Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

[COSGringo]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Oh and Stuck, I had zero problems switching between what I got from River Pharm and the generic here at home. None at all but YMMV.
I had to use both since Doc screwed up my scrips so bad. If you need a refill be sure your pharmacy knows to call him and not fax him.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Birthday's all around, and the bartender's is on Sunday. The bikini, the cabana, and I bought her a card. She didn't open it while I was there, but I found a blank card with a quote on the front: something like "The older we are the more we appreciate indecency." It's Virginia Woolf, and it wasn't until sitting there with a few beers in me that I actually wondered if the bartender is going to know who Virginia Woolf is and that thought made me deeply sad.

The guys at the bar insist on continuing to buy me drinks. I don't know what happened, suddenly there's a completely new guy I owe a round to, and then one of the guys from the other night shows up. I try to beat him to the punch and tell the bartender I've got his first beer, but he's got more cred there and so suddenly he's buying me a beer, again... This is making me anxious. I finally got a round for him before ducking out, but it was getting crowded and these hipsters on speed next to me were really creeping me out so it was time to leave anyway. 3 chicks kind of making out with one another, 1 of them bent over the bar trying to tell the bartender about working in a salon and wanting to give her a makeover or something, and telling this to the other bartender, and anyone who will listen while her friend is feeling on her ass as she's bent over the bar, and she turns for no reason to me to say nope, I'm good. And I'm like WTF, I'm the only one here who actually needs the makeover, and I wouldn't mind either. I go get haircuts for some physical attention for chrissakes...

So I ended up drinking way more than I intended, but still not as much as I intend to, if that makes sense. Remember that paraplegic coke addict who led OA to bac in the first place? The one who was all pissed that bac dulled his high? Yeah that's me right now.

Or the main character of Steve Tesich's novel Karoo, who suddenly, inexplicably, no longer feels the effects of alcohol. He's alcoholic, but no longer feels a thing. So naturally he uses this ability to drink insane amounts, and there's one line of the book I remember clearly: "I may have become immune to alcohol but not to hope." Because it's not even like I'm looking for MWO of booze tonight, I'm looking for MWO of everything else...

In other words I'm not having any fun on this ride anymore. I can't think clearly, can't get motivated to do a damned thing, can't focus. Not that I was doing any of that all that well drunk, and certainly not sober. God, so not doing any of that sober. But that's it, signed sealed delivered. Can't go back and can't go bac. Or, have to go bac and see what's up there waiting...

But I also went up today, 187mg now. It was tough, since when I tried to put them in my mouth one pill launched from my hand into the kitchen... And I had to listen for the sound of clacking on the tile for a clue as to where it might be located. Then found it between the counter and stove, so I was on my knees reaching, then peeking, so that I could then be reaching for it between the counter and stove. Managed to get it, though, and managed to get it into my mouth where it's now doing it's genie thing in my brain...

And finally with that, peeps, if you've made it this far with me, I bid you goodnight. Sleep well out there, because sleep is important. It saves.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Lest anyone be too concerned, fear not, as I can be sober in the morning and still freaking the F out. I opened an email with details on the courses I'm teaching in the fall and spring, and thought to myself my God, I can't do this.

I'm not sure if that's my own general lack of preparedness, or HDB, or what, but my head simply must be in the game. And soon. I have decided only one thing so far: I WILL NOT buy any more whiskey for the house. That is a promise to myself, and I'm not going to buy 12 packs, either. I'll bring 2 tall boys up here at the end of the day, which, granted, is still like 6 beers... and I'm sure I'll still drink at the bar but try to cut back even on that... I've done that before for a while without the aid of anything. And last night's spaz over only having 4 beers left? Yeah, I almost didn't finish the first of those before bed.

So this is kind of another freak-out questioning post about bac levels. Mental fog and zombification simply come with HDB, yes? Can I expect it to get better with less drinking? Or is the above plan a good way to taper down to no drinking, you think? Maybe that helps?

Do I accept that this isn't going to work right now and come down significantly? Like

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Hold on a second...

There's something missing here.

So.
Yep. You're going to be fine. Amazes me still that I think I could accomplish things better (or at all) when I was drunk. I couldn't and I didn't. Whatever you need to do, you'll do, and it doesn't need to be hellish or fiendish. And pretty soon, it'll be better than ever before. Really. I know it's impossible to believe. That's the magic...It just does.

I'm off to bed, but hope that tonight's a peaceful one for you. (and all of us!)
:l

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

I got where I am by being me, and I no longer feel like me.

I'd just gone up to 187 yesterday, and now this AM was thinking about dropping a lot. Then when I was sorting my pills for the week I laid out a whole week of 187 for some reason. Then I talked on the phone with my friend for a while and started to calm down. Then when it was time for my evening (now larger) dose I thought no, I'll stay at 175, and maybe start going down soon. Standing there with my pill cutter in hand, I said to myself, literally out loud, JKTTGDPs and downed the whole thing. So I'm actually still going up even as I want to go down.

COS, never had the chance yesterday or whenever to thank you re: the good doctor. And yes, I think whatever I do it has to be staying at a level for a while... Like a significant while, if for nothing else than my sanity. Stuck again! :H

I had every intention of drinking today. Last night was, um, pretty big and I don't want a visit from the withdrawal-fairy. Whatever waffling I did this morning over dosages, I promised myself I WILL NOT buy more whiskey for the house. I'll drink whatever shots and beers at the bar, and when I stop at the liquor store I won't even get a 12 pack--just 2 tall boys. Which is still like 6 beers, but I've done that before on my own. Before AA, before HDB, in another life when I could realize I had work to do or whatever.

Then I realized that I just didn't feel like drinking. Still went to the bar, but didn't drink AL there. I only have 2 beers in the fridge, and I am kinda looking at the clock but I'm pretty sure I'm not going down the hill for booze. I have no idea what happened. I want to say this dose seems to be the point where I start losing interest in AL, but I was pretty drunk at 210 (the highest I've been) a couple weeks ago...

I don't know anything from anything, but I didn't feel like drinking so I went with that. We'll see how I feel in a few hours... This might be a 2 (or 3) post night. Then again I might pop a Gabapentin or Benadryl.

Funny thing is I didn't really feel like drinking last night, either, until I had the first one. The first one kinda triggered a little anxiety--wasn't having any before that--and I thought I'd just done about the dumbest thing ever (nope, not even top 10). So powered through and had a whole bunch more. And none of my body's responses seem to be traveling correctly to my brain. Drunk doesn't feel like drunk. Hungover doesn't feel like hungover. I tried about 5 minutes of exercise today, or even walking up the hill, and breathing doesn't feel connected to the level of exertion anymore. It's weird.

Still need to figure all this stuff out. I don't think these kinds of levels are sustainable for me. I don't know what's wrong with me motivation-wise.

Going through some old threads, I saw a lot of back/forth about Phosphatydlserine and Piracetam. Ordered both on Amazon... Any thoughts?

One final thought. There are coincidences upon coincidences going on around here. And to top it off, that email I mentioned, the one that triggered the freak out, contained over this quote from Beckett's Molloy:

"And in the morning, in my cave, and even sometimes at night, when the storm raged, I felt reasonably secure from the elements and mankind. But there too there is a price to pay. In your box, in your caves, there too there is a price to pay. And which you pay willingly, for a time, but which you cannot go on paying forever. For you cannot go on buying the same thing forever, with your little p?ttance. And unfortunately there are other needs than that of rotting in peace..."

Sorry that got so long and outta control, and hell I'll probably see y'all in a couple hours... Thanks for hanging in here with me.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Wow. I feel incredibly shitty right now. Or, a little bit ago. There's so little even resembling food here, but after a slice of cheese and bowl of tomato soup (oh! had I bread that would be grilled cheese, an actual meal!) I'm feeling much better. But felt tired after my last post, decided to lie down on the futon and try to nod off, and it's like we never missed a beat. The breathing, the panic, this trouble swallowing.

I described that a while ago as like trying to swallow a pill without water, where it gets stuck in your throat, but the pill is the air you're wanting to breathe. I thought it was just another part of me dying, but having gone over some old threads today it turns out quite a few folks had that. Not exactly comforting/a little comforting.

Speaking of old threads, I got the afternoon nodding off/panic today while trying to grade down at the coffeehouse. Had to high-tail it up the hill home and continue the grading in bed where I could space out. Which is exactly what I did--space the F out and stare at the computer screen instead of papers, reading through old posts... Thank God I only have 2 papers left to grade and I can do that in the AM before planning class for next week. Oh, wait, it is the AM. Um, how about when the sun is up and I have coffee.

Can't wait for coffee. Mmmmm. But right now I'm totally loving water. It really helps with swallowing, and also re: body not returning signals properly to brain, I don't think I realize at all how dehydrated I probably am. The drinking, the frozen T-shirt weather here*, the fact that bac is like someone stabbed you straight in the bladder. Yeah, I try to keep up but don't think I've been drinking enough at all. Or the drinking's just reversed--plenty of water and not enough (any) booze today and the total opposite the past several days/week/weeks/month/since goddamned April.

So can I get a happy medium around here anywhere? If I'm up 22 hours a day, can I at least read something? There's 800 pages of German philosophy here on the coffee table I really need to get to...

Oh-the-fuck-well. It's officially the bartender's birthday, so there's plenty to think about there while trying to pass out on the futon. Her choice of bikini, the rented cabana on the beach, taking in some sun on a chaise lounge on the sand, margarita in hand. And of course how she said her sexagenarian killjoy BF tends to get annoyed and pouty when she's around her friends, but this year, dammit, she's standing up for herself. So, how did she put it, she'll either have a great time or be single but it'll work out either way.

Back to the futon but bringing the laptop to the coffee table. Pandora's signing me lullabies...

[EDIT to add footnote] * When it's really, really hot out, and since I don't have A/C, I sometimes soak a T-shirt and put it in the freezer then wear it to cool off.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

hmmm. The happy medium. Yep. That's a good goal.
Let's come up with a perfectly reasonable plan. That way you can have it in place and feel comfortable with the very rational decisions you've made and the very rational reasons for them and then when your mind gets all wonkified, you can just tell it to shut the hell up. You got this.

And you can cover your bases and make sure that you have your game on when you need to do that. And in the meantime, well, you can focus on what needs to be done Right Now.

These are the same things I'm telling myself, ftr. Seems that every semester there is a build up period in which I freak the fuck out, not knowing whether or not I'm going to be able to maintain my GPA. And so much more! What if my prof's suck? What if I lose my sh*t midsemester like I have time out of mind. I can't tell you how many classes I've had where I had a perfect grade until the final month/week/day and then just tanked it. So many that it is completely reasonable to discount the success I've achieved in the last 18 months. So I'm right there with you in the freaking out and in the time frame! seriously. The only difference is that I know I've done it before and I'll do it again, and you don't have that same reassurance, because you haven't and you just have to trust and hope and believe.
So go on trusting and hoping and believing! There's good reason for that.

and, um, you didn't feel like drinking. So there's that little thing.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

:H
I saw that.
And nope. I don't think you'll get abridged around here.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Saw what? The edit to formatting the song lyrics? Yeah I just noticed that it marks posts with a "last edit" date/time. I'm a writer... yes, I often go back and edit my posts and it's mostly for grammar. Any significant change I mark with an [EDIT] in the text...

But bac to the plan. Right now a good plan, actually, is to drink whether I feel like it or not until I have recourse to some other sleep aid. That's probably not what I'm going to do, mind you, but it would at least work. Geez, this no sleep thing sucks--or, actually, the panic compounds the whole thing and makes it worse than not sleeping. F--k, it's not like I'm not exhausted at night and wanting to sleep. I'm just terrified of it. Getting into bed at the same time, lights out, and not getting up until whatever AM is not going to work. It's just not. And plan ahead? That's like saying have plenty of cigarettes and M&Ms next to the bed, because those are the only 2 things that seem to help at all.

Regardless, thank you for the encouragement. I actually have done this before--pulled it all together and hit it out of the park. But it was while drinking, not while on HDB and I guess there's the difference.

Hope you, and everyone else, is having a good day. I'm going to get some shit done 'round here and be back later.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Nope. it was a deleted post from reg--a reggie. He wants the abridged version. :H

Yep. Everyone IS actually different. And you didn't hear me say go up, up, up. Not once. Well, you might have heard that but I'm pretty sure I didn't say it. (Not that I haven't wanted to...but that's another think and not related to this one.)

So. Just because you know drunk, and you're comfortable with drunk, does not mean that drunk won't bite you in the ass. At some point drunk stops you in your tracks. Thunk. There you are. Drunk. In a hospital. Sound familiar?

And just because HDB is unfamiliar and uncomfortable doesn't mean that it's not the way out. It might slow you down for a bit, but it isn't going to stop you. And in fact, it's likely to open it all up, full throttle and get you on your way. It did for me.

Do you want to hear stay where you are? Ok. Stay where you are.
Do you want to hear give up, this isn't the time? Never. Neva eva. Not from me. Look around. There are PLENTY of people that will tell you that. No offense meant to any one of them, but look closely. Then make your choice. Maybe is an okay answer. But no is a game changer.

If not now, when? When is a better choice? Next week? Next month? Next year? In ten??? Look around again. That's what you're left with. And there is ALWAYS a reason not to do something. Always. Especially something radical and revolutionary.

Drink, don't drink. Whatever. But know that it's not a choice. It's the beast at your back with a whip beating it into you that you cannot do this. Fuck that.

So get angry. I am. EDIT: But not with you. No matter which way you go, what you choose. That's a hard and fast rule.

Also, I get email updates whenever there is a post on a thread I'm following. You can choose this option on some list in the user options. If you can't find it, I'll look. Then you'll be able to see unedited posts! Just make sure you read 'em again when you get to the board. Lots of people edit or delete.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

I edit everything. No apologies from me

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

You edited after I responded! Lol.

I'll leave what I wrote because the questions are good ones and the reasons stand alone.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

And because, specifically, Joe's doctor gave them a protocol. They haven't yet tried it. She is not craving alcohol and not drinking. Do you for a moment think it would be wise (or even not wasted typing-time) to contradict what their eminent psychiatrist suggests? However, what I know to be true is that staying at a level that is too low may actually make things worse if what she was promised was a way to "drink normally" so I suggested a place that many people feel really comfortable, at least for a short time.

If I told someone bac wasn't for them, (which I doubt) it was because they were, in my very humble opinion, 1. Too fucked up to even go there. Generally trying too many things or focused on a lot of (imho) crazy shit. 2. Too young to start messing with something that is off label when they have no supervision and no idea, really, what that means. And most importantly, many untried options. (penguin) 3. Scared. To. Death. and unwilling to make connections or read the information so freely given. Can't combat that with goodwill and a stick.

[spacebebe01]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

StuckinLA;1352832 wrote:

In other words I'm not having any fun on this ride anymore.


.

Do you wanna try jumping off with me then stuck onto a better ride, this alcohol rides getting pretty old and knackered now anyway.

:l

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

One more thing:

https://www.mywayout.org/community/f2...fen-47718.html