he's welcome to come over and hang out any time, I still think he's a good person and want him as a friend. But the roommate thing is not working out. Last night we got into a fight. Neither of us are even sure what we were fighting for, but we're pretty lucky we didn't have the cops here. I almost called them, things were getting too heated and it almost got physical. We never argued until we became roommates. Of course part of that is I never stood up for myself the way I should have and when I started he didn't seem to like it much. I think it's a power game to him.

Anyway, I'm glad for this because it seems like every time I fall off the wagon he's usually part of the story. I'm responsible for my own actions of course but when he's not around I don't do drink or do dope, I don't try to buy it. I'm really not even interested in it. But if he's around, it's around. And if it's around I'll do it. We seem to have that effect on each other.

Overman

I think it's a power game to him.

That seems to have summed it up. Good job on releasing the ball & chain!

shockozulu

So cool! My sister and best friend is interested in following the current info on the UK and Norwegian Royalty.

shockozulu

gneiss, sorry you had to make the decision, but I do think it will help you in your recovery.

gneiss

Last night I met some friends I haven't seen in a while and hung out at the bookstore with them. Tonight I went to the City for dinner and shopping with a couple old friends, people I knew before I was a druggie. I've been really down lately and through the nerdy jokes and giggles I remembered what it's like to just have normal fun.

My "fun" for so long has involved egotistic guys puffing up to look tough, doing insane things that could easily get you arrested, etc. And it was so fun to not have to worry about the cops pulling me over (I guess they could have but I'm not exactly scared of speeding tickets at this point), not have to worry about someone getting offended and pulling a gun, and not having to worry about all the stuff that goes along with that druggie lifestyle.

Instead I had soup for dinner, went to the mall, bought candles and a keyring, went for dessert, and had more fun doing it than I ever really had on a given night doing drugs. No fears, no worries, and nothing negative. When I was doing drugs I thought that was normal, everyone does something (even just pot or beer, but "everyone does it, man!") but guess what? Not true! Normal people don't have to be intoxicated to feel happy. And I was substance free and happy tonight.

I remember now that there was a time when I was optimistic, when I thought I was a good person, made good choices, and liked who I was. And seeing these people from that time made me know it's ok. The person I was is still there.

Asta1

That's terrific! Sounds like a breakthrough of some type. I wish I could say that the person I was is still there. Just don't know yet. Guess I'm still carrying around a lot of baggage that's weighing me down. I try to remain positive ("Happiness is a choice"), but at times it is so hard. Yesterday and today have taken a down turn. (Today is day 15.) I'm not going to drink. Not going anywhere that would put me in danger of drinking, no liquor in the house. But it's like a cloud is following me around. I'm thinking that this is just part of the grieving process and this too will pass. I KNOW it will pass. I'm reading a book right now entitled Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert about her search for self. I didn't buy it - my adult daughter sent it to me. It's actually pretty good. Ate her way thru Italy, spent months in an Ashram in India, and apparently may find love in her next stop, Indonesia. (Just about to start that part.) Maybe I need to do some self-discovery on my own. I've been thinking about finding out more about Buddism. There seem to be a few followers posting on this thread. Any recommendations on a sort of "Buddism for Dummies" type of book?

gneiss

Asta, those first weeks are the toughest. I felt down for the first couple weeks then for a while I'd fall off the wagon around 6 weeks. You're doing great at 15 days. You hit the nail on the head, I felt like I'd lost an old friend every time I gave up a substance. I guess I had to grieve.

I don't know if I had a breakthrough exactly but it's been so long since I had a normal social life it felt really good. The girls I saw tonight know about my substance problems but it just doesn't come up as a topic. At some point one of them always asks how I am doing and I say I am doing well and that's all the discussion. I can tell they want to ask more but don't want to press me too much. I tend to email them little bits anyway. It's so awkward face to face. Driving home was strange because I had to drive through the neighborhood where my old dope dealer lives and then right past the store where I bought pipes (it still disturbs me that they sell meth pipes in about 75% of the convenience stores here. Even at the worst part of my use it disturbed me). But I wasn't tempted. Mind you, I feel that little pull every day, I fight wanting to do dope every day of my life. But at last I am able to separate the vague craving from the action. Just because I sorta want to do drugs again doesn't mean I am going to buy drugs. It's like a diet of the mind.

Hmm. 3:30. Better get some sleep.

shockozulu

Glad to read you did the mall thing. I'm going back to my old pre-drugs habit of playing MMORPG. I decided to play World of Warcraft. It doesn't want to run completely on one of my laptops but should so while I'm stuck between the arrival of game DVD's from Amazon and the end of this trial I'll attempt to fix it.