Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

:H

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Thank you, bleep! Finally, someone understands.

Now, to the rest of it, yes, Ne, I know... I KNOW... I know... Oh, OK, well, one of these days. And thank you for looking out for me and kicking my ass here on MWO and just for being you. You know I'm only posting again 'cause I'm trying to get better, again, though right? When I'm not on bac I don't tie up the forum (even if only on my own thread) with my exploits, even if those exploits are about tying up others.

Hearts n' :l:l, everyone.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

I know you know. I know you know that I know you know.

I would give ANYTHING to have done this 10 years ago. (No regrets? HA! hahaha. Only because I refuse to think about it.) Sorry you're bearing the brunt of that not-regret.

And yes. Just keep writing. It helps. It's why I'm here, too.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Oh sweet Virgin Mary, two more conferences to get through.

[MaryGoRound]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

:H:H

I am having so much fun reading this thread. I would chime in about the girl but NE said it so well...what's the point?

Stuck, I know you are so much better than all that! I do love your honesty and the great stories but keep your eye on the prize.

[LadyLush]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

You know what Stuck?

I don't know if I ever want you to get straight. You are so damn entertaining and I have been hooked on your thread like a soap opera addict.
But you are like a reincarnation of me. Everything you do is me all over again. I am on the Bac track again too. I hit 120 and the world was right again; but.........It did not fix me. Alcohol is alcohol but we do it for a reason. You can not just get sober and be "okay", Doggy Girl taught me that. What is it we want Stuck? It's not a damn drink and you and I know that.
Anyway, a short post and I know it. I LOVE following you my friend!

LL

[kronkcarr]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Hi, StuckinLA,

Well, I've spent my entire day reading all 91 pages of your thread. Holy snapping assholes, Martha (Firesign Theater, from my college days). No kidding. I'm about 14 hours into this thread today. I'd read some of the newest posts, and I felt I couldn't comment until I read all of your "writings" (Thanks, TexasAg.). So much of what you've written reminds me of the 4 years I lived in Key West!

I made notes, and then I figured it would be shitty of me to tell you what you've said.

In many ways I identify with you and in the important (to me) ones I don't. I've been on bac since mid Dec. and I've had the fatigue, the anxiety and the lack of motivation. I miss the happy, silly me I was when I over drank and I also have no idea who I am now. I figure I'm about twice your age, and maybe that's the difference. I drank my way through my undergrad, Masters and post Doc, and I doubt that anyone could have convinced me to have a look and consider changing. The way I'm different is that I will stay sober no matter how uncomfortable it gets.

Ne talks about your "relationships". I chose troubled men that I could rescue. I've been married and, when it's all said and done, I know very little about healthy emotional relationships with men. I used men as diversions and entertainment because I hated my boring messed up life. Plus I wouldn't have wanted to pull a man into the mess I was titrating up on bac. Again, maybe it's the age thing.

You sound like a hilarious, smart, feeling guy, and I was sad to read you calling yourself stupid, lame, dumb, and a total pansy. You mentioned that you fear disappointing people. Me too, but for me bac made me able to care for myself and to quit putting others' wants and needs ahead of mine. It's been a miracle! I was sad when I read where you did shots of tequila when you don't like it and are trying to not over drink. I was sad again when you gave the Virgina Wolfe card and thought the girl wouldn't know who VW was, and I was maybe saddest when you talked of sitting outside taking photos and texting them to friends. Or maybe it was when you wrote (Yes, dammit, just 1 quote.): What a lovely place and time to be right now...I caught myself really smiling tonight..." I'm sad because you deserve someone who reads like you do. I never liked myself, and at about 4 months on bac I realized that I was a pretty fricking cool 55 year old woman. My sadness is because you had that "something" and now it sounds like you don't.

I understand that bac helped you to reach indifference and that your physical issue with your legs made you basically stop/dabble with bac. I know you're gong to AA. I'd hate to be in your position, and I'm sorry you're there. I think most of us on here used/use alcohol as an escape. AND I believe I had to have a plan or I'd still be drinking like I was last year and the years before.

So what I wish for you is that when you're ready to stop/moderate drinking that you'll have a plan. More importantly, I hope you'll find a way to be alone and get comfortable with yourself. I'm suggesting that you can save yourself a lot of time and not be 55 and facing this mess that alcohol abuse brings. Wow!

This is my longest and most thought out post. Never mind how many times I've had to charge my phone! I come in peace.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

KC! I thought you were a dude. Loved your post. Nice to see you too, Mary. And Ll.

Bettin' you made it through the conferences, La. How's your evening shaping up? I'm off to bed and then to an actual hospital with actual human beings as patients at the crack o' dawn.
yikes.

Hope it's a quiet night. Looking forward to the next installment.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Wow. Came on to post a post-conference update, and will get to that in just a sec. KC you floored me and I'm actually kind of speechless right now, and especially after Mary and Lushy as well and then Ne. You gals are the best.

OK. ((Exhales)) Here goes:

So dammit my friend remembers all about the AA meeting tonight, at 8, and as another friend pointed out, it would be in poor taste to drink before AA. Grr. And I tend to agree actually, no no drinking until at least 9 if at all. So I've got all 60mg in today already, with the last 40 being taken only about two hours apart. This should be fun.

Actually it really should be, well, if not fun then at least all right. Considering I was feeling a little withdrawal-y earlier, this should be just the ticket.

So that's the exciting night I've got lined up. And hopefully will sleep a little more during the sleeping hours tonight. I was up until taking Benadryl at 7 this morning. And then up again at 11 to get to campus. And have to do the conference thing again tomorrow, and I have grading to do still, and need to prep a way to wrap this class up with a nice pretty bow on Wednesday. So this is my bus stop, and I'm gonna grab a burrito at this taco truck at the corner, and then kill a couple hours before AA.

Again, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You made my day. :l:l

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Well so it's about 1:30 here, and guess who's got two thumbs and can't sleep? This guy. So I got through all my grading, at least. It wasn't a big deal but I'd been putting it off all week. They had to do a creative assignment--so obviously I'm giving them all As on this, but I still wanted to make some kind of meaningful comments. It was interesting, seeing as a lot of them took me up on my offer to let them do something other than writing, as long as it had to do with the class theme. I got everything from drawings to photography projects to short stories and single-scene screenplays and even some poems. And a couple of them were pretty darned good.

So that's over. My burrito was delicious, but seeing as how that was like seven hours ago I'm hungry again and I have absolutely no food here. Well, I have some ramen noodles and sardines. Not sure if those two would go together so well though... Anyway, my buddy picked me up and we went to AA, and that really kills the night, ya' know? Like it was 9 o'clock when we got out, and he dropped me off right at home, and I didn't feel like doing anything or going down to the bar.

I was feeling pretty freaking off, to be honest. Don't know if it's cause I was hungover from drinking until 7 this morning, or if it was taking two bac doses so close together, or what. But like I said, just feeling off. And not really feeling like drinking, either--yay. So I'm on my fourth beer since about 10 o'clock.

So post-Vegas. The hot bartender--I have to figure out a way to make a distinction here, 'cause this isn't the bartender. Hot bartender is a little younger, and a big, big party girl. I doubt I could hang with her, honestly. The first time I met her she set my phone to follow her on Instagram, and so all day long I see her going to yoga, hanging at the beach, doing bong rips in the morning, getting bottle service in clubs at night, etc. Anyway, well so she has a friend who bartends at one of the hottest nightclubs in Vegas, apparently. So she texted this chick's contact info to me. Well she had the # filed under "work," so I never called or anything, and we weren't really in a clubbing mood out there, anyway.

But after Drag Queen Bingo last Sunday, which I pretty much missed entirely because I spent too much time at home pre-gaming for it, I got off the bus here in my neighborhood around midnight, and was just going to go home, when I saw Hot Bartender's car parked on the street and I figured I'd go in and see her for a minute. Well it was dead inside, so she wasn't busy. And she was suddenly like intensely interested in stories from Vegas, and making eye contact while I was talking, and it was really cool. And then about her friend's club she was like, "no, dude, that's her cell #." Oh well, it's nice that she tried to hook me up. Then I realized that her Instagram that day was like a play-by-play diary of her nonstop day-drinking, and she then admitted she was pretty tipsy. Ha. I knew she came to work vaguely stoned, but didn't know came in buzzed, too. Then she set her "water" glass under the Patron chiller/dispenser and leaned against the button. So apparently that's how she drinks at work without the bartender seeing her on the cameras.

Then she talked to the couple sitting next to me, whom she was either friends with or had been talking with all night, and I now know way more about her masturbation habits than I probably need to know. I almost snapped right then and offered a no-strings-attached thing, given that I know she doesn't want a boyfriend--because she feels a BF would slow her down. Hell, I would never do that. In fact, I wouldn't even want to be around all that--I hate clubs. And if you think I'm going to try to tag along to yoga, or a freaking hike through the Griffith Park Observatory under the blazing California sunshine, you're sorely mistaken.

Anyway, it's hard to believe that was over a week ago already. Vegas, then getting unintentionally wrecked talking with her at the bar until 2 AM, kind of worked like a slingshot into last week, and the drinking never let up. And, well, I've written about the consequences there that hit pretty hard on Thursday and even again on Saturday or whatever.

But tonight is pretty chill. I might have another beer or two, might eat a little something, but then I think I'm just gonna take some Benadryl and try to hit the sack. Tomorrow there are more student conferences in the afternoon, and then class on Wednesday afternoon, after which I'm taking them all to the bar/restaurant across the street from campus on the department's dollar, and then a class on Thursday afternoon, and after that I am done. Good times.

Thanks again for checking in, everyone. Hope ya'll are well. :l:l

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Huh. Ok. hmmm. I got nothing.

Those were my first thoughts in response to your post. Then on the way back from letting the good dog in, thinking about something completely unrelated, a passage from a book I just finished struck me.

It's Demian by Hesse. Given that the man won a Nobel for something else, and the introduction for the edition I have was written by Thomas Mann, I was expecting to be blown away or bored to tears, or perhaps just confused. I was not any of those things. It seems rather...bland.

And also given the fact that he was nuts, of course. In fact so much of what I know about him would indicate it would be the perfect story for me right now, and maybe it is. But if so, it's a sleeper and will catch up little by little...Just as it did today.

The passage is long, and I don't feel like typing it, but I'll attempt to sum it up.

I had become the ringleader and star, a notorious and daring bar crawler.
Nonetheless, I felt wretched. I lived in an orgy of self-destruction and, while my friends regarded me as a leader and as a damned sharp and funny fellow, deep down inside me my soul grieved.

I was a barroom hero and cynic to satisfy the taste of the most brutal. I isplayed wit and courage in my ideas and remarks about teachers, school, parents and church. I could also bear to hear the filthiest stories and even ventured an occasional one myself...

ah, to hell with that. While it seems perfectly apropos to me in this moment, I am undoubtedly going to misconstrue how it all relates together. Suffice it to say that I cannot fathom the world in which you are living right now. Not even in a judgmental way. (Thought there is some, "She said what? And you did huh???") But just in a, "Wow. I can't believe there exists that in my former life" way. 'cause I think I've been on both sides of the bar in your stories. (Though dear Prudence I hope I was not quite so...tawdry. Sorry.)

I suppose that there is this thing too: If it is still fun, and if the soul-sickness isn't sick enough, the weariness not totally wearying, then there is bound to be more. What is not to like about the promise of a tryst, conversations about masturbation, booze, the vida loca on a small scale? Add in the occasional trip to Vegas and it's a total score, I would guess.

The truth is that my life now is not at all the life I wanted to live when I was 30 and traveling and drinking and eating and...flirting. (ahem) My life now would have killed me back then. (Feck, on some days, it kills me now. ha!)

Poor Sinclair suffers this fools paradise, too, though. The point of the novel, it seems, is to follow his path to freedom from that place where he, "was alone and filled with intense longing for love, a hopeless longing, while, to judge by my talk, I should have been a hard-boiled sensualist. No one was more easily hurt, no one more bashful than I."

Sadly, the end of the book does not offer much in the way of resolution, as he has an unfulfilled love affair with his best friend's mother, and then goes off to war. (And leading up to all of that, he and his friends absolutely convinced that they are destined for something greater, something momentous for which they and they alone are chosen. Whatever dude. Where have I heard that before? [I am referring to myself, here. Not the bazillion other human beings who think these same thoughts.])

I signed on today (initially) to ask you why were you so unhappy last summer? Because while the eyes of a young woman whose impression may be tainted by her own unhealthy desires is not a valid reflection of reality, neither is mine. And if you want to do this thing, and you want to be happy about it, maybe even really, really REALLY happy about it, maybe that's a place to look. It is possible to be outrageously thrilled with sobriety.

I gotta go. Thank goodness, because I think I finally want to write again and it shouldn't all be right here and right now. Thanks for the venue. Hope you're well. xo

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Manoman. I'm having that experience of wanting and needing to write for first time in ages. So weird the way that happens, isn't it? Maybe it's your prompt?

I've got many reactions to your post. One of which I wrote and deleted thank all that matters. It was endless! But what keeps running though my mind are two images. Clips really. One is the voice of Obi 1 saying "step away from the man in black Luke" in that pivotal scene. The other is Wile E coyote running on empty air.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

It just all switched so quickly from "fantastic" to "oh wow I've never seen a hell this horribly real and right here, present in front of me like it will swallow me right now."

Last night I was AF. It was fucking weird, actually, considering that I stopped at the bar to watch the last of the hockey game. But anyway, I watched the game, and didn't drink, and didn't really feel like drinking, and then I came home to plan my class for today. I'd figured that I'd show some clips from this movie that I love, and it would all make sense and we'd have this wonderfully philosophical end to the semester.

So what happened is that around 2 AM I realized that these clips would never make any kind of sense. They would have not clue what was going on, and it wouldn't be philosophical at all--it would just be confusing. So I figured I'd paraphrase the parts that were important, or whatever. Oh God, that was a bad idea. Then I thought I'd show them clips from this movie that I like a lot, and also has a lot to do with the class theme. Then I realized how awful that would be. And then I just thought maybe we'd all talk for a little bit and it would be OK.

I was wrong.

So what really happened was that there were a couple students still needing to do presentations on their creative assignments from last week. One showed a video, and it was actually awesome. Then another two just kinda talked for a few minutes, and then I had hundred and forty-five minutes to fill. Ooof.

Wanna know what I talked about? Not only was I feeling rather fucked up, and anxious, and quite possibly foggy-headed due to the bac, but I was also sitting here in front of my students and expected to wrap up this whole confusing-ass semester and still be the guy who's been cool and funny this whole semester.

One of the girls said she wanted to see me start rambling angrily. I've done that before when I get really freaked out; I just go off on the government and capitalism, and I think that's what she wanted to seel What ultimately happened instead, though, was that suddenly for about and hour and a half I started yelling at them about the impossibility of love.

Not just love in the usual sense, but the impossibility of actually connecting with another person during the sexual act. Like to even perform, one must ignore the reality: which is that you're about to perform this mindless, repetive motion involving these bodily orifices that you'd otherwise want nothing to do with. And so I started talking about how there's this fantasy element involved. But if the fantasy breaks down, you're screwed.

So if we're trying to reach out to someone in the most honest, down-to-the-barest-bones way, and actually connect with someone, then what's the best way? Would one snuggle up to her and tell the truth? Would you say 'hey, sweetie, I want to make you happy but am so nervous and so can't really get it up."?

You might say that, and then she might say, "OMG, my love, it's OK." And then you'll both realize that you love one another, and it's OK, and you can cuddle and hold each other, and you'll be kind of happy in knowing that each of you was totally, completely honest with your partner.

But what if suddenly, out of nowhere, you as a man got really pissed off that all she had to do was lay there and expect you to perform? What if you suddenly thought that it was her fault that you were nervous about performing in the first place? And then you got angry. And then you thought well, fuck you. I'll show you, bitch, and then you fucked the hell out of her.

Well on the one hand you were completely disconnected from her, because you were angry at her and not in any sense "connected" with her as a person or what she might want. But at the same time, your being "pissed" and "disconnected" actually allowed you to have amazing, mind blowing sex with her. So does she really care what you were thinking at the time?

And that's the main question I was trying to ask my students today, and all semester, and why I was telling them these seemingly random stories and showing some movie clips today that to them probably seemed like completely random. The whole point is why do we try to connect with another person, how do we try to do it, what does it feel like when it really happens, and how do we then ultimately know that we've connected with this person and not just a representation of that person. And what would it mean if it was just a representation. How would we know the difference between the person and the representation.

And now I realize that 1) I'm drunk, and so I've been babbling on and there's no chance for this to be meaningful, and 2) Sorry.

Love you all. Will have something better tomorrow. :l:l:l

[kronkcarr]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

StuckinLA,

Thought provoking post. Is it true that it's impossible to actually connect with another person during the sexual act? I don't believe it's true.

Yes, I want honesty. Now that I'm sober that's all I'll accept. For me, there'd be no sense in a relationship if we weren't comfortable enough to be honest.

Now that I'm sober I have better discrimination. I say what I want in a guy. I believe that's called qualifying. I don't have a long list: kind, adventurous, trim and willing to call my bs and willing to have his called too.

Sure, we all have representations that we present, and I'm looking for a man who's aware of that.

When I got divorced over 2 years ago I bought a house. When I was married my ex did all the "man" chores--maintain all the well water pumps, mow the lawn, deal with the gas and water heater, etc. My new house was renovated but hastily slapped together. I bitched and moaned when early on I had to replace my outside ac unit. I hired Dumb and Dumber under the table to do the work. Within a year I ended up replacing that unit and the air handler. I griped about having to replace one water pump and then another. I hired a guy who worked under the table, but he was smart with water systems. I had to replace the water softening system that had never worked as I thought of all those bags of salt I'd dutifully poured in for 2 years. I hated even making the calls and I put off addressing the issues. I could go on and on with more examples.

So, really, I can take care of myself and do or get done the jobs I absolutely hate. I often don't have the $$ for it, but I figure it out.

I've been painfully lonely, and now I'm not. Yes, I'd like to be in a relationship and have sex, but not to the detriment of me. I drank to numb my pain and anguish about not being able to speak up and ask for what I needed/wanted. I started bac because i'd ruined another in a long line of relationships with my drinking. There's no way I'm going back to how I was.

[taw]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Maybe if I had had teachers like you in college, I would not have dropped out so many times! :H

How are you doing these days, Stuck? What mg of bac are you up too? Easier ride on it this time?

Just wanted to pop in and say hi....and wanted to let you know I am stocked up on Peanut M&Ms for the weekend...perhaps you should get some too!

Be well, friend! :l