How you deal with this will show you how you deal with sobriety

Now there is some beautiful synchronicity going on in sober blog land. I feel it happens a lot but I found this one very remarkable. Unpickled put up a beautiful post on unwinding without booze here. And the Tom Waits quote that accompanies it is exactly the message I got from the rehab guy who visited my dream last night.

Tom Waits: ‘How you do anything is how you do everything.’

Where 2 days ago I said I don’t don anything with dreaming I suddenly got curious last night. Before I went to sleep I asked for a dream which would show me what my status of sobriety was / how I could develop myself in sobriety and there were 2 dreams.

The first was one where I drove off with my grandmother to bring her home and because I felt responsible for her and also because we were having a good time I ignored all the signs from the outside world on messages of war. There was also a neccessity to me driving because the rest of the family had been drinking. While leaving my parental house I saw jets flying by and one circling back to get us. I pushed my grandmother out of the car, told her to hide and continued my way because if I would leave the car at that same place we would both be death.

A few hundred meters I put the car on auto pilot (what is that called?) and jumped out into a ditch as well, realising that I should have done that earlier because the pilot had seen me. The first rocket hit the car and then the jet circled around to fire at me with an automatic something weapon. He missed and left. I realised that I had not, second by second, minute by minute been taking care of myself by reading the signs of the outside world because I did not feel like it. While (in my dream) it was actually known that cars would be bombed.

So because I was having a good time and not paying attention I almost got killed. Yes, yes, that would be quite dramatic but I guess would I return to alcohol I would not be far off, would I?

Secondly was a dream where I went into rehab to learn stuff I had not learned on my own and weird, weird, weird rehab guy thought we should detox from EVERYTHING so when I said I was not on anything but sugar he injected me with anything and everything druglike – but sugar. Saying ‘How you deal with this will show you how you deal with sobriety.’

How is that for synchronising with Tom Waits? 🙂 And shit it was awfull, it combined years of drunk nauseous spinning in bed together. And funny, funny, funny, he played me and fired up my vanity and my need to be seen by saying; ‘I will show you how we do this here while taking Feeling as an example because she has most sober experience and is doing really well.’ Which is why I did not protest against this methode.

I felt how I wanted to let go and get lost in the drugscocktail to not ever come back to serious living. And then I caught myself and hung on to my consciousness and tried to center myself ‘through the middle’ of my body, keeping in touch with my spine. I was laying down. During this practise of not losing myself the rehab guy was telling the other girls what was happening and commenting saying things like; “You see here she wants to let go but she realises that she can not do that without getting addicted and she has learned that not getting addicted is easier than detoxing. So that is good. But see how she would love to just leave? She is hanging in there, this is her responsibility on earth. She knows that but still she is not doing the full excercise. If she was she would not be nausseaous and the poison would just leave her body without it touching or affecting her. So there is still a step she has to make. ”

I guess, in the dreamworld it would be very true that I would not be sick from the drugs. I felt I had the power and I did not want to take it because shit that requires organisation I don’t want to do.

So that is that state of my sobriety. It allignes beautifully with the Puer Aeternus book I am reading (from Marie Louise von Franz) – it is a solid explanation of Carl Jung’s depth psychology insights on well, people with a Peter Pan character like I have. Can’t adult, please don’t make me adult.  I’m only 11 pages into the book and it is all about males, and Jung has a big differentiation between male and female psychology so I’m guessing there will be some other part on the female reaction to this but for now I recognise a lot of the Puer Aeternus in me and it is not comfortable. 😦

I am happy that I quit. Obviously something in me thinks it is time for another step; getting organised, incarnating fully. Ooh, Jung’s ‘solution’ to the Puer Aeternus was ‘work’. Which I guess is what I am doing with my tiny job and focussing on getting my clear head back again. It is funny how all the puzzle pieces of life seem to come together now I let go of thinking that I can control stuff. And even though I have this tiny job where I do simple things I find it difficult enough to actually organise my live again in a new way. When I look at my bank account and house and well, being single and overweight and well, what have you (I!) I feel sad. But when  I practise compassion I know that I am EXACTLY where I need to be and learning what I should. Now with the message to take it a little more serious too. 🙂 Ooh shit. 😦 I sooooo don’t want to take that extra step.

Yeah, I’m going to ask for a dream to show me what would be good / better in my life if I were to take that next step. 🙂 That is a good idea. 🙂 Let’s see if it works. 🙂

For those of you thinking is is all a load of BS; it might be. But when I asked a dream and then do not take the dream seriously I do not think I will get an answer the next time I knock on my (sub?)conciousness or whatever place that dream came from. And yes, I am easy to influence, so when I read a book I take the information in on, not sure how to explain what goes on, but on energetic or ‘cell’ level as I call it so when reading I live in the (energetic?) world of the writer. If a book can’t make me do that I take on the arrogant idea that it is not a good book, or not timed well. 🙂 So I am not at all surprised that I asked and got an answer.

Look and you shall find.

Knock and you shall be opened.

Ask and you shall be given.

I take: Ayurvedic pills and some Schuessler cell salts against the heart palpatations I had the other day. I need to start to take care of me again seriously because I would really like to move my arm normally and start doing some yoga to excersise some muscles which I could benefit from at my work. But, ha, as the dream says, I don’t. Maybe I should do yoga and maybe that will improve my arm. Gehgehgeghe…. maybe it is a same thing with not drinking: if my life improves I can stop drinking or…. if I stop drinking my life will improve. So why don’t I try? Hmmm? Because I don’t go that extra mile.

Wwawwlhd? She would finish this post and go make some soup.

3 Things: my dreams, the post from Unpickled which stressed the importance of it, I was on the verge of wanting to not write and not think about all of this. And the Puer Aeternus book which might actually have the answer in it to the question why I think I am not fully incarnated in this life. Let’s see. It is eh, very uncomfortable but I can’t go asking for answers and then spitting them in the mouth can I?

On discipline: guess my dreams just told me I need to up it a little. Oooh… sigh…. I don’t want to adult.

Well, here I go. Wish me luck. 🙂

xx, Feeling.

On dieting, food and weight loss

I just did some serious thought-spamming in Sherry’s blog line concerning weight loss and it turned out to the size of an adult post. So I took the liberty of taking that what was for her to my blog too because I think / hope that it contains a valuable entry into dieting and weight loss. I started tweaking the post and then I really got into it. Hope you like it.

My preparation for quitting drinking started with studying weight loss. I was still in denial on my drinking so I thought I had a weight problem only. But that worked out fine because I learned a lot. 🙂 Or so I think, because I am not a nutritionist so what I say depends on what I learned from others.

ERIC BERG

Eric Berg has a lot of really good, informative video’s on weight loss. In essence he says: When people are ill they become overweight. Read ‘ill’ als ill or ‘out of balance’ – so you will. Berg is pretty convinced that cravings, overeating, gaining weight and what have you, only exist because the body is not functioning well. NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. Well, yes, it will start to work the other way around if one is seriously overweight but the basis is in the unhealthy situation. Guessing we can name a few unhealthy habits amongst us… :-S

Trying to lose weight will not happen very easily when one does not fix the underlying problem. Based on that he has defined 4 different body types – by their looks. Because depending on what part / organ / gland in our body is not functioning well, the body will store fat in different places. E.g. if the liver is not functioning well we tend to get a big (hard) belly and larger breasts or, for men it might look like they are pregnant or swallowed a basketball (beer belly, beer ‘tits’). If a person is stocking up on estrogens she will get a large chest but build firm hips and thighs as well. Yes, that would be the luxury side of weight gain 😉. In order to loose weight he has a diet plan for different body types that comes down to:

– loads of veggies, cruciferous foods for some types, less for others

– animal protein for some types and not for others,

– no sugar, low on carbs for all

– a kale, apple, parsley, ginger, celery shake is important

– cranberry – apple vinegar – fresh lemon – water drink before every meal

DO LIKE – AND IMPORTANT

His info where he says that taking synthetic nutrients is not good because it can actually make your body take up LESS of the nutrients in the long run because synthetic nutrients are not complete. Some nutrients need help stuff to be able to be processed in your body. If the nutrient pill does not contain the extra stuff too that will be taken from the stock in your body. So that’s a way of depleting the body from nutrients. He sells natural vitamins in his store. Food / veggies etc. normally contain all you need in one bite. If I would live in the USA I would order his vitamins but Fedex costs 60 to 80 dollars oversees 😦

He mentions that using dairy will TAKE Calcium from the bones. The use of dairy in The Netherlands is the highest in the world – and we have one of the highest figures in osteoporosis….. So much for the cheese. 😦 Chew sesame seeds if you want calcium.

Check out the a food nutrition table if you want to know what food contains what nutrients. I found that eating ecological pork meat is 10 times better against trembling hands (lack of vitamin B’s / damage of the nerve cells and brain) than eating vitamin B pills. Or combine them.

He is against Genetically Modified Organisms . And so am I. I am not religious but God created the earth and SHE SAW IT WAS GOOD ;-). That’s all we need to know. Arrogance to think we can outdo million years of organic process or the creation of (a) god(s) if you like. Very wrong in my, again, not so humble opinion.

Berg nicely explains the function of the liver in the fat storing / sugar making of stored fat. Very important.

DON’T LIKE

1 He is not a cook, he knows that and apologizes for it but e.g. he promotes using salad dressing from a jar and tells you to watch out for MSG’s. First, MSG’s have 10.001 different names by now, one of them being ‘yeast extract’. I find that very illogical all in all. What is wrong with mixing 2/3 olive oil, 1/3 lemon juice or vinegar, 1 tea-spoon of mustard, 1 teaspoon of honey, salt and pepper as a basic dressing? Takes 2 minutes max.

2 Berg is from the low carb – high veg and high fat school but does not explain the difference between white, finely milled flower and products made from that and all the products at the other end of the scale as: ecological full grains, brown rice, beans etc. It is not only the content but also the shape they are in. Finely milled is worse than full grain because of the work the body has to do to take it up and the time it consumes.

BARBARA O’NEILL

Barbara O’Neill, also on YouTube tells in her 10 different video’s about nutrition, how the body works and detox. She says: people jojo because they do not do a detox before loosing weight. In our body we have poisons that come from what we ate, drank, pollution, medicine, what have you. The really serious poisons like heavy metals are stored in the fat, out of the way. What happens when we lose weight is that the fat soluble poisons we carry are freed and the liver needs to break them down and make them water soluble so we can sweat and pee them out. If we do not take enough of specific nutrients (carrots, protein, vitamin B, C and another few things) the poisons will not become water soluble and the liver will say: ‘Ooooh, DANGER!! Let’s store these poisons in fat again so they are out of the system….’ So the liver will work against the weightloss by storing fat. Or which is why a lot of people experience headaches when dieting. Her story made me understand why I CRAVE meat after 2-5 days of dieting, that is where I go of the path totally. Those cravings are worse than my alcohol cravings. At a moment like that I can eat half a pound of meat, it feels like I am going berserk otherwise. This sounds silly but to me it is a sign from the body that it needs protein in order to convert the poisons.

Barbara sort of follows the Atkinson diet but makes it partially or fully vegetarian I believe. The detox is vegetarian – which I guess is a smart thing to do specifically when you live in the USA where farmers are allowed to put hormones in meat. One way or the other, I will use her advice to build my own detox schedule. In all her video lessons she drops sentences here and there, I have written them down in draft, by the time I get to it I will put it in my blog as well. Don’t wait for me though 🙂

DO LIKE

Somewhere she has a comparison on what to eat when eating healthy and she takes it from the bible. Again, I am not religious but I found that fascinating because it is such ancient knowledge and it is so to the point. Not wanting to be arrogant here on thinking we now better than people did thousands of years ago. It is just fascinating. Cool. 🙂

DON’T LIKE

Her view on the acid-alkaline issue of the body seems one-sided. Liking Eric Berg’s more. And the start of her story on Salt and Water is a bit funny. She goes of my grid of ‘acceptable there’ with a few of her opinions. But don’t let that stop you because the rest is FASCINATING!

MY PLAN

This is quite a story but I am thinking there is truth in what they both say. I, for myself, have decided that I will (try to) follow this route:
1 Quit drinking (check!)
2 Become healthy using whatever natural medicine I can find – good food, Bach remedies, homeopathy, phythotherapy (herb teas), nutrients and Schuessler cell salts currently (doing so!) and get rid of the synthetic medicine I am taking. And I should introduce more fresh air, more exercise and yoga but as a good addict I (start with) take (ing) it in from the outside.
3 Quit sugar (not eating a lot now) and anything with additives.
4 Do a detox according to a mix from Barbara, Eric and my nutritionist
5 Continue a diet on a path that I have not set yet but is probably based on loads of veggies, fish, carbs only in the full grain version like brown rice, eco meat with moderation.

With step 2, getting healthy I mean that I e.g. need to get rid of the continuous diarrhea I had (check!), get rid of my high blood pressure with natural solutions (check! 130 over 80 measured today YEAH!!!! for the Schuessler cell salts 🙂  ), work out how I get my tongue back to a healthy colour and shape because the indents I have indicate mall nutrition (possibly due to alcohol or diarrhea?) or dehydration. I am still retaining water in my legs and I want to work on the too. Not wanting to bore you with my specific details but just give an impression of what level of detail I am thinking of – so getting rid of the tiny things that are indications of an error in the take up and let go.

GRAPHIC TEXT ON POOING

List of let go errors: diarrhea, not being able to go, slimy stuff coming with, itchy anus, floating deposits, smelling results are ok, foul-smelling results that offend the nose are not. Baby poo is normally non-offensive when they are only being breastfed because that is what is good for them. Adult poo should not smell offensive either, that is a sign of things not working well or the diet containing stuff that is not processing well like a combination of (under) cooked beans and meat, that takes too long to digest so it starts to rot. The ideal ‘turd’ should be firm but not hard, let go easily, not float, not smell offensive, be darkish brown in colour, should NOT make you have to wipe a lot – almost nothing, and should not leave marks in the toilet.

Marks in the toilet means that there is unprocessed fat in your stool. As far as I know that is a bile issue (too little bile or not getting out of the bile bladder because of stones). I am drinking tea that supports the bile making in the liver – ha, yes, that would be an organ that could do with a little support… The tea seems to be working. I don’t think that I will lose weight easier when I am low on bile and not processing it because not processing fat only makes my body crave for it. And that is worse. Also, when the fat is not processed or not correctly, I would assume that the fat soluble vitamins are not processed either. And that is not good.

ON CRAVINGS

Cravings mainly indicate that your body lacks nutrients. Google on ‘cravings + meaning’ to find out what you are missing. Chocolate means that you miss Magnesium. I have taken Magnesium in the Schuessler cell salt versions and I think it works. I am not there yet but when I eat chocolate now it is sufficient to eat a few small pieces. I don’t need half of the bar. Check out this site if you want to go deeper in the salts and the medical side.

Also: I am guessing that after years of drinking and/or eating junk food (including cookies, sweets, chocolate, drinking soda’s with or without sugar) our bodies are a little out of sync so they might yearn for bad food anyhow. I find that the further I get, the less I yearn and crave for bad things. Having said that: I come from a background where we cook when at home, nothing intelligent, meat and 3 vegs or so, but still. Home cooked. See what Jamie has to say on that on Ted about home cooking and the lack there off. Did you know that since 2011 something more people die of obesity and bad choice in nutrients than die of hunger?

Craving sugar: that’s nasty. But I will again, try to get rid of the added sugars and most of the fruit sugars in my food because they are bad, cause diabetes, make me feel bad, and stimulate cravings for alcohol.

ON EXCERCISE

Check out what Barbara and Eric say on this, they promote the interval training thing with 3 minutes of extreme exercise like jumping 1 or 2 steps of a stair. And 10 minutes rest or so. That’s how the body works best. Proven. 😉

Also: exercise helps kidneys and liver and lymphen thingies to work bad stuff out of the body through the movement of the muscles – more a mechanical process than a chemical one. And it brings blood and oxygen into the corners of the body. Specifically those funny twist in yoga are meant to clean.

ON SALT FOR THE KITCHEN

There is a big discussion on salts momentarily. Barbara explains it well and she swears by Celtic Salt or Himalayan salt. However, there are other people, like my brother, that say: those unrefined salts can contain e.g. Bromide. And that is poisonous. I don’t know the truth.

ON LEARNING ABOUT FOOD

When you are looking for info on the internet try googling different versions. ‘Celtic Salt good for health’ gives different results than ‘Celtic Salt’ or ‘Celtic Salt bad for health’. On anything you learn you might want to check things out.

FINALLY

I hope you found this interesting reading. Please note that I am not a doctor or nutritionist and all I know comes from the internet. I hope it gives you some info or insight in things. Well, I found all of this hard to come by because there is so much nonsense too – so I am sharing it here. That is because I assume it is not nonsense. Disclaimer, disclaimer. Maybe it will proof to be in the future. Please drop me a comment here if you think I’ve been misinformed. Please also add links, movies, books that you would like to share.

Do remember: the path is the destination. I freaked out when all this info got to me but I just do what I can do easily. Not more. NO BERATING. I have this addicty ‘I want it all and I want it now’ behaviour, that does not suffice here. I decided to do: First no drink, stabelize, contine with health, stabelize… etc. I feel I have only one chance at getting sober and becoming healthy, getting myself on a good path. This is it. Thoroughly building a new life.

Hope this post brings you something. Again, comments, additions, book references, please drop them below. Only Potassium seems to have 1500 different functions in the body so getting to know stuff about food and the body is a path – never a destination.

If all of this turns you crazy: eat what the chimpanzees do. Stick to ecological food only, loads of veggies, home cooking only, 2-3 days without meat per week, no additives, no sugar, low on dairy. Loads of playing in the bush. And you’ll be fine 😉 That is a joke, but it is kind of true as well. 😀

Hope you liked it, Feeling.

Thought I’d do nothing for a while

Gabor Maté speaks of doing nothing to let your mind come to rest and really BE without using your brain or adding things from the outside. So I tried to come to a restful place.  Oooh, I remembered this goes way better if I light some candles and get some incense burning. And yes, let’s close the curtains. And feed the cats so they won’t disturb me.

I know the state ‘of mind’, been there before. Soooo…. I….. well, let’s say I tried. For about 1 minute, then I thought this would be going way better in a hot tub so I let the tub fill up. Then I thought of adding bath oil and pondered over ‘lemon’, ‘chestnut’, no marjoram because that stimulates, roses maybe? I decided on chestnut. In the bath, door closed. Foundling comes along and scratches the door, he wants in. I let him in because I do not want to be disturbed anymore by the feeling of shutting him out. He is in, he says something along the lines of ‘I don’t like the humidity in here, I want out’. So I let him out. (How on EARTH do people with kids run their lives?)

And… get back in the bath. In the bath suddenly all these opinions about everything pop up. It reminds me of my first ayahuasca experience, opinions: not important. Aaah. That is actually true. How did I happen to forget that? ‘Because you think it defines you and you need it to give yourself a position in this world, you think that if you don’t have opinions you do not exist. Your famous ‘those that know better are better.’ principle.’ Aaah, how did I forget that? ‘Because you are scared.’ Yeah. I am. So I cried, crying is good. All that tension, holding on to straight believes, not relaxing. That’s another thing I need to watch. I sleep fine but I am still very, very tense.

So, I’d done my crying, now I can really start to do nothing.

‘Would the bath oil actually float on the water because that would mean that it is has been running away with the excess water.’

No, thinking.

Aah, no thinking. I’ll breathe instead. In, 2, 3, 4, out 2, 3, 4. Or was it 5? Out 2, 3, 4, 5. No, does not feel good. Actually I should do more exercise.

I would have thought that would have slipped into your organic plan automatically already.

Obviously not there yet. And no thinking and certainly NO opinions!

I could do some situps here. Ah, no thinking.

I have difficulty relaxing. No thinking.

Yes,very, very dangerous. Will get you relapsed if you don’t do something about it. Why have you not finished your book yet? And what if GP3 does not agree with your plan? Will you continue to do it by yourself? How much are you willing to spend on it? How much can you afford?

I can call Dr Larson and ask if all the test are really mandatory because the nutrients are not poisonous anyhow. So I might as well only do the hypoglycemia test and the candida test, and possibly one or two gland tests, well, maybe the hair test.

You should have finished the book by now.

I can’t! It is a difficult book, I can only do so many pages a day without my mind starting to wander.

This went on for another 10 minutes I guess. I covered loads of subjects. All fears and trying to work out how to control them. Parts of self pity. ‘This bath feels weird, my heart is going al funny, I might die here. Where is the phone. Why did I not put the phone out here? I’ll get out, you never know. Hey NOW I feel dizzy, better lay down a bit. Wouldn’t that be sad, getting all sober and then dying. Just my luck.

I’m low on salts, how can that be? Drank too much tea, ate too little? Don’t snack anymore? My blood pressure must have dropped by now. Sure of it. Don’t forget to test.

I don’t even want to repeat it. How on earth did I ever, ever in my life shut up? I could even start running again to get to the point where I am too tired to care about thinking. Good thing that the book has a formula for erratic minds :-).

Oooh, past my bedtime, should get to bed. That is The Plan.

Happy that I quit. Now getting to the stuff where the going gets tough. Or maybe I want too much. Or maybe I do too little, or maybe I just feel weird because I ran out of vitamin B complex.

4,5Kg, no wonder I am tired

Hmmm, lost 4,5Kg in total in 1 month. No wonder I am tired.

And that means that I should be paying extra attention to nutrition because fat stores all kind of poisons. When I lose fat the poisons start floating through the body, reach the liver and the liver says; Oh ooh, those are poisons I can’t break down, lets use fat to store them in. And this cycle will continue unless I give the liver vitamin A, E, protein and a whole lot of other stuff so it can make the poisons water-soluble. That is why it is so important to detox before loosing weight, otherwise the liver will work against loosing weight.

More on that in the beautiful, wholesome, very informative YouTube video’s of Barbara O’Neill. Please note: she sometimes does say funny stuff. And the acid-alkaline story is more logical from Eric Berg. Eric Berg has a theory that, fat stores in different places in a body depending on  which gland functions worst. People with a week gland x store it at the belly, people with a week gland y store it at the chest and hips etc. I’ve got the book :-D. He knows a hell of a lot on glands and hormones but is a bit funny when it comes to handing our recipes; do everything ecological – but buy your salad dressing. A big why? immediately springs to my mind.

I’m sort of done with the studying and sorting it all out by myself. I guess that is the price I pay. I my mother would be alive I think she would see that this ‘wanna do it myself!’ is not new. Guess there is another thinking about trust cycle coming up.

Happy that I quit, still a little too tired to be proud but happy that I am loosing weight too. 🙂

New lay, new life, another old dream

Hello,

I thought it was time for a new layout. I make such long paragraphs that the small lay that I had does not make for nice reading. Not sure about the picture yet, was looking for something that depicted the natural order of things. This is from a medieval painting depicting god creating the world in a natural order. Not sure about the god part but I do think there is a natural order. I was looking for a photo of nature that shows this but I only get sunflowers and I am not big on yellow or yellow with brown. Those were my worries for the day. 🙂

Went out with an elderly neighbour to an ecological fruit garden just outside the city where we could get our own apples and pears from the tree. Had a nice little walk and some apples of course, beautiful weather.

I feel it is time to start to live again. As in: be responsible for all aspects of my life, not only mental and physical health that I have been looking into the last 4 weeks. My GP3 asked me to draw up a plan since I indicated that I was not ready yet or not willing to look for outside help other than seeing her and my therapist. GP1 had said to me months ago: ‘We need to look into your problem with alcohol, but we will only do what you want and when you want it.’ And that was exactly the only way she could keep me in and doing this. I know me, later I realised that if she would have come up with one tiny hint of a plan in that stage I would have opposed against it. That’s not only booze talking, that’s the character.

Later when I was doing an intake for a program I thought it was a good thing to surrender that part of me but it did not work. I can only do all or nothing so I gave up everything and handed it over to ‘Those That Will Help Me’. That included my, what I call Initiative – my, not sure how to explain, inner responsibility for living?

So I went down hill rapidly from then on. Then at the day they did not call while they had said they would, I collapsed and while collapsing I noticed that I had given everything away. ‘Even they don’t think I am worth saving.’ (add drunk whining) And while noticing that and thinking ‘there is nothing left of me’ another thought came into my head ‘I always, always have myself. What to I want to do?’

I want to quit drinking and I want to become clear, walk my path. I want to Live.

‘How are you going to do that?’ Give it everything I got. I have intellect, I can read, I have this strange ability to feel my way through healing. Taking into account that I have been addicted for so long I still have quite a lot of honesty left in me. I have quit smoking, eating sugar and drinking caffeine, I know how to recognise a trap and if I have trouble or fail I can always ask help. I can trust myself in knowing what is good for me.’

And there is also a part that touched my pride because if (I imagine) that somebody says I’m not worth it, I might as well prove them wrong. Well. Let’s say I have used what I got to break the bonds with alcohol. I thought that was impossible. I thought there was nothing left of me. I guess that I was so hopelessly lost that it really was a do or die decision.

(And I’m going to compare this story with other writing before just to see if it is getting more heroic by the time.)

I have born myself again. Had a dream about that, it was 20 years ago. I had just seen the movie ‘Where the green ants dream’. In this movie an Aboriginal man sits under a trea and dreams his child. I thought that was wonderful, I understood it as meditating on the new child to come and therewith inviting a spirit to reincarnate. And in the same week I read that immaculate conception is technically possible if 2 eggs of a women mix and make a baby. That would make a clone.

So I dreamed that I had become pregnant of myself and that I had born myself. I was having a great time but being 15 I got shunned by my family. Not for being pregnant but for ‘lying’ about it which I did not because I had born myself OBVIOUSLY!! :-D. I was however allowed to live in a tent in the garden but that was about all, and doctors kept on saying that it was impossible and that the baby just looked like me a lot. ‘Give it time and it will look different.’ And of course there was my brother in the sideline despising me. All in all I was having the most important experience of my life and feeling great but I was confused by what was going on around me and people’s judgements.

Having born myself was wonderful. I understood everything I said and wanted and there was no confusion in mother I about ‘does she need a diaper or food?’ And the other way around: baby I could just communicate and be understood. It was sooo good to take care of me and be taken care of by me. In the dream I felt old pain of not being understood and needs that had not been met repairing. I could feel hurt leaving my cells and contentment and peace settle.

In real life I had been a very angry baby. I was born angry and crying angrily and very loudly. My mother said she had never seen such an angry baby. She always said that with some apprehension so I have always guessed that must have been there when I was a baby too. Well, it was there every time she said it. I feel that part of me drinking has to do with me ‘not wanting to be on this planet’. I feel I have not done the last part of my incarnation and that my anger as a baby and now has something to do with that.

Incarnation to me is about living, taking responsibility, walking my path and enjoying life as it is meant to be – whatever that might entail. I have always felt that there is a big part in me that does not want to take responsibility, would ‘rather not be here’ because ‘it is too difficult’. Me quitting drinking is important in this process of finally fully incarnating. If I totally want to be here before I die I have done a good thing with my life. And yes, I am always afraid that only an experience that has the magnitude of dying can get that depressed touch out of me… Hmmm, guess I’m running (trying to run?) to beat that to it. This is possibly a moment where the ‘believing in a higher power’ comes in handy, or letting go.

So, I am thinking I solved not being understood by having born myself and taking care of me. Part of it is sad, another part is obviously food for psychiatrists on narcissism and I have heard the dream being described as ‘a superior form of incest’ too. But I am happy with taking the healing part of it. 🙂

There was an end to it that I do not understand yet. I saw toddler I walk as a 3 years old. My dream said: the problem with you is that you are so ……  And I cannot remember that, I thought it was ‘black and white’ or ‘split’ (what would be within the theme of the dream) or ‘divided’. On her body was a raster of lines, 8 horizontal lines connected by 3 vertical lines so it was like a very simple drawing of book shelfs with 14 little blocks. The total fitted on the body of the toddler I and the left blocks, so on toddler I’s right side, where all white, the other blocks were black. And if toddler I did anything that brought me/her out of balance the blocks would shift like crazy and I/she would be uncomfortable.

About the black and white, I guess that can be taken literal; apart from my actual hair colour, compared to others, very little is grey area in me. I live in either/or situations. Trying to work on that, it is not elegant and does not suit my age. It does come in handy while not drinking or saying goodbye to people who are bad for me; snip, there goes the umbilical cord. Actually I am using a few rather nasty character treats to cut the booze connection. Hmmm, peculiar.

Right now I am understanding the blocks as such: I cannot moderate. 🙂 And my body can’t work with sugar very well which is called hypoglycemia and that is linked to getting addicted to alcohol / is linked to drinking for a long time, not sure yet which or maybe both.

Well, that was a long post and 3 to 5 subjects in one again. If you made it this far I thank you. Have a nice new week!

Happy that I quit and proud of it.

Physical disease with psychological consequenses

Went to my therapist, it is in my homeland so I had a long train trip. Which is good, got to read the book on nutrition and alcohol addiction. Figured out that if I took a seat with a window left of me that other people could not read the cover. By now covering up for not drinking seems to take up the same kind (not amount) of energy as covering up for drinking. I am actually scared that I get an accident, not because of me, but because the books are in my bag and ‘somebody might notice’. My therapist said I should watch the paranoia. I should, I should. It’s lurking and I should keep a close eye on it – which is actually only half a joke 😦

Next week I host the ‘hooker club’ at my place. No that is not a Hooker anonymous, it is a language joke on a crochet club, in my language the bad English translation of crochet could be hooker. Well, nobody actually really crochets but everybody takes their work with them. Only new moms actually finish stuff. I mailed the invite saying that if anybody wanted some alcohol they should bring their own and take the rest with them because I was off the booze. I added ‘for a while’. Said that it made me depressed and that I was happy that I was not depressed anymore, added some joke to it. I am getting more relaxed about telling people I don’t drink, still don’t feel like coming out of the closet as an alcoholic though. I do expect me to blurt out something one day that might make people wonder. I’m not so good at keeping secrets. Well, that is not here now so not to worry.

So what did I do, I did some falling apart at the therapist, came to a point where I remembered exactly why I choose booze as my favourite companion, then got myself together again. Walked to the train. The train from my homeland to where I live is always difficult. So many sad memories. Did a smart thing though, got into second class that was stuffed with students going home on a Friday night and that typical energy of studying and talking people made me happy. Ok, I did use my earplugs. 😉

My therapist also said I should not be trying to transform my general aggression into aggression against AA and religion. Sorry world :-(. I should not do that and I should not be ranting.

All in all I was pretty convinced I have a long way to go but I am doing somethings ok. Like being happy that I quit. By the time I was in the city again I was all enthusiast about the new book. Happy that I finally found all the nutritional info I have been looking for for so long! So, feeling my way back into life is working out pretty good so far. I write a lot of feeling but there’s a lot of thinking involved too.

If you are experiencing cravings, depression, anxiety or just like nutritional info I guess this is the book to read. The author is from the Health Recovery Center in Minneapolis. They say that addiction is a physical disease with psychological consequences , and not the other way around. It is like using XTC, everybody knows it makes you depressed because these pills deplete your happy hormone stock, so it is with alcohol.

They claim a very high recovery rate, the book says 74% versus 22% for treatment centers following the idea that it is a mental disease (I have corrected physical to mental after publishing the blog). Not sure how it works but in my country you are not allowed to make such statements if they are not true. Also, I see that I have in 4 weeks had 20 – 30 seconds of cravings in total and I have taken part of all these nutrients in overdose over the last months. So I tend to believe what she says. We shall see.

If you check out the site or read the book: brace yourself for some aggression in the style of writing and where I just said sorry about ranting: she seems to have no problem with that. Keep in mind that she has lost a son to alcohol, he committed suicide after his personality changed due to alcohol. Reading the book I get the idea that she is angry at the persons that ‘did not cure’  her son and possibly also that these care centers are still refusing her solution that she says is way better.

The site uses words like orthomolecular therapy but all the stuff she writes in the book is available at any vitamin shop. The book could very well be a big part of a DIY box to getting sober. The plan is to determine what spurred your addiction, then to determine the current state of the vitamin levels together with your GP. Next to get some healthy stuff in you get your levels up and stop drinking. In that order. No sugar and no caffeïne either.

To me it sounds like a good plan but I have not read everything and I don’t have the medical background to check it all out. So… But, still, sounds like a good plan.  She does believe in the combination of Mind, Body, Spirit and holistic but this book is mostly about the nutrients. Can’t wait to read on.

I am happy that I quit, emotionally stepping back into the reason why I think I drank was very confronting but it is good to see that side of my life from a sober perspective. And with saying that I believe I am not totally convinced yet that alcohol is a (only) physical diseas.

Well, happy that I quit. Bit tired of the work it takes.

Physical and emotional changes

I’v decided to make this a continous blog so I’ll be adding as I proceed.

Next Monday it is 3 weeks ago that I quit from drinking on average 12 units of alcohol pro day. I mainly drank beer that could be sold under the German Reinheitsgebot – this ensures that it only contains what it should contain and no added sugar etc. And also ecological white or sometimes red wine. I know it all sounds hypocrite but I thought: even if I ruin myself, I might as well do that carefully. I want to still be alive at  the time I decide to start living. I also ate to balance out the loss of vitamines, minerals and omega fat etc. But still…

Since I stopped several physical and mental changes occurred. Some have been mentioned already in other posts. But I thought I’d  list them all here. In order of importance, to me.

1 No more suicide thoughts. Gone. Directly with taking back my Initiative. So much for authenticity. 😉 I am still not emotionally stable but reading from day 1 to now I see and feel improvements. I guess I do not expect emotional stability until being in a situation where payment is secure.

Week 4: feeling more stable, stumbled over some issues that I are hurting but now I can ‘stay with it’ and not drown myself. So it feels like there can be healing.

2 I have no cravings for drink. And only a few thoughts about drinking or old pattern thoughts coming up. Like ‘shit, need to get the bottles out when they come visit’ while there are no bottles.

Week 4: still hardly any cravings. Quitting eating sugar was 4 times as hard. But that was my first ‘quit’ ever. After that I did smoking, caffeine and drinking.

3 No more pain in the chest, trembling in my heart and from that panic attacks. No pain in my left arm anymore (yes, I know… why did I drink if I had all of this?)

4 No more pain in the liver. And I can lay down on my left side again without feeling uncomfortable. Not sure if I’ve got this correctly but I believe an irritated liver can be so heavy that it presses down on the stomach and so and make you feel uncomfortable when laying on the left shoulder.

5 Less to no pain in my back (kidneys? I hope not, it was gone when I stopped drinking nettle tea aswell, that works on the kidneys but seems to be able to really irritate them.) It took 3 days for my urine to clear up and get less ‘thick’ (hopefully not ‘sugary’).

Week 4: docter says kidneys work ok.

6 I immediately slept better, get some help from some earplugs and my favourite tea ‘Celestial Seasoning’s  ‘Sleep Time’. In the beginning I was very, very tired. The first 8-10 days I slept 2 hours during day time as well and about 10-12 at night. And I do not wake myself up because of a loud snore anymore so I guess that has improved too.

Week 4: waking up earlier, need less sleep.

7  When I drank I seemed to cry every day, all day. Whatever question one would ask I would cry or at least feel like crying. Gone. I do cry, but now it heals and the hurting stuff actually fades. Generally ‘not repairing emotionally’ was one of the things that worried me before but being overly sentimental seemed to be connected to alcohol too. Another one of these ‘authenticity thingies’

8 My hands stopped trembling visibly after 8 or 10 days or so. My A4 paper test is improving but still not 100%.

Week 4: A4 test still not 100%

9 I can focus longer than I could and thinking does not tire me anymore. But it is still a thing. Yesterday I posted on trust in myself but it does not only come down to trusting. I need ‘doing’ and the doing is not happening yet. I do feel  that my post have become less erratic. My brain still has the tendency to jump everywhere, but it is getting less. I sometimes see where I trail of and can actually decide to leave some of the thoughts and subjects out of one post. But I still do not have my usual intelligence back, the sharp thinking, the clarity. Fogg is still there. I wonder now if I want it to leave…. That might be an issue. Hmmm.

Week 4: focus is getting better, posts still erratic but I am starting to see some of it and delete it beforehand.

10 The electricity running through my brain does not go all wrong anymore. I had these little lightnings in my brain sometimes. Scary, specifically when I read that alcohol abuse could cause epilepsy. They sort of go away immediately when eating Celtic Salt.

11 My eye sight has improved. Possibly because I am less tired. Possibly because I want to be more ‘clear’.

12 My skin and skin tone have changed and I actually get sunburned now with less sun that I had before. Before I could stay in the sun for 2 hours and stay white. Now, and later in the season, I am in the sun for 20 minutes and turn red. Not sure how that works. Also, because I am less bloated, the wrinkles around my eyes have tripled in size and I have bags under my eyes but that is only because the rest of the puffiness is gone. My breasts are starting to hang too because off being less puffy. Also, because of being less bloated I can feel the lobules better, but they hurt less and less every day. Beer contains hop and hop contains phytoestrogens that mimic the estrogens of the body and cause beer ‘tits’ and a beer belly in man and women.

My hands are still red in colour. But less now everyday. This also has something to do with estrogens being out of balance. Week 4: still red hands, getting less but I would have thought is would go away quicker.

Less cellulite.

13 I am finally losing weight. That makes me very happy. My eating habits have changed completely. I was used to try to eat myself through the day, every piece of food was there as an answer to one or the other craving. The cravings have gone. Quantity and calorie wise I think I eat half of what I ate, no problem. And of course I do not drink 24 sandwiches at night. And alcohol is very stimulating to the bowels and races the food to its final destination. That is bad because only the calories get taken in, the nutrients seem to take longer. But that has changed immediately too.

Thirst is back. I had lost thirst, that is also a sign of dehydration. I think I could have lost more weight if I had not eaten my way through the first 3 detox days with a lot of pork meat (vitamin B of all kinds) and some comfort stuff like chips, chocolate (for the magnesium of course!!) and let us not forget the cod liver for vitamin D and A. Don’t be surprised that I gained about 2 kilo’s – part of which must have been water weight because of the Celtic salt solutions I drank. Of course. 😉

14 When I don’t drink I wake up singing, I have more volume now and can hold a tone better. Cat doesn’t like it so it is on 14.

15 3 Weeks in. Sex drive returns in a disastrous way. Not felt anything seriously for any guy for about 3-4 years. Imagine being in a programme where everybody starts at the same time and then this happens. Gheghegheghe.

16 The inside of my throat stopped hurting after about 3-4 days. That took longer than I thought.

 

Things that have not changed yet in order of importance

1 I have quite an issue with my memory, I guess it needs practice, it does not feel unrepairable but the ‘not wanting to be in the moment practice’ that I have done has taken its toll. My memory has become lazy. I would have expected it to have improved by now but it hasn’t. I guess it has to do with my hiding inside not doing stuff. I think I am making good progress but every day is sort of the same if you look at what I do. Sleep, read, blog,  clean, shop, eat. And pat the cat.

Week 4: My memory is getting better with doing more stuff outside the house. Memory seems to need reference points. But my time reference is still off. That can also be influenced by the changes I go through. I have a lot of internal experiences that are not measureable in time. If I vacuum the house I know how long it takes. If I read a book and have a tremendous insight it can take 3 seconds or half an hour. I don’t know.

2 My tongue still has these little indents at the side. Which is no good because it is an indication of nutrients not arriving at the right places in the body.

3 I still have a lot of tension in my body, can’t relax, not ever, only sleep. Need to ensure me an income from scratch while bill are piling up. That does cause tension.

Week 4: The tension is still there, getting a little less and there are some moments that I can actually enjoy being alive and in the moment. Being in nature or looking at a sunset helps very much.

4 I was hoping for beautiful meaningful dreams, at least 3 of them every night. But ‘all’ I get are these stupid, boring dreams that drag on and on and on. Maybe I’m in a rut. That’s what it’s telling.

Week 4: having beautiful dreams but forgetting them. I need to build a board behind my bed so I can sit up straight and write at night. Not a day goes by though that I remember very old dreams that seemd irrelevant then, but suddenly have meaning now.

5 I was expecting some ‘work’ and ‘repairs’ needed to be done ‘on me’. After all I have been not living through experiences for many years so I could easily have a backlog and lack of experience. The work that needs to be done is in fields where I did not expect it. I expected the cravings to be really hard but I have non. And I expected the work on me to be pleasurable and interesting and special. Ghegheghe. Well, actually, I am having fun with me. And I do know that might not seem so. My blog is rather dark, a-social, one-sided, most probably a 100 times too honest and all in all a 1000 times too awkward. All my neighbour bloggers have 294 followers and as many likes from day one, which I guess I will never ‘have’ because of that. But I put, somethings throw (sorry) this shit (sorry) out here because I don’t want to ruin friendships (sorry) with my mess (sorry again). The stuff I carry around is not suitable for a kitchen table. When at a kitchen table I want to be together, enjoy a nice dinner. We talk and we talk of some of the difficulties that we have, but not of the deep shit that worries me currently. My need is in being able to experience the good and the normal and the way it should be. Hence the blog.

Week 4: still no cravings, loads of work on me. Still having fun even though some of it might seem pretty dark and angry. Though I feel that there is some light in the darkness and that I do have repair skills. Added a ‘follow’ button to my blog today. Really hope that more people will comment. It has taken me 4 weeks to come to a point where I can be happy and excited about that. It is good.

6 My eyes are still a little red. I always thought it was from the booze but they are still red now. So I guess there is more to it. They are pretty dry too.  The white around it is whiter and they actually see more happy things and when I look into the mirror they smile at me. 🙂

Week 4: starting to like the look on my face and my face again. That is years ago. Eyes are still red and dry but it is a surface red that goes away quickly.

7 The top of my head is cold since I stopped drinking. Not sure why. Maybe it has always been cold and I never noticed. Dunno. Ha, googled it, internet is filled with cold heads :-). Where would we be without Google. Well, calling our mothers or aunties, that’s where we would be, or wearing hats.

Conclusion: I’m doing all right but I haven’t gotten to doing what I should do and that is keeping me down. Yes, hanging on to misery keeps my identity in tact so there is some ‘gain’. :-D.

Happy that I quit and happy that you have read to all of this. 🙂 Please leave a post if you like.

Better get to livin’

Freed myself of the booze. Most likely there are steps ahead but I don’t have to worry because I am here and not ahead. And then I turned to the internet. Had all these plans where I would be cleaning my house and now I’ve stepped head first in the online sobriety blog world.

I just threw an I-tjing on this. I-tjing is an oracle. It gives answers to questions, or confirms hopes or fears. It’s tricky.

I-Tjing said in short: The sun is rising, this is the sign of progress, this is how the honourable man does himself credit. Yeah! That would be me, that would be me! 🙂

I-Tjing said next: ‘Stand vast, don’t exert influence in the outside world. Words will have no effect. Just be strong, don’t talk.’

And, that exactly confirms my doubts on blogging. Get away from The Machine. Read, walk, yoga, clean. Get the other parts of the addiction out of your system as well! It has done a great job already: I know that there are others out there. I am not the only one in the world quitting. I should get back to living. Let’s see if I can cut down to a few hours a day. That would be new. Add some social contacts back into my new life mix. Let’s see how it goes.

Walls

Day 6

Part of this post is a reply to a reader. Currently reading some more in my new book ‘The addictive personality’ from Craig Nakken. Jason Vale was about the alcohol part of an addiction. I know now alcohol is bad, which is why I don’t drink it. I can’t make more of it.

This book is about the addiction part of the addicted person. To some of you that have had addiction treatment this book may be yesterday’s news but I’m doing this sort of on my own and found every sentence from the first say 11 pages quote worthy.

I have bought the book because I have always thought, even from a very young age that I have this character structure that gets addicted to everything possible. There’s this German saying ‘Je länger, je lieber’. Which means something like: the more the better but with loads of yearning in it. I’ve had that all my life. My mother could read me the same book 10 – 20 times over while my brother never, ever reads a book twice. He once went nuts when I put a CD on repeat. Which surprises me because I had been listening to it for 2 months in a row already… I can eat the same dish 2 weeks in a row because I can’t get enough of it. Actually, before I quite I ate one dish 9 months everyday for breakfast and lunch, recipe will follow.

At age of 14 I went from not smoking to 15 per day in one week. I have drunk 3 litres of cola per day for at least a year, 1 to 2 litres in the years before that. I combined that with at least 2 litres of strong black tea per day if it were not five. And of course 3 litres of beer. Note to self: get kidneys checked. Same with everything. I can wear the same clothes for a month onwards because I like them (I do wash them if you care to know). I have bought the same black t-shirt for 20 years in a row now, adjusting sizes from XS to XL as I drank more and got fatter. And if I don’t get the things that I like, that specific cheese, rice crackers with cheese and marmite, a specific stock in my chicken soup I get irritated. Part of it has to do with being hypoglycaemic, blablablabla. And blaaaaablablablaaaaa.

Writing this down is ok, reading it back is quite overwhelming. Starting to become aware of the bullshit in me. Ooooh, the powers that are within. Did I really do all that? This is one of the parts where I think I am weird. I guess that’s a justified feeling then. And I think I cover it up with righteousness, decisiveness and projecting security outwardly in a rather aggressive way. ‘Don’t come near me, don’t touch me, don’t disturb the brittle safety that I hold within.’

Yesterday I wrote: ‘To me it feels like I have a tendency to structurally replace something for something. Not sure what the somethings in this equation are, apart from the drinking, of course :-D.’ Today I read that addicts replace intimacy with excitement and try to nurture themselves with an addiction that finally gives the sense of omnipotence, amongst others. Yes. That would be me. And the addiction also numbs the real feelings allowing the addict NOT to deal with the life issues that are. Then pain turns into despair and the shit hits the fan.

They say with detoxing from alcohol there may be some nausea. I’m only getting that now when reading this book. What have I done to myself? And I would really like to jump over the grief to the ‘I’m so glad I stopped’. And maybe, just to get me through the day, I will do that. Trap, trap. Ubuntu, girl, ubuntu. Have mercy, have mercy. Crying. This is me, and this is what happened. All the bullshit that I carry around, what a weight.

Realising something: I put up all these walls. I was thinking of using the same move to keep booze out. But booze is already out. No worries. Not going back.

Looking inside now. The rigidity does not help me cope with things, it makes it so that there is no movement, fluidity, suppleness, or how you call it in me. Makes it hard to breathe and when breathing it does not bring life. Focussing now on the energetic walls around me and the effort I put in to them. Letting go and focussing on the intention I have to bring them back up, very visible all now. Shit, coming of the booze gives me so much ability to learn! It’s almost as strong as a ayahuasca trip. Learning, learning, feeling my way back into life. 🙂

Despair, mourning. My gods, have I wasted so much energy, time, life, cut myself off so badly? So cut off. MAMAAAAAA!!! Why hast thou forsaken me? Why have I forsaken me?

This world, my world (?) seems to lack a spiritual mother. Not sure what that means.

Flashes, flashes of history coming by. Moving house at 8 years old, totally new environment, alienation, been beaten up by best friend day before. Lost, no place to go. Walls beginning to build. Powerless because it was all decided for me. Strange because I left, strange because I was new and did not speak nor understand the dialect which was found to be strange, dangerous. And I? ‘I will keep you out because you keep me out!’ Threat, fear, anger. Where is Yoda when you need him? Breathe, relax and drink water.

And…. back to normal again. Good book. 😀

Feeling my body come to life!

Day 5

Feeling my body come to life! Not sure how the correct frase is in English but the water that I was retaining (?) is getting out of my body. Wow, this feels so great! I can twist my neck and look behind me again. My fingers move easily and bending over is no problem anymore (apart for the belly). Yeah! It’s funny that I can be so high on an achievement that actually consists of NOT doing something.

I will certainly continue my 1,5 pint of morning vegetable drink juiced from cellery, apple, lemon, ginger, cucumber and carrots. And not drink alcohol of course. That works out to be a very good plan.

Starting a new book as well: ‘The addictive personality, understanding the addictive process and compulsive behavior.’

Jason Vale tought me how alcohol works. What I learned is that the process of getting hooked did NOT happen after we made the bad decision to start drinking more that our GP’s. It happens in our society that advertises alcohol in all of its communications. It happens by getting young people to like alcohol by feeding them sweet mix drinks. And third and most important of all: alcohol is so addictive that we step in the trap with the first drink we like. That’s when it closes on us and only very smart thinking and lack of possibility and lack of reason will keep people away from it.

As Jason Vale points out; people that say ‘I only eat bananas in the weekend and try not to eat them during the week. So I do not have a banana problem’ already have a banana problem. That is about 80% of the population.

Well, that was all about the booze. Good book. And it has got me preaching sobriety within 5 days! Yeah! Preaching = trap! It is not about the other. It is about me.

So now I will try to look into my side of the addiction and I hope to do that with a book that hopefully helps me to understand the how and why of having an addictive personality. Did anybody (of the 3 readers I currently have  who help me greatly by reading and commenting on this blog, read this book? 🙂 Addition: having people objectifies them, objectiving people is part of addiction behaviour. In the works of Willow to Spike: ‘There will be no having of any kind!’