Out of the abyss; My continuing journey of enlightenment, physically, emotionally mentally.

Randomly random stuff;

Went to my regular AA meeting tonight. On Thursdays, we have a speaker meeting. For those who don't know, what that means is that people from another group visit for an evening and share their stories with us. So, I show up tonight, and was voluntold to chair the meeting. Really doesn't mean much, open the meeting, close the meeting, read stuff from a script at the beginning etc, but it feels good that the group asked me to do it.

So, incoming group shows up. Wouldn't you know it, one of the speakers was a councilor at a rehab program I went to about a year and a half ago. Believe me, I was not looking or feeling my best when he met me before! After the meeting, he came up and shook my hand. He'd remembered me and complimented me and seemed genuinely happy to see me doing well.

Related note, but different subject entirely. My group is having a 30 year anniversary party Friday night. B spent a good piece of the day making food for it. A whole steam table's worth of cheesy scalloped potatoes, trays of cookies... She's going early in the afternoon to set up. I'll be joining afterward for the meeting and party. I'm looking forward to socializing with all of my sober friends and I know it will be a good time, but.... There will be cookies, cakes, high carb dishes etc. I haven't craved much. When most temptations happen by it has been pretty easy to deal with them. Nonetheless, I'm a diabetic trying to stick to a ketogenic diet, who is going to be walking around trays of decadent goodies. Its kind of like being an alcoholic trying to stay sober in a bar.

Wait, I am an alcoholic! Guess that means I'll have to kind of practice the same kind of discipline, huh?
 
It sure will be tough, but then I’m sure you can do it 👏
 
Best of luck applying the techniques you learned to deal with the alcohol to other tempting-but-bad-for-you stuff. Enjoy!
 
I'm sure you can manage it. Have a nice balanced meal before the event, and try to suck up the positive energies of people celebrating such a long stretch of sobriety! (Sorry if I'm not helpful, I hate any and all group settings unless it's a group project. But try to enjoy the good vibes and remember that you are doing your own thing, and it's enough and plenty!)
 
Wouldn't you know it, one of the speakers was a councilor at a rehab program I went to about a year and a half ago. Believe me, I was not looking or feeling my best when he met me before! After the meeting, he came up and shook my hand. He'd remembered me and complimented me and seemed genuinely happy to see me doing well.
Oh yes how great for him to meet up with you in a much better state!
Good luck with the goodies--I would bring my own treat I think to help with the temptation...
 
I'm baaack...

So, let me just say, it has been week and a half of adversity. Saturday the 25th, the weather was perfect, so I met my buddy at a convenience store a couple of towns away. We were going to ride through the scenic parts of the state to a car show. Haven't been too many of them lately because of covid19, and this is something I look forward to every summer. Anyhow, I meet him there, He follows my Indian out to the end of the road on his Harley. I stop at the stop sign, bam! He runs right into me, causing me to dump the bike. At a stop, mind you, so I was more shocked than anything else. Just a minor scratch on my leg, from the bike going over as I hopped up from it. Broken taillight, blinker is missing, fender is bent, engine guard is scratched up. No longer legal to drive, so my ride is finished before it started. I bring it home using hand signals and call the insurance company.

Sunday the 26th. I'm mowing my lawn, when suddenly the tractor starts acting weird. Big noise, puff of blue smoke, engine is now seized. The tractor was kind of an older cheap piece of garbage, but it did the job while it was working. Sigh.

Tuesday the 28th, leg starts hurting, feeling swollen. Crap, another cellulitis infection. Remember that tiny scratch I got, yup, infected. Clinic, antibiotics, onward we go. Except, this time, the antibiotics aren't working. By Thursday, when I get out of bed, just standing up brought a wave of pain so bad that I was seeing stars. Off to the ER. IV antibiotics. I'm relatively healthy in other respects, so instead of keeping me overnight, I get sent home, elevation on the leg, anti-inflammatories, antibiotics, come back on Friday for another IV. Finally on Saturday I'm starting to feel a little like a human being again. Had a B-day party for my daughter (32nd) and good conversation on Sunday. Got to see my granddaughter, which always makes me smile.

Fate is not done with me yet... Got a phone call tonight (Monday night for me). My son in law and my grand daughter have both tested positive for Covid19. Yup, the 6 y/o who was climbing all over my wife and I the day before. My daughter (so far) has not tested positive and neither have we... yet. I hope that have mild cases, both of them. Keeping my fingers crossed and stopping on the way home from work to pick up a few more of the rapid at home tests so that my wife and I can monitor carefully over the next few days. In the meantime, masking up in public again.

Okay, so, now for the good. Back in the old days, any one of, let alone the combination of events, would have been a really convenient excuse for me to head to a liquor store for "something to take the edge off" the stress. Invariably, this would have spiraled to a really, really dark place. It didn't. I'm still sober. The insurance will pay to fix my bike, even if my season ended a bit early for me this year, I'll look forward to riding next spring. I decided I deserved a new tractor, so I also decided to go out and actually get a really god one. Yes, it costs $$$, but, may be the last one I ever need to buy. The infection, despite giving me a bit of a fight, is finally going away, in part, because sober me knew to deal with it as soon as possible. And lastly, I believe in science. I had Cocid19 back in January, then was fully vaccinated in May. It's still conceivable I might get it, given the exposure, but even if I do it should be minor.

p.s. despite not being able to go to the gym in over a week, I haven't gained any weight.
 
Oh wow, that was a wild ride! Mad respect for not reaching for alcohol OR comfort food :eek: Fingers crossed you and your relatives will get through the covid scare ok.
 
Oh boy what a run of bad luck that was!
Love your good attitude, for sticking to not drinking, for taking care of yourself and for not getting overly down about it!
yes very well done!
Yes fingers crossed with you that the rest of you won't get covid.
 
Hey TDT, good to see you posting, and fighting the good fight. Your day last Saturday seems like a tough one, but I think you handled it well. Good for you!

I am just trying to get caught up with folks now.
 
So far, no + tests for Mrs. TDT and I.
Went to AA tonight and found out two, not so good, pieces of information. A bunch of the peeps from my group ride motorcycles. We live about 150 miles away from the AA founder (Bill W.) house in Vermont. A couple of times a year, they ride to his house, which is kind of a museum now. They went up Sunday before last for a ride there and two of the guys got into an accident. Both bikes totaled, one guy had minor injuries and my buddy Paul, who I usually sit with had much more serious injuries and is still in the hospital. I guess his bike burned up right there on the spot. He's doing as well as to be expected, but my thoughts are with him.

The other piece of news was about another member of the group. He's... struggled. He sort of came in and out of the meetings and has had a tough time staying sober lately. He didn't make it. The twin diseases of alcoholism and addiction can and do kill people. I didn't know him well, but my heart goes out to his family.

Being clean and sober is not an easy thing. It needs to be the first thing I think about when I get up and the last thing I'm thankful for when I go to bed. The consequences are dire if I do anything else. That's not to say its the only thing to think about. I laugh and have a good time with the best of them. Life is good, even when crap happens. Its just that if I ever forget that I'm an alcoholic, that disease will be waiting for me, just around the corner.
 
That sucks about your AA friends, I'm sorry. I hope you and your wife stay covid-negative though. How are the kids?
 
That sucks about your AA friends, I'm sorry. I hope you and your wife stay covid-negative though. How are the kids?
WEll, my daughter is still negative, but she's a stress ball right now. My son in law is symptomatic, not sure how bad yet. The thing is, he's an hourly worker and doesn't have any time left. He was out for knee surgery earlier in the year and that used up his sick/vacation pay, so money is going to be tight. I'm going to toss her a few $$ to help out. She hates the idea, but at my age, especially with what we've been through the last few years, I've come to realize that while money is nice, its far from the most important thing in my life right now and helping them out will make me feel much better.
My granddaughter is largely asymptomatic, just a sniffle, but oddly enough, she's feeling a little sad & depressed. At 6 1/2 she's able to process that she has the virus and that things are going to be different for a couple of weeks. She's upset about it. Amazing how much kids can understand, even if we don't always give them credit for it.
 
I got mad anxious and depressed about Chernobyl and I was 6 when that came out, sooo... I´d say kids are more linkely to be affected because they don´t really understand everything they hear (and adults often assume they´re not listening anyway) and draw their own conclusions. Add the fact that kids´ worlds are pretty black and white and I´m not surprised she´s struggling mentally.
 
Oh, TDT. You are having such a stressful time. How strong & self-aware you are now. You should be very proud of that. I hope your SIL is C- & that your family bounces back quickly :grouphug:
 
I got mad anxious and depressed about Chernobyl and I was 6 when that came out, sooo... I´d say kids are more linkely to be affected because they don´t really understand everything they hear (and adults often assume they´re not listening anyway) and draw their own conclusions. Add the fact that kids´ worlds are pretty black and white and I´m not surprised she´s struggling mentally.
I think every generation has things that they experience as kids (sometimes colored by adult conversations around us) that stick out as large emotional experiences that need to be processed along the way. In my case, when I was very young, Watergate, Napalm, the Vietnam war, and desegregation/busing riots in Boston stand out. My kids were 14 and 12 when 9/11 happened. A little older, but nonetheless, still traumatic to someone at that age. My eldest refused to get on a plane until she was in her 20's after that. We drove 1400 miles for a Disneyworld vacation because of it. The current crop of kids are dealing with unprecedented divisiveness, hatred an, of course, the Covid19 pandemic.
 
Oh, TDT. You are having such a stressful time. How strong & self-aware you are now. You should be very proud of that. I hope your SIL is C- & that your family bounces back quickly :grouphug:
Oddly enough, despite all of the "stuff" going on around me right now, for the first time in many years, I actually feel very positive and emotionally balanced. My head feels like its in a solid place. This is huge for me. The last few years, every time something good was happening, I still had this undercurrent of dread. Like something bad was just waiting for me. Right now, even with adversity going on around me, I'm actually feeling hopeful. I'm not going to question it. I'm just going to enjoy it, and keep moving forward.
 
I think every generation has things that they experience as kids (sometimes colored by adult conversations around us) that stick out as large emotional experiences that need to be processed along the way.
True: extraordinary things happen all the time.
Oddly enough, despite all of the "stuff" going on around me right now, for the first time in many years, I actually feel very positive and emotionally balanced.
That's huge. You must be doing something right!
 
Oddly enough, despite all of the "stuff" going on around me right now, for the first time in many years, I actually feel very positive and emotionally balanced. My head feels like its in a solid place. This is huge for me. The last few years, every time something good was happening, I still had this undercurrent of dread. Like something bad was just waiting for me. Right now, even with adversity going on around me, I'm actually feeling hopeful. I'm not going to question it. I'm just going to enjoy it, and keep moving forward.
That is so great and gives me hope to one day get there. The undercurrent of dread is something I relate to well so it's really nice to hear you in such a positive mind-state. Sounds like you've done a helluva lot of work along the way so I'm glad to hear you've reached a really good place.
 
Your hard work is really paying off & it's great to hear, TDT. I wouldn't question it either.
 
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