Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

[Juan BH]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Stuck-

I must say you have a rock-star quality about you. My wife likes your stuff and she doesn't even drink! Not so much on the threesome stuff, but the other stuff. I like all of it and I'm the one who logs in all the time. I have a question and you don't have to answer it anytime soon. I know you are working on a dissertation and it is kind of related to writing and the internet? How has participating in this forum affected that work? Indirectly or directly.

I am bummed about your legs hurting again. That is a major obstacle. I will keep you in my prayers.

I understand Stuck in LA. We have visited in-laws in So. Cal a couple of times now and I don't like it either. I guess there are some pretty nice parts, but not where they live.

Hang in there man and thanks for being so active here.

j

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Well it's only quarter to three at the moment, so... there are still hours left in the "night." Ugh. Anyway this was kind of a BS day. Got about 5 hours of sleep, between around 8 this morning and 1 this afternoon. That was just stupid. But I'm AF and actually Ativan-free today, too. Went up to 120 on bac, mostly because I was awake so goddamned long yesterday that I started taking "today's" doses this morning before bed. Then since I barely slept, and started taking pills again every 4 hours or so as soon as I got up, well let's just say there was time to increase the dose... Ugh.

Started grading as soon as I woke up, and slogged through all afternoon and most of the evening, with a quick break to call Mom. Then took a break long enough to shower, and went to get smokes. About the only place open that wasn't a bar, because my neighborhood is so fucking lame, I'm realizing suddenly, and all of the like 3 coffee shops are never open, well anyway the only place open was this diner. Which I never go to because an omelette is freaking $11 and the service is like a staring contest with a mummified corpse, waiting for it to pour you a coffee. Which, by the way, is itself 3motherf*cking$$$. Well but I did take my laptop with me, because I had to fill in grades in my Excel spreadsheet, because this dept. is dumb like that and I have to make a spreadsheet, which I hate. The 3 years before I taught here in the honors program I had a nice little paper gradebook. And I liked it. And it liked me, and we worked very well together in a beautiful partnership that almost never hit rocky patches. But no. Now it's Excel, brought to you by that malevolent beast, Microsoft.

And on top of that, because we're the hoity-toity honors program, I have to write 4-5 sentence paragraphs about each individual student's performance over the semester for their file. WTF. I've had full professors write less than that about me in my evaluations--one even looked like a hand-scrawled illegible thing that could very well have been a smiley face. So while having the coffee that seemed incapable of being refilled, I wrote out lovely, glowing, rainbows & roses reviews of my students that were based in reality about as much as my idea that I'll drink moderately someday soon. "Johnny is a self-motivated and talented student, eager to grapple with new ideas and engage critically with academic discourse..." Oh, Gaaaawwwwd. Shoot me.

And then I came home.

And it is now 3 AM.

So Juan, thanks for the kind words. I'm touched, really. There've been a couple times I've gone through most, if not all, of this thread editing out some things--mostly personal details but a few things that I just found embarrassing (:H) or pretentious (:H:H)--so I didn't realize that any of my diss info was still around.

But to answer your question. Yes. And not really. I had never participated in an online forum, really of any kind, before I arrived here. So getting a feel for the etiquette, to the extent that I have, was very helpful. And it was super-great getting a sense for how online communities conduct themselves, and how relationships form. And, well, fuck my research, I'm thankful for the relationships that I've made here. And then of course now I've had the chance to personally experience trolls, so that's also helpful. But with what I work on professionally this certainly doesn't count. And there was one moment in my qualifying exam actually (locked in a room with 5 professors and no escape, defending the proposal for my diss), when one of my committee members asked point-blank if I was a member of any online communities.

"Oh, not exactly," I replied. She smiled, "more of a lurker, then?" Yeah, that's it exactly...

So I guess that's it for me "tonight." Will I'm sure be around again tomorrow provided I don't die in my sleep again. Hope everyone's having a good one out there. And if you haven't had a chance to catch tonight's Mad Men--I just watched it online--holy Jesus H., I recommend it. If you watch Mad Men that is... Or, oh whatever. Good night, all. :l:l

[taw]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Hey Stuck!

How'd it go at the doc?

Inquiring minds want to know...

T

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Blaise Pascal: "I am sorry for sending you such a long letter; I didn't have the time to write a shorter one."

Yesterday was the kind of suck that fortunately only comes around every so often. Got in bed at 5. Woke at 6. Didn't even think about what I was doing as I got dressed, put all my meds in my bag, and walked outside. Took a walk to, then past, then back home from the nearest urgent aid. So you can see it was short-lived, but being no stranger to panic attacks, this was one where it didn't even register as just a panic attack. Walking down the steps toward help, my legs were so weak and shaking I thought I might fall.

But it subsided, and I got back in bed around 7 and slept until 11. Went in to look for one of my student's papers, because he hadn't emailed it and hadn't responded to my email for him to email it, and I couldn't turn in grades if he didn't get it to me--because in the honors program the kids just simply are expected to get As--I've made my peace with that, but if he didn't turn in a final project WTF was I to do? I just didn't know, and grades were due yesterday. So found his paper in my mailbox--one of 2 who didn't understand they should email them. Turned in grades. Life was good.

The doc's. Well, I told her nothing. I am going on a beta blocker, and have a followup in 2 weeks. I don't really know how this is going to play out. If I continue not drinking my B/P is going to go down on its own--not toward perfect by any means, but down. And this is a pretty hardcore dose of meds, so who knows, I may end up just randomly passing out before the followup. But the whole experience was shattering. I can do cardio, but am not allowed to lift weights. That was my whole plan: to spend this summer writing in the AM and at the gym in the PM, cardio and weights and maybe if I did really well I might like myself by the end of the summer. But 1/2 of that is immediately shot out of the water, and I'm pissed. And sad. And scared.

So diet, and exercise, and all those other "lifestyle changes." I'm supposed to drastically reduce my caffeine intake, which is bullshit considering I told her I only drink 3 cups of coffee a day (white lie). We didn't even talk about drinking until the end, when she mentioned that it should be "low" rather than "moderate."

On the bus home I was near tears. How'd it get so bad that I can't even right now take all the steps I want to take to get better? And so there's self-loathing, and the solipsistic "why me," especially walking home from the bus stop, passing people sitting with 3 Little Ceasar's pizzas in their lap like they do every day, and both judging them and at the same time wondering how the fuck? And I'm trying not to sink into that--because it's BS and not productive, but it does, it does feel deeply unfair right now. It's been mostly a delusion for many years, but I've always fallen back on the old "yes I drink and I'm a smoker, but for all that I'm still pretty healthy." Not that I don't make unhealthy choices, but still other people are making choices, too. And for a while maybe I was--still fairly healthy--but several years without exercise, and drinking more than ever, well it's certainly catching up with me now. Bringing it on myself doesn't make it feel any better.

So I got home, made comments on that kid's paper, and I don't even know what I did for the rest of the night. At 3 this morning I took an Ativan and some Benadryl, and slept until 9. It was pretty lovely, actually, to not wake up dead. Though I'm having this nagging recollection that I slept-walked into the bathroom in the middle of the night. Because this morning the bathroom light was on. And there's hair gel in my hair, which I don't even use anymore it's just sitting on the shelf. So apparently I got up without waking up, and tried to do my hair. I. Don't. Even. Know.

Killed 2 hours already this morning, doing nothing except reading leftist news on the interwebs. Trying to figure out what I'm going to work on today, then maybe work on it for an hour or so, then head to school to return library books, sell some other books, continue cleaning out my office, and go to the gym. Getting labs drawn on Thursday. Hope it's a good one all around. Big :l:l:l

[Juan BH]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Hang in there Stuck! This will pass and you WILL be able to do what you need to do this summer.

[bleep]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

How does you hair look, you don't say in your post?

Lifestyle changes are not easy things to do. I am trying to implement a few in my life at the moment. Knowing they will make me feel better, be better, etc. is of little help. If you find a simple method of instituting them, please let me know.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Soooooooo....

My hair is short. When I go down to Casanova's, the local corto de pelo, between my very, very broken Spanish and the ladies' broken English, we can generally arrive at a #2 guard on the sides and a #3 on the top. That probably doesn't mean a whole lot to anyone here, but let's say the top is longer than the sides by just enough that it doesn't look like I have a total buzz cut. And for $7, you can't beat that with a stick.

I filled my beta blocker prescription today. Came home, sat down, and did something I should have done long before beginning this process: I started looking around online for drug interactions, and particularly around MWO and elsewhere for how it seems to go along with bac. Found a great post by TerryK, and a quote on Dr. Phil's site, that suggested perhaps this isn't such a good idea to be doing on my own. The other thing that started freaking me out--well, it's in my last or penultimate post--is that when I was at the doc's it was really only like day 2 or 3 AF, so I'm guessing (but of course not sure) that given the AL withdrawal my B/P could have been much higher than it will be after all this nonsense is over.

But she gave me a prescription based on that extremely elevated figure. My follow up isn't for 2 weeks. I'm seriously concerned that if I start taking this now, in that time this shit could really be knocking me out--like passing out knocked out. And I'm thinking to myself all evening, WTF have I gotten myself into here?

Then I put that out of my head and went down to the bar with my buddy and watched a hockey game. My friend formerly of the post-DUI AA meetings. Of the formerly sober for 40something days. He's drinking, I'm not. He's not drinking much, I guess, but I am not drinking. At all. I'm both scared shitless of it and extremely pissed off all at the same time. And it's cool, because he's really supportive. He said he's giving me 3 weeks max until I'm back on the bottle. And he's taking it as a given that I'll drink on my birthday, which is coming up. Whatever. It's annoying hanging out with him anyway. And whiskey-girl seems to be blowing me off about as much as I'm blowing her off the past few days, so that's working out well. Except for the part where she sent me a text about how she's house sitting in my neighborhood this weekend. She said something like, what was it, "come over and f*ck me on all the horizontal surfaces." Interesting.

What I'm figuring I'll do is 1) not drink; 2) make panic-free sleep a priority; 3) at the same time try to ween myself off the Ativan. That last one might not be so easy, considering it's how I'm going to get the panic-free sleep for a little while, but I figure if I start taking 1/2 pills we should be good. Of course, the 2 main reasons I started with whole pills instead of halves in the first place is that I'm an addict and these little bastards don't split in 1/2 very easily. I tried, with my pill-cutter, even.

And then 4) wait a couple days on the beta blocker, check my B/P at home and see what's what after like Day 5. Then I'm realizing I'm just going to have to bite the bullet, call the doc, and say "hey, we kind of need to start over..." Not sure how I'm really going to pull that one off, except to say Walgreens was out of stock and couldn't fill the script right away (which isn't a lie, but it only took them an extra day...), and I was so panicked and exhausted from a weekend of insomnia that when they asked if I was on any meds I just blanked, and said "no" like I was saying no to all the other medical history questions. That might be ridiculous and unbelievable, but I don't care.

As for the lifestyle, bleep, I don't know what to tell you. Diet: the last couple nights I've been taking deli-sliced turkey, setting a slice on a piece of provolone cheese, and then folding it up to eat like a taco. Exercise: did go the gym and spend 40 minutes on the stationary bike, but the last couple weeks I've been fooling that "gym pact" app on my phone by checking into the gym any time I'm close enough that the phone's GPS thinks I'm there--and that includes my office on campus. Smoking: forget about it right now. Drinking: well, that's the one. Like I said, I'm way too scared to even think about it at the moment, and 120mg/bac seems to be working pretty well to support me (not to say I'm not thinking about going up).

And that, friends, is a whole lot more than I intended to write this evening (1 am). I bid you all a good night. :l

[john doe]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

I get a #2 all over mate have done most of my days. In the middle of growing a beard at the moment. Just getting past the itcy phase

Its starting to fill out nicely.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Dear Stuck,

What do English majors the world over have in common? And even the english-majors-at-heart who are actually studying nursing? (And I suppose the world over would have to be language specific to the country, but you get the drift, right?)

We think too fucking much. I'll speak for myself. I think too fucking much. Nah, I'll speak for you too.

...
And since I promised ages ago that I would not bring this up again, I'll stop now.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

hmmm. I am not so sure that was effective. But I'll leave it, 'cause why not?

But think of it this way:
Anxiety causes a cascade of responses in order to make sure that you have the resources, in the moment, to handle a crisis. Chronic anxiety keeps that system going, and there is no downtime. It is entirely chemical. It can't be controlled very well with thoughts, which are also compelled into flight or fight mode by those hormones.

The way it works in thoughts is that everything becomes scary. (Because even the most innocuous things are scary, if you look hard enough.)

And the irony is that some other things, like exercise, might also be contraindicated. The kind of exercise you'd have to do in order to get the endorphins working in a way to control the constant flood of stress hormones takes a long time. And generally, a hard workout. When the body is already stressed, adding intense exercise might not be a good thing.

But neither is trying to meditate. I can't do any regular old meditation when I've got all that stuff swimming around in my body. I can sort of do guided meditation. But not in any way that really relieves the thoughts of OH NO!

AA helps. It's a strange phenomena that when I leave the rooms after that final prayer, I am...soothed. But I'm also usually really uncomfortable during the entire meeting.

Someone long ago asked me why I kept trying to help her. She asked me to lay off. The reason is because I care. Because I think I can help. Because I think I've got some solutions that aren't necessarily something that would occur to the person.
Every now and then the person comes on here and says how alike the two of you are. I really hope that's not true. I really hope you can get out from under this. I'm not even referring to the disease. (Though all of this, from the anxiety to the chicks, is in my not-so-humble-opinion, a function of the disease.)

Peace, Stuck. I'll step back for a while. xxoo

[Cassander]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Ne/Neva Eva;1505938 wrote: ...When the body is already stressed, adding intense exercise might not be a good thing.

...

This hasn't been the case for me. Cardio seems to always help.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Cassander;1505984 wrote: This hasn't been the case for me. Cardio seems to always help.

You're right of course, Cass. I was brainwashed-by-textbook for a minute there. Speaking of, I think I should've started this morning with a jog...

(EDIT: The reason I suggested that is because it is very common practice to encourage people to limit exercise, particularly strenuous exercise, when the person is ill. Even moderate exercise isn't really a good idea for someone whose body is battling illness. So in class we cover the fact that some people, under some circumstances, should be encouraged to take it easy. While what we battle is definitely taxing on the body, it is taxing in a different way, and unless someone is really ill, it is a good brain chemistry thing. Hence the contradiction.

Also, the fact that Stuck once mentioned his heart rate going up dramatically when he was exercising. That coupled with high blood pressure, and strenuous exercise, (and booze and smokes) isn't a good thing at all. But I didn't want to dredge that up from eons ago.)

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Please see edit. ^^ Thanks.

[Cassander]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Ne/Neva Eva;1506019 wrote: ...The reason I suggested that is because it is very common practice to encourage people to limit exercise, particularly strenuous exercise, when the person is ill. Even moderate exercise isn't really a good idea for someone whose body is battling illness. ...

Of course, the issue you are really raising, Ne, which is a fundamental one here in this forum...is that alcoholism is a disease which should be treated by trained medical specialists (aka doctors). We shouldn't have to be guessing which meds to take, and in what doses, and whether anti-depressants or benzos or other meds are contra-indicated, and whether we should be exercising or not...Others have said this, I am thinking of Otter, but the total abdication of responsibility by the medical profession is...well...wrong. Its just plain wrong.

BTW, I am not saying there isn't an important role for peer support. But where are the doctors...

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Nah, my HR doesn't go up dramatically when exercising. Even with an elevated HR due to withdrawal to start with, it doesn't go much above 150 unless I'm on the treadmill instead of a bike or whatever. So no need to fight, ladies.

Slept like 1 hour, then a little later 2 hours, and then a little later I think I rolled over for another hour. So that makes I think 4, right? Well whatever, it was all this morning sometime after the sun had begun it's demonic arc through the heavens. Which is precisely when my cats want to stand on my bed and put their front paws up on the windowsill and squawk at the birds, and then jump on me and twirl in circles until I pet them, like they're trying to say "did you see what's outside?"

Really this wouldn't be all that bad except for the funny-head feeling, the anxiety, the exhaustion, and the inability to focus, coupled with my own instinctual laziness. I mean, had I spent all last night working on writing an essay, instead of dicking around on the internet, that would be one thing...

But I guess the biggest development is that while I'm sitting here having my coffee and smoking many, many cigarettes, I decided to just go ahead and see what my B/P is, for shits and giggles. I'm not freaked out enough already, and I've got these pills next to me on the desk anyway, so if all else fails... Well, I've been loathe to give specifics so far, not sure why, but here goes: in the doc's office on Monday it looked like I was in Stage 2 Hypertension--yes, the worst of the worst. This afternoon, I'm Pre-Hypertensive. 126/90. The kind of thing where they circle all the diet and exercise changes on the little handout, tell you to stop smoking, and send you on your merry-fucking-way. Going in to get labs drawn tomorrow, and will set something up with the doc. This should be hi-larious.

Everyone's having a good one, yes? I'll be around later I'm sure, after heading down to the bar to watch a hockey game. GO TEAM! BEAT THE OTHER TEAM! (or something.)