A moment to breathe, reflect and put one foot in front of the other

[Orimus]

Once again the liquor is gone from the house, once again the bag of emptys is gone (was that really one weekend) and once again the last cigar was smoked. I made it one day without a drink or a cigar and then . . . well, guess the tune is familiar.

Back to the Dojan and then some quiet meditation to embrace the person I am and become the person I wish to be.

[Pinecone]

A moment to breathe, reflect and put one foot in front of the other

Hi Orimus,

I saw your post and wanted to send you some support. Your post painted a sharp contrast picture for me of the depression following a "good" weekend. The conflict between who we are as drinkers and who we are meant to be is a very painful one. I imagine this is true especially for sensitive or spiritually inclined folks. I see you have a path of practice in your life, what a blessing. If peanut butter was causing us this kind of physical/emotional/spiritual pain and turmoil we would drop it in a second. Why does our mind (or alcohol) go "wait, wait, Wait, WAIT!" when we consider that? Is it because it is an addictive substance and we are addictive people? Now I'm just rambling, but I did want to send you some support.

[Orimus]

A moment to breathe, reflect and put one foot in front of the other

Thanks Pinecone. Been there with the depression and yes having a practice is a blessing. It helped me get my head back to where I can start to think a little more clearly and remember to simply bring my attention back rather than beat myself up.

Of all the things we can get addicted to . . . . I keep telling myself as I'm sure we all do - but it's just a decision! Two weeks of abstinence though and there is significant recovery in brain volume in the areas which are responsible for decision making. Supposed to make it easier anyway.

Glad to see you have so much time under your belt and thanks for being here for us newbies.

[Petrelhead]

A moment to breathe, reflect and put one foot in front of the other

Orimus,

I'd just like to echo pinecone. We all know we're we want to be when it comes to Al. It's just not that easy. We know that we should never beat ourselves up about failures. They're going to happen. You would be familiar with the numerous analogies about how many failures occur before success.

Your success with this is real. Your path there is unique to you. And you'll discover that path one day at a time as you go. This forum, and the wonderful support on it, is where you're at now. It's a great place to be, to move forward. Keep reading and posting. The "toolbox" may be handy right now.

Good luck!!

[Orimus]

A moment to breathe, reflect and put one foot in front of the other

Got to work late today because, after a bottle of whiskey last night I never heard my alarm. Eyes were not bloodshot but definitely glazed and I really don't feel like moving or working. Add to that the day is dragging.

Not sure where my head is at as it seems so far I can't get more than a day or two in a row before that serpent (AL) starts whispering in my ear telling me it's ok. Just one. Cause that always works out well.

Started the year out better than this. Hell, ended it better than this. Was moderating and doing fine, still technically heavy some weeks but better than before I joined the Dojan. And that was better than a couple of years before that. Now that I decided to cut it out completely, need to for my BP I'm tripping all over myself, missing days of practice etc . . . .

[MossRose]

A moment to breathe, reflect and put one foot in front of the other

Welcome Orimus. I'm very glad you are here. I have to admit, the "somewhere in the swamps of Jersey" statement made me laugh. So ok - your sense of humor is still intact. Let's just go from there.

We have all been where you are now...struggling with the desire to be "more." I understand the cognitive dissonance that occurs when we long for one existence, and live a different one. I always envisioned my life one way (spiritual, sustainable, organic, etc.), and then I would end up drinking myself into a stupor most nights. Yikes. I was in turmoil. What I had envisioned and reality didn't mesh. So I totally understand.

But you can have that life you envision. I promise you. Just lean on us - heavily if you need to - and realize that this is a process. I wish I could tell you that one day you will wake up and have no desire to drink. but I would be lying. However, it diminishes over time. More important things take its place, and you slowly begin to live your life without AL. And then one day, you realize that you are actually doing it! And then you will feel very good about yourself.

Hang in there. Lean on us.

xx,
MR

[frances]

A moment to breathe, reflect and put one foot in front of the other

Hi Orimus - I could never make it even a day - and then when I quit and tried moderating a few times, that didn't work either. One key thing is to get a plan in place - what will you do when that urge is hitting you. What will you do instead of picking up that drink? Once you get past the first couple weeks/month everything really gets soo much easier and the cravings become much fewer and you then have practice in dealing with them so it's easier hen they do come. This has probably already been recommended to you but checkout the toolbox thread - if you go to the newbies nest and check out Byrdie's signature line (it is in a few others' too but I can't remember who) you will find a link to it there. You might be able to search for it and find it - 'toolbox' (I think) - and if you go to Newbies Nest and ask someone to give you the link you'll have it very quickly - sorry I just don't know how to link to it!

Get a plan, and stick around here - I am looking forward to hearing your successes!

[available]

A moment to breathe, reflect and put one foot in front of the other

Ori welcome here. we all get to that stage of our own bottom where we dont want to hit the repeat button anymore but it is only you that can make the real and firm decision to stop drinking. It was a horrifying thought to me that i could never drink ever ever again. Yep moderating worked a treat NOT, cutting down led to drinking more eventually and quite quickly and the shame, guilt and despair were always there. When i finally realised that only me, myself and i could accomplish what i thought was the impossible then it was down to pure grit and determination and a strength some days that i dragged up from within myself. MWO to me was and still is my AA, it was my lifeline in the early days and the wonderful friends i have made on here still help me sort issues out that arise from being sober in the months that have followed.

Realistically we do not come onto mwo to make friends, we come because we are in a place we do not want to be anymore, we are alcoholics that understand each other and are here for each other. We are addicted to al, it is our worst enemy, it is our downfall.

Al to me was destroying my health and my life. My children were distancing themselves and i was too hungover to care. Now i wake up sober, my anxiety has practically gone, my depression has gone, my family is back and i am grateful every single day i am sober and for this day i will not drink. Its farking hard to quit but it gets better and better as time goes on.

Keep on here and as Frances said head to the newbies nest and post like a lunatic (i did, still do if the need arises), read lots, watch docos on alcoholism, movies etc. Be honest and truthful and accountable and take one day at a time. We are all here for you.

[Orimus]

A moment to breathe, reflect and put one foot in front of the other

Not sure if I should consider Sunday as day one done as I was hungover and not really leaving bed. Kind of like I got through day one by not moving but reflecting on my full tilt slide Saturday. Also was realizing that I spend too much time thinking about AL, to drink or not to drink. The one good think that i got out of Saturday was at the end of the night I did tell my friend that I needed to quit drinking. Of course my bank account isn't so satisfied with that small victory.

I hauled my dumba** out of bed yesterday at the early hour of 7 pm to drag myself to Whole Foods. I have to admit stopping briefly and later for longer than that to ponder the bottles of wine which seemed to be everywhere. In the end I got back to my car without, went home and had a glass of celery juice instead. I'm told its helpful in bringing down blood pressure.

Slept a straight 7 hours but couldn't get out of bed so passed out for another 2 hours. Of course now I'm not quite a zombie at work but heavily dragging. Of course my diet only allows one cup of coffee but I think I may have to revisit that. To think it will take a three or four days until I'm actually rested.

Class at the Dojang tonight so a half hour to meditate when I get home from work. Then 8:30 comes around, my witching hour. Focus on making the chicken so I don't have an excuse to skip eating or get delivery. Asana and pranayama before bed. Focus beyond the devil staring at me with those bleary eyes and I'll get through unscathed.

I'm hopeful anyway.

[Orimus]

A moment to breathe, reflect and put one foot in front of the other

Day 3 NF/AF

So the Hatha yoga didn't happen but after the Dojang . . . . Thinking I'll have to move that on my schedule to the days I'm not at the Dojang. Did cook and by the time I was done with that and hopped out of the shower it was past 11. Another swing and a miss as I was planning on 10 but that is why I need to cook for the week over the weekend. Anyway, I'm sure my wallet thanks me. Also could've probably done the yoga anyway as insomnia was biting me.

Driving to work today I heard that sneaky serpent whispering in my ear, beckoning back into the shadows. Just one whiskey and a cigar. You don't really have a problem. Out demon!

Anyway acupuncture right after work which gets me home by 7:30 so for tonight that is the witching hour. Or hour and a half anyway as I'm going to push my lazy bones to do the yoga tonight and aim again for bed by 10. Once more unto the breach!

[Orimus]

A moment to breathe, reflect and put one foot in front of the other

So much for yesterdays plan. I caved to the demon as he kept talking all day and I couldn't seem to shoo him away. After the acupuncturist I had that first drink and everything just sped by until 4 in the morning or so.

Re-runs of Doctor Who, cigars and brandy and I ruined last nights sleep. Actually one small bottle of brandy and four of those airplane bottles of whiskey so 12 shots in all or six drinks for me. For some reason I definitely needed a sandwich to. Not just food but definitely a sandwich. So now the carbs are whispering to me too.

I'm sure the bank account doesn't like me very much as I keep drawing from my reserve. Will have to redo all projections.

Finally answered gf's text from the other day. Fortunately rereading it I only said that I didn't know what she wanted from me. Vented about that elsewhere so . .. . Kept off Facebook and no other texts though so that was a win of sorts. Just posting and replying to threads here. Reading through I don't think it was as bad as I imagined but also not sure if I reread all of them.

Tired as hell yet I still plan on dragging myself to the Dojan tonight. So glad today is a work from home day. Also look forward to Thursdays when I'm alone in the office. Just looking at the difference between yesterdays post and today's.

[Orimus]

A moment to breathe, reflect and put one foot in front of the other

So the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak yesterday. After working all day from home and closing my eyes for a minute or two here and there I decided to lay down and take a nap before going to the Dojan. Ten minutes before the class was about to start I woke up and sluggishly rolled over to look at the clock. That wasn't working. At least I got to bed by 10:30.

Today I crawled up out of the grave after my alarm went into snooze about a thousand times then laid back down for 20 before heading out to work. Still sticking with the one cup of coffee fortunately or unfortunately I really don't know anymore. No food made so it means I'll be ordering something but it's payday so there is that.

In looking back on Tuesday's relapse I realize that a) the night before I had a bout with insomnia and b) since I had lunch at 1 instead of eating again like a planned before leaving work I ate after my acupuncturist appointment which ended at 7:15. Which got me thinking about HALT as here we have hungry and tired leaving AL.

When I'm drunk, with the exception of this past Saturday, I am usually at home alone watching tv. As I get inebriated I tend to text and post on facebook and now, this last time, here. There it would seem is my L which will, of course, require a little more thought.

As for the A though I have never considered myself an angry person perhaps I am more angry than I think and this might be something to meditate on. The story I keep going over in my head is back in '05 I had just self-published my book when what I should've done in the rewrite and keep pushing for a publisher to pick it up. This was two years after putting off going to grad school for my masters in psych and eventually PhD.

Here I also made a mistake though as I went to a non-traditional college who advised not getting an MA from them if I planned on continuing for the PhD. So what do I do? I apply to combined programs and when no one accepted me (and a couple had issues with the transcript) that's when I put it off to finish my book.

Just before my book was published I started seeing GF. In the first two years I stopped meditating, stopped practicing yoga, eventually stopped writing and ended those two years with my first DUI. AL had me fully in his clutches and I felt like I didn't know myself anymore. I've never blamed her as all those decisions were in the end my choices and I should've known better.

Am I angry though? My rant about our relationship from Tuesday night certainly would seem to indicate that you bet your big beautiful butt there is some anger there. Because of it perhaps the book I have written in my head is not quite the story as it is. Yes, I can be wrong and my feelings merely that of absence.

So I will need to meditate on anger as this is the one thing that I have not done anything about. Hunger - working on my diet, Loneliness - been aiming to schedule more time with family and friends as well as getting around people at the Dojan, tired - been aiming to get to bed by 10 as well as kung fu, qi gong and meditation so I feel better.

But anger? Perhaps that is exactly what I have turned on myself and exactly what I must resolve.

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
― 14th Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness

[Orimus]

A moment to breathe, reflect and put one foot in front of the other

So it's June and that puts me six months from when I started this latest chapter. From a 1.5L of vodka pretty much every night I had gotten down to two or three beers and maybe a double of whiskey. Less after starting at the Dojan. (on most nights anyway) Probably said that somewhere before. Approached the new year and thought it isn't about what goals I set, isn't about making any resolutions. It's about who I want to be.

The whole thing was prompted by the way I looked in the mirror when practicing at the dojan. Big red face, sweating like a pig and trying to catch my breath. May have been prompted by the way my ankles swelled as I sat my lazy a$$ in front of the tv. Doesn't matter. In the end I knew that I wanted to be; a non-smoker again who maybe drank a few sometimes on the rare weekend. That I wanted to be that focused individual who was always the calm in the storm. This is who I wanted, want to be when new years 2015 comes rolling around.

Now time for a bit of a mid-year review, at what I've been doing and how well things have been taking me where I pledged to myself that I wanted/want to go. I sit here with my celery juice contemplating all that has come and gone really wanting a cigar. I sit here writing these words at 40 in my little studio alone thinking of my little nieces and nephews pondering why I am so damn worried about the life I thought I was meant to live. And that I can really do with a shave.

What have I been doing? I gave up cigarettes and wound up smoking cigars, I'm convinced that Kudzu works a hell of a lot better with beer and wine that it does with whiskey and Brandy. Knowing that I'm not fully engaged with my practice or with my sobriety the way I know I should be. Or with my health and diet. (although I've been doing better with the latter) I still look for a reason and call it my health, my clarity, for my practice or my job or the relationship that will come. It always comes down to why I want to be healthy, why I want to practice and be in shape. Why, why, why.

Tomorrow.

I choose to be an example not a warning.

Yet I have been at so many day ones. Have drawn the line in the sand a thousand times and the ocean washes it away. I think of the thousand and one reasons why I don't have it so bad and yet it is always minor surgery when it is on someone else but when it's on me. . . well that's major surgery. In the end it means nothing.

I think, and I can always be wrong, that is exactly where I am most mistaken. I'm searching for the reason instead of just following the path and understanding that the reason will find me. Like when I start writing a manuscript it's not until I've written the first ten pages or so that I actually see the story. Not for the goal, not for the future but for now, in this moment, is when all that is or will be is forged. The rest is just discovery. Lose sight of today and tomorrow is not even a dream it is merely a fantasy.

I guess I wander though. In January I was focused on the image of who I was going to become. Because of that I found myself engaged, alive and not just hopeful but ecstatic to follow the path that lay before me. Somewhere I lost that perhaps in February when I spent weeks working nearly 24/7 and really had no passion but to see it over with. The Kudzu and St. John's I know work because when I went two weeks without and I was beside myself. I still am uncertain however if it was the alcohol that pulled me away from engaging the way I should with my practice or if it was boredom with my practice that led me back to alcohol.

Of course the boredom was due to my failure to practice every day the way I should and I blamed it on my little studio. Of course now that the sun is shining and the snows have long been gone I still cannot muster myself to wake up at 6 am to practice and to meditate. I blame it on the fact that I have never in my life been a morning person for which I loved the fact that I now don't have to be in to work until 9 am. Yet the thought of doing so excites me.

And of course I keep bull@%^& myself and will continue to do so until I call myself on it. And do something about it. It's funny how we get comfortable even in our discomfort. All those people who complain about their average lives, all those people who love to talk so much but in the end they have no energy to do. Who talk about how hard life is but in the end never have had a real challenge in their life.

The end of my mid-year review is that these past six months have been a microcosm of my life. I have not engaged and that is why I am sitting here at the mid point of my life wondering where it has all gone, what was the purpose. There has been no purpose but to be, to move forward, to challenge myself and engage in this grand enterprise that we call life. That is the act of creation. Troubles are a dime a dozen. What stands out is the person who can take a lump of coal and forge it into a diamond.

That is today. That is the choice when I close my eyes, that is the choice I make when I open them. I choose to engage and my reason is simple. I choose to truly be and I can't do that with a glass in my hand. I was down from a bottle to a handful. There is no doubt that I can be free, deserve to be free as we all do. Tomorrow come rain, come clouds and thunder, sleet or hail the sun is always shining when we choose to see it.

Either that or I can let it all run out like a roll of toilet paper. Quicker as we get near the end. I think I'd rather be.

I'm sure I can make better sense out of this once I have a few more days AF.

[Orimus]

A moment to breathe, reflect and put one foot in front of the other

So I'm not so good at keeping up this thread. It's been five days and two of them were heavy drinking, one was a couple of beers and two were AF/NF. Posted elsewhere how this past Thursday talking with my ISO about drinking and him asking me to head down to NYC sometime to tear up the town with him landed me with 10 standards even after I just laughed it off. Course Saturday there really was no reason except that serpent whispering in my ear, the shadow of that ape looming over me. I had gone to Qi Gong and acupuncture, had my plans laid out for the day and . . . . Ended up at a friends place playing board games but that was after too many Jamesons.

Today is another AF/NF day. Spent some time at B&N, checked out the local park and was rather disappointed in the "hiking" there. I'll have to check but didn't even see any info desk. Feeling rather calm right now although I did have a couple of drinking thoughts whispering "go down, go down, go down . . . ." Did the cooking I was supposed to do yesterday as well as my laundry which, again, was supposed to be done yesterday. The park however is something I actually had scheduled for today.

So let me get down the actual mechanics of this plan following the midyear review. A lot of it is going to be what I didn't do such a good job of following up on the last six months. Start by refocusing on what I decided back in December - that I wouldn't go into the new year with goals or resolutions but an idea of myself, a better me. A non-smoking, healthy man who drinks once in a great while maybe (basically not closing the door but not saying I'll open it any time soon either) and is very disciplined with time, money and nutrition. Little over 6 months to 40.

So, plan -
Daily discipline:
Wake at 6 am to practice and meditate for two hours before work (never been a morning person so this is something I've been playing with but haven't been able to implement. I need to though. Guess I should make part of that self image that I'm a morning person too.)
Check in with roll call, Gratitude is an Attitude and I will not Drink today threads.
Kudzu and St. John's (every once in a while I've missed doses. Kudzu's been on back order for most the past few months.)
Meditate after work every day. (Again, consistency. Also have some Zen recovery koans to meditate on.)
Dojang - Gong Fu 2x per week, Qi Gong 1x/wk, Thusday night talk/meditation (every week instead of when I feel like it.)
Cook for the week every Saturday so that I have no excuse to grab takeout or skip a meal.
Keep meals simple - 4 oz protein, cup of veg 4x per day. Plus celery/radish juice once per day.
Hiking every Sunday for an hour or two.
Yoga and Pranayama before bed.
Bed by 10/10:30.

Interrupts (those damn whispers):
Pranayama.
Reread I will not drink and gratitude is an attitude threads.
Go for a walk, get some sun.
If I'm sitting home by myself get around people.
Examine my state of mind to see if I'm starting to get pressured/things seem to be speeding up. If so take a moment for my own "timeout" to slow back down such as with pranayama or simply mindfulness practices.
Take a moment to reflect on one of the zen koans.
Visualize the consequences.
(I'll need to come up with others/go through the toolbox.)

[NotHappyHourHappyLife]

A moment to breathe, reflect and put one foot in front of the other

Orimus,
I hope something clicks for you soon.

To be honest with you, I'm reading through your thread and I see you wanting to be alcohol free, and yet, at the mere whisper from the "serpent", you listen to its songs and become distracted from your goal.

WHY?

Only you can answer that, and there's no need to tell me, truthfully. You don't owe me an explanation.


Simply stated: you owe it to yourself. You are worth more.
I wish you peace. :l