tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14591886164383301222024-02-08T13:24:56.336-05:00Alcohol FreeA Year or More With No Booze: Trying to Successfully Manage Tedium and ObsessionUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger739125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-43394936542497945112017-01-07T12:55:00.001-05:002017-01-07T12:55:29.229-05:00Understanding Anxiety (and Alcohol)Anxiety is a bit of a quandary. It isn't easy to define. What is it precisely? Hard to say--maybe sweaty hands? Maybe very quick heart beat? Is that all, though, or even the core of it? I don't think so, though I'm not sure. The core of it seems to be more about a mental state, and that mental state is one that can only be defined by what it is not: satisfied and secure. It is everything but secure, warm in a snug cabin as snow falls. It is as if the bottom has dropped out, as if all the accumulate framework of knowledge that you've relied on to broker inner life with reality has disintegrated, that every breath, every assumption is somehow insecure in its moorings. <br />
<div>
<br /></div>
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And that's frightening at base. What may be more frightening is that it may allow us a glimpse into more of reality "as it is" and less of just our cocky human mind layers of confidence. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Which is also to say that anxiety allows truth to emerge in fractured and jagged beauty. I'd hope that this, too, could ameliorate the dread involved, but perhaps not. Even after all of it, anxiety is not controllable, and that lack of control can itself trigger further heightening of fear and panic. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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Alcohol is also about control. And oddly enough, after every drink, every bit of loosening of the reigns of one's control, there is I believe in effect a zero sum overall game in relation to anxiety. In other words, it will be back, and it will be back stronger and more lasting than before. The only way a lot of us deal with it is to have another drink, thus pushing the intensification and latency of anxiety further. Which starts a vicious cycle, of course.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So, how to tame alcoholism? Be able to deal with anxiety without alcohol. If you cannot, then you cannot drink. It really is all logical deep down, somewhere that we do not want to often see.</div>
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<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com67tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-41929151765803765602017-01-02T15:39:00.000-05:002017-01-02T15:39:12.306-05:00Alcohol and Anxiety The single hardest thing to do when getting sober is tamping down anxiety.<br />
<br />
Anxiety.<br />
<br />
It is at the core of all good alcoholics out there. <br />
<br />
Anxiety is not a very easy subject, mostly because it cannot be conquered. It cannot be concluded. That's the nature of it. To quiet it is to die. And death only begets more anxiety. <br />
<br />
Can't die to stay sober. Gotta live. <br />
<br />
And if you've gotta live, and you gotta figure out sobriety, you gotta figure out anxiety. <br />
<br />
Sticky wicket that. <br />
<br />
But conquer anxiety and you conquer alcohol. Now, how to do that exactly?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-87219077967274335112015-08-04T22:28:00.002-04:002015-08-04T22:28:18.966-04:00Anonymous Calls Me A Fool For Being SoberGo figure! Got this comment (below) on August 3, 2015. Now, when did I write that blog post you might ask, especially if you were going to call someone a fool?<br />
<br />
Ah, let's see, February 2012.<br />
<br />
So, how, exactly, do you get to 20 months? And when your math is so off, how do you get off calling someone a fool?<br />
<br />
And precisely, please tell me, how do you call ANYONE a fool for ANY time sober?<br />
<br />
Sounds like you know who is the fool.<br />
<br />
<dt class="comment-author " id="c1808049794977551255" style="background-color: white; background-position: 0px 1.5em; border-top-color: rgba(128, 128, 128, 0.498039); border-top-style: dashed; border-top-width: 1px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.1199998855591px; margin-left: -45px; padding-left: 45px; padding-top: 1.5em;">Anonymous said...</dt>
<dd class="comment-body" id="Blog1_cmt-1808049794977551255" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 15.1199998855591px; margin: 0.5em 25px 0.5em 0px;">You have been sober only 20 months and think you can write a blog about sobriety? What a fool.</dd><dd class="comment-footer" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 15.1199998855591px; margin: 0.5em 25px 1.5em 0px;"><span class="comment-timestamp"><a href="http://offbooze.blogspot.com/2012/02/what-happens-when-you-stop-drinking-how.html?showComment=1438614851091#c1808049794977551255" style="color: #6699cc; text-decoration: none;" title="comment permalink">August 3, 2015 at 11:14 AM </a><span class="item-control blog-admin pid-722408971" style="display: inline;"><a class="comment-delete" href="https://www.blogger.com/delete-comment.g?blogID=1459188616438330122&postID=1808049794977551255" style="color: #6699cc; text-decoration: none;" title="Delete Comment"><img src="http://www.blogger.com/img/icon_delete13.gif" style="border: none; position: relative;" /></a></span></span></dd><dd class="comment-footer" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 15.1199998855591px; margin: 0.5em 25px 1.5em 0px;"><span class="comment-timestamp"><br /></span></dd><dd class="comment-footer" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 15.1199998855591px; margin: 0.5em 25px 1.5em 0px;"><br /></dd>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-80547876586326765202015-03-07T11:36:00.002-05:002015-03-07T11:36:45.272-05:00New Goals.Start things. And finish them. Simple, right?<br />
<br />
Then go do it. And stop talking about it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-28239224728268338202015-02-07T12:41:00.001-05:002015-02-07T12:41:32.099-05:00Nostalgia Early DaysNostalgia seems to be based a certain lack of awareness of one's experiences, that is, pre-narrative. Before we apply a frame, we experience "that stuff" of life without borders. Surely, we do have borders, but for nostalgic crooners among us (most of us), they were more porous and less intensely explicit.<br />
<br />
Nostalgia is tricky, partially because we cannot recreate that time, especially and precisely because the notion of recreating it necessarily pollutes it. But also because the lathe of memory is too strong for us to remember accurately. <br />
<br />
Nostalgia is like fantasy: best kept in one's head.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-86321538380942870852015-01-11T21:14:00.000-05:002015-01-11T21:14:22.278-05:00Sobriety In The New YearIf you've planned to give up drinking for the new year: welcome.<br />
<br />
If you've given up drinking before: welcome.<br />
<br />
If you have been divorced, dirty, morally challenged, and regret deeply: welcome.<br />
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When you figure out that you have to make a change and you're on the third sick day of benders: welcome.<br />
<br />
When you give up alcohol and gain ten pounds from the counterbalance of sweets; if<br />
<br />
you're grumpy and assholish and nasty when you can't get your fix; and<br />
<br />
you're smart and devilish and sarcastic and a little crazy and selfish and you have decided you know everything you can like the foolish teenagers you calibrate away from seeing clearly: welcome.<br />
<br />
And when you decide, after your five weeks of post new year slump that being sober is a downer;<br />
<br />
And when your friends decided that your sober self is a bit different, shall we say, from the "real" you; <br />
<br />
And when the light bulb cannot be fished out with a half cut slice of potato;<br />
<br />
And when the fledgling excitement is stale:<br />
<br />
Welcome.<br />
<br />
This is sobriety.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-52273283772375904752014-11-27T12:13:00.001-05:002014-11-27T12:15:20.640-05:00Bespoke Ersatz<div class="MsoNormal">
I hate myself. I don’t
mean it. I mean I hate that I’m either
only annoyed or frustrated, or isolated, alone, and depressed. Perhaps it is the bipolar. Perhaps it is the manic depressives that I
surround myself with, my capacity to change always for the social group I’m
with, my fundamental lack of self. I am
unfulfilled. I’ll say it and scream it
and flail it and bleed it or some such, and I’ll certainly not grow out of it,
or so it seems at this point. So I’m
stuck with it, with me, that is, and that’s depressing since I so desperately
want to break free from myself. Which is
why I drink. Which is why I stopped
drinking—the fact that I drank. Reason
enough, with my personality. It’s just
that the self blaming, self victim shit really does get old, especially when on
repeat and especially when there’s no earthly reason for it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And so.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
NYC. The ever loving having made it city. The place where you go to become something
you’re not. A perfect place for the
delusional, really. Fuck Vegas. We are in the mirror twisted panorama of
human fantasy right here, in this little hip long island, where authenticity
rages and ersatz is bespoke. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The point is not above.
It is not the critical. Only
production matters. And production—of anything—is
quite difficult.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Try it sometime.<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-16028572970527849092014-09-27T13:33:00.003-04:002014-09-27T20:45:43.135-04:00Dear AlcoholicsDear Alcoholics.<br />
<br />
Those of you among us who might feel a bit of relief at the tilt of a bottle. Those of you fight off anxiety. Those of you who, perhaps, have a wife, and a family, that is, children, who in turn look up to you with none of the scorn that you may dish out your own reflection. Those of you who find heat unbearable and intensity inevitable. Who are suffocated. Miserable. Placated by nothing objectively good. Who have problems with proper behavior in social situations, at parties, for instance, or in meetings at work. Who have dreams of stature and perfection.<br />
<br />
I have a quick little message for you.<br />
<br />
Seeking perfection is a struggle you can't win. It won't be easy to convince others who suffer for your struggles. Those others will suffer, regardless. You can stop their suffering by stopping your quest. You can find a way to compromise your ideals. You can find a way to be flexible. If you do not, you will be driven back to the bottle every time and you will be alone.<br />
<br />
Being able to successfully communicate your struggles is a good step, but it is not a solution. Realize that people just don't care as much about you as you care about yourself. Realize that you are ultimately small, and that there is no way to be big. <br />
<br />
Time is limited. The only thing drinking does is waste time and set the seed for delusional nostalgia. Not all nostalgia is like this. Not all memories are like this (wistful, and wanting for a time that once was).<br />
<br />
You have been incorrect many times in your life, and you are, in fact, by default incorrect. Realize this and internalize this so that you can gain humility, and interrogate everything scrupulously, never settling on easy conclusions.<br />
<br />
Proving everything you have to prove is in essence an act of masturbation. <br />
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Prove yourself by being modest and supporting others. You will be rewarded for it far more than you think.<br />
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Good luck!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-45131296276141048572014-08-31T12:40:00.001-04:002014-08-31T12:41:03.055-04:00Figuring It Out?How we do or don't understand what we already understand--the circumference of our knowledge, if you will--is actually a terribly difficult and hard project to start. It is akin or parallel or even exactly the same issue of wondering whether there is ultimately any purpose to one's life, and whether there is any purpose at all.<br />
<br />
I don't know what I don't know. However, I am quite aware that there is a lot I don't know. At this point, I'm even willing to say that I don't know most things. However, that's not always a successful way to live life. Paralyzing anxiety and dread can come out of it, and stop one from thinking straight at all.<br />
<br />
So there's got to be some sort of leap of faith in one's own capacity to understand decipher and try to knock down the harsh complexity of the world and one's place in the world into some boxes, categories, and yes, stories. The reduction of raw data to stories is in fact at the core of almost every discipline. What is the story with those numbers, for instance, or with that dataset. How do we understand it in words, even if very complex words that take years to understand?<br />
<br />
We reduce. Simple and plain. The best of us recognize the reductions, and the complexity behind those reductions. The worst of us use the reductions as reality. Conflating the two can yield quick gain, but I'd wager that long term it is not a tenable strategy. Deciding you understand everything just because you think you do is not, to me, the sign of what we should be aiming toward, or how we should act. However, it is how we act most of the time. Almost all arguments are based on someone's misunderstanding of reality, and backing away from your own misunderstanding is the hardest thing to do in the world. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-51827844308523882482014-08-24T11:05:00.000-04:002014-08-24T11:05:14.820-04:00It is OK to take things seriously, with one important caveatYou must self-correct when you're wrong, and you must maintain blithe lightness of mind. Difficult, when getting deeply into something, and emotionally wrapped up in one perspective on that thing. Purposeful open-mindedness is something that is an artform, and a lot of "open minded" people are quite close-minded. This troubles me.<br />
<br />
But the point of the post was that it is OK to try, to make effort. <br />
<br />What we're scared of isn't effort, but failure, that our efforts = no result. <br />
<br />
Even given "failure," though I would argue that there is almost always something to learn if you've made a serious effort.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-6076996273650125562014-08-20T22:49:00.000-04:002014-08-20T22:50:37.136-04:00Doing It, Your Own WayIf you have the right kind of confidence, doing what makes you uncomfortable can be entirely enthralling, and spur on intense creative streaks.<br />
<br />
It isn't doing what you are scared of, and it isn't the confidence itself that forms the spine of this sentence. It is instead the need to go through incredible amounts of repeated mistakes, and still strike forth, nestled atop a scaffolding of slowly built up and and learned increments. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-77564771786126954262014-08-14T21:41:00.002-04:002014-08-14T21:41:25.170-04:00Two ThingsI had a horrible classic exchange today where "fuck yous" were exchanged. Well, it left me shaking, weak, and full of misdirected rage.<br />
<br />
I miss some people that I once had in my life. <br />
<br />
There are no easy resolutions for either.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-64581073027097102712014-07-29T21:48:00.002-04:002014-07-29T21:48:20.597-04:00 Be Here NowDoes it mean to be placid? To forget about the assholes, the half-brain tail-gating you into the red light-filled intersection? Does it mean that you should forget? Be walked over? Grow humility like other men grow balls? Find a way to consistently turn, aggressively turn, away, behind, upside down? Does it mean that you should forgive everything?<br />
<br />
Or does it mean that you should purposefully castrate the planning mechanism in your brain, forget about causality and effort and strife and become learnedly helpless, but calm in that sea of non-regret, finding a paddle too much effort, because the concept of a future would be too heavy a burden to bear?<br />
<br />
Perhaps it means a kind of non-thought. A sucking up the pieces and molting them into a new skin kind of thought, a meta-metamorphosis, one that consumes so fully so as to invert, to churn into, and transform the utterly alien into acceptably prosaic, the banal into a kind of mystic glitter?<br />
<br />
Whatever it is, I wonder, and spit, and keep on walking, looking only so long at the river as possible before going off to class, piecing together the fragments of myself from high school into college, wondering how those cool academics could be so goddamn cool, and emulating them with the kind of obsessive force that meant I'd do whatever it was they thought I should do, even and especially if it involved iterations of being here, now--or then.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-24199479204365106292014-07-28T19:06:00.000-04:002014-07-28T19:06:49.675-04:00Figuring It OutFor me, there have been many false sureties, times when I found what it all meant, and that I could be relatively secure in that knowledge, regardless of "what else" might be.<br />
<br />
Having gone through many iterations of my "world view" and built upon and destroyed it even more, I can say for sure that nothing is certain.<br />
<br />
Given that, I'd like to proffer a way of being: doubt. I'd like us to doubt more. I'd especially like us to doubt that which we are certain about, even and especially when we doubt other people and their capacity, viewpoint, or their certainty. We may be right. But in all likelihood we are at least partially wrong, and being partially wrong means the capacity to self-correct, to take in new information, and to all-around keep growing. That's sort of the important structural element here: growth. It doesn't have to be perfect and it doesn't have to be all or nothing. It can't be, in fact. But it is important that growth remains possible.<br />
<br />
And certainty can actually retard growth. Even as I write this I doubt. For instance, perhaps doubt can retard growth, too! And, well, that's true. There's no sure and fast way forward, much as there is very little certainty about what forward might mean. Forward is the start and stop, the correction, the reapplication, and the resolve to keep doing it for no other purpose than to experiment. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-56534723601892524472014-07-27T11:51:00.000-04:002014-07-27T11:51:12.255-04:00Don't Give Up! <> Be Realistic? I'm not sure which one wins the day, either in the short or long run.<br />
<br />
To temper the tension, I'd advise myself to both not give up and be realistic.<br />
<br />
But what about when being realistic means giving up, by definition?<br />
<br />
If you don't have unrealistic expectations, you won't be let down!<br />
<br />
Such folk wisdom!~ Who ever said that I would be in control of my own expectations.<br />
<br />
Seriously, most of these sayings are grounded in the idea that we have the capacity to control ourselves! What a fanciful notion.<br />
<br />
Still, what if we could control our emotional selves. Which would be better? Not giving up, or being realistic?<br />
<br />
Which one wins, more often?<br />
<br />
Which one wins, more often, for you/x individual?<br />
<br />
For those that win, can we be sure that the motto was adhered to in its entirety? <br />
<br />
I'm guessing that small level adjustments are made all the time. But I could be wrong. I've certainly been exposed to a lot of people that are inflexible, and guess what: their inflexibility works. For instance, and especially, imagine some negotiation. Even though it might not be where you want to end up, you take a certain stance precisely because you know that you will have to compromise eventually.,, you basically bake in that assumption to your stance. So taken on its own, you don't subscribe to what you're saying. But taken in the expected context of other people's strategies, your strategy makes sense.<br />
<br />
Except that they are doing the same thing: strategizing based on your expected strategy. What if both sides started at where they wanted to end up? Then they definitely wouldn't end up where they wanted! So it makes sense to be extreme, given any antagonistic system.<br />
<br />
Perhaps it also makes sense in the personal emotional realm? For all the fanfare that "giving up the right way" -- "failing well" yields these days in ultra data policy making/personal decision making, perhaps it still makes sense to set expectations unrealistically to get where you "really" want to be in the end.<br />
<br />
Just makes sense to somehow remember where you really wanted to be, when the time comes to accept something/or keep arguing.<br />
<br />
And that part is difficult.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-23935499367716231972014-07-24T21:58:00.001-04:002014-07-24T23:03:08.410-04:00All Garbage?Imagine the worst: that your life is mostly worthless. That you've tried incredibly hard, and that all of the effort has been rolled up into a bunch of mulch. Imagine all of the things that you deeply fear--that you fear so much you can barely conjure them (that you are alone, in a fundamental and irreconcilable way; that the people you hold closest to you don't value you; that you are suspended in one state of career stagnation; that nothing ever changes and gets better; that shame permeates your soul). Just let those thoughts consume you momentarily. That you cannot control who you are. That you lose your faculties of recognition. That your most precious memories slowly lose their details. <br />
<br />
Now imagine the best: that somehow, despite fuck ups and mistakes, you have not alienated everybody dear to you; that your effort has landed somewhere, and that people recognize you, and come to you for advice. That your family loves you and looks forward to spending time with you, and that you have balanced successfully most of your needs. Imagine that you largely control where your life goes, and that, realizing this, you made a point to be purposeful and that you have taken pride in what you can accomplish. Imagine that brand of genuine self-respect these things can produce, that way that it infuses you and makes you stronger. <br />
<br />
Imagine that you can be okay with your limitations. At peace. Without the need to prove it, or anything.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-29681862652737174262014-07-19T20:11:00.003-04:002014-07-21T22:39:53.642-04:00Stupider, Less Important, and Far UglierWe sure are a delusional folk. Outside of the exceptionalism lathered into a foamy mess, the bionic fun-house mirror funk of greediness, and the self-justification route preferred by all (and not programmed into GPS, yet), we might imagine a more real reality. In that more real reality there is a world where we are seen as other see us: stupider, less important, and far uglier.<br />
<br />
Which is a good touchstone for today's lesson: don't act like you're smart, important, and pretty. In all likelihood, you are not.<br />
<br />
Don't despair!<br />
<br />
Oh, there I go again, diving us all into a cesspool of depression. That was not my intention. In fact, my intention is to divorce the idea of intelligence and status and looks from decision-making. Because those three things don't bring happiness, and concentrating on those things is purely distracting, in the most banal and superficially serious way. Chasing after happy endings through the ghost of foggy mirrors! <br />
<br />
Anyway, the point is that letting go of all that seems incredibly important in regards to looks and intelligence and status will actually free you to do what it is you might enjoy doing without worrying about how what you enjoy makes you unpopular, or whatever, uglier. <br />
<br />
Those things have no control over you if they have no control over you.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-74190768605206214532014-07-14T19:30:00.001-04:002014-07-14T19:36:38.399-04:00Stop Drinking Now = Learning a New LanguageListen, when you don't know something, it seems incredibly mysterious. Think about traveling in a foreign country where you don't even know how to say "please", "hello", or "thank you." It is incredibly frustrating. Not only that but the language seems mind-bogglingly complex. Right?<br />
<br />
Yes.<br />
<br />
And so, it seems like you might learn some of the language, and in the process, that somehow you will swallow the mind-boggling complexity, and subsume it as part of you, and then feel good about it. I'm not knocking language learning at all, but the truth is that as you learn a language, hearing it seems less and less mysterious and more and more normal. That makes sense if you consider that language is a form of communication. And communication is functional (even if esoterically so at times, like with subtext and all). And so, it isn't that the language is incredibly mysterious. It is that your knowledge of that structure was zero, mostly. And as you go from zero upward, well, intriguing, and challenging, and constantly there, but not quite as mysterious.<br />
<br />
Sobriety is the same. It is a wonder, a kind of language in itself. It takes getting used to. In conceptual terms only, it is special and mysterious and even hard to see the contours of it, how they might apply to you. And like a language, it takes a lot of time to learn. And like a language, you get better with more practice. And time, therefore. And patience.<br />
<br />
And like a language, it allows you to communicate with other people, to understand a set of standards that were previously invisible.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-82779324522156564272014-07-11T23:34:00.003-04:002014-07-12T10:11:45.570-04:00MagicI meant to write this "in the moment."<br />
<br />
I was feeling slightly--albeit ever so slightly--magical. There was a sense of promise. A whiff of nostalgia mixed in with the possibility of change, the connection to something larger. The awe-inspiring performance of total immersion in an activity.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I don't often feel this way. Lately I've been getting better, though, having more frequent "high consistent energy" type days. I've been sleeping consistently too, that is, not waking up at night as much as I used to. I've been eating less. I have control over my hunger. For the first time in a long long time. A little bit of honest control. Not to brutal ends, no. To moderate ones. I've been out of control, quite literally, for many years.<br />
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I like to aim toward poise. I don't think it didactic or excessive or wrong. I respect poise. I respect restrained intelligence. I respect people who firmly know when they don't know and aggressively pursue. I want to be like that more often. I don't think it is bad to aim toward betterment of self, to change oneself, and to blossom into something new. Consistency is in some regards quite over-rated, when it, for instance, keeps people blinded, when they feel like they have to "keep it real" and stay emotionally immature, act out, or do other inane shit to basically signal their capacity to exhibit normal social behavior for a particular group. I say show yourself as someone who is striving to be better. There's nothing wrong with that. That's not a reason to feel shame. Anyone who wants to make you feel shame for that shouldn't be allowed "in" emotionally. People should feel shame for abusing their wives, for manipulating a benefits system, or even for not pushing themselves. They shouldn't feel it for true effort.<br />
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I'm convinced that sustained and true effort and magic are strongly related.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-63913794341078439272014-07-10T20:05:00.003-04:002014-07-10T20:05:22.453-04:00HopeHope is a very delicate thing. It is hard to quantify and easy to abuse and quite possibly dangerous to harbor. It deludes us at times, and we are wont to use it as a tool for staying deluded. <br />
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And yet we need it.<br />
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Without it, I'm fairly sure that I would perish.<br />
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And yet it is hard to keep up, to hold out.<br />
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Allowing your hope to fill a previously empty structure, that is, shifting goals and moving on, but still maintaining hope, is a delicate dance. <br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-37066152565742637592014-07-09T20:24:00.000-04:002014-07-09T20:24:11.428-04:00Gaining Perspective (Easy To Be Locked In Without Realizing It)I suppose the most pernicious thing about alcohol, exempting the physical and immediate behavioral nastiness of it, is really, like a good friend once said, its ability to lock you into a loop, to make it very hard, in other words, to take in new information, feedback about your work (or romantic life), and to make corrections.<br />
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Even without alcohol, making changes to oneself are often hard and oftener just not very likely. We don't say we don't know or that we're sorry easily, but perhaps we should.<br />
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Instead, I constantly hear:<br />
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a) outraged people<br />
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b) people who know the best<br />
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c) people complaining about other people and how stupid they are (implicit message is not that clever guys)<br />
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Come away from any awkward conflict-type situation, and you, too (and me) will most likely try to justify your actions, and paint the other person's actions with thick nasty old paint. Regardless of reality.<br />
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Add alcohol to that mix, and all of a sudden, you might as well not be curious about anything, because you know everything, and all of your intuition is 100% accurate all the time. Not only that, but fuck people who disagree, right? <br />
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Am I right or wrong here?<br />
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So anyway, understanding that a) the world is vastly more complex than we can hope to understand and b) lots of things cannot therefore be assigned causal arrows, particularly our own actions, and that c) alcohol diminishes our already quite small capacity to fully comprehend (a) and (b), well, the only thing left to do is drop out alcohol and work hard to correct previously blocked feedback. And even then it will be quite difficult. Because we alcoholics, once sober, will want very badly to find meaning, even or especially easy meaning, the kind we are used to. But meaning finding isn't easy.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-63736381872360913842014-06-28T09:38:00.004-04:002014-06-28T10:18:44.971-04:004 Years Sober Redux I have been sober over 4 years. I am very proud of that fact. I don't mean to denigrate it or take it lightly. In fact, I see it in almost religious seriousness. <br />
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My life has changed immeasurably since I got sober. For one, I make about three times the money I made when I was drinking. I know this sounds perhaps superficial, but I assure you, especially with a family, it is not. Having a solid middle class life is nothing to laugh at or to take lightly, not when the alternative is clear and available, or worse, a deeper, darker alternative, with nothing to look forward to at all.<br />
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Speaking of. Looking forward to things is very important. I'm not sure I can underestimate that. It is important to keep in mind current reality, to not get lost in fantasy, but it is likewise healthy and vital and essential to have a respectful notion of future growth, the capacity to realize certain sought after goals, emotional maturity, and to have the capacity to change one's goals according to feedback, to self-correct. Alcohol stops those things--excuse me: consistent chronic alcohol abuse stops those things, mostly the capacity to self-correct. It shortens one's perspective into a very narrow slit and doesn't let go.<br />
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However, the scientist in me would be remiss if he didn't point out that I may have undergone many of these changes even if I were drinking. I am, after all, at an age where such changes happen regardless.<br />
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Still, although it is not perfect, I know that I have a certain emotional levity--the ability, to actually view myself, to hold simultaneously self-doubt and self-assertion, and to use my insecurity to my advantage, attributes that are difficult to acquire without hardship and the constant onslaught that we should just affirm our deepest intuitions and fuck everyone who disagrees.<br />
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There is, indeed, some hubris in the assertion that we can know, and I would prefer to hold the assumption that we cannot know, that we must constantly strive to know, and that this struggle should inform us at a basic and constitutional level.<br />
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Which is why I won't just say that not drinking did the trick, end of sentence, end of paragraph. I will instead say that it is something I should have corrected a long time ago, and I finally did, and I'm far from perfect in this respect, but I'm very very glad I did, and I wouldn't have gotten to the point where I could even write/say what I just did if I didn't stop drinking. I was definitely locked in the cycle I see in many many people, which is outrage, affirmation of righteous intuition, very little homework being done, and more assertions than anything else.<br />
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Truth, if it exists, is very difficult to access. I think this is self-evident, and applies to all fields of study, including human interaction, and, because of that, I'm quite hesitant to ascribe reasons to events that are far too complicated to begin to comprehend, including my own cessation of drinking. Still, I'm quite glad that I did it, and I will continue "not" doing it, forever more, regardless of how much I might imagine I could, given a hypothetical non-consequential world where I can indeed control myself. One truth that I know is that I cannot control myself with regard to alcohol. For that one, I don't need more evidence.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-90857754871296954312014-06-25T21:15:00.000-04:002014-06-25T21:15:07.921-04:004 Years - Obligated To Mark This MomentI feel like I should at least mention that it has been 4 years since I last had a drink and decided that hey, I'm going to seriously ruin my life if I keep drinking.<br />
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The incontrovertible truth was that I was taking yet another sick day off of work. This just shouldn't be the case. <br />
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Anyway, I'm sober. <br />
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Here's what sobriety doesn't equal:<br />
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meaningfulness<br />
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satisfaction<br />
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lack of boredom<br />
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perfect embodiment of ideals<br />
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So don't figure that it will deliver those goods, that is, if you decide you might try it out for a spin.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-51648191625959201882014-06-19T20:09:00.003-04:002014-06-19T20:16:10.830-04:00Why NYC Sucks.It doesn't intrinsically just suck, but here are a few of the most apparent reasons for me.<br />
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Nobody feels that it is a home. It is a transient city. For those that feel it IS a home, their misplaced sense of place is actually founded on rootlessness, on a fundamental "spareness" of being, which is best exemplified with this fact: you can make and remake yourself in NYC as often as you desire. For people who don't like themselves (me me me or at least, me 5 years ago!), this is great. (Paren: I like NYC less now and like myself much more: Paren).<br />
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Because it is a masturbation machine. Because nobody thinks NYC is a home, nobody wants to take care of it like a home. People want to use it for their needs and then get out, or get back, or whatever. Needs may be and often are narcissistic (it is the center, it is the biggest, it is the loudest and so are we, its denizens). I'm being harsh, but hey, it is true. <br />
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NYC is all about signalling that you live in NYC. There is no such thing left as "original" here. It is a roving consuming animal, all of us, and it. "New" neighborhoods are consumed as fast as you can say fuck me. Why? Because if there was a scrap of originality there, on the horizon,, everyone who wants so desperately to project themselves as original will go there and consume the shit out of that originality. And by those terms, they will fully pollute whatever was there, and whatever is left will be blathered off into a waste basket. The whole city is based on this dynamic and there is no starting point for originality anywhere, to be clear--it isn't as if the real originality actually is consumed and gone. The so-called real originality was gone 40 years ago and what's left was a shard of an echo, frozen into a lyric.<br />
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Car alarms and noise and buses and general just disgust. Pissing people. Pissed off people. Commuting on the misery of infrastructure that exists thusly, filled with all those people. <br />
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Me. I make NYC suck. You.<br />
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Deep breath.<br />
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Personally, I probably feel the need to move on every 3-5 years, and the fact that I've been here over 7 years now makes me feel totally worthless somewhere. I've used up the hope here a long time ago, and now the shell of shame is all that keeps me somewhat sane. Yes, shame keeps me from coming undone. Because I can see my own growth in the outlines of puke on the sidewalk, I can sort of come to terms with my past, here, and only here.<br />
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There are plenty of crazy redeeming things about NYC, none of which are the point of this blog post and none of which actually undo the bad things. I am certainly not claiming that NYC is worse or better than any other city. I am just generally sick of it and need some fresh air.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1459188616438330122.post-14606524260564547322014-06-19T20:00:00.003-04:002014-06-19T20:00:58.287-04:00I'm Looking For Home.It's not a hard thing to fathom. I want to feel like I'm at home. Relaxed, and engaged, and comfortable, and surrounded by the things that I love and that make me want to submerge myself deeper.<br />
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Lately I've felt exactly the opposite--that everything is alien. The strangeness that has pervaded almost everything is hard to pinpoint, both in a way that is totally accurate and a way that tries to unveil its origin. <br />
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Why should I, after all, feel so tremendously off? Everywhere? Even at home? Is there a reason that would allow me some sort of excoriation to jab at and turn over? I'm serious! I really could deal with reasons here, instead of the opaque ambiguity of feeling lost.<br />
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I admit that my current job does not help the situation. I'm basically staring at lots of computer code all day long. It makes me feel unhinged, even though it is, at a basic level, incredibly logical, incredibly mathematical.<br />
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Oddly enough I've finally sort of gotten a hold on the tremendous back pain that has plagued me for many many years. <br />
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Too many tangents here.<br />
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I have sense of pervading hopelessness, but it is not so acute that I will be silly and act out like a teenager. It is instead the way it is spread so thin, how it just sort of layers over everything, that makes it so damn cloying.<br />
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I'm also sick of NYC. I'll say that btw. I should have a different post on that. I will endeavor to post about that now, actually. Two posts in one day. It is a testament to my strange sadness that I must write.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1