2 months--no drugs or alcohol

And finally, any help I can give you can find in AA or, if you’re too much of a snob for the whole greater power thing or whatever, which I was, and have a penny to spend, go to a rehab that uses the Minnesota method.

Yes dog. It’s that bad. Maybe I’m wrong, but if you ever find yourself experiencing a lot of pain in this journey and the idea comes to you that drugs would kill that pain, you are like me.

Thanks Pedro (and Mr. E. Warrior) for keeping this thread alive. I was going to post here a few days ago with pics of my tattoo. Yes, I got it! But it needs touch ups, and I’m going to get those touch ups early in September. So at the last minute, I decided to hold off until then. But it’s there.

The first 3 or 4 days were relatively brutal. I was depressed for the first week. ← That was mainly the caffeine withdrawal (felt like I was made of bricks). But now (and you’re not gonna believe me) I feel great. Not that I’m always great. Last week I was a bit depressed. Life things. People getting me down. People lifting me up.

Though I appreciate your support and every word (so don’t take this the wrong way), I’m finding this really easy. A friend of mine called me an anomaly the other day. She couldn’t believe I continue to go to the bars and not have the urge to drink. I told her it was never about the urges with me, it was stubbornness.

The therapist I need. I need her for more than just a support to stay off drugs, but to help me achieve so many of my other goals. I might visit an AA meeting once or twice in the future, but proly not to go on a regular basis. It ain’t my style. It’d be interesting to see what it’s like, to hear their stories, to lead them.

Nobody believes me when I tell them this is easy, that it’s not a struggle to stay off the drugs. I try to explain that it’s all in my methodology–that I chose a 5 year path of self-reprogramming rather than an immediate commitment to rehab or a support group like AA–not that I discourage those avenues, but that I’ve discovered (and proven so far) a different path. No one really seems to understand tho–it seems to defy their understanding of what it is to be an addict.

But anyways, feel free to contribute some of your stories, advice, or thoughts here in this thread. I would be more than happy to read them.

No problem. Be careful with this though “to lead them.”

They’ve seen and tried every trick in the book.

:laughing: In time, you will learn to read my sense of humor. :wink:

No, I won’t. Not until you are sober, otherwise why bother? I know it all by heart.

For your entretainment, my interpretation of the progression of a recovering addict.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9rUzIMcZQ[/youtube]

???

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04854XqcfCY[/youtube]

gib,

.

Be careful of that transference, gib. It kind of already seems that you are becoming a tad too attached to her…a mother figure but I may be wrong here.

How can one person help you to achieve so many of your other goals?
I wonder if I might be wrong in figuring that in focusing on that one important goal all the others could eventually fall into place and you could succeed at them. :-k

You had said a while back after July 1st that you did not want anyone posting in here ~ that anything anyone had to say could be said in PM to you. I am glad that you changed your mind. It is a good thing to have a concert of many voices and not to become dependent on any one of them.

I see that you are sticking to your guns in this regard. Remember that a therapist is only a therapist and not actually your God so it might be very healthy and fruitful to attend AA meetings at least once in a while. You have nothing to lose, do you, except whatever it may be that is keeping you from attending them sometimes.

You said to Pedro I Rengel in response to his "Be careful with this though “to lead them.”

There is a lot of truth, gib, which we supposedly say in jest or according to one’s sense of humor. We like to camouflage that truth.

Are you quite sure that you do not See Things in that way ~ in other words “to lead them”? I would think that putting one’s self within the AA environment would be or could be a great learning experience about what makes you tick and how you got to the place where you are. You are all individuals and unique in your ways but alcoholics do have some things in common.

I am going to go out on a limb here and allow you to shoot me down but my intuition is that you are still not serious about becoming and staying sober but my intuition has been known to be faulty and in this case I would happily hope that it is.

I wonder how many alcoholics trying to be sober actually hang out in bars. I just do not get that. I think that one’s sobriety needs to be most important - much more important than the woman bartender or is it just a woman who hangs out there and thinks that you are cute :evilfun: (as you once related). Would you trade your sobriety for a woman’s comforting opinion of you?

“Without birth and death, and without the perpetual transmutation of all the forms of life, the world would be static, rhythm-less, undancing, mummified.” – Alan Watts.

Man, you must be the queen of reading too much into things. I’ve seen her twice so far. You should know I have way more goals than just staying sober. Is it really that inconceivable to you that a man could have more goals than just staying sober and relies on a therapist to help him see those goals through? ← Automatically that’s attachment???

Possibly… but I’m not counting on that.

I think for astral projection, that for sure isn’t going to just fall into my lap without at least adding meditation practices to my toolkit. Tons of people exist who have never touch a drop of alcohol or snorted any kind of drug and haven’t magically been swept up by an AP experience (if anything, it’s the other way around).

(And my therapist specifically is trained in meditative exercises, hypnosis, and altered states of consciousness… which is why I chose her.)

What I said was that after July 1 I’d probably not post here anymore (because I usually like to post when I’m on caffeine), but I never said I didn’t want anyone posting in this thread. I wouldn’t say something like that… ever… except maybe to you. And it wasn’t this thread specifically, but ILP in general. What I said about the PMs was that I’d probably PM a few people just to let them know where I’m at. I also said I’d continue to post on threads that were ongoing projects (like my Rick and Morty thread… although I barely find the time for that), and that I’d continue to respond to posts directed at me (usually, sometimes). I’m not ignoring people, just hard to muster the motivation without some kind of stimulant like caffeine.

None of this is a commitment though… if I ever succeed in my goal of feeling caffeinated on the natch (and I have the time), of course I’ll post here more often!

So you think I will lead them one day?! WOW!!! And I thought you had no faith in me!

You are relentless, Arc.

If I went to AA on a casual basis… just once in a while… you would never be satisfied.

Come on, Arc. I’ve got way more self-respect than that. No one believes me when I say I can go to the bar and not have the urge to drink. It’s like I’ve got supernatural powers or something. The bartenders there (guys and girls) know that I don’t drink, and I doubt even if I had the urge to drink and I caved one day, asking for a drink, that they wouldn’t at least ask me: “Are you sure?” I go out because I don’t want to give up all the other pleasures of life, the pleasures I used to enjoy while getting drunk. My intention really is to walk that fine line between the unhealthy pleasures in life and the healthy pleasures. I’m not giving up a single once of the latter. It beats being cooped up at home. I get bored. I bring my work to the bar (yes, I’m that nerdy!). I setup my laptop right at the bar and do work while drinking a virgin Caesar and an appetizer. There’s just something more stimulating about being in a public place and getting to chat a bit with the bartenders (the cute ones especially). I’m reeeally not worried about risking my sobriety. You have to be me to understand. I’m really not at risk. If I were you, I wouldn’t waste brain cells trying to comprehend it. Better off not believing me.

" and altered states of consciousness… which is why I chose her.)"

Ok. But I warn you. No astral projection will ever be more powerful than drugs.

Seeking altered states of consciousness is obviously what addicts are about. The difference between a using addict and a recovering addict is honesty in answering: why? And: what have been the consequences?

In most. Ok no that’s a lie. In all cases the original why included because it’s fun. In all cases that stops being the case well before one decides one wants to quit drugs.

How fun has your life been the last very many years? Some don’t say fun, they say because I like it. How much have you liked your life the last very many years?

Tough questions maybe. But not more tough than what an addict has to do to secure his or her dose.

So Pezorro, do you think I should be sober?

Like I said. I only offer sobriety to someone that verbaly states a desire for it. And even then it rarely pans out.

You seem to hold none of the important symptoms: feeling and causing pain to those you care about, being unable to hold sane finances, feeling you are in a terrible hole you cannot escape (nevereverever attributed to drugs), a general lack of control accompanied by a pervasive idea of it.

It could be all cleverly hidden, you are beyond genious, but the only way to know is for you to ask for help quitting drugs.

A constantly uttered phrase by my therapists (always recovered addicts and allways in group therapy, otherwise one is always too sneaky for the therapist) is drugs aren’t the problem, drugs are just fine. The problem is you.

So, you know, if you ever do want to quit and need help, I can help. Shit if I did it, anyone can. Otherwise I’m a big proponent of leaving drug users the fuck alone, they aren’t bothering you. And if they are, cut em out of your life. Simple. Nobody but nobody can convince an addict.

Also I try to help addicts that ask for help not because of some moral conviction, but as a celebration of my own sobriety, an act of gratitude. And seeing an addict struggling to find a way reminds me also of my own disease, and helping him or her is akin to helping myself.

I remember the second night I smoked weed in the place, when my guilt complex kicked in, and I just said fuck it and laid down on the floor and started uttering the puny-making regrets and fears as you were at the window smoking as always, I knew then that was the moment I was finding health, admitting to the utter puny-makingness of the guilt complexes that go with weed. Your knowledge of the drug allowed me to just lie down on the bottom of the abyss. That was it, freedom. Thank you for that.

I now think many drug users who hurt their loved one aren’t wrong about what they try, but neither they nor their loved ones have the philosophy to make it understood. People do use drugs for good reasons, namely because they add to the world. And by adding to the world they say that the world needed adding to, that it was lacking. This is the pitfall, the bleak day after, the statement that was implied by the high.

Therefore it speaks to reason that the only way to resolve drugs is to make them add to the world of sober people. This is like navigating a thread into the eye of a needle - not by any means impossible, but it needs steadier hands, by which I mean steadier will, than what is afforded usually by drugs.

“Green is the color of anger” - like it was yesterday I remember wondering what this strange prophecy we made would come to mean in my life. What an incredible three years this has been.

Lesson: the best way to use drugs is with a sober person who has experience with them, can’t be phased. It will tell you what you are on that drug. I saw that what I was wasn’t half bad, just loaded with guilt that wasn’t actually mine. Just, for a while there, guilt is easier to carry than wrath. But gween is da color of anga.

That may be true, but there’s a difference between seeking altered states of consciousness and seeking fun. I don’t consider a pleasant buzz to be an altered state of consciousness. And I don’t consider all altered states of consciousness to be fun. I’ve always thought of salvia divinorum to be the litmus test for this. It’s an incredibly potent drug and the experience is jarring to say the least–an altered state if there ever was one–yet to say it’s unpleasant is an understatement. He who goes after a drug like salvia is in a whole other class of drug user than he who goes after something like coke or heroin.

I’d like to be a psychonaught. I think the exploration of altered states of consciousness is not only fascinating but a great learning experience. Yet I want to live a healthy life. What I’m trying to do is get everything I got from the drugs without the drugs–that is, in healthy ways. The drugs take a toll on not only my physical and mental healthy, but my spiritual health as well, and do damage to everything around me–my job, my finances, my family, and my soul. If I could have more control over my mind–the states it goes in and out of–without the unwanted side effects–I’d considered that a great achievement.

Well good luck with that. But I assure you, drugs do it better. I’m just telling you so that when that truth inevitably hits you, you have the option of seeking help instead of jumping onto an even worse downward spiral. Alcohol kills people.

The explanation is simple. Whatever meditative techniques allow a master to alter consciousness, drugs highjack the same areas of the brain faster and more potently.

Cause they be chemicals see?

And the light buzz does the alteration we all truly seek: an emotional one.

Coffee, which you also quit, and cigarettes, don’t do this. Their effects don’t actually alter your consciousness, so AA and rehabs alow them.

Btw all addicts are snobs who look down on addicts with different drugs of choice. To the man.

Until you leave a straight alcoholic stranded in an island with only weed or, yes, even a “psychonaut” with only coke or heroin. It doesn’t fail. The addiction is to the altered state of consciousness, and even more honestly to the emotional alteration they produce.

This is science. But if that ever convinced a jun-sorry-addict, we would all just watch the Discovery Channel.

Only a hard look at your life and the consequences of your behavior will ultimately convince you.

That’s the second step. The first step, admitting that your life has spiraled out of control and you need help, you already took. Congratulations!

*Alcohol kills people if they are lucky. More often it strips you of your dignity and your honor. More importantly your dignity.

You are a surviver. I know because that’s what an addict is. Drygs remedy a pain that would drive a non addict insane. Literaly, coocoo. But now the remedy has become the problem, and whatever caused the pain is long gone, and surviving now means quitting the remedy.

I worry that this is too technical. But it will help you some day. To have been told the truth and informed that there is help. And it works not to get you off the drugs, but to actually feel good about life and yourself. Just you need to quit drugs first. So now you know. I’m here whenever you need me. And there is an AA anywhere in the wzzorld.

When I had done 6 months of days filled with yoga and meditation, involving the astral ream as the mere first circle of depths (in the middl is the silver star, where some more serious fun starts) and then smoked a joint, that point was made to me. It was only then that I saw what I had opened myself up to.

Drugs forcibly alter the psyche.

What a recovering addict must ask is, what if you don’t alter it?