One cool thing about stopping drinking alcohol after your body has become so used to it over time, is you experience a kind of euphoria. At least I do, and I’ve read this is a common experience. It is because the alcohol has been more or less permanently suppressing your nervous system for months, years, and you adapted to living in that somewhat depressed-suppressed state. Alcohol is a downer drug, although it also has a somewhat opposite effect in the short-term. Gets you excited and energized for an hour or two, but if you keep going or wait for that to wear off them you just get tired, pass out, lazy, or whatever.
Over years your entire neurology becomes energetically suppressed, although you might not realize it because you just seem normal more or less. It seems normal to you anyway. But quit drinking and by the third day you might feel this large surge of happiness and energy as your brain and nerves kick up into higher gear, finally free of the suppressing effects of the alcohol.
Apparently this can be dangerous, the energetic release can be too much and cause physiological problems and even psychological problems. Best to wean off the drinking if you are worried about that. In extreme cases hardcore alcoholics can die if they suddenly stop drinking, which is crazy. But assuming you’re somewhere between raging decades-long alcoholic and casual day drinker, quitting cold turkey can feel really good.
I am nowhere near that extreme, apparently it’s possible to drink 1/2 to 1 liter of whiskey a day for years and still be nowhere near it. Amazing really.
The “secret” (I hate using that phrase, ever since that book came out) but really in this case it is sort of a best kept secret, which maybe the better AA leaders and sponsors know about, is in order to make a change like this stick (such as quitting a powerful “addiction” (another word I find useless, or worse than useless)) you must integrate the new you into your existing personality. There must be a bridge wide enough to connect the two in your soul, in the most essential parts of your self.
Find a way to visualize yourself the way you want to be, but you also need more than just powerful images and strong willpower. Environmental influences help keep this on track because they come with counter-incentives to the incentives you are trying to resist. That also helps. But as the saying goes, “once an addict always an addict” this is true only for those who merely struggle to resist, not for those who actually change and become new again.
How can you change who you are like that? It’s not that difficult, but it helps to know what you are doing. Be conscious and intentional about exactly the process. Otherwise it is accidental and ex post facto stumbling here and there, learning through pain as it were. Pain is far from the best teacher, but for those without conscious awareness and clear intention over their actions I suppose pain might be the quickest way out of their personal hells. Nature does seem to have a way of punishing “low consciousness”, although understanding the nature of intelligence sheds quite a bit of light onto this.
Humanize, I really go for that, except I have been told I am a chip off the old Germanic block that I mix with the self degrading Jew of my saintly mom, who was an angel in disguise and I mentioned that in the short decade or so I have had residency there.
Been drinking since 1944 when my dad, who was in an SS situation, bless his soul an admitted neophyte, if that is a word even relevant to what’s at hand and been drinking since.
Cause: there was beer but no water in those harrowing years to keep one alive, so I guess I WAS a happy baby.
Later when having inkling of what a hippy baby can consists of, I mentioned to Larenghetti of some muse(ich) that having with booze and he says join my poetry workshop.
Then on top of that, I was reminded by ‘Howl’s author that if you need to drink , don’t do it in public , but do it in private for the sake of said music. Now that Ginsburg saying that as well his lover whose name , but just remembered as : Peter Orlovsky, was of Russian Jewish ancestry, and he says “I could not have driven a bus in the city of angels for bear 30 years as you have done.
Others say you are not original , as if intimating I tried to fireshadiw some on the road type experience.
Why is pain far from the best teacher? Sometimes it can be the only teacher for some. Once you hit rock pain, you come to realize that you have had enough. We come to find our strength through pain - to realize how strong we can be.
First we have to realize that who we have been is not really who we are and not who we were meant to be.
How many lives do we actually have to live? What if this is the only one, Humanize? Are we going to run away with our tails between our legs or are we going to stand up and start living…I mean really living with purpose…
I’ve never drunk so i know nothing about your plight. Any time i drank alcohol it was forced and special occassion stuff. Never causally, routinely or habitually. Like i would never pop one open after work or whatever and I’ve never craved it. Rarely even think about it. Drinkin a Stella now but only becuz I’m outta sweet tea. Second one I’ve had in a month.
The only substance i use is spinoza’s substance, and sparingly at that. Friday and Saturday nights i read the Ethics. That’s it. I draw the line at weekends. I have responsibilities and obligations during the week and i need to be sober and right minded.
I am feeling really good. It’s been about a week not, no alcohol. I have tons of energy. Plus I found an amazing blend of supplements I’ve been taking twice a day and which is even better than alcohol. It’s pure health. Focus and mood booster plus purges the body of viruses and parasites.
Nice, keep that up then. I do recommend experiencing the limits of alcohol, but only if you can manage to come back from it. Not everyone can, some people have that whole “addictive personality thing” (poorly named, but it is a thing). So a general abstinence is a safe bet if you’re not sure.
No but I’ll tell u something that would be funny af and something only hard philosophy nerds familiar with S could appreciate. A skit on that premise; substance abuse. People who are addicted to reading the Ethics and their lives are being ruined becuz of this. They go to a substance abuse therapy group where they talk about their problems with this horrible addiction and give each other support. One guy has problems at work becuz he’s always sneaking off to the break room to read spinoza. Another guy’s wife is divorcing him becuz all he cares about is spinoza. One kid stole from his family to get money to buy a soft copy of the Ethics. Another one has insomnia becuz he’s up all night reading. And one guy lost his job becuz they wouldn’t let him wear that black overcloak that S wears while at work.
These are some of the nightmarish things spinoza’s substance abuse can cause in people’s lives.
Think SNL short skit. As they’re sitting in the circle talking about their problems, u cut to a scene of the guy hiding behind the drink machine in the break room like a drug fiend reading the Ethics.
Then the guy with the wife. Cut to a scene of them having a dramatic argument in front of the kids. Wife’s like ‘we can’t fit a lens grinding machine in the upstairs bonus room, John, and u know that. Where are u getting the money for this thing, anyway? U know we can’t afford it!’
The hard truth is that, in most cases, an alcoholic is better advised to just keep drinking if they’re not going to join a program, because 10 times out of 10 they will be substituting with even more hardcore psychiatric medicines.
