SOBRIETY

[Chavo]

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Going back to the original post, I've been sober since I was 16 and looking back, think it was a waste of time.

My original reasoning seemed logical. I was piling out on weekends from a young age, then decided I didn't like skating with a hangover so tapered drinking for the next few years until completely straight edge.

I'm already socially awkward, so no longer being the life of the party and having to interact with people in a honest way is uncomfortable for everyone. Since drinking/bars/clubs are our social commonality, I tended to hang out with sober weirdos and my social group became smaller and smaller (I've hung out with friends at bars and they always have a problem with you not drinking booze). Now as an adult, I actively avoid socializing, don't go to work functions or "networking", and since everyone who didn't drink before now drinks heavily, don't hang out with anyone. Back when I'd run into an old skate friend and say "let's meet up to skate", now they want to meet at a bar (even if they still skate). I think drinking is just too embedded as a social pillar in our society to completely omit it from your life.

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Alcohol sucks and people on alcohol often suck as well. If people have a problem with you not drinking, they dont care about you.

But if you feel this way, idk what you do or how old you are, but go drink and tear it up if you think its going to make your life better!

I agree, fuck those people. In general though, I think it's a natural (but not healthy) reaction to get bummed out that someone in your group is doing something else.

I've been sober too long to start now. But looking back, I sometimes wonder if doing something you're not really into, yet not completely against, is such a bad thing if it makes you a more socially adjusted person overall. For example, working in certain industries is dependent on your ability to network and seem like an interesting person during social mixers (and not seem like a freak in the process). If that is a complete turn off, you just won't get jobs because of it.

[Jagr]

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Funny you guys are discussing ba beers today. I don’t have an issue with alc free beer but usually just drink water. This week I am in Germany tho so I had a few alc free Hefeweizen, which are really good.

Tonight I ordered « another one » and  the waitress brought me a real beer by mistake. I immediately noticed the difference in taste but also a wave of alcohol flowing through my system. Very very lightly of course because it was only one big gulp I had taken.

This was the first time I m’ve had real beer in 3.5 years and man I wanted nothing more than guzzle it down. Scary. Luckily I managed to stay reasonable and just told the waitress there had been a mistake and she took the poison away. Close one…

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Cheers to you for not falling into the thinking error of "oh, it's an accident, it was meant for me", etc, etc, etc.....

I like NA beers just because it's tied into listening to records, painting & watching Pro Wrestling for me. I'll also have one if I am doing a ton of yard work etc. It's nice & for me, it hits that same spot of wanting a beer. However, I understand how for some, this may be a "slippery slope" as everyone's addiction, experiences, needs vary so again, not for everyone. I will say that it is cool that more places have them as I was in Brooklyn yesterday & the spot had em so since I drove all of the pals, they bought, so I had two of the Samuel Adams ones. Anyway, remember that the fact that you are all thinking you should change in regards to drinking is huge. So if that means cutting back, cutting it out, whatever the case may be, that is a victory in itself.

Too many people I see from when I was younger have just let alcohol consume them. My old roommate was seen by my pals a few weeks back & he was essentially unrecognizable from all of his drinking. I guess one of the other guys that were with my pals said that guy looks like he's 50. How do you know him....just a shame....

I like the taste of non-alcoholic beer. But they also make me really start craving actual beer. So I steer clear of them and just do sparking waters instead. Rad that they seem to scratch the itch for a lot of you guys without being a slippery slope like they are for me though!

[Huell Howser]

@Coastal Fever @mrkamikaze

Alcohol made nothing better… i mean shitty situations seemed more tolerable, but thats it. Alcohol made me ok about mediocrity and feeling poorly. Numbed out feeling deeply. Anyways, thats my take on it for today.

Love to you dudes. Love yourselves

just wanna say IUTSM you hit the nail on the head with how I feel about quitting drinking. I feel like I’ve never been able to articulate it well but that hit home…

[Jim and Dan]

So I'm over 5 years off smack and crack, best decision I ever made and haven't had any overwhelming urge to go back to that lifestyle. However, I had been tossing around the idea of maybe smoking weed again, being that it's legal and all. Now I smoked weed everyday for over 10 years, so it's not my first rodeo but hadn't smoked in 5 years. So Saturday night I decide to take a puff off of a dab/concentrate pen before I went to bed, proceeding to take a mondo rip. As soon as I exhale, I knew I had made a bad decision and within minutes was in full-blown panic mode, with my heart racing a mile-a-minute and my mind going haywire. It was so fucking overwhelming, like bad mushroom trip vibes where I'm getting extremely existential about my life and wondering if I'm finally going to lose my shit. A disconnect between my brain and my ability to move then set in, literally having to tell my brain to move my arms and legs when the vomit started to flow. Threw up some very nice, acidic contents off and on for an undetermined amount of time, passing out on the floor of my bathroom with my cat nuzzling me. Somehow made it back to bed and then nothing, woke up however many hours later feeling extremely ill, much the same feeling when I OD'd on smack many moons ago. Now you can argue that 92% concentrate is different than smoking flower and you're right, but the key takeaway from this experience is that I'm definitely not going to be picking up any form of marijuana for the foreseeable future. Sometimes in sobriety, especially with coexisting mental health issues, you crave another form of escape when you can't seem to shake the mental health paradigm you're trapped in, and this is coming off 5 years of being free from street/prescription drug abuse. In my case, sobriety is 100% beneficial to me, I couldn't function without it, but that escapism still rears its ugly head from time to time and in this instance definitely showed me that I don't need to be doing anything else than what I'm currently doing, it's just not for me anymore.

[Jim and Dan]

@Huell Howser

yo brother, glad those words worked for your process of thinking. Bukowski and Burroughs way of being ain't too cool when you're living it, as thats what was happening for me. Sitting in dive bars scribbling the need for escape on napkins as if making notes of it was of more importance or value than getting out of it. Bleh.

@Jim and Dan

yo dude, dabs, hash, concentrates are not for me, someone who uses weed in various ways on a pretty regular basis, a big no way. those panic attacks are awful. 1 or 2 wacks of some clean flower or a small dose edible are juuuuust enough for me. sorry to hear your experience was so brutal. But hey, man, 5 years of dope and crack is huge. I'm glad you're alive. I wish everyone could make it like that. Sounds like you are hanging in there and got a decent thing going on. I go on weed benders every now and again. Some kratom benders a few times over the years (bleh) and it all is kinda lame but harm reductionist for me. Really though, the best thing ive found is when im in a regular meditation practice. Not that you asked, jist got me thinking.


-------------------------------------------------
there's a big homeless population where i'm living and it's but for the grace of the god, the support i've got, and some willpower that I didn't end up on the streets, you know? I see these cats tweaking or on whatever the dope is nowadays, mental illness, poor health etc, and i'm like "damn, it could have been me." I lived with this huge, monstrous survivors guilt complex for years when my good friends starting dying. I've worked through it and it's good, I'm grateful to be where i'm at, let alone alive and thriving.

So today, I'm skating this DIY spot on the side of a road and this cat comes by and starts chopping it up with me. He's got all sorts of stuff in his arms, looked like he was carrying it to build a shelter. Dude starts talking with me about skating and how he doesn't skate anymore but has the "curse of the skater vision... everything's a spot!" I give him a pound and get back to skating. think nothing of it other than "alright, that dude has some shit going on but was pleasant enough." so I move onto the next spot an hour later and dude comes out of the woods and starts chopping it up again, looks at the ledge i'm skating and is like "dude, you need some wax! I've got candles you can have." I'm like "nah bro, it's cool... i'll just go faster." He walks over to the ledge and runs his hand along the top of it and says very gently "dude, you really need some wax. this is dried out!" I keep skating and a bit later he comes up and hands me a nub from an emergency candle and says "go wax that thing, dude. get it. noseslide, right? go land that." So i wax the fucking top of the ledge and start landing the damn noseslides. Meanwhile, dude is messing with a basketball that was on the court and draining threes, kinda running solo drills, talking to himself a bit. he's got moves like he definitely played ball at another point in life. We start shooting the shit about skating for a minute again and I'm seeing that this cat is probably a few years younger than me and let him push around on my board and he's saying "not talking shit, but this board is loosey goosey and heavy... (DOA, Aces, 56mm loopholes) you got mad pop but you gotta get an element or something light and you'll be ollieing 6 decks dude..." I laughed and kept skating while he was doing his thing and I give him the $2 in my pocket, because you know, he's living in a tent and is obviously struggling, and I'm well, housed, fed, in love, got everything i could want and a dog to boot. two bucks is whatever to me most of the time. not even a cup of coffee without another 30 cents.

So I'm making my way out of the spot and i skate over to this cat and says "hey man, thanks again for the wax. what's your name?" and he says "i'm xxxxxxxxxxx, i live right over here behind the creek...." and no joke this dude's got the same name as a nickname that people used to call me til I moved to the west coast and got my shit together. I'm like "thanks for the wax and the chat, man. stay safe over there, you know?" I'm skating away and he says "hey, you know anyone with some percs?" I'm really thrown now because he's obviously from the east coast calling em percs and those are what took everyone from my generation out. I say "nah man, can't help ya there." He says to me "right on, well, if you ever have a spare board, i could use one. i camp right over there..."

Pals, it was a what the fuckity fuck sorta moment. Sad and again, i'm real grateful to be where i'm at. happy to be alive. happy you are all alive.

love to you all and love yourselves.

@IusedToSkateMore thank you for the good words mate, always helps to hear some positive reinforcement in periods of relative isolation. I know you are totally correct regarding the meditation, I've gone through so many different therapy groups with meditation aspects and I know they are integrating it into a lot of AWOL/AA programs, funny to think of my 61 year old father doing guided meditations weekly but I just never stuck with. The irony is that I grew up in circles where things like meditation, yoga and emotional healing where core principals, I just never gravitated to them, probably because they where instilled by my mother and a lot of my issues in my teens and 20's were rooted with her. I'll also 2nd the motion that romanticizing Burroughs and Bukowski is definitely something different when you are living it, the former wholeheartedly being an influence on my interest in junk. When you're young you don't understand the ramifications of these choices, it seems like it's going to be all fun and games, you're an "artist", whatever bullshit you use to justify the choices throughout your life, never realizing this shit just doesn't go away and even if it does, it never really does. The monkey never dies and you don't see too many old junkies.

[Sleazy]

I’ll delete this if anyone finds it triggering, but after a few weeks of not even having non-alcoholic beer, I picked up a sixer of Bud Zero and I fucking loved it.  Which is funny because I was strictly a juicy IPA guy while boozing, and I find most na beers disgusting, but this one reeeally hits the spot on a hot day. 

Thankfully, I didn’t miss the buzz aspect at all, I just truly enjoyed the taste a lot.  I’m a little nervous that I’m unwittingly leading myself back down a slippery slope towards the real thing.. but I love being sober, so I’d like to think that I’ve actually just found a healthier replacement, that provides the same refreshment I used to seek from drinking.

*this post was not in any way paid for or supported by Budweiser Zero, 0.0% alcohol beer.

i've gone from being a heavy drinker (4-6 drinks a day) to an occasional drinker where I drink 3-4 days a week now. i know that's still a decent amount but i drink less when i do and half the time. NA beers have been a cool thing lately for me and figured i'd share. on days that i do drink i'll lean no NAs to drink less and then on days i don't drink i've been drinking them and i've realized that i really just enjoy relaxing with a beer with or without alcohol. current favorite is stella. my wife is much more hardcore than me when it comes to not drinking and she was more of a wine drinker than beer drinker but she's really gotten into the NA beers.

for both of us alcohol is more about how it effects our sleep. ive been tracking my sleep score with my garmin for a good bit and it's been really helpful as it gives me a very clear view of the effect that drinks have on me. you even start to understand the difference between two beers with dinner versus right before bed.

[Mr. Kamikazi]

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I’ll delete this if anyone finds it triggering, but after a few weeks of not even having non-alcoholic beer, I picked up a sixer of Bud Zero and I fucking loved it.  Which is funny because I was strictly a juicy IPA guy while boozing, and I find most na beers disgusting, but this one reeeally hits the spot on a hot day. 

Thankfully, I didn’t miss the buzz aspect at all, I just truly enjoyed the taste a lot.  I’m a little nervous that I’m unwittingly leading myself back down a slippery slope towards the real thing.. but I love being sober, so I’d like to think that I’ve actually just found a healthier replacement, that provides the same refreshment I used to seek from drinking.

*this post was not in any way paid for or supported by Budweiser Zero, 0.0% alcohol beer.

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i've gone from being a heavy drinker (4-6 drinks a day) to an occasional drinker where I drink 3-4 days a week now. i know that's still a decent amount but i drink less when i do and half the time. NA beers have been a cool thing lately for me and figured i'd share. on days that i do drink i'll lean no NAs to drink less and then on days i don't drink i've been drinking them and i've realized that i really just enjoy relaxing with a beer with or without alcohol. current favorite is stella. my wife is much more hardcore than me when it comes to not drinking and she was more of a wine drinker than beer drinker but she's really gotten into the NA beers.

for both of us alcohol is more about how it effects our sleep. ive been tracking my sleep score with my garmin for a good bit and it's been really helpful as it gives me a very clear view of the effect that drinks have on me. you even start to understand the difference between two beers with dinner versus right before bed.

My sleep has also improved immensely without alcohol. 6/18 I hit one year!

[secretvape]

I still dream of drugs all the time.
This week was


At my grandma's house mixed with a mansion, upstairs I find bag of xans, can't loose them, enjoying the dream architecture vibe, the xans start dissolving before I can take one, big nightmare vibes, wake up

At apt with videogame type view with two twinks, they have like a pound of meth, twink puts his butt on me, I'm not gay but it was kinda nice, they leave and I steal it but only half because I didn't even want to deal with it even in my dream

That dream was also wierd cuz it was almost a gay dream like wtf

I been dreaming for like 7 months straight every night since no drugs

[Bill Salt]

sobriety is cool even if you lose friends...

[breezy_again]

day 10 over here. it feels like cheating since it's being forced upon me by the county for 6-12 months. still the new found clarity of this thing called my life has been amazing. i've been realizing things about how i've been living that i never would have drinking everyday and waking up hungover. i've been doing things and taking care of stuff that i've put off for years. like dusting off my ceiling fans. i've had these fuckers for 8 years and never have dusted them once. disgusting i know. it's also pretty cool how long the weekend lasts when you don't drink.
right now i'm in the middle of reorganizing my record collection, that should keep me busy for a few months.

[Mr. Kamikazi]

day 10 over here. it feels like cheating since it's being forced upon me by the county for 6-12 months. still the new found clarity of this thing called my life has been amazing. i've been realizing things about how i've been living that i never would have drinking everyday and waking up hungover. i've been doing things and taking care of stuff that i've put off for years. like dusting off my ceiling fans. i've had these fuckers for 8 years and never have dusted them once. disgusting i know. it's also pretty cool how long the weekend lasts when you don't drink.
right now i'm in the middle of reorganizing my record collection, that should keep me busy for a few months.

Well done!

[fineslime]

Had to get on a week long regiment of antibiotics and decided to use it as a momentum builder to quit drinking. Sunday will mark 5 weeks since I've had a sip of alcohol. I was not getting wasted, but I was drinking often. 2 to 3 drinks 4 or 5 times a week.

Day 7 was the hardest day by far. I work in the restaurant industry and it was the Sunday before memorial day. We absolutely got our asses handed to us and I wanted to go directly across the street after work and order a drink.

I debated drinking in my head literally for the last 2 hours of work and then decided, "fuck it, I deserve a drink." All the while I'm having realizations that a rough day at work should not lead me to drinking. I still committed to the drink, but as I'm walking out of work that night, I instantly called my uber and went directly home. I woke up the next morning feeling genuinely proud of myself, and I knew that if I could get through that night, the hardest part was over.

Working around alcohol is admittedly rather difficult at times, especially working in South Florida during summer, but my relationship with drinking is slowly turning into, "that sounds nice... but wait what am I even thinking???"

Since I've quit drinking I've been working out HARD, and the issues I've had in my knee that have prevented me from skating over the last year seem to be subsiding. I'm inclined to believe it's because I'm not inflamming and dehydrating myself 5 nights a week. I can actually skate and feel confident on my board again.

The thought of a drink still crosses my mind, but it's very fleeting and becoming less and less often as the time goes on. I even inspired a coworker to quit drinking too. She's almost a week in.

This is the longest period of sobriety I've had in 2 years. I feel amazing.

[Easy Slider]

Well done @breezy_again  and @fineslime you can be proud of your achievements. Stay vigilant, temptation lurks at every corner.

[EdLawndale]

Yes, good job, breezy_again and fineslime. I am at about 4 weeks no alcohol. It's also kind of forced while I sort some things out, but I found it most difficult the first two weeks. Going out is definitely a lot cheaper! I went out to the pub tonight and just had waters with my food. Keep it up, guys!

[Coastal Fever]

So proud and happy for all you guys!  Sounds like you were all faced with tough decisions and chose wisely.  I feel I was lucky in my first few weeks, because as a result of not drinking, my meds started working properly and I felt almost euphoric. 

Now that I’m 2-1/2 months in, the euphoria is gone but I feel stable which is what you want.  I’ve got a couple camping/road trips coming up, and I’ll be damned if I said I didn’t want to drink on them.  But then I remind myself how much more I can get out of them if not inebriated/hungover.  Sobriety truly is about what you gain, not lose.

Up early on a Saturday, about to make a smoothie bowl then go skate.  Which had I had even a couple beers/puffs last night, would probably not be happening.

[breezy_again]

thanks for the support pals!

and @EdLawndale going out is definitely cheaper. my tabs now are under 10 bucks compared to around 50 a day.
i get down with the topo chicos

[fineslime]

the sobriety thread and the guitar thread have gotta be the two most supportive threads on the board haha. I'm no longer astonished at the support you can find on the board. thanks so much for the kind words, pals. if anyone ever needs to chat or a pick me up, I'm always available.

question for AA goers: I've been in the rooms before and worked the first few steps, but the thing that keeps me away from them is having to have a sponsor. I had a fractured relationship with my dad before he passed when I was a teenager, so the male mentor/ sponsor relationship is not something I'm used to and I have difficult forming bonds like that. I'm almost in my mid 30s, and the idea of finding support or guidance in another grown man at this stage in my life just does not click with me. has anyone ever been faced with the difficulty of finding a sponsor and forming that bond/ relationship? I've also been told that having a female sponsor is frowned upon to some degree.

[fineslime]

Yes, good job, breezy_again and fineslime. I am at about 4 weeks no alcohol. It's also kind of forced while I sort some things out, but I found it most difficult the first two weeks. Going out is definitely a lot cheaper! I went out to the pub tonight and just had waters with my food. Keep it up, guys!

damn Mr. Lawndale, going to a pub this early on is a ballsy move! did you feel like you had to do it to test yourself? thats amazing that you were able to be in that environment and still stand strong in your choices. how do you feel having accomplished that? I have not yet been in a bar setting other than the restaurant I work in. I also avoided my family's summer kick off party a few weeks ago because I knew there would be alcohol there. they even had a water slide bounce house!!!

[Idk]

Today is hopefully day one of sobriety. The biggest hurdle is sleeping. I’ve been an insomniac even before I started smoking weed and probably one of the reasons I got so into it because it helped me sleep. Especially since I’m going through a break up the depression is gonna make it hard to sleep tonight.

[Jebediah]

I've stopped weed and insomnia has been killer as well. Maybe try a small dose of melatonin a few hours before bedtime.

[Coastal Fever]

I take 5mg melatonin, along with a magnesium supplement, and valerian tea every night before bed.  I sleep like a baby most of the time.  There’s no health consequences and it’s not like they’re drugs that leave you groggy the next day.  If taking some natural sleep aids helps you kick unhealthy vices, you shouldn’t even think twice.

[Idk]

Thank you both. I am here on my couch unable to sleep even after an ambien my mom gave me to try to help me sleep. I’ll look into the formula 303. Muscle relaxers do make me drowsy so maybe these will help.

[Idk]

Day 2 of treatment. Fell asleep around 3 last night but didn’t use weed or alcohol the whole day. Hopefully by tomorrow I’ll have 48 hours which I’ve never done at home in 10 years. The only times I’ve been sober in the last 10 years was when I was out of state and unable to buy weed. But even then I would drink to help me sleep. This is probably the hardest thing I have done in my life. I wish I could say I’ve done harder more fascinating things but that’s why I’m doing this now. So that one day my life is filled with challenges and obstacles and I choose to overcome them instead of retreating to drugs and alcohol and women.

[breezy_again]

benedryl is good for helping you sleep. its actually the same dose of the same drug as a unisom sleep gel. i believe it does show up as alcohol on a pee test though.
i'm gonna look into some of these other options myself as my sleep is kind of fucked at the moment. the medication i'm on makes me have crazy lucid dreams which has started to become annoying.

[Idk]

benedryl is good for helping you sleep. its actually the same dose of the same drug as a unisom sleep gel. i believe it does show up as alcohol on a pee test though.
i'm gonna look into some of these other options myself as my sleep is kind of fucked at the moment. the medication i'm on makes me have crazy lucid dreams which has started to become annoying.

I had to sign an agreement to be 100% sober during this day treatment and Benadryl was one of the things I can’t take. NyQuil as well. My mom bought me some cbd gummies to help me sleep and today they may give me non addictive pills to help with sleep. My pee tests will show up positive for thc the whole time I’m here they said but they can send it to a lab to get levels to see if I’m truly being sober. Which I have. It’s been very hard.

[breezy_again]

You got this!

[Idk]

You got this!

Thank you. Lots of stuff happening these last few days. The psychiatrist diagnosed me with bipolar type 1. Makes sense though to me

[Easy Slider]

@Idk  and @breezy_again I got no advice for you on the sleeping front but just wanted to encourage you to stay strong. Eventually the body will adjust to the new way of life, after all it was used to being drugged for many years so this will take a while. In the end it's good for you and you know it. You got this lads!

[GnarAlarm]

I have an issue with binge drinking lately. I lost my dad and brother within 2 weeks of each other back in April. I don't feel like I'm drinking to cope with loss, but this wasn't an issue before so maybe it's related.
I can still go days without a drop of alcohol and not give it a second thought, but it's like the second one drop touches my lips I immediately go into binge mode. 
I'll buy a 12 pack to "last me the weekend" and drink it all in 5 hours on Friday afternoon/evening.
I tried only buying 6 packs of 12oz cans thinking once it's gone I'm done for the night, but on more than one occasion I found myself walking down to the gas station to buy more beer as soon as the sixer is gone.

Having said all that, I still only drink about 2 days a week, sometimes 3. I typically don't drink at all Monday through Thursday. I really want to get back to my usual, more moderated alcohol consumption, but I'm also scared I'm losing control.
I think I'm going to have to quit entirely for a bit while I still have the restraint to do so, if I keep going down this road I'm terrified of where it could lead.

I guess I'm not really looking for advice, I know what I need to do (quit).
It just feels kinda therapeutic to type this out and get it off my chest.   

[GnarAlarm]

I appreciate that.
That's the crazy thing, anytime I drink way too much I always feel ashamed the next morning no matter how the night went. But lately I've been doing my binge drinking at home, alone. That part scares me too.
Thankfully I'm good at staying away from my phone and computer so far, heh.

I think I'll give your 6 month plan a try, that sounds about up my alley.
Sucks to have to start it when summer is just kicking off, but the booze isn't gonna wait until it's convenient for me, and hey, 4th of July will be a good last hurrah before going off the wagon...or on the wagon...I can't remember which means "doesn't drink"...