Being Honest -

It is okay to just think the thoughts that you have and follow them, and know that they are not purely your own thoughts, and that those particular thoughts at that particular time don't determine everything about you or necessarily define you for all eternity.  They could even be meaningless, inconsequential, flighty little things that don't hold much more water than the most recently passed flatulence.

Faith

It has become evident to me that faith is paramount to life.  It is a thing that religion gets fundamentally correct, at base, and it is important that we all see the more abstract notion of faith, divorced from any baggage of guilt or the sabotage of our personal histories regarding what we've been told to think, or reacted to, regarding religion.

Faith is vital.  We must believe in the future.  We must come to an emotional or philosophical, or even a hold-me-by-my-hips kind of need or want to aim into the future, not for personal gain, for laziness, sloth, etc., but because we can fathom a future of betterness, improvement, constant development, and where we matter. --

Not where we tell ourselves we matter, or where ambition flouts about for ambition's sake.  But a future that we somehow fundamentally believe in, because it matters.  Because it matters without a because.  It matters.  That's the faith part, at once intoxicatingly simple to say and disregard and hideously difficult to practice and hold steady and strong.  But that is what we need, make no mistake, and we will go about trying to find it.  Better to be clear about what we're looking for first, before embarking.

Push Toward Flat

I have a tendency to build hyperbole into everything I do, think about, react to, or experience.  It is exceedingly difficult for me to experience, to live, accurately, flatly, neutrally.  I'd prefer to have some pinch of feedback to know that I'm alive.  As if life's meaning is flat because life is flat.  Because there is no drama.

I'm also intensely self-aware, which, when combined with the need to have drama, or seek action, really pollutes my own feelings of contentment or the possibility of peace.

I also don't think I'm alone.

So what?

So nothing.  Deal with it and development within it too--a much harder task than the constantly bounding mania that so often fueled the exegesis of anything and anyone who would listen.

Death On My Mind

Constantly.  That may sound strikingly myopic, or abnormal.  Perhaps I am indeed deranged in some fundamental way, or just wrong, deep down.

Or perhaps not.

Regardless, I do maintain what I believe in is a healthy respect for death, for darkness, for the reality and need to heed that flavor of our basic existence.

It is hard not to sound quaint or even cliched at this moment, this point, and I don't mean it in a way to evoke some weird kind of nostalgia or even any reflection whatsoever.  It is more about me getting to the basics of accuracy. I experience life with a chronic understanding of death.  It isn't bad, necessarily.  It just is. Before we get to bad, we get to what exists.  In short, I have a certain awareness of vulnerability.  I don't think it is bad, per se.  I think it is perhaps helpful.  You may think that my concurrent problem of never being able to relax, to "settle" into my life, as it were, was closely related to my chronic fatiguing ever present awareness of death.

You'd be right, possibly, but I don't exactly care because I know the more entrenched reality is that you likely care less than that.  My thoughts are almost uniquely inapplicable to you, average person, and your thoughts to me likewise.  It is truly depressing, that sort of relentless unhinged nature of modern life, but I do stare it down with as little distortion as possible.

The point is that death isn't funny, and it isn't intriguing and it certainly isn't something that can be used lightly.  It is scary.  Scary because of its permanence.  Permanence is a concept that takes some time to get used to, since it is easy to hold traction of such notions in conversation, and much harder in the waves of isolation, or even habitual every day life.  Permanence overlays lot of things, the concept of it, a nice little ancillary sub-death thought.  I believe that we make decisions that stick with us, and maybe I'm wrong, but then again, the chance that I'm right is what worries me more.

I Think That's It -

From now on I'll post on a different blog, with mostly different topics, and maybe more or less frequently.  Perhaps I'll check in here every now and again.  I feel like I've actually "done it," whatever that means, and my sobriety is now a foundation instead of a shaky bit of dramatic angst, so I don't feel compelled to draw out every last shade to you, or to myself.  I appreciate all previous comments, emails, communications, etc., and I wish everyone the best of luck.

Alcohol Exacerbates Anxiety -

If you have serious anxiety, don't drink. I'm serious. I'm serious without needing to develop this idea too much. I personally experienced hard and relentless panic attacks as a drinker. If you are suffering, as anonymous is, below, then please: eliminate all stimulants from your life (coffee), concentrate on getting rest, try hard to eat enough protein and exercise. 

Sounds simple, I know. Simple, everyday stuff.

 Everyday living. The regular routine things that get us through become quasi-religious.


 Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "What Happens When You Stop Drinking. How Long to ...": I haven't drank in 5 months and I'm still an anxious nervous wreck. Don't know how long a can go on. I need relief. I need a drink

Showing Status Through Alcohol

Not like this needs to be said, anyway. But. Booze is a status marker. And not only that, some people are convinced that collecting expensive booze, and, for instance, showing it off at a party, is a "hot shit" kind of thing to do. And they're mostly right, for a certain crowd. The method for showing it off can vary from understated (like serving blue label and acting like it is no big deal) to over-stated, like, well, forcing the presence of said whiskey on everyone's ears but not tongue. Anyway, ever been at a family get-together that devolves into vicious fighting? It wasn't helped out by the "blue" label.

Music = Perfect Combination of Intelligence and Emotion

I Miss You, IPA -

It is no joke.  Not drinking.  There's less relief now, at over three years, than there was before at three days or weeks or even months.  The relief on night-afters is higher.  Social engagements are less tricky, and most of my friends respect non-drinking, mostly because they know just how much social events revolve around drink.

And there's none of those pesky 3am panic attacks.  At least, not related to drinking.  Except I do maintain the police dream, whereby I'm being chased.  But it has morphed a bit.  Sometimes (often), I am being surrounded by large bears, and they are everywhere, and they will get me, I'm sure, but they don't, since I always wake up first, screaming!  Fuck me, I don't know why I have it, but I do.

Anyway, crowding out bear dreams is the fact that my life is objectively good!

I just want a strong release at times!  And I love frothy IPA.  And my wife, who gave birth 3 months ago, finally decided she's going to have a drink since she was sober for 9 months, and bought this delicious large brown bottle of some esoteric IPA.  And IPA is by far my favorite beer.  Strong, and bitter, and just fucking righteous in a way that nothing else is.  And exercise is not quite the same, or, well, it takes over two hours to get that incredible focus and elan which a quick drink would give.

So anyway, I can't hold my shit, is the basic thing.  I cannot just moderate my drinking.  I cannot drink.  I did not drink.  I will not drink.  I hear you, those of you who comment, telling me that they've been sober for SEVEN years only to think it is okay to drink, and waking up TEN years later, the need to get sober again alive, again present, again visceral and again, life wasted.

I hate the wasted life aspect of drinking.

Fuck me, I hate that wasted life aspect.    My layers of regret and denial and just general shame are sufficiently complex, thick, and idiosyncratically alive, that I a think shame may be just about the strongest of emotions.

The point is not to relive bad times.  I'm not trying to do that.  The point is to find meaning.  Being sober and looking for meaning is a lot harder than being a little bit tipsy--the same kind of tipsy that large brown bottle of beer would provide in oh, about twenty minutes of indulgence.  Meaning rich and frothy and honest, I do believe, and inspiring.  And it hurts to not have that ease of meaning because I'm simply not responsible enough to do so.

And at times it is just not enough to know that I'm fighting the good fight.  Instead I just feel bad for a bit.  Actually, to be honest for a moment.  I feel bad a lot.

Sobriety is the Beginning not the End.

There's a painful awakening process that occurs when you get sober.  It is this: getting sober is not enough.    It is only a condition toward further steps, not itself a "further step."

In other words: get sober.  Good.  Got sober.  Now what?

The journey is long, and although sobriety is part of that journey, other activities, events, people, and beautiful inspiration should fill your life.  You should not try to make friends solely because those friends are sober, or you can always talk about being sober.  It doesn't hurt, mind you.  Naturally, hanging out with folks who get cranked all the time won't help one bit.

But the point is to submerge yourself in a topic or set of topics that allow you to develop something outside of sobriety, or, if you prefer, with sobriety as a foundation.

It isn't easy to do stuff.  I don't know what stuff you like, or what stuff you are good at (those things don't need to be the same at all), but hey, it is worth the effort!  After all, what else is there, if not effort toward higher goals?

Ads for Built-In Vacuums. How Did I Get Here?

If I post about the ads I see, will those ads start to become conscious of themselves?  They seem quite aware and linked to previous posts, so there's got to be a way to make them implode through a nested dissonance, no?

And if all the ads implode, how would I know that I need a built in vacuum cleaner, anyway?

I guess the point is that built-in vacuum cleaners are obligatory, default, and that I'm atypically unconcerned with those things that I should be concerned with, and that my meta-vacuum gambit will work in reverse to make me implode, and when that happens, I'll blog about it as well, and see which adds are "released" into the stream of consumption.

No doubt someone will profit from my breakdown.  Isn't that appropriate?  Or is it morally repugnant?

I can't even remember anymore which one I'm supposed to think> cue ads.

Risk - And Booze.

Yeah, so I've become extremely risk averse.  It is probably debilitating, the extreme way in which I avoid taking risk.  I basically want to limit my exposure to the kinds of things that will lead to huge life-altering abstract and real pain.  I mean, I'm not kidding here.  The problem is that some risk-taking is advantageous, even encouraged, and since I've become so highly conservative, I've lost the flavor of risk.

Minor side thought of the day.