Progress, not perfection explained by Castle Craig

This is a copy of a post by Castle Craig – the organisation I would go into detox process if I had not at the last moment done an extreme addicty thing and decide to do things on my own. 😦

Well, I copied and pasted because their site is one of those who connect my real name to the comment section. Do not know how that works so I think/assume I can not share without my real name showing up some where. Hence the copy-paste. The original can be found here.

The Emphasis of Progress, Not Perfection in Recovery

“No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles,” the authors of Alcoholics Anonymous explain after listing the 12 steps. “We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.”

“Progress not perfection” is a popular term in the world of recovery where people are striving every day to better themselves from a problem which has created complications in their life. For those in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction, progress not perfection is an elaboration of another familiar sentiment: one day at a time. Humans cannot be expected to be perfect. Those in recovery who are working the twelve step program are developing awareness regarding their character defects and personal flaws- that is, the parts of their humanity which make them less than perfect. Often, addicts and alcoholics in recovery will fall under the belief that confronting these character “defects” and working to overcome them necessitates perfection. In order to avoid being controlled by the subconscious elements of their character, which could contribute to relapse, they feel they have to be perfect. It’s an unrealistic and damaging belief, which is why the authors, immediately after listing the expectations of the steps, assert that the process isn’t about perfection. The process is about progress.

Mistakes are necessary. Without mistakes, there is no gaining wisdom. It is the mistakes we make and the lessons we learn from them which make us smarter, wiser, and more resilient beings. If we “skip the struggle” as it is sometimes said in recovery, we skip the valuable lessons which were waiting for us in that struggle. Progress not perfection takes a burden off of our backs in recovery and frees us to move at a pace that is comfortable. High expectations can create devastating disappointments, which, for an addict or alcoholic whose brain has been rewired for pleasure, could be triggering.

There is no doing recovery “perfectly” or doing recovery all at once. Like all things in life, recovery is a journey, not a destination. Sobriety, the abstinence from all mind altering substances, is a daily destination and the only thing that has to be done “perfectly”. To not pick up and use a drink every day is perfection. Everything else is progress.

I am happy that I quit. I am happy that I now understand the ‘progress not perfection’ too. I did get that I need to learn that perfection is unobtainable but I did not realise what it does for me. I took it as something to hammer into my system because people who know say it too. AND, I did realise that if I look at the progress I am happy, when I look at perfection I am unhappy. So that part I understood. What I did not understand is that wishing perfection is like emotionally and expectation wise reaching into the future towards the longed for perfection. And it makes me stretch myself thin and lose my centre (or losoe, you know the one). With losing my center I disconnect from the place where I am aware. When I disconnect it is easier to think that drinking is a good solution to anything. While it is not.

Perfection is emotionally living in the future. Pretty useless. The future does not really exist. I have been using it as a place to run away to. I have used my dream of perfection as an ideal to not have to deal with what is.

There is an aspect of wanting to be perfect so they will love me – an approach I upheld (t?) towards my parents. But actually my boss is teaching me that I do not have to be perfect. Funny. Then again, he seems to only accept me when I am honest about what I can and can not do. Where I would prefer…. to not be so honest sometimes. But then again, I’m a bad lier and he sees right through that anyhow.

Tomorrow is the last working day before my holidays. Need to carry over my work to my boss. Wish me luck. There are quite a lot of holes in what I do and he is most likely not pleased. I really need to leave with a good feeling otherwise there is very little use in having a holiday. I would be stressing out the whole 2 weeks. :-(. I am not sure I can learn to let that stress go. Or I need to do the total addict black or white thing where I go like “Ooh, don’t matter, I have another job in no time anyway!” I promised my higher self that I would make myself learn how to stay somewhere for a longer time. That is a difficult thing currently because I want to run! “Run, run, run, run, run, run, run awaaaaay, Oh oooh, oooooh oooooooooh! Ay ay ay ay ay ay aaaa!”

Breathe, Feeling. Breathe. And go to bed. Should have been in bed for 2 hours already but scared for tomorrow. 🙂 Ghegheghe…. sigh. How do other people do this? This work and living thing? Am I the only one who finds it so tricky? Am I complicated? Hmmm, not sure I would like an answer to that, ghegheghe.

I am happy that I quit. I know for sure that if I had not I would have already drunk to the holiday today and well, no,  I would not even have a job to screw up. 🙂 So, I am happy that I quit.

A woman who loves herself, would love herself. Calm down Feeling, have faith. “You worry too much. It’s gonna be alright….”

Wishing you a nice evening/day!

xx, Feeling

How to start a sober blog

That’s a bit of a pretentious title but I actually made it up because it talks with search engines well. That would be a first :-).

So, hi there, possibly first timer blogger? This is my blog ‘Feeling my way back into life’ and this post is about starting a sober blog. I am assuming that you are thinking of quitting drinking or have done so already. Maybe you need an outlet for all that is happening, or maybe you are looking for sober (online) friends, maybe you are looking for tips and support… Blogs can provide that and more, and less.

Here are some tips which I find important. Maybe you don’t. I have written this rather ‘do this, do no do that’ but obviously you can take what you can use and leave the rest.

TIPS:

Start anonymously

Whatever your reason to blog may be, make sure you start off anonymously.

Because

• you do not now what you will want to write in the future,
• because right now you might feel on top of the world thinking you can deal but experience shows that the process of getting sober is messy. Today might look like this:

And tomorrow can look like this:

In early sobriety you will find yourself in an emotional roller coaster. Whatever you have been suppressing by drinking will rear its ugly head at some point. You will be able to deal way better because not drinking. But still. You need to take care of you and that means babysteps in your own tiny circle.

• because you want the absolute freedom to (think that) you can let out the beast when writing,
• because you do want to open up in order to keep sober but not be hit over the head with the consequences immediately,
• because you do not know if your sobriety will be ‘succesful’ and the shame of having to admit that to people around you might force you into hiding again. There are others who would argue that it is good to have people support you. I am not there (yet?). If people were always so absolutely supportive you and I would not have ended up where we are / were. Addiction is a very unattractive spiritual mistake. Asking for help with it is like needing a loan: you only get it when you don’t need it. I am guessing there are people who want to dare me on this. As I said: trust is not my most well-developed muscle. Meaning no disrespect to the people who have helped me but still – trust goes as far as it goes. As does friendship, as does love. Unlike an addict mindset neither of these gifts are without boundaries. And in my not so humble opinion they should not be boundaryless anyway. Actions have consequences. Getting shit faced at a friends party means that I lose the friend. That is logical and in my opinion a healthy process. Actions should have consequences. Same with addiction: not attractive, let’s go do something else. 😉
• because there is a worldwide stigma on addiction and you do not have to deal with that or fight it. You have your own internal battles to take care of.
• because no matter what sobriety comes first and the consequences of going public immediately can stand in the way of focusing on sobriety.
• because on the net, what you write is NEVER gone. Do not make the mistake of thinking your blog is gone when you turn it off or delete it. The internet has a cache history which is very stubborn in remembering everything you did.
• Also… there is a waybackmachine where anybody can look up your former site. It always takes a while before the info there is deleted as well.

Well, many reasons  why I advise you to stay anonymous for at least 5 years. Why? Because above and because right now you might be on top of the world, but experience learns that this can change tomorrow.

Why? Because your first priority is sobriety. That is all. You do not know what upheavals lay in the future, you do not know anything about the future. Maybe you want to run for president? The internet remembers everything.

EDIT 30 august 2017 TO THIS POST:

Shame is one of the emotions which are very present and influential in addiction. A lot of the development of addiction has to do with finding your place in this world and mainly overdoses of shame and quilt prevent that. Guilt is about ‘having done something wrong’, shame is about ‘being wrong, feeling less deserving or non-deserving, feeling one has no right to live or less right than others.

The biological function of shame is to keep us from doing stupid things which are out there, to keep us from being aloof and to not go were we say ‘pride comes before the fall’. That is all ok. Shame has it’s function. Problem is, and this is not ok: in this society, shaming people is used as a (destructive) tool by parents, upbringers, teachers, group leaders, groups, peers, well anybody, to keep others in check. Shame is one of those emotions which get transferred very easily. If shame builds up too high in the one, he/she/group will seek a scapegoat and transfer the shame by shaming the other in order to release themselves of the tension and nasty feelings that shame brings. This is done by shaming, by getting angry, by criticizing, by being perfectionist about stuff, by bullying – there are many ways. More info is to be found online.

Next to that, shame can be so ingrown that we shame ourself out of what we want, need, need to do. That looks like feeling you don’t have the right to speak up against a spouse/boss/parent/friend. If you have trouble taking care of yourself (like I) chances are you have not learned this or feel you do not deserve it. That last part translates in not feeling you (i) have the right to take care of you (me). The first part probably means that you had caretakers which did not take care. That is a dangerous, destructive situation which in itself breeds shame.

I am not shame free when it comes to addiction. Also, I know that a lot of people around me, even though they themselves say to be ‘not shaming’ actually do shame me when they feel like it. I have met up with this in conversations several times and it is hugely unpleasant. If I had been recently sober I do not know how I would have dealt with the backstabbing. Which is why I warn you to stay anonymous so if you inform people of your addictive character and substance abuse when you are ready to trust people. Not that you are confronted by somebody having found your blog online. That’s all.

You might be in a state of mind where you wonder what I am talking about. That could be logical because addiction comes with denial and part of the denial is the denial of shame. Trust me, the shame is there. Like all other things it just needs you to be ready for it to show itself. Sobriety is like peeling an onion, we find layer after layer. However: if you were not susceptible to shame you would; A. not have an addictive character, B. be either very enlightened, very autistic or very criminally insane. ;-). C have worked on shame issues for a long time in your recovery already. ❤

If anything you should have/take the time to work this out yourself – in your own time. Which is why I advocate anonymity.

Set up an anonymous e-mail account

Set up an anonymous e-mail account at e.g. Gmail.com. That might not be totally legal but sobriety first. Nothing in this anonymous e-mail account should be real – apart from the e-mail account you need to give up as a last resort. So do NOT use an acronym, do not use your cat’s name, do not use your real name anywhere because it will show up, do not enter your telephone number. Nothing. Because you (and I) do not know how things relate back to you.

Also, some search tools allow people to find whatever friends do online all over the web, based on their mail address. So an online nickname is of no use if it is backed by your standard e-mail address or an e-mail account with your regular name.

Or… do NOT work with G-mail and find an e-mail server which does not want to link ALL your online business (e-mail, YouTube, Facebook, WordPress, whatever) to one account. This is specifically unhandy when you already have an G-mail account.

Work from a computer/device which is password protected. Do not read, blog or reply from your work address or anybody elses computer. The search history of the computer will remember the internet addresses you looked for and those adresses will leave behind cookies. Any other person logging in after you will be able to find these and probably connect the dots.

When you live in a tiny village you might even want to drive to another city to work on your blog, read or reply because when you react to somebodies blog the IP address (which is the address of your computer on the internet) is visible. This IP address can be tracked on the net and refers to a certain area in a large city or to a village. Your provider could hand over your real name and address when requested but I believe they only do that on the request of police. Not sure.

Don’t worry: people, governmental organisations, CIA, NSA, Google, Facebook, hackers, whatever is out there, they will always be smarter than you and can find out what you write and who you are.

You will find that if you search for stuff online, your adds start to change towards (non) drinking items. This is true for Google but also for Facebook. Getting Add-block on a Firefox browser will help you not to see stuff like that. So it does not pop up when you are watching a vid together with a friend.

What’s in a name?

How to name your blog? Well…. a lot. People with blogs like ‘shit I need to quit drinking’ never ‘make it’. The name of your blog expresses your intentions. Make sure you get those right before you start. Something like:

Beware of your intentions, they shape your thoughts,
Beware of your thoughts, they shape your actions,
Beware of your actions, they shape your life.

Always log out of WordPress and your anonymous e-mail account after you are done.

Always log out and in and do NOT let your computer / device remember what the password is for these sites. You never know if it gets stolen or somebody finds it.

Also when you work from a Gmail account your Gmail profile will be visible online where ever you go. So when replying to something on YouTube, it will be from your anonymous soberblog mail. That can be quite scary if it happens to be a reply to somebody you know!

Never reply online to sites while having your Facebook opened.

Some sites take your not privatised Facebook account and post your real name with the comment. Sometimes you can undo, sometimes not. But with a Google search on your name the comment might show up. Not sure if closing your FB account actually works.

Write for yourself

Write for yourself, do not write for the other. Trying to impress, help or save other people from whatever faith is a TRAP. Don’t go there. (As I have 100.001 times. 😦 )

No matter how pink your clouds are, no matter how convinced you are that you have found the Ultimate Truth -which you have! Enjoy!- write FOR yourself. Because ‘own sobriety first’ and you need to find your sober feet, your sober body, heart and mind, your sober life first before you start reaching out. In the 3 years I have read sober blogs I have seen about 20 of them with first post of ‘I really want to help other people find sobriety’ and they were gone within weeks or months. That is not because it is bad to help. No way, it is actually good to help. But FIRST you need to help yourself. And because you are / have been addicted for so long it might not be totally clear to you what that entails. So: ‘own sobriety first’ – no writing for others.

The thing with addiction is that it has turned you into a person who is not living in the here and now and is not living in its own energetic center. If that means anything to you, or to anybody btw. :-D.

I am thinking addiction starts when the core of our being, whatever we feel that is, gets damaged or misplaced. And I am thinking addiction continues that process of damaging and misplacing. If we are lucky we are left with a partial overlap of our core with our body so we still have an inkling of who, where and when we are.

However, when addicted, we tend to lean forward to worry about the future. We are leaning backwards because we carry grief, pain, anger and resentment and whatever other hurt may lay in the past. But no matter what: living in the here and now is exactly what addiction tries to avoid.

Another unhandy thing is leaning sideways left and right to carry all kinds of things on our shoulders which are not our issues – or which we can not change. Writing for other people often comes with leaning forward, out of your core to impress the other. That takes energy which you need to keep to yourself.

There is this AA saying ‘One day at the time’ – I took/take it one moment at the time because this moment is ALL I EVER need to take care off. And when I tried to imagine even that I had to be sober in the evening, my imagination would drag me out of myself and I would fall over.

All in all sobriety will give you a feeling of being more ‘condensed’ – more centered, more in balance. And yes, this can take many months, even years – but while being sober your chances of improving life go up EVERY day.  Even if life does not go up, it  does not goe down as fast as it would when drinking. There is really no problem in the world that does not get worst with drinking.

When drinking you run out of chances immediately. Energy and focus is on the addiction; how to get rid of it, how to hide bottles, how to score, how to not let people know, if your breath might smell, how to hide your hangover, how to not feel. How to not BE. 😦 Not saying being sober is easy. But it is better.

Consider whom you write about

I write about all kinds of stuff. There are some, and actually I agree with them, who say one should not write about those who can not react. You might want to consider this before you write. As I said: the internet remembers everything. A rule of tumb: if you can not say stuff to somebody in person, it is very good not to write it to them or about them.

However, I have ditched that because I (hope to) trust my anonymity and because I need to let things out in order to survive.

Leaving anonymous replies at blogs – they are not 100% anonymous

WordPress and probably other blogs have a possibility to leave anonymous replies to a post. Please be aware that these replies might be anonymous to the average reader but NOT to the owner of the blog. Obviously not because of security / privacy issues of the blog owner who take precedence over those of the replyer. At the back side of the blog there is a list with all comments, the IP address of the writer of the reply and the e-mail address of this person.

If ever you wonder if people who reply to your blog reply under different names you could check if the IP address is the same. If they are different there is no guarantee that this is not the same person, and if they are the same it is neither but… well, you can sort that out. Also: keep in mind that IP address for computers can change over time. They are assigned by the internet company, not by the person using it.

For those who have a WordPress blog and want to find out what I am referring to above:

• go to ‘My Site’ in the upper left corner.
• scroll down to ‘WP Admin’ and press.
• From the left bar select ‘Comments’
• Here you can find all the comments related to YOUR blog only.
  • In this list you can find e-mail addresses of those who responded
  • IP addresses
  • You can approve, disapprove, delete, edit and mark replies to your post as spam.
• There seems to be no list of comments one leaves at other blogs.

In theory anybody can set up a sober blog and be catfishing for IP addresses and e-mail adresses.

Settings

Blogs can be made public, be visible to people you have invited to read or hidden. You could actually make a blog your personal online dairy without posting anything. If that works, it works. Settings can be found in the system.

Do not tell people – the will look for it

Do not tell people you are writing a blog, no matter what they will try to find it and they probably can if they add enough you-specific words. When I Google on ‘alcohol addiction nurse uk blog’ I find ahangoverfreelife on page 3 of the results. Same might be happening to you once you out yourself.

Do not share photos or text you share at other sites as well

Just for ‘the fun of it’ (it worked out to be awful and it upset me pretty much) I once tracked down the husband of a sober blogger who was (she is not anymore and no it is not you!) complaining about a lack of intimacy. She had once posted a photo of her dog and with simple tools like Google ‘photo search’ I could track that same photo to her YouTube account and from there to her Facebook account and from there to the scorned husband. :-(.

What blogsite to choose? WordPress, blogspot?

I actually have no clues what the differences are but I chose WordPress because I was looking for an English-speaking audience. And also because blogspot used to be Dutch. But now I find I am the only Dutchy in the sober blogosphere here and anybody can see in their statistics wether or not somebody from the Netherlands visited their website. That is a bit of a bummer.

Deep in the WordPress settings are some buttons where you can link WordPress with Blogspot and other sites. The goal would be to exchange posts and comments.

What layout to choose?

I took one I liked and in which you can just scroll down to the former post. Also the comments are ‘easy’ to find in comparison to other layouts.

Should I pay for my blog to own it?

I have not found a reason for myself. Well, maybe if I were to found out WordPress was showing advertising on it I do not agree with but I have Add-block so I never see that. You could pay if you want to. Specifically if you want to go professional with what you write that would be a good idea.

Can anybody write and reply what they want?

You are allowed to write what you want, within legal boundaries and the contract you need to adhere to when building the blog. When you have an open blog like mine anybody can see your posts and reply. However, the first time somebody replies you will always have to approve the comment of this person. Also, you can decide not to. You can do so at that moment or later, even after you have approved it. You can also edit comments and delete them. Not sure if you can ban people from your blog. You can list somebody as spam which means they will be filtered out. But that would not be a nice way of dealing with people I guess.

How do people find my blog?

When this is your question, you might want to investigate a little more. As I said: it is important to write for yourself. The time where you can afford to write for others without getting all aloof will come. Own sobriety first.

And in answer to the question: there are courses for that but the simplest way to do so is add tags in the right column of the writing page. Use tags like ‘alcohol’, ‘drugs’, ‘addiction’, ‘AA’ and so forth. People search for that and this is how they find you. Also you can start following people by reading comments to other people’s blogs. Replying to other blogs is obviously also a nice way to try to make friends.

What do I write about?

Obviously there are 100.001 subjects to write about. What you might want to figure out is how far you want to go with opening up. I go all the way because I had to hide so much of me all my life this has created a pressure cooker which only found relieve in drinking. In order to not drink I let it all out. Not very attractive sometimes, but effective for me.

You might at some point feel uncomfortable in sharing stuff. Remember there is hardly any pressing reason to share everything always. You can always sleep it over and post later. You can always delete afterwards. The idea behind sobriety is that you learn to live healthily with your feelings and body. Taking feelings of discomfort seriously and finding other ways to comfort yourself than drinking or drugging is a good idea. 🙂

Your blog, your sobriety, your rules in anything. You make it up. That is good. 🙂 Enjoy.

I do not edit posts. Having said that, I edited this one because is it more instruction wiselikeish. In other posts I just ‘let the beast speak’ so to say. Whatever comes up is what comes up. Suppressing things and feelings and wanting things to be different and more beautiful, fantastic and succesful is what helped me get addicted so for me it is really important NOT to limit myself to wanting to write nice and ‘succesful’. Sobriety is not a competition.

It is not that I do not care about people reading my blog . Note that I am not saying ‘my readers’, I find that pretentious, I do not own people and I do not want to speak about people (not ‘them’) like I do. But I care about my need to unburden, as I said, to let out the beast or to write without limits more. That also included that I do not assume that I am everybodies friend, I guess my blog is acquired taste :-). But if that is what it takes, that is what it takes. I take an effort NOT to track if or if not people reply to my blog when I did to theirs. That might sound like it is, and work out to be a little autistic but sobriety is not high school. It is not about likes. It is about transforming. And by the time I can actually deal with ‘counting’ friends and comparing, maybe I will. I do not now.

Sobriety is about finding your authentic self back in this world. It is unraveling the spiritual mistake that choosing the ‘quick fix’ actually is. It is about learning to be here with yourself, to accept and to take life as it comes and deal with it as it is.

I hope to learn that. 🙂 Today is my 35th month of sobriety. I am happy that I quit. I am grateful that I have my life returned to me. I still have not unraveled the spiritual mistake but I guess I will get there in time.

Hope this post helps you on your way. Please take my dark impression of help and trust for what it is; my dark impression. Not sure how this is for other people but obviously you have your own life experience to sail by. 🙂

Wishing you a wonderful time on the web. Wishing you a blog which helps you be sober. Remember: whatever it takes to be sober is what it takes. Sobriety does not know shortcuts. That is why baby steps are good. 🙂

I am happy that I quit. I hope you are happy that you quit too. ❤

xx, Feeling

Life slowly returns to, well, what?

Life slowly returns to pre-ultra-active addiction phase. I am working at the level I did before I got into active addiction. And something is bugging me so I ask myself:

What would a woman who loves herself do? She would clean the room. 13:57 – 14:30 hours

I thought I could continue to write but ask myself: What would a woman who loves herself do and she would call a friend and ask for advice. Did so. Now I am back to the computer. And the sun is coming out. I need to change the mode I am in, not hang around here. Work is overwhelming. The external consultants think the deadline for the audit I am preparing for is not feasible but my boss is not happy to change it. I feel like I am being set up for failure. But pushing the audit out a few months, 3 would be reasonable, makes it so that it is after the end of my contract. So I feel I can not bring that up. Also, I feel that I am not making enough money for the responsibilities I have been given. Making double the amount would not at all be strange, I did not pay enough attention when applying, thought is would all be less difficult. I specifically do not make enough for the way I fill in the requirements for the function. But I feel I am in this tight spot where I say: “I am very good, do not earn enough, but I am not meeting the requirements and need more money and more time.” I have difficulty doing so. Don’t know how to deal.

Next thing: I think and fear the external consultant is gas lighting me to sabotage the project. The project is very extensive, includes a manual requirements for procedures to be set in place which is 200 page long. Those are only the descriptions. Each sentence can mean a day of work to get the procedure in place. They say it takes about 3 years to know the whole process. The consultant is helping but he does not give boundaries and priorities. He also contradicted himself the other day on a point where 2 weeks earlier he had said was ‘on of the most important procedures’ to show ‘we’ve got this system up and running for at least a few months’ while now he said ‘no need to do so’ and ‘go make those drawings’ (which in my eyes are of little importance) of which he says ‘well, everything needs to be done, this too’.

It brings me trouble because I do not want to work like I am checking a person and keeping a record. But he probably is. And the details are so many that I can not see through them anyhow so… Nasty.

And I need to keep sober. Not that I think drinking will solve anything but that is the person now who can, but only just, take care of me. If this continues there comes a time that I do not want to take care of me and that I want to forget and not feel.

I rewrote my ‘About‘ page today. Should have kept a copy of the old. Did not. The new page says that:

I compare being sober with a pressure cooker: I would build up pressure because of not/underdeveloped life skills, experienced pain and stress followed by ineffective coping techniques, then I would drink to let the steam off. Obviously the way to let steam off only got me into more trouble but it took me to age 44 while to find that out. In sobriety I think I need to:

1 learn to not build up steam and
2 let go of it differently.

I need to learn to not build up steam too much. I thought I did so by leaving my former job and looking for a new one. I guess I underestimated the level of overwhelm that this project brings. If I would still be a consultant myself I would be working around the clock to set things straight. But then I would be making 6-8 times my current salary AND I would be drinking to deal with the stress. I find it difficult to come to a

So yeah, I have, unknowingly been set up for failure. My boss admits that he has underestimated things. He has another project which is going haywire because the people he put on it are not doing their job. At some point last year he made 3 decisions which do not at all support the structure of the company and now it needs all his time to set these straight. I see that. Me being self-supporting makes it very easy to forget about my project. However… is it possible that he was as enthusiastic about them as he was about me in the first place? And now I am looking for a way to quench the fires  and the overwhelming powers of shame about my assumed incompetence, of shame because I am being lied to by the consultant, of shame and pain about the memories of the culture of deceit I grew up in, of pain about not being in contact with my brother and SIL because of what happened due to that, of anger about my salary, of shame about my incompetence of dealing with salary, shame about me having been addicted and being in such a state at age 47, all of these fires are burning inside. First drink thought since ages came up last Friday. I was very happy that the friend I went out for dinner with drank tea instead of alcohol. I guess if she would not have done so I would have asked her to change to soft-drinks.

I now understand how I got myself into drinking in my early working time by being overtaxed and needing to rewind quickly. It is Sunday afternoon now. I have been thinking of work 24/7 for a few weeks now with breaks only when I sleep and even then I can dream about this.

I need an arm around me. The realisation that having a partner can make a change in this is big. A friend of mine is moving out-of-town, she and her boyfriend are buying a house of 500.000 Euro’s, it needs rework. I feel ‘left behind’. I suddenly feel all the work I put into getting sober and being sober has been stupid because I was stupid to become addicted in the first place.

You know, dealing with addiction is not a big thing when all goes well, it is difficult when I come to the point where I do not want to care anymore because I feel stupid. Where I think I have no value anyhow. Where I am convinced I have less right to be here because of who I am. A woman who loves herself would: love herself. But I can’t currently.

In my head I hear Anne (Ainsobriety) (hi!) saying ‘compassion, show yourself some compassion’ and I realise I do not do that. Now I step outside me experiencing this attack on me and try to be the observer. The observer sees a very frightened girl who is afraid to fail bully another with shame, denial and all types of emotional abuse. The observer thinks I identify with the one being bullied. I wonder who the fuck the bullied person is. I do not recognise me from the outside. Strange this is. Don’t worry if you can’t follow, I don’t understand it either. I’m thinking I am dissociating in 2 steps here.

The frightened girl is very effing frightened. Need to go talk with her. She is very afraid to fail. Feels like she will die if she fails. Wonder where this comes from. I only remember my father once saying “If I would have built this faulty bridge I would have committed suicide.” He meant it. I was going to write I can not understand where the fear of failure would come from but my mother was a perfectionist. My whole photo album reads like a manual to the defected daughter. A lot of criticism hidden in wittyness. I can’t even read it anymore. My brother and SIL laughed at me when I mentioned that I found this painful. Adding insult to injury. And I do the same to me: not taking me seriously, not valuing myself, killing/selfdestructing when confronted with possible failure. Patterns are difficult.

Meditation helps. Plan to wake up half an hour early to meditate again during working days too. Meditation makes that everything I attach to; thoughts, opinions, fears, feelings of all kinds sort of seem unimportant, become unimportant and it helps me to energetically set to zero. I used to not know ‘how’ to meditate but the navel staring of the last years has helped me greatly to find what I was looking for; it helped me see how I attach to things, to feelings, where they, well ‘enter’ my ‘aura’ for lack of another word.

Hmm, don’t feel like writing anymore. Suddenly all of this seems superfluous. It is not. I know that. It is a log and it is a set time for me to force myself to check upon my sobriety. To see what drives me, what puts me in (e)motion. People say ’emotions are not facts’ – which is often true. But emotions will fuck up sobriety – which is why I think it is a good idea to keep a good watch on them. 🙂

A woman who loves herself would now read the book which she has wanted to read for the whole week. Turn off the computer and wifi to ensure better quality of sleep later. And make the bed now, not at the moment she goes to bed so she then dislikes herself for putting it off. So, that is what I will do. 🙂

I am happy that I quit. I find going through this time very informative. I need to take care that it does not take me over and I need to delegate and take care of the girl who is so afraid of failure. She is afraid she will lose me because I have left her. This is such strange territory. With these descriptions I am ‘just’ phrasing how it feels/what it looks like, in order to give voice to what is happening, putting words to what I feel, how I experience things helps me to see and experience things. Or maybe it helps me to take seriously what I experience. Not sure. Guessing this is a phase I need to go through. Because it is here. Let’s see what it brings. What is in the way, is The Way. I can only get out by going in. 🙂

Sorry for an unfulfilling post with no ‘solutions’ to yet another drama. :-D. I’m off to read, make beds and meditate. Better than staring at a screen. Wishing you a good night/week.

xx, Feeling

 

 

 

 

 

and I can see now what difficulty got me into drinking more and more.

Lesigh, karma overrunning darma

A few days ago I commented on a (wonderful post) of Abbie in, what now, when looking back, looks like a mood of sheer frustration from my side; running up the walls. I am sorry Abbie. 😦 I should not have poured my desperation onto your blog. 😦

Also: is there anybody who can, from the outside, give me their view of what is going on in this reply? What do you think where I go off track because, frankly, when reading this back to me it seems like I am desperate and drunk. Obviously I am desperate, obviously I am not drunk. I did have a whole lot of sugar that day. Lately I feel I do not make any progress, actually, I feel like I have been stuck in resentment (YES! THAT is the word/emotion) against my boss (is that how to use the word in a sentence?). It is frustrating. I thought I was doing well, and then suddenly I find myself at a place where I have derailed and (again 😦 ) spilled my negative energy into a comment.

Now I come back to the ‘suddenly’ because I think I am lying to myself there. I think my use of sugar has replaced the use of alcohol. I come home and I binge on chocolate. 1 Bar of 100 grams, 72% dark eco chocolate and maximum 20 dates. For my system that is way too much. It numbs me. The way I use it is how I used alcohol. (You can wonder about the words there, I am not sure if I used alcohol or alcohol used me, or possibly both are true.)

My blood pressure is sky high, obviously also due to the tension at work and because I do not react to the signs of my body. Whenever I get home I do not want to ‘be aware’ anymore. I want to numb out. I still think that being aware of what is going on is ‘too difficult’. Apart from being happy that I quit, lately I find life very difficult again – not the sober part, that is ok. When I read other peoples posts I think: what is wrong with me? Why are all these people so runny, cake baky, meditationary, yoga-y? Why do I not ‘cope’? Is it because I have to do everything by myself? As in, not being in an intimate relation and not having parents? Is it because I don’t do AA and therefore miss out on development? (I still think I need to settle down in my aversion against religious approaches, even in texts. I have been religiously pounded on the head with not being good enough to live, anger flares up whenever I have to ‘as we understood Him’. To me it feels like an exact repetition of my teenage life where my autistic and fanatically religious father tried to scare, shame and bully me into submission. I think to know it is different, it is ‘just’ that any reference pushes my buttons. It is getting less so I’ll get there one day. 🙂 The ‘we accept that we are powerless’ does not really go down well. 😦 Ooh, for those who wonder: I think to know I am powerless over alcohol when it gets into my body. Which is why I use the power that I have to choose not to drink it and I am very happy I quit.)

This is my comment to Abbie’s post. Please let me have your thoughts.

It is not without frustration that I write this and I hope you can read through that and maybe find time to answer the question at the end of this comment.

What I find difficult in this approach to un-addicting or reversing the process of the addictive personality is that nobody is able to tell me HOW to make a change. Changes made ‘over the rational’ do not last long in my experience/life. ‘Just do it’ does not cut it for me. I quit drinking, that went down in a sort of ‘just do it’ way. But all the other stuff? Well, today I posted 3 posts.
1 On how I am doing after clashing with my boss.
2 On how people who are all in control would react to it and
3: The final post of a vid which FINALLY, after 10 months, made me understand the dynamics of the relation with my boss and how it had come about. And with that I understood this aspect from almost all the other relations I had, those with my parents, those with partners or bosses. The aspect of the intermitted reinforcement / codepency became so very clear.

For the post of how to react to bosses when you are in control: I am not there yet. And I actually think when somebody is so much aware of the things going on and so much control of their own reactions, they would probably not even start working for a boss like that.

All the lists of how to on WordPress, by professionals, on Facebook by (non) professionals do not influence me other than making me feel inadequate and, well, actually (yeah yeah, I let them) disable me. Unless I understand, figure out how things work, how I am feeling wise / emotionally attached to the situation with my boss (preferring abusive relations/addicted to intermitted reinforcement/double bind) I seem to have no entry at all. (Can anybody please please please tell me) How (on earth!) other people learn? (In between their running, yoga, high end jobs, family, relations, saving the world, holidays, cake baking, volunteering?) I am at loss. Even though my life is not easy I think I am exactly on the path where I should be, out of the 20 something people I knew I started with blogging at the same time, I and another person are the only ones continuously sober so there is something going well.) It is just that these lists, the how to’s which I can not get/grab/apply, they get to me.
xx, Feeling

I am happy that I quit. Happy that you (are trying to?) quit. ❤

A woman who loves herself should, possibly, reread the text and edit it so she will not be embarrassed by it the day after. [Insert foul language] This is how slow my learning goes. It takes me more than to years to come to a point where I find it important for self-protection to reread a post and possibly edit it. Well, I did choose to do it all organically, biologically, see where Life takes me. But by now I feel I want more control. But I do not want to do the work. I feel like I have done enough actually. Ooooh, ouch. I feel like I have become sober and Life punished me with this sadistic dragon of a boss which I have to fight in order to survive. Today I heard that last week she send a VERY PRETTY new girl from HQ through the workspace just in order to get her ogled at, yelled at and whistled at by the guys. This was AFTER I spoke with her on sexual intimidation. WAR IS ON. The guys recognised the game and not one shit was given that day. Ghegheghe. The contract of her main business friend is not being continued. He drinks like a fish. Turns totally purple in every move and fights his way through the company. I just hope this helps her lose ground at HQ. Mean? Yes. Resentment? Yes. Hoping for revenge? Yes. Getting a life? Nope…. 😦 Learning to let go? No. Putting energy in my own life? No. Sigh. It is not easy. Ooh. Watch the vid from Teal from my last post again. 🙂

Please let me have your wisest/most angry/funniest/most informative comments to my state of mind/being in ‘recovery’. I try to unaddict. I want to become clear. I tend to forget that. I tend to fogg up with BS because I am rather lost than clear. Clear hurts. Feeling things clearly hurts. So much pain I can not handle. This is how I view life now. Guess I have viewed it differently but I can not remember. And then again: is it all mine? Nope, I don’t think so. I think I carry a truckload of pain from my parents, about my parents, about their abusive relationship, about how this made me feel, about how I feel I need(ed) to protect my mother, and my father and my brother from everything going on. The fights, the anger, a house full of hatred, resentment, bitterness and despise. Not a good environment to grow up in. The goooooooood thing about not having parents is that hahaha, I do not have to drag this misery along. I still do. Maybe I should not.

I think I have difficulty differentiation between me and the other. Looking forward to the medical intuition summit (see former post). Hope to find some answers to the funny skills I have there. 🙂 Not looking forward to it in a happy way. I have not felt happy for a long time, just relieved. I guess that is it: I am not happy that I quit, I am relieved that I quit. That is different. I need to get the happy back. 🙂 Shake off the unnecessary stuff. 🙂

Hope you are having a good day/night. Remember that even though life might get tough so here and there, it is infinitely better than self destructing by drinking and drugging.

xx, Feeling

Bewaren

Who said repetitive jobs would be boring?

Life with a tiny job is NEW! So much NEW, it takes a lot of energy. 🙂 Which, I guess, is the whole idea behind working, possibly…. 🙂 And, wow, wow, wow I realise day in day out, minute, sometimes second in, second out why I drank; everything I used to drink away is crossing my path saying ‘Hi, I am your life’s trouble, your karma, your inability to take life as it comes, your inability to deal with people, your inability to guard yourself, to stand up for yourself, to value yourself. And guess what? I am not going until you deal with it.’ I even dream about stupid issues which need to be solved before I can move on. 😀 Who said repetitive jobs would be boring?!

This post starts off ranting about my boss and I hope it turns into insight in my own behaviour. No promises :-). I think I have again chosen uh, a ‘challenge’. 😀 It somehow feels like I need to deal with my standard reaction of not being good enough every second of the day. I will try to be objective (haha), not point fingers or sulk and tell only what happened and how I feel but no, no promises.

I currently work 3 days including Saturday in a production facility. I do some assembling, a lot of weighing, packing and wet and dry cleaning of machines, tables and floors. It is physically taxing because of the lifting and cleaning – everything is timed and one tiny mistake can lead to loss of goods, damage to bodies, goods or machinery and/or overtime for the whole crew. I find it tough, even though I got the ‘compliment’ of my boss: ‘I’ve seen a lot of women go down in that department but it does not seem to get to you, does it?’ Which, she spoke publicly in the Saturday afternoon drinks get together so that I guess is another compliment. 🙂

I had already told her that I need to start with 3 days, not more because I ‘need to keep my clear head’ but she keeps on pushing me and then ‘taking it back’ by saying: ‘Let me know when you decide to work 4 days.’ Her comment on me ‘not going down’ sort of confirms my feeling of being under constant surveillance and continuously being pushed to do more, lift heavier stuff and work quicker. So we combine well: she does the top dog, I am ready to jump into the under dog position. 😀 Ghegheghe. It is not nice to realise this about myself but very informative. These feelings of inadequacy were feelings I would drink away.

I have not yet learned how to deal with this and it is a CONTINUOUS struggle for me NOT to feel anxious, be scared that she will correct me or yell at me when she is walking around or working in the production area. And no matter what happens on the floor, if it is out of the ordinary I lose focus immediately and my constructing goes wrong or I forget where I am. Compare it to knitting, I forget what row I’m at so I need to feel and check back or weigh stuff. Well, with all of that I am still quicker than the guys who don’t do this regularly so that is ok but still. It feels like I am shaking in my reinforced boots continuously. So yeah, I am getting the NEW life experience I was looking for and hell yeah I’m tired at the end of the day. 🙂

Opposite the expectation that I would be losing weight I have actually gained weight because I eat cantine food and in the evening a quick dinner with a bar of chocolate (100 grams, 72%, eco). Maybe the weight gain is all muscle ;-).

One of the things that bother me is that my boss does not give instructions but does tell people (me!) off when they do something different from how she planed it. I have worked in a production plant before and am used to scrub machines and then hose them down. My colleagues do so when she’s not around. 🙂 So I thought….. lets get da hose and soak da house. NOT! 😀 ‘What do you think you are doing!!! That equipment is NOT made to be soaked!!’ Well, eh…. now is not the moment to tell her that I just copy my co-workers…. 😀 Gheghegheghe….

And with carrying heavy stuff: the girl who got fired seems to have accepted the job and only afterwards tell the people that she is not willing or able to carry stuff. My boss and the whole floor got really frustrated because that meant that everybody was expected to stop their work to help the girl. Which is not possible when you are on a tight schedule. I feel that pressure is on me now. I am being watched like a hawk in lifting and if or not I am asking for favours from the guys. I don’t ask, I sometimes do get them though, which is nice, specifically when it has to do with hot and heavy stuff that is stored above shoulder height. 🙂 So I feel I am sort of being looked after by some of the guys.

On the feeling of being watched like a hawk; that actually popped up in the Saturday after work drink. Somebody commented loosely ‘Yeah, and then this went wrong and I start to look over my shoulder thinking ‘hope she’s not there!’ And my boss laughed her head off and replied ‘Yeah, bwahahaha, well, that’s one of the things I seem to have, this eye for things that go wrong. I mean, the four of you are standing around that machine and I, standing in the OTHER ROOM am the only one who notices something is wrong! Haaahahahaha.’ 🙂 That was an eye-opener for me. I mean, people came up with tiny stories on how they deal with her piercing eyes and ‘everybody’ laughed wholeheartedly. I chuckled along because it was funny and I was relieved to hear that I am not the only one experiencing these laser eyes.

My boss is in continuous fight/flight/freeze mode and her favorite is the fight mode where she literally yells at people to tell them their jobs ending any ‘conversation’ with a derisive remark like ‘or don’t you want to work?!’ And on top of that she is forcefull in asking inappropriate questions about people’s sexlife which is a topic that pops up every so many days.

I do not think she is really racist as but she does say racist things; ‘He’s late for work, he does not answer his phone, no need to fool me! He’s black so I know for sure we won’t see him again at least not today.’ Which…. well, is indeed a racist conviction Dutch and German people tend to have about well, practically any foreigners because ‘we’ are convinced we are the ONLY people in the world who can actually be on time for an appointment. All foreigners can not, blablablablablaaah, the darker the skin, the later they arrive. I realised I live in that conviction too and know it is racist, but it is not nice to hear this actually being spoken out loud about and to a black co-worker.

Btw: I hold a possibly funny view when it comes to racism, I know I am subconsciously racist following the ‘unknown is unloved principle’. But I don’t want to be racist or in any other way discriminating anybody for colour, sexual direction, gender, age and what have you. That is why, in situations I tend to try to keep a check my reactions. Does not always work unfortunately, it is work in progress however. I’ve added in this ad to show you how widespread the idea of the inability to be on time is; so much that people found it ok to turn it into a desirable trait and make the on-time people the laughing-stock. 🙂 Which they did well, ghegheghe… Not sure if this add ran outside The Netherlands. Please let me know when you have seen it. ALERT: it is a booze ad.

So when she left I asked the black colleague: ‘That comment makes me feel very uncomfortable, what is your opinion on it? And he shrugged and said ‘She always says things pretty blunt. That’s just how she is.’ Which… is another way of looking at it. And very NEW!

I’m not sure if I am ok with it though, she is the boss. Does he have a choice to address it? She treats the black guys ok even though there is more stereo typing going on like giving all the black guys a nick-name and the white guys not. Attributing sexual prowess and heightened lust to them is another one of those things I find ‘hmmm….’. The whole company is actually very sexually laden but she seems to be in the middle of it. I am so HAPPY that my hair has gone grey and that feel that gives me a perfect excuse not to partake in this.

And…..sometimes I feel sorry for myself because it also confronts me with what I think I have lost due to alcohol: confidence in my attractiveness and ability to find a partner. I mean, who would want an ex-addict who has got nothing but a renthouse, a possible or not (1st month probation is not over yet) smelly, low paid job, is overweight, grey haired and well, a prickly, stand-offish, black and white reactive character and too much wrongly focussed IQ for most man to actually like :-(? And then I put all these thoughts aside because the only thing I have to do is do my job well and deal with how to do that without damaging myself.

I have difficulty with my boss, and then again: I have enough on my plate as it is and possibly, very likely, I am INTERNALLY exaggerating these negative traits of her to find a power balance. What I write about her is as true as true is, how I deal with it is my own choice. Hahahaha, well, it should be my own choice, I’m not there yet. Friday I called my friends saying I was done and I would be looking for another job. I had promised myself to find another job before I would give up this one but for a few days I was totally convinced I would be leaving.

Saturday worked out to be a nice day and I really got to appreciate my colleagues AND my boss who took some time to tell me about her upcoming holiday in December. The first one in several years of setting up this company (she is not the owner but well, it is A LOT of work). To that she added a few personal troubles as losing her boyfriend and illness in the family which had hit her severely. Pfffff, not easy. 😦 We spoke about her holiday destination and the fact that she is going alone and feels insecure about that. It was a nice conversation. 🙂 So, yeah, there is a totally different side to her. I am glad I got to see that and felt my hostility fade away. She asked me if I could take over some of her tasks during her holiday. Which I guess is a good sign.

This roller coaster of emotions, it is so overwhelming and I am not proud of my reactivity and readiness for war. I am a little proud of the fact that, for the first time in my life I can actually, sometimes, look at it and see how very reactive I am. NEW!!! I mean, as I blogged earlier in the karma in the job: these issues I run into are exactly the issues I have run into all my life so possibly, most likely…. I need to do something with it. 🙂 The only difference with my former nasty bosses is that he is a she now. And maybe this is more clear in my karma story because I attribute the criticism to ‘Mother’. My mother was critical, my internal mother possibly even more so.

So, what, what if I am actually good enough? I cannot carry that feeling yet but it does pop up sometimes as an answer to what I feel and that brings peace. ❤ NEW!!

So, all in all: learning a lot by doing difficult stuff. Tomorrow I’m going to visit my therapist again and getting my vertebra’s realigned again. My arm is much better. It still hurts but continuous movement improves it and obviously the alignment did. Happy :-).

Other subject: I finally, after 2 months and 2 weeks contacted the bookstore man through FB. Wrote him to tell him that I am not not contacting him because I am offended or feeling sorry for myself. But that I feel I did not yet learn what I had to learn from the whole situation. That I would obviously return some books he had borrowed me but that I would appreciate to do that when all the pieces had settled back into their place. I have not had a reaction yet but he generally does not check his FB on Sundays. And, yes, that was important, I have waited to contact him till I was sure I could, if he were not to respond, be ok with that. So I don’t sit in front of this screen waiting for an answer. 🙂

I am not sure what I should learn from the situation but I can park that for later, I’m guessing insight will come some day. There’s a block on the road, it is not moving. We’ll see.

The other day I went to the give away store, met up with a guy who works there and spoke a little. He haha, told me he was an ex-addict and that he was working on his co-dependency issues. Yes, yes, how very much on cue, thank you Universe, exactly when I am reading The Alcoholics guide to alcoholism most interesting posts on co-dependency and starting to discover my own issues in determining my worth by how others value me. Does that eh, ring a bell after me speaking about my boss?

Ooh, on openness and things ‘coming out’. At the Saturdays drink somebody asked me if I wanted a beer. I said ‘No, I don’t drink.’ And he started laughing and said ‘Hahaha, another one who doesn’t drink anymore! Hahahaaha…’ I laughed with him, he and his drunken stupidity and knowing how bad it is and still drinking and thinking it is funny…. Oooh, I have been there long time. I have another guy-colleague who does not drink and somebody of whom everybody knows he needed to stop and he did. But since his father died this week everybody doubts if he ‘will make it’. Turning up drunk or intoxicated from the night before will get him fired of the job according to the house-rules.

So yes, I see this as a sign that I am still carrying around this ‘vibe of addiction’ which attracts these situations but by now I am starting to see the fun in it. 🙂

I am happy that I quit because again I can say that I am exactly in the place where I need to be to be learning what I need to learn. And wow would this job with waking up at 6:00 be difficult if I were to still drink. Brrrrrrr….

Wwawwlhd? I have asked myself this question repeatedly in the last weeks although not so repeatedly as in the first days. It works out that a women who loves herself actually does more instead of less, makes a lot of good choices and is happy to follow them up. It is however confusing that the wwlh would quit the job on Friday while she is content to stay on Saturday. Teal Swan says about the wwawwlhd system: it is a projection of your own ability to love. So I guess that is where the glitches happen :-). (Not so) funny thing: Teal Swan is in Paris this weekend.

I take: Ayurvedic medicine but I forget them 1 out of 3 times now. I ‘take’ a lot of chocolate too, 1 bar of 100 grams a day in the struggle of trying to deal. Not good. Then again, I am going to let it go and see where it takes me.

I want: dunno, a quick tarot lay promised Death – which I will take as a ‘new beginning’ and ‘changing of old habits’ rather than something bad. I guess. I hope :-). I realised that I have no idea of the future other than one that feels impossible to reach: a cottage in a spiritually sound place with a large vegetable garden, a fireplace, a warm kitchen, a large book room, some livestock, a dog or possibly 2 and some cats. I should have bought this when I had the money. 😦 But I ‘decided’ to drink it all. Funny to notice that I tried to fit in this man in my life and he ended up living in a rebuilt shed. Gheghegheghe….. guess it’s no time yet. 🙂

On discipline: more where it is needed, like going to bed on time and less where it is not really, really necessary like cleaning the house if I’m tired.

3 Things: 1 my job, 2 the fact that I have a house and 3 that I am learning so much. Like time, time totally has new meaning right now. When I am not working I am really free. Not ‘not-working-but-feeling-guilty-because-I-don’t-do-anything-with-my-life kind of free but really free. And money: when I pay for something now I know the value of it. I earn less on a day than I would for working 1 hour when being a consultant. Ghegheghe… it’s ok. This is what I need to learn so this is where I am, taking it slowly.

Ooh, strange dream. I wonder about my animus (male part of my character according to Jung). He is supposed to turn up in my dreams as a wise guy but my guys are ALWAYS these cool, almost criminal, obnoxious, handsome twenty something guys that irritate the hell out of me. The last one was laying in a corner puking – while doing a low plank position by the way. He just lay there puking his guts out because he had been drinking or whatever partying. Hmmm, I realise now I could have helped him. Ghegheghe… hmmm. Oh ooh… I just left him there. Well, better next time.

So, another long post. One day I might go through all my posts and edit them. But not now. 🙂

I am wishing you a good new week in which love and light may shine for the world.

xx, Feeling

The price I pay for staying in lalaland

These last few days I have been very much confronted with the price I pay for having stayed in Lalaland too long. The above picture is one of lalaland, sort of how it came to me in an Ayahuasca session. I guess what hurts me the most is that, as I wrote this morning, I did not properly say goodbye to my mom. Well, of course I was sober when with her, apart for one time :-/, but I feel I did not get to let go of the grieve correctly. When she died I was already addicted. Which is easy to say because I was addicted from drink one. I think around that time I drank 3-4 nights a week 3-4 pints. With ever so now and then waaaaaay more. I notice that there are layers within me that do not know she’s dead yet. That hurts.

And I feel guilty I blew a fortune of halve a house on what worked out to be ‘trying to set up a company’ in a consumer goods. I am not a flashy consumer marketer. I am an engineer. I should stick with that. Two third of that money was inheritance and one-third of that money was my own but still… I blew it because I was drinking. If I was not I might have pulled the plug out earlier or worked on it more effectively.

Because of the moving into another line of work I let go of my old contacts and network. Not smart. And now I feel too ‘labelled’ with misfortune (and my own label ‘alcoholic’ or ‘addict’) that I do not have the guts to contact them. I guess it will take time before I feel sure enough on my business feet to face these people.

I wrecked my body but what worries me more is that I wrecked my brain. I’m not sure if it is really damaged but I still have this addicty attitude of ‘not wanting to be in the moment’ and I think because of that I register things badly. And I feel so insecure about it that it cripples me when speaking with people of my profession.The price I pay.

I also feel guilty of drinking when the cat got her litter. I had promised myself to not drink 10 days around her date but I made it to day 4 and then drank 2 days half and the 3rd day I had 3 pints and they were born that night. I felt so guilty about that that I was stressed and that stressed the cat too. She was doing fine and suddenly she looked up to me totally insecure asking me ‘What am I doing wrong?’ I immediately realised then that I was just radiating insecurity and fear and she picked up on it. It did teach me a lot, and nothing went wrong but still. It was not good.

And I did loads of stupid things when I was an angry young women. Mostly self destructive stupid things but no matter what, that dragged people around me into the atmosphere of my addiction too. Now I’m just an angry older women.

That’s another point: the not processing of emotions. I spent thousands on therapy and courses which, I don’t know but I guess they would have been twice, three times, ten times as effective if I had not drunk. Not that I drank during the day, but sometimes, with difficult things, I would drink the evening before and the evening after. So… I know now that takes away from the learning effect. Then I just wanted to ‘feel safe’. Which is the nice version of ‘not feel’. And there’s more, but this is a difficult post and I just want to get to bed.

I fear: everything I take: nothing I want: to sleep and not wake up. Wow! (No, not really, just mentioning a tendency, what gets reflected back when I ask. Strange day it is today. I am at 11 or 12 days no sugar and getting bored with what I am eating because I’ve lost interest due to the lack of cravings because I now have a (more) stable blood sugar level. Also, I shop cheap in order to safe money so I don’t get all the tasty expensive stuff. I need to look into that because I have learned that this boredom is the beginning of something bingy coming up. Yes, something bingy coming up: somewhere at 17:00 ish I decided that I had earned sugar. I found that a funny addicty description but I took ginger ale (ale, not the cordial) 1/5 and mixed it with sparking water. I took one sip and felt it going down and it felt bad. Bad, bad, bad. And that is the price I pay for being in lalaland too long: weird shit going on with my health and not enough intellectual stability to deal with that.

Funny enough something in me (it felt like my body) was trying to convince me to take it and I wondered, is this how it would feel to drink alcohol? Feel stupid, feel that it is wrong and still want it? I stuck with the ‘how does it feel’ and put the glas away. And haha, there it comes: I picked it up just in order to see if it still tasted bad. Now THAT is familiar, but in my life only recognisable in others: this is how little kids learn. Tell them they are not allowed to do something and they will test another 2 times if you were serious. Somebody once told me that is not lack of respect or being stupid, it is just how we are wired.

So, I sat down, seeing what would happen, trying to inform myself that sugar is not the same as alcohol and that I should wind down. Did not work. Then I realised that this ‘lapse, relapse, collapse’ thought has very much settled in my brain against my will. I fear that thought itself. Like walking around with a time bomb. I have difficulty dealing with it because it undermines my idea of control (very addicty) but yes, it undermines my idea of control and that is very uncomfortable when it comes to booze. But while I was trying to think, didn’t go very well because of the fear, I wondered: ‘What if it were alcohol? It is not even alcohol and you have difficulty putting it away even though it does not go down well at all. You have tasted it, found that it was foul and still you are yearning? What is going on?’ (parts of me speak to me :-D)

Nothing big happened there apart from me realising that I did think it was awful so why the heck would I drink it? I did not. It did not bother me anymore after I connected with how I had felt. I guess I should practise that because it feels like there is truth in that.

So, I had a shitty day workwise, I DELETED a file for a course / book I had been working on for a few hours. I mean, last time that happened was when I was, what 25? But then found a better way to do the file anew so that was fixed in no time. Maybe that was good, but it did not feel good. I was very tired after that. I think it was good I had the reconnect to feeling with the sugar drink experience. Even though it does sound I have gone over the top with my food things. You know, I do think that I have, but I feel I am not there where I need to be with my health so I continue searching. I do want to get rid of the worries about it, trust my body, but that is hard.

I am happy that I quit in a sort of obligatory (is that the right word?) way. Not really feeling it. That is because I feel little progress. Which is why progress is good. When I feel progress I feel alive and I don’t worry about the happy or not. Meh, too tired, need to get to bed. And again I did not get to the 3 things good. Isn’t that… informative. Another good thing: the cat is going outside again. No, a thing about me. I enjoyed a real nice apple today. 🙂 It was an ecological Granny Smith from Italy. I normally only like these when they are from Argentina, in the season, but this one was very good. 🙂 And I guess that detailed moaning and comparing is making me miserable. Pfffff. I should practise enjoying good things.

Hope you have a GOOD day or evening. 🙂 xx, Feeling

It takes 8 months

This man got a bike that goes right when he turns left and visa versa. It took him 8 months to learn to ride it. And then it took him 20 minutes to learn to ride a normal bike again. I am not sure I agree with his explanation but I do think it has an analogy with addiction. Or no matter what: it is fun :-).

I am happy that I quit in a sort of ‘shit I really need to get a move on and pfiew glad I don’t drink anymore’ kind of way. I am trying to get back to the profoundly happy that I quit but worries get in the way. Now I try to separate the worries from being happy. Logically they are not linked. My mother had cancer and it was breaking down her body. She was still happy, she had learned to separate these. (And I guess she did a lot of hiding her fear and stress….) I miss her so much. I guess this is the hardest part of the price I pay for having spent so much time in lalaland: not having closed the dealing with her death. I thought I had, but the hurt of her going is still there, the unfinished business. More and more I get the feeling to ‘Oooh, I’ll call my mother.’ and then realise she is not here anymore.

I fear: well pffff, shitloads.

I want: to have breakfast

I need: to have breakfast

I take: nothing, just fully sugarless. Less fog but not the clarity I remember from when I was 19. (Ghegheghe….)

Things that went well: the work I am doing, what I do is good. Working with consumers is different: they all want a piece of me, I get e-mails as long as my posts discussing technical things. That is rather tiring. There are a few things that I follow up on and that continue to just go well. I should be proud of / happy with kicking the sugar but somehow I think I should not have get hooked at the first place. Hmmm

And there is something funny going on: I keep on meeting up people who have no money at all and are generally in a rut. Walking along the wrong energy lines here. 🙂 Let’s see how to deal with that.

And with writing that I did not even come to the 3rd thing that is going well. This talking stuff down is pretty much alive in me. Well, with writing down 3 things that are going well or that I have done well I realise that I am never content and always think I should have done better. That revelation is sinking in by now. That is good, in a sad way. Doing it again! My god this is difficult. I guess I need to watch the video again: it takes 8 months to unlearn a pattern if once practises every day. I will add ‘things that go well’ to the list on my egg timer. The current list is ‘stand up straight’ (I try to work standing at least half of the day), ‘shoulders back’ and ‘breathe’. One thing that I did good: type a post. 🙂

I hope you have a happy sober / clean day or evening!

xx, Feeling

Less perfectionism and life

Ghegheghe, just realised that I did something totally NEW!!! I send out a date invitation for my new course for the end of this week or the beginning of next week ….. while I have not even finished the content. 😀 Ghegheghe. I have NEVER in my whole life done that. Is it smart? Don’t know. I have never done that. I guess I am less anxious about failing, more sure of my ability to draw something up. Well, it is a basic course. I should be able to draw it up in 2 days. 🙂  And I don’t have time to stall. We shall see.

I am on day 10 without sugar, I lost 2 kilo’s in total. The cravings/urges get less but I also do not notice when I am hungry anymore and then it hits me when I almost I fall over. That is strange, today I went 6 hours without food, strange. Not sure if it is a no sugar effect or if it was already there and a side effect of one of the Schuessler salts I used to take. So I really need to get back to setting the clock to see if I should eat, otherwise I work, work, work, work, work and …. work. And it is really good that I have this blog because up to now I had not noticed that I do that. Isn’t it intriguing how addiction works? Drop alcohol and watching films, move into sugar and blogging, drop sugar, move into working. Hmmm… working is good, but I moderation is still a thing. Working on it, sort of ish, it’s more that right now I get dizzy and my head is spinning with too much focussed screen time since 9:00 this morning. And the learning I do is: ‘Aaah, I did it again! I know I should not do this.’ So I need to take the other step tomorrow and plan what I will be doing when tomorrow and plan free time and outside exercise time too. I’ll get there.

I fear: that I might not get there before the money runs out. If I were to pay all outstanding tax and rent I would not be eating now. So that’s a bit of a…. bummer?

I want: things to be easy, somebody coming up to me and offering me a book deal for my technical work and at least 10.000 in advance.

I need: to get my head out of the sand? Don’t know. Really don’t know. This weekend I went garden shopping with the husband of a friend. My friend hates it but I loved it and it was to this very special ecological place. It was beautiful, I had a really good time. He too, but he was seriously shopping with lists and Latin names of plants, I just assisted with the carrying and the sorting the strongest plants – for 3 hours…. :-D. As a gift he bought me 2 bags of eco sand for my pots. 🙂 Yeah! And… he carried it up the stairs, they were about 25 kg, each so I was VERY HAPPY with that. When he was gone I cried because I was so happy with this large tiny gift that it hurt. It has been a long time that I have just been given something material, been taken care of without having to ask. I need to be able to unburden. I can’t. No parents, little family and not the sort of chique problems I can unload at the doorstep of a friend. ‘Hey, I lied to you about being depressed, well I was but actually I was addicted to alcohol, I blew my own projects and am without money now.’ Hmmm. Not exactly without. So there is still hope but yeah.

I am proud: I will change this category into, What went good today. What went good today: I slept so deep that I slept through a sms. That is NEW! I started the day with reading in a good book instead of Facebook (which has now become work :-/) and that is good because I need to get away from this screen. And I just saw my neighbours getting home,  carrying a big bag of all kinds of fried food and so drunk they needed to support each other. When I said ‘Enjoy your dinner.’ She answered; ‘It’s my third day on a diet, so that’s going well….’  I thought I was slow on the progress, but I am making progress. I am there were I have chosen not to drink and actually have got a little grip on my funny eating habits and can change them because I would love to be healthy, not because I hate my excess femininity. That is good, that is progress all over.

I spoke a junior friend of mine, a friend of hers is in serious trouble with abusive caretakers. The girls don’t speak about it. The mother of the abused girl knows but she says her daughter is making it up to get attention. From what I hear I think the abuse is true, it is all wrapped up in this child-logic ‘If she tells, they will say she is making a fuss and then they’ll say that she is too unruly to go home.’ And ‘She is very sad, she does not want to live anymore.’ They make photos now of the bruises. The abuse includes a dislocated jaw. I had a rough time with taking this in today. Then I decided. I will just do what needs to be done: get advice from people who know how to handle this and leave it with those where it belongs as soon as possible. And NOT let it throw me of balance. The thought in itself is new and good. And yes, this situation is exactly what I do not need now, but that is not how it works is it. My physiotherapist said: sometimes situations return to your life because you yourself have unfinished business. I guess she’s right. Another thing: take care not to project my teenage issues on the girls. I have difficulty with this world.

I am happy that I quit drinking. Not as happy as I was in the beginning. I am at the second wave of ‘if it is this easy, I’m not really addicted.’ It is a TRAP! I know! And no, I don’t want to drink, but there is something eating away my resolve. I don’t like it but I can’t find where it is coming from, just that I am too tired to keep this resolve up all the time. I guess I need to learn to relax there where I can. I have not done that yet. Hmmm, I am still trying to live at maximum resolve but I think don’t need that when I’m at home, or sleeping? Do you have something like that?

I take: nothing, yes, eco dandelion salad to up my bile production. It is lovely.

Hope you have a nice sober / clean night and day.

xx, Feeling

YouTube rules

Hi, just another pearl from the YouTube world. Not sure if I like the speed at which he speaks but I appreciate what he says about addiction.

And I found the answer to the difference between body, soul and spirit that I have been looking for. Well, the one that says the same thing that I thought so now I know this one is true ;-). And following that, the other ones are not of course…. 🙂

I am happy that I quit because it helps me find stuff easier because I just follow my hunches and bam! There it is. The fog in my mind is back (back on sugar) but the fog in my ‘aura’ for lack of a better word, is clearing up slowly and steadily.

I want: to go to bed and so does the cat. She keeps on calling me and walking me to the bedroom :-). It was 5:30 this morning so it is about time.

I need: to go to bed. And go easier on the sugar. Not sure how to do that without forcing myself. Don’t want to have to do more things. So I guess I’ld better go get some insights that help me stop.

Have a nice evening/day! I am happy that you quit because that makes the world a better place. And if you haven’t yet: I can tell you it is real cool, inner growth is I don’t know, just pops up naturally now. I wasted a shitload of money on therapy (hi and sorry, not that I found it a waste but if I had been sober… well, you know.. 🙂 ) that I could have used 10 times better if I had been free already. But I was not. And now I am. Which is GOOD.  🙂

 

Insights brought on by ‘eating clean’.

Since last Friday I changed my food intake to no wheat, no dairy, no meat, no sugar, no additives. Vegetables, brown rice, little fruits, nuts, few eggs, some white fish only. The first three days I was ecstatic. But by now I guess my feelings are limited to ecstatic and depression – very addicty. Up to yesterday I was very pleased with the way it worked out. Less impulses from exciting flavours really brought my spirits down to earth and made me able to focus on a task longer than 2 minutes. I actually shutdown Facebook and mail when blogging and well, all those consequently. It was a big relieve. Also the fog out of my head cleared up. The Fog is still bothering me even though I am 5,5 months out of that prison called drinking.

The clean eating experience has the same tremendous effect on my body as quitting drinking did. I am glad I did not do them together, I would have been wiped off the planet with all the emotions and feelings and experiences coming through while the Fog lifts.

Yes I know I have been a [INSERT WORD] about sugar because I know it is bad, and for me more so than for most (non addicted) people because I have this physical condition that makes my body react to sugar like crazy. So taking care what I take in is important. And yet I did not anymore. A week ago I was up to half a bar of chocolate again (that is 50 grams of 85% chocolate now) a day. Even reading back in this blog gives me chocolate and sugar urges. I have that less with alcohol. Then again, I call it alcohol because if I would call it beer it would set off more triggers.

Yesterday, that would be day 6 of clean eating I guess, I suddenly had a sugar craving that was immense. Bigger than any alcohol craving I have experienced in my life – which might not be saying anything because I always gave into them until I decided to stop and then I killed the cravings when they even thought of popping up. So, well, not withstanding the comparison that is biased, I did have sugar cravings and the result was: GUILT! BLAME! SHAME! Wow….. overwhelming. Very informative, even though I had not worked out where it came from suddenly because I had not changed my food.

And it made me realise that I have been a pompous ass with people having difficulty with quitting alcohol – because for me, even though I was deep in, I think I had an easy time coming out. If it is even half as bad as what I had yesterday than… ok…. hmmm…. I think I start to understand why it is difficult. And I think I understand why Jason Vale has had such a success with his ‘don’t drink but juice’ approach because these juices contain all the minerals, vitamins and sugar to feed any cravings.

What did I do with my cravings? I ate a teaspoon of mulberries, and then another and then another and then I quit counting (sounds familiar?) Mulberries are very nice and ecological and whatever superfood they are but also at least 50% (natural, but still) sugar or so. I just wanted it to go away. I could not focus, did 10 things at the time again. Amazing. And no, I have not worked it out yet. Don’t know where it came from.

Another thing on food. I have a cold belly since yesterday when I ate rice with vegetables and fish in coconut broth. And the wise women said; don’t eat coconut products because they cool down your intestines. Coconut oil and products are meant for the tropics. I figured out that this is exactly why they grow in the tropics and not in Western Europe: we don’t need them. 🙂 I believe very much that the natural order is the natural order because a higher power I will call God here, saw that it was GOOD. If God had thought that eating coconuts in The Netherlands was a good idea, he would have planted them there. So…. pffff, another restriction to get me back onto the good path.

Guess I have to dive into the Ayurvedic teachings. For those who don’t know: Ayurveda is / are (?) ancient concept / teachings from India about healthy living. Amongst others it includes eating to the physical type that you are and where you live. To put it simple you can say that the fat lazy people who are sick need food to excite them and put some fire in them. And excited people who are so spirited that their candle burns out even before they are half-finished need foods to slow them down. (Don’t tell them that I simplified it like this… 😀 ) But ayurveda is very complicated to learn. Pfffff….. Maybe I should just visit an Ayurvedic doctor, make it easy on me instead of wanting to do everything myself.

So now again I have 10 things on my plate that I think I need to learn and somehow I think I need to do that BEFORE I get myself a job – which is ridiculous because by now I sleep bad at night over how to make ends meet in 3 months to come. My procrastinating has lessened, I can think of things and do them now, when they are small. My spark plug is restoring but the next thing to deal with is shame, fear and guilt. And the realisation that my internal guide might say: it is not time yet (even though the Time will be there within a few days), but an internal guide might not know about finances – or?

Also I am taking the time, when I can handle it, to look into feelings of discomfort. Because they are a guide too. The things I SHOULD be doing. :-D. It works, doing those things relaxes me. There is nothing wrong with 80% of the should’s I experience. I was looking for the pressure of the shoulds to go away but they are actually very good indications of things that need to be done. It is my idea that after I actually do those 80% I might want to look at the 20% of unreal expectations. Which is probably impossible because most likely I will not be able to differentiate between the 80 and the 20 otherwise they would not be in the same basket anyhow. As long as the 80% has a function to fire me on, which I realise by now that they don’t because the BLAME me and make me feel inadequate continuously.

Pffff, running in circles. I am loosing faith in my approach of feeling my way back into life. Maybe running in circles is nothing else but energy having build up because it can not go out another way. Maybe I should do some cleaning. 🙂

Running in circles because I don’t want to make a choice. As long as I don’t choose I am free. I spoke with a friend of mine yesterday, on romance. She said: I would love to be asked to marry by [insert description of prince]. But it never happened. I said: I have been asked 5 times (well, ringlessly probed) but I never said yes. The conclusion was: no matter with what idea you approach something, the results seem to be the same.

And I don’t want to say it because I get the feeling that I go off the planet here but: in the end it is all the same. Take away judgement, opinions, shame, guilt and then somebodies road is somebodies road. There are quicker roads, guided by that which is inherently good but even then, we will meet obstacles because nobody knows all about what is inherently good. What is bad has a function too. The circle of life does not stop after birth.

And just in case this vague insights are not true I think I might as well do my stuff on the earthly plane too :-D. I mean, I wasn’t put on this earth for nothing, I guess it should be an earthly experience. 🙂

I am happy that I quit and that I got out of that dark prison.

I want: things to be simple

I need: to organise and make choices.

I take: nothing, don’t know what, see I need. 🙂 I have started the alcohol desensitization again though. That is part of the deal: first you do 3 months of the test phase and answer questions and then you get access to the actual training that they think has most effect. It worked out I had been in the group of people doing the training that had most effect in the first place already. I like it. It gives me peace. And also, works as an indulgence in the religious version of that word: if I have not been thinking about being sober or filling in my life, I do a training session and I feel that I actually did do something. 🙂 Good for the low days.

I hope I have not bored you out of your chair by now. It may sound silly but I feel there is a still hidden purpose behind this blog that I am not aware off yet and that at some moment looking back to a complete development of me is going to be important and that it is part of my path. I don’t know. I’m going to put it down now, but I feel I am an object of study for someone, maybe a student. Paranoia mixed with megalomania is my favorite state of being. 😀 Have I left the planet? Pffff, not sure. If I have it is important to note this down because there comes a time when looking back is going to be important. If it were a friend of mine saying this I would think she had lost contact with earth by now. Psychosis, that is what I would think and my state of being sort of feels like that. So if you are a student and following my blog as a study project, please leave a note :-). And then again…. it doesn’t matter what superstition things I have because it is not going to feed me when the money runs out so I might as well get my ass moving!

Does any of you have that feeling, maybe it is vanity even, to think that your blog, apart from it being important to me, and possibly, hopefully here and there to other sober or addicted people, that there is something else, another purpose? Or maybe it is easier to get an answer to that without first telling that I think that is paranoia, megalomanic or psychotic :-D.  We shall see. 🙂

Have a nice day!

xx, Feeling