trachemys

So, I find myself here once again. Now wrapping up 11 years of struggling against alcohol use disorder. It's been a ride. Two year-long residential rehabs. Getting sober, getting jobs, getting drunk, losing jobs. Losing my parents.

I found some clarity during my most recent detox. I reviewed the counseling I received in rehab. I got honest with my doctor and asked for referral to relapse prevention help. More arrows in the quiver. I've been critiquing the quiver. Tossing out useless arrows, sharpening the points and preening the fletches of the good ones.

This will be a new addition. I'll be journaling here things I think I should share.

One thing that has helped me in the recent past is a newsletter called The Daily Stoic. The newsletter is hit or miss. Some days, the author is obviously hawking product and some days he speaks directly to my current situation. It's based on the philosophy of Stoicism. I've always been a dilettante in philosophy. This particular school is starting to resonate with me. I'm drawn to the Aristotelian and Objectivist schools of thought. A week or so ago, this particular newsletter really caught my attention.


It feels like it will make a difference, that long awaited trip. That exciting new job that will keep you very busy, make you very rich. That pioneering new plant medicine. That distracting pleasure.

“Thus does each man flee himself,” Seneca says, quoting Lucretius, in his criticism of those Romans who sought out every opportunity to indulge their wanderlust. We like to think we can get away from our problems, that it will be different there, that a change of scenery will change us.

But does it? Not usually. And then when we get back?

“You’re always where you leave yourself,” the National sing in one of their songs. Wherever you go there you are. At the end of the day, you go home alone, you go home to yourself.

We can still travel. We can still try new things. We can still take the job. We just have to be realistic.

​It’s not going to fix us. It’s not going to solve our problems for us. Because it’s impossible to actually flee yourself. You are always going to be there, your issues right where you left them.
Yea. That hit home. Biggly.

SoberLeigh

Very good message, Trachs. I look forward to reading your journal.

”Wherever you go, there you are”. I am glad that you are here with us.

trachemys

Dee, if you read this, could you please put the apostrophe in Turtle's in the thread title? I fumble fingered it. Thanks.

Thank you, Leigh. Glad to be here.

Hevyn

Hi Trach - great to see you.

So true about not fleeing ourselves. I tried so very hard, to no avail. Thankful to be a little wiser now

venuscat

Anna can also fix it for you, trach, just saying, as she is in our time zone. s

venuscat

"Wherever you go, there you are."

This I know to be true. ❤️

Dee74

got it. Good thread Trach.

D

trachemys

Thanks, Dee.

Hello, Hevyn!

dwtbd

Philo-dilettante here
Read AS, Fountainhead, Anthem and then all the O'ist nonfiction, in my philo-formative years.
But now I'm exploring neoplatonists and delving into Advaita Vedanta. Have had a 'crush' on Bernardo Kastrup of late, too

trachemys

Ruminating over the last few years about myself was brought into focus by that Daily Stoic essay. I realized that I had been trained to flee. To seek the "next big thing". It started with the constant moving as my father sought better jobs. As with a lot of teens in the 70's, it morphed into experimenting with drugs and alcohol. Then running off to college too early. For a short time after failing at college, I found employment that supplied me with new experiences constantly. That was good. It turned into another new thing: return to college. While I excelled academically, my personal life was still rambunctious. As soon as I got my degree, I became self-employed and was constantly on the move doing new things. As soon as the new wore off, I would start over-doing the substances and looking for the next "big new thing". I quit drugs around age 35 as the procurement got sketchy and the risk too high. Alcohol became my best friend. When I needed to flee, I could flee into a bottle.

trachemys

The Fountainhead is an all-time favorite of mine. Pretty good movie, too.

dwtbd

Gary Cooper was a much better cowboy, imho.

trachemys

I was reading a Bill Bryson book earlier and a line caught my attention.

"It was good to be indestructible."

That's how I've lived. Ten foot tall and bulletproof. Until the last decade or so when all my activities started tearing me down. Getting clean lab results from my recent checkup buoyed that feeling back up. Getting the report that my right knee is osteoarthritic brought me back to earth. Going to an ortho, soon.

SoberLeigh

Clean lab results are fantastic, trachs. Congratulations.

MythOfSisyphus

I'm sorry to see you struggling but it's great to see you posting, Trach!

ChloeRose63

Love your new thread!
I' ll be reading, too!

trachemys

Hello, Myth. Long time.

Thanks, Chloe.

trachemys

And now for something completely different...

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wZlY9tbZo3g

trachemys

Psychiatrist Steven Pinker points out that we all think about murder all the time in some little part of our brain, especially when driving, but we ignore that little impulse, or at least don't act on it. That's the goal for me and alcohol. Thinking about it isn't the problem. Acting on that impulse is the problem. Follow the impulse and one murder becomes a mass shooting. One drink becomes one hundred.

dwtbd

Yes not acting on the impulse is the only way to keep the booze out of the mouth. But acting on impulse is somewhat of a disingenuous appellation.

For me at least , and I expect for anyone who desired intoxication from booze as much as I did, the idea of separation from the beast of AVRT, the impulse, was the key for living comfortably with deciding to be purposely continuously abstinent, or ‘quat ‘,quit so hard it needs a wholly new tense.