and today, on the 15 month anniversary of my sobriety, i accepted a job offer to teach ESL in Ecuador
if alcohol were still a part of my life, i wouldn't be doing what i am about to do. i dont know where else to share this, but i feel like i owe this transition almost entirely to my sobriety. it sucked for a long fucking time, but great things can happen.
tho honestly i am scared to be that close to columbian
madness and chaos wrote:i was about at six months and I just fucking relapsed last Sunday
feeling like dog shit, straight out of detox
life is hard as fuck
i went 13 months and relapsed one day and yeah it was awful and i felt like shit but since then it's been 7 1/2 years so you can use that relapse to fuel your commitment
it doesn't have to be the end of the world, it can be the start of something great
im at one full year on 11/13. i cant really fathom how much my life has changed since then. i cant really begin to talk about the three years leading to the decision to quit drinking.
i can say im still really fucking depressed/anxious. a lot of the control issues i used as an excuse to drink are still there. i indulge with fast food now, and bite my nails and lots of obsessive behaviors. i still smoke when i play music out. in a lot of ways these issues are exacerbated, as i havent really gotten better at coping with them, ive only moved them onto a less destructive habit. but where i havent gotten rid of the things that have troubled me for so long, i can say ive added so many positive things my life feels really crowded now (in a good way). im halfway to an engineering degree (which boggles my fucking mind after 10 years of working fucking barista jobs) and im getting married in march, and lots of other stuff i can't believe. i have GOOD days, now. i wake up at 630am every morning and exercise five times a week. sometimes i still have manic nights where i skip too much sleep but i never thought id be a fucking MORNING person, like awake and halfway through my day at 9:30am.
i think a lot about posts in this thread. i think johnk was the guy who talked about how some of the darker things dont necessarily change or get lighter, but at least you can see there's two lines in the world and you're in the serious one. i am butchering that, but i understood it strongly when i read it and i think about that quite a bit. i dont have urges much anymore for the actual taste or sensation of drinking, but sometimes i want to shut the fuck down for like 16 hours, so i remind myself that if im gonna be depressed about this or that thing whether or not i drink, i might as well not drink and stand in line with the other depressed sober schmucks.
ashtrayheart wrote:im at one full year on 11/13. i cant really fathom how much my life has changed since then. i cant really begin to talk about the three years leading to the decision to quit drinking.
i can say im still really fucking depressed/anxious. a lot of the control issues i used as an excuse to drink are still there. i indulge with fast food now, and bite my nails and lots of obsessive behaviors. i still smoke when i play music out. in a lot of ways these issues are exacerbated, as i havent really gotten better at coping with them, ive only moved them onto a less destructive habit. but where i havent gotten rid of the things that have troubled me for so long, i can say ive added so many positive things my life feels really crowded now (in a good way). im halfway to an engineering degree (which boggles my fucking mind after 10 years of working fucking barista jobs) and im getting married in march, and lots of other stuff i can't believe. i have GOOD days, now. i wake up at 630am every morning and exercise five times a week. sometimes i still have manic nights where i skip too much sleep but i never thought id be a fucking MORNING person, like awake and halfway through my day at 9:30am.
i think a lot about posts in this thread. i think johnk was the guy who talked about how some of the darker things dont necessarily change or get lighter, but at least you can see there's two lines in the world and you're in the serious one. i am butchering that, but i understood it strongly when i read it and i think about that quite a bit. i dont have urges much anymore for the actual taste or sensation of drinking, but sometimes i want to shut the fuck down for like 16 hours, so i remind myself that if im gonna be depressed about this or that thing whether or not i drink, i might as well not drink and stand in line with the other depressed sober schmucks.
So... I guess I'm a sponsor now. I don't know what to do with this. I don't remember what I did. I think I start at step 1. I'm picking him up for a 7 am meeting.
I'm not sure if he'll be disappointed when he figures out that I'm me and not whoever he thought I was, or I'll be impressed with the man it turns out I can be
Is this thread exclusively for sobriety from alcohol? I don't wanna muddy the waters and distract whatever good work is going on in here but I've also been abstaining from habitual coke use for awhile now (after a really dark period) and don't know if there's a specific thread for narc sobriety or not.
madness and chaos wrote:i was about at six months and I just fucking relapsed last Sunday
feeling like dog shit, straight out of detox
life is hard as fuck
i went 13 months and relapsed one day and yeah it was awful and i felt like shit but since then it's been 7 1/2 years so you can use that relapse to fuel your commitment
it doesn't have to be the end of the world, it can be the start of something great
this. you can bounce back, don't get down on yourself
king ding-a-ling wrote:6 years sober this month (10/12)
That's rad man, congratulations. How would u sum up those years
hard to summarize, for the most part my life has gotten considerably better across the board. i still struggle with concentration/mood swings/food issues/social anxiety and i definitely put too much pressure on myself a lot of the time but overall i am happier and better adjusted. very grateful to be sober, if i hadn't quit when i did i probably wouldn't be here.
madness and chaos wrote:i was about at six months and I just fucking relapsed last Sunday
feeling like dog shit, straight out of detox
life is hard as fuck
i went 13 months and relapsed one day and yeah it was awful and i felt like shit but since then it's been 7 1/2 years so you can use that relapse to fuel your commitment
it doesn't have to be the end of the world, it can be the start of something great
this. you can bounce back, don't get down on yourself
thank you much. that's what everyone is trying to tell me. i smash myself up so bad whenever this happens and this is like the worst time. i'm so sick of losing my life and losing people in my life because of this affliction. i'm getting back into my routine now, feeling better slowly. fuck drugs/speed
i relapsed at just shy of a year and then again at about a year and a half before staying sober now for the past 6+ years. i found that the relapses, though of course unpleasant and terribly dangerous, served to show the places where i needed to do better if i were to stay sober. i mean, it would've been better to figure that out without relapsing, but sometimes that's not how it works out. another thing i found is that even though my ego thought it sucked to lose time, it wasn't like starting back at zero again when i came back to the rooms. i was able to work on the steps and make progress much faster since i already had a decent understanding of what it was all about.
Jerry Lundegaard wrote:and today, on the 15 month anniversary of my sobriety, i accepted a job offer to teach ESL in Ecuador
if alcohol were still a part of my life, i wouldn't be doing what i am about to do. i dont know where else to share this, but i feel like i owe this transition almost entirely to my sobriety. it sucked for a long fucking time, but great things can happen. tho honestly i am scared to be that close to columbian
my brother has been teaching esl in medellin colombia for two years fwiw. also congrats
well I have a sponsor and a home group and I just went to a meeting and then an NA Halloween party, and you know what? it's all fine. actually, it's kinda nice. I dunno. I finally met some people I really get along with. I see now how key that is ... it's hard to make NA or AA a big part of your life if you don't find people that you actually wanna hang out with. because otherwise, you're just forcing it. and I mean, yeah, we all have ~using~ in common, and we can relate about that, but it's so much easier this time since I met .. tbh, liberal weirdos, gays, and/or other people in tech, as opposed to Trump voters. like don't get me wrong, I actually love the rural sport-loving Trump-voting rednecks from my previous recovery periods, they're truly nice people in most areas of their lives, but I never felt fully comfortable oandnever had the engaging non-recovery conversations I'm having now. it just makes it so much easier when you wanna hang out with people.
king ding-a-ling wrote:6 years sober this month (10/12)
That's rad man, congratulations. How would u sum up those years
hard to summarize, for the most part my life has gotten considerably better across the board. i still struggle with concentration/mood swings/food issues/social anxiety and i definitely put too much pressure on myself a lot of the time but overall i am happier and better adjusted. very grateful to be sober, if i hadn't quit when i did i probably wouldn't be here.
i got my 3 month coin at the nyu anniversary meeting yesterday; it was pretty rad, nyu/bronfman really is my favorite spot, but we were like 20 minutes late, so i'm just gonna do my 3 month share the end of next month. these coins are heavy!