Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

My "hangovers" generally consist of the feeling that not much is worth doing and "I just don't care anymore."
just sayin'

[RedThread12]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

I like being on a forum for drunks who enjoy, and actually know the meaning of, words like alliteration, assonance and facetious. I mean, really . . . if you don't have to pull out your thesaurus to get sober, WTF?!?!

:l :h :l :h Obviously, no time to read back and respond intelligibly. Just ONWARD!!!

[RedThread12]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

And to Stuckin-la;

Thank you for JKTTGDP. We'd do if for you, if we could. It will change. Faster than you can imagine.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

My "hangovers" generally consist of "I just don't care..."

just sayin'

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Yep, still very much alive, still making questionable decisions, and will have more of an update later on in the day/evening/night.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

AF days accumulate the way glaciers formed mountains, painfully, scraping layers of dirt and muck into a pile. Drinking days wash over you like the waves of a rising tide. Not even sure where we're at, 5 or 6 days straight now? Whatever, it's for sure almost as long as I'd stayed AF. The tragedy of course is that I never felt like I was living more of my life AF. It wasn't like I had so much extra time all of a sudden. No, those nights were as much a blur as these.

I don't like using the S word. Even earlier this spring, when I was legit sober for those 62 days. My counselor/therapist questioned me about it a lot, and I kept telling her I don't even know what "sober" means. I'm here, I haven't had a drink in x days, but compared to people in AA with years? With the constant threat of relapse? Guys who say they're "returning" after 26 years sober, and now they have 4 months? I don't have the slightest clue what any of that means.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Space: sorry you weren't feeling well the other day. And sorry you've been dealing with a whole bunch of shit. Hang in there, please? And don't ever feel like you need to apologize for not being on my thread. You just feel better. That's the best thing you could do for me and everyone else, but most importantly for you.

Red: you rock the house. I do wish you could JKTTGDPs for me... and I wish you could make 1 very important phone call for me. Sadly, one of those is fairly easy and the other is pretty darned difficult. C'est la vie.

But I've always felt that just because we're drunks doesn't mean we have to be utter losers.

Anyway, another night... Space, I apparently cannot keep myself from the bartender even when I come home to relax first. Tonight she's telling me about how she moved around in her sleep and almost fell out of bed, and how she's bummed that the BF. didn't move her back to a less precarious place. Nice image she painted, though, of how she was positioned face down on the bed, with an arm hanging off the edge, and about to roll over...

More than anything else, though, I told myself I wouldn't buy hard liquor on my way home. That was the deal with myself. Go to the bar, have a good time, and pick up beer... But I saw a bottle of pre-mixed mojito and I bought it. Which was fucking lame, as it's Smirnoff. No vodka goes into a mojito. What was I thinking? But I bought it and drank it... So I'm fairly fucked up at the moment, actually. 750 mls will do that, I suppose...

And that's my update. Sorry that it didn't really update anything... More again soon. Goodnight all. Please sleep well.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Wow. Lots to inspire a response.
so.
Sober, with a capital S. That confuses me, now. Am I sober? um, yeah. 99.9% of the time. (or something to that effect. ) Even when I drink I'm sober. Right? I don't get drunk. So that means...I'm sober. Right? hmmm. Whatev. Point is, I hear you.
That's why I say indifferent. And use "drink against one's will."

Other point is, who knows what the future brings. I am conscious (though I find it very hard to believe) that I could "relapse." Which is another word full of twisty connotations and innuendos that gives my mind something to play with.

I'm going to update my own thread about my own therapist, so interesting to hear about your experience. She sounds...amazing. Truly.

TRANSFERENCE! AHA! That happens here, too. I loooooooved Lo0p. And a couple of others along the way, but Lo0p is the only one I'm open about. I mean, in all genuine honesty, l.o.v.e. Made myself a bit silly about it on more than one occasion. Especially once during a period of time when I was sort of dream-hallucinating and couldn't really distinguish reality. At the time it completely mortified me, but now makes me grin a bit. Still embarrassing as hell, but you know what? Love makes the world work, and Lo0p is a gentle soul. I've since received the love, and am eternally grateful for that too. That's part of what I meant when I wrote that HDB=L.O.V.

StuckinLA;1349386 wrote:

But I've always felt that just because we're drunks doesn't mean we have to be utter losers. ... We're drunks, sure, but there's no reason to live like degenerates.

One of those volunteers was the acquisitions editor for the University of Chicago Press... he eventually turned out to be a degenerate, but that's a different story.

Drunks aren't degenerates (by definition) but writers? Especially editors! They, well they might just be.

Btw, the whole Hemingway-myth...hmmmm. Complete and utter bull shit. Because Hemingway was miserable. The Snows of Kilimanjaro did it for me. As if the others weren't enough of an exploration of human misery! Kilimanjaro convinced me, finally, that he couldn't really write. He was just too unhappy. :H

There are lots and lots and lots of writers who are not drunks, and they tend to live longer and may even be more content. 'cause if you're going to live, it's probably more fun to be relatively content. Just sayin'

"I'm a writer, I don't give that shit away for free like that" (Also, that brings to mind this rule of thumb: You have to give it away to keep it.)

"Heroic journey." I heart that. Not just because this (bac/sobriety etc) is heroic. Isn't life, the whole damn thing, one huge heroic journey?

Sorry for the nasty mojitos. Glad you didn't buy whiskey. I'm also still feeling a bit badly for you about the exquisite torture at the hands of the bartender, but it's (still) very amusing from my end. (Which brings to mind another rule of thumb: No new relationships for a year.)

So many truths and nuggets of wisdom in any self-help setting. It's the using them, or hell, even remembering them in the moment when you need 'em, that's the pain in the ass.

:h La.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

The Sober thing, yeah. It's more about the prevailing culture of rehab and recovery, no? Thanks, Dr Drew! (Ha, not his fault at all, of course, he's more just a symptom of the disease. [And by disease I mean the way we think about rehab and recovery.].)

As soon as friends/family/or even oneself identifies alcohol as a problem, sobriety becomes a problem. None of my friends who drink in the evening (and not through 'till morning), or even friends who "probably drink too much," worry about Sobriety. No one would look at them and wonder if they're "sober," even if they're having an afternoon/evening/night out at the bar just because there's a conference going on or it's a random Tuesday and we're done with work for a while...

Why can't we all just live back in the '20s? (or '40s, '50s, '60s? really, just pick your decade) when drinking and smoking was good for you?

Because I'm still clearly in love with all of it, more than a little. The drinking, the image of the guy out here alone in LA, unable to pull himself together. It's more about fixing that picture in my head than anything else, ultimately.

Anyway, crappy mojitos. Ugh. Pretty weak, proof-wise, thank the Lord above, and before I got quite to the end of the bottle I was feeling fairly awful. Because it was sugary badness and tasted not great. And I didn't finish the bottle. Didn't pour the rest into a glass to put by the side of the bed. Small victories these days. And I've been truly blessed to wake up without hangovers. I do start to feel some anxiety kicking in late in the afternoon, and I make sure to grab a couple beers then (and I really don't want to deal with the B/P swings of withdrawal).

I'm working on getting the hard liquor out of the house (the easy way: drinking it :H). And the nonsense with the bartender is one of the few things keeping me sane at the moment, and it lets me have a narrative through-line to my posts, which would otherwise just be nightly accounts of anxiety or drinking or both. This way there's some tension and some suspense, and let's not forget about some humor.


:l to all.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Again a lot to riff on. But I'm on a drag-my-mojo-out-of-the-cave deadline. So I'll leave it to the beloved emoticons.
:H and :upset: and whatev.

I hear ya'.

StuckinLA;1349517 wrote:
Why can't we all just live back in the '20s? (or '40s, '50s, '60s? really, just pick your decade) when drinking and smoking was good for you? When the title of this silly book of anecdotes/quotes held true: Drinking, Smoking, & Screwing. The subtitle is what makes it: Great Writers on Good Times. Yeah--why can't the good part of those times come back!?

Fun (?) fact for you: The average life span (not sure, exactly. Mean mortality? Which is funny. mean mortality. ) in 1930-something was 37 years for a man. In this country. Yep. I'm pretty sure I'm right about that, but I don't feel like fact checking. Maybe it was the world. But I'm pretty sure it was in the U.S. It is just so shocking I always double check.
I can't imagine what it was in Haiti. Which is, at last census, still 37 years. Yep. That's right, for sure.

I love the "back in the good ol' days" rhetoric. It's mostly used around here when referring to food or nutrition. The paleo thing, for instance. Not that there isn't good info and rational thought behind the nutrition plan. But the jargon? OMG. please. Don't get me started.
So give me the new meds, the new food, the new knowledge and my mac! And a really long life span followed by a very quick death right before my mind goes.

Speaking of which, (the Mac, not the death) I'm taking classes at the Apple store and they really, really want me to upgrade to Lion. I'm nervous about it because I am a Mac-newbie and I love it just the way it is. Plus my friend beatle was having trouble with Lion last summer and told me to wait. Have you upgraded?

Also by the way, the whole parentheses thing? Half of this post would be in parentheses if I left it how I wrote it. That's the way my mind is working these days. It is very irksome to write like that. But it is how I am actually thinking, which is worse than irksome and driving me effin' crazy. Poor husband cannot follow my train(s) of thought right now and is generally very adept at navigating Ne-World. Wish you could help with that one. But Mac advice will be enough for today. If you don't mind.

Back after I've sorted out all the crap in the pile over there.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Point taken, NE, point taken. I'll lay off the parentheses for a while!

I just checked, and I'm on OS 10.6, so no I don't believe that's Lion. Mostly because my laptop is almost 5 years old so I don't tinker with it, lest the genies inside get pissed off.

I am pretty much definitely getting a new Macbook soon.

Generally speaking, it's best to wait until at least one or two updates after a major OS overhaul, and I'm not sure where they're at with Lion.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Nah. I wasn't talking about you using parentheses. I was talking about my own use of parentheses. What prompted the thought was the fancy [( and this)] in one of your sentences. Which I feel fairly certain is wrong. Because it's not how I would have written it, and well, I know things.

I don't know what version they're on but it's been a year. I may do it before my next class. I am an Apple groupie. Stupidly groupified. Weirdly devoted to all things with the glowing little apple. Does your friend want another friend? I will be very devoted to him as well.
Reminds me that my (wealthy) brother's nanny (aargh) went to work for Apple after she moved on. We spent Christmas together that year and you would not believe the things my SIL got from Santa Steve Jobs that year. Now that I know what's what, I am envious!

I was disappointed that I could not afford (read: could not get enough credit) for the Macbook Pro I wanted and had to settle for this little old macbook. I promised myself that I would get the coveted Pro soon! Very soon! Now I feel like a traitor. I feel about this thing the way I felt about my first car! Freedom from quirks and blank screens with the evil cursor and all the rest that comes from a lifetime of handmedown and cheapo PCs. I am liberated!

Glad the nasty green drink didn't do you in. And that you didn't do it in. Do yourself a favor and pour that one out. 'cause really? ugh. You're not that starving and life is toooo short. Really. This from a woman who got a "We Miss You" card from the local Trader Joes when she quit drinking. They might have had to readjust their ordering to account for the plethora of 3 buck chuck on the shelves.
Hope it's a good rest of the day.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Hunter Thompson. How old was he? feckin' old. When he wasn't homicidal or suicidal he was pretty content.

BTW, when I was titrating up I attached to all the crazy, alcoholic/addicted writers and their luminescent brilliance. In fact, that's a pretty fantastic attachment.

Jack Nicholson. He's crazy fucked up and crazy like a fox. And brilliant. (just heard a thing about him so he came to mind.)

Who else? Drunk, but had FUN doing it???

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Dear Diary,

Not really feeling it tonight. It was pretty warm here today, though overcast, which throws the whole city into a kind of weary haze. Wasted the morning, spent the afternoon meeting with students. Which isn't as bad as facing them as a group, and I meet with them in a courtyard behind the library. Over the summer I'm finding it truly lovely, since it's empty. Brick walls, stone columns and archways, a bubbling fountain in the back. The occasional scrape of an iron chair against the tile floor.

And, of course, I pay no heed to the No Smoking signs.

But I left pretty drained, ate like crap--had fast food, which I almost never do--and went to a 2x1 happy hour and had 2 double Jamesons. Which wasn't the worst idea in the world, and walking to the bus passed a student from last semester. Totally random, and she recognized me immediately and stopped and her friend had this look like why in God's name are you stopping to talk to this old guy. To her (my student's) credit, she asked pretty pointed questions about what I'm doing on campus over the summer and how much time I have left in my program, remembering I'd said hers was the last freshman composition class I'd be teaching. (If only!) I had to look up my old roster later to remember her name, and it just reminded me of how horrible a time I had drinking and drying out over those months.

Towards the end of my last bender I taught at least one class almost blacked out, with a water bottle full of vodka tonic. Kept a flask of whiskey in my bag, too, but needed something I could sip from in public. Then, in a similar state of f-ed up, I taught my class again the day after checking myself out of the hospital (I'd planned it well enough to go in over a weekend.) Never missed a beat, actually, but I'll be buggered if I can remember now how I did it... I even wrote a draft of the proposal for my dissertation detoxing in the hospital. Where did that dedication go?

Not to say any of it was good, but I haven't been thrown out of the program yet.

So I just got home and took a panic-filled nap. My ex called, telling me all about her night at work--she works in a bar, obviously--and the BF who's moving to Indianapolis, and how she needs to fuck him one more time. I really shouldn't be hanging on to that at all, and I'm fairly glad she's taken any kind of physical relationship when I'm back next month off the table. Then after hanging up I just did dishes, which is a sad thing when you realize all your glassware came from promos at the bar.

And who knew bleach was so wonderful? I finally opened this bottle my last GF brought over (we've been broken up about a year, and I have no recollection of why she brought a bottle of bleach over, or when). This is the amazing part: all the discoloration in the sink that I thought like inevitably happened while I lived in an apartment for a couple years, then they replaced the sink or whatever for the next tenants, did you know all that just goes away if you wipe out the sink with bleach? Game changer.

Anyway, a little after midnight and I don't even feel like drinking, just bored. So, what, that means I'm small-s sober? :H 'Cause I'm sure as hell not drunk...

Final note: when you want to say something parenthetical it obviously goes in (). But once you're in the parentheses, (like, say now I want to say something even more tangential [it would go in brackets] before popping back out to the original parenthetical). And, with the parenthesis/bracket thing, you can nest as many as you need as long as you alternate: ([([()])]). Which clearly gets really annoying really quickly.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Oh and Hunter S decided he'd had enough at 67. Mostly a rational decision in the face of chronic medical conditions than an act of desperation, but he was saying as early as his 20s that life would be intolerable for him if he didn't know he could end it at any moment. Kind of like the jumping out of the airplane, no?

And his life was an interesting one. I'd kill for his metabolism. He'd wake up in time for the evening news at 5 PM, sit down to a breakfast of pancakes, eggs, cereal, fruit, bacon and the rest of the pork breakfast meats, coffee, OJ, and a large glass of Chivas on the rocks. He had lifelong friends who said they literally had never seen him without a drink in his hand.

He ultimately lived in a semi-fortified compound in Colorado, where he'd drink and shoot all manner of firearms off his front porch. And I read a blog by this bartender/aspiring writer, in which he says HST came in one night, started ordering shots of 151, lighting them on fire and then tossing them back, and after 8 or 9 he managed to set himself on fire. So the aspiring writer had to extinguish HST, which is pretty fantastic.

That might just be the answer, though, to move out to CO with COS, where we could build a compound and shoot at things all day instead of staring at computer screens. I bet we'd both have less anxiety.

Speaking of, anybody heard from COS? Is he still just working a ton?