Bloodshot eyes

I copied this below text from a comment of mine on Prim’s post. She is moving into the podcast world :-).

My reply: Less internet… yeah, another issue of the week. I had a talk with my eyes why they are so red – like I am still drinking. 😦  And it went like this:
Hi eyes, how are you?
Not good!
Sup?
You make me see things I don’t want to see.
Like what?
Like the computer all the time. You look at the mean stuff (Prison Break) and there is nothing I can do.
Is it not good?
No, it is bad for me. I was born to see beauty and life. Not mean people all day.

That actually made me look in a whole different way at watching TV or film. Sobriety: it is all about what I take in and leave out. I have a pile of books lying around (surprise!) and in order to relax or quit living I watch Prison Break. I think I need to start to zone out there too and move into another mode. Slowly, slowly though. Watching TV has been the pressure lock on the pressure cooker so I’ll let go slowly.

Slowly aligning with how I think we (I) were (was) meant to be. And funny, I never believed in this positivity stream of thinking and ‘you attract what you are’ but using techniques in there just ‘on feel’ I come to realise that it might actually be very helpful. Still not big on the ‘where there is a will there is a way’ aspect that is in there. I find it too assuming. But I do notice that it is easier to follow a good example or a good thought (Happy that I quit) and try to align myself with it than to try to figure out what and how and force my way into improvements of my life that I feel I can’t make yet.

I had a friend, she could only do things by gaining an insight – that would spark her. She could never just do stuff because she had to. I despised her for that. Sorry ex-friend. Now I understand. She quit a multi-drug addiction when she got to the part where she started using crack. Just quit just like that. It must have taken a MAJOR DECISION and loads of maintenance of that decision. I always felt that her energy for making decisions had been stuck there so she could not ‘just do stuff’ anymore. Like I now. And then she became very interested in personal growth. I guess I understand the importance of that now too. 🙂

I need to go do stuff. The laying about after the admin was done yesterday has been ok. It did take almost 1 bar of chocolate but that is ok too.

I am VERY HAPPY that I quit. That’s it. Very happy that I quit. Jason Vale in his book ‘Kick the drink easily’ says something like: from day one start being happy that you quit. I thought; he know’s his shit, I’d better do that. So I actually have an egg-timer here that I set every 15 minutes. It has a little piece of tape on it saying ‘Relax’, ‘Check emotions’ and ‘Follow the plan’. The last one did not work but I guess I’ll get around to it in another way. By speaking with my eyes e.g. so they tell me to stop watching TV. Am I crazy? No :-D. I am feeling.

I want: to sort my life out and clean

I need: to get a job.

I take: I have viewed an interesting video online about Iodine. I think I have an Iodine shortage because the base of my neck was swelling slowly. It left when I started taking Iodine pills. Iodine is the mineral that helps cells to clean themselves up when they are old or the DNA is not good anymore. The thought was that lacking Iodine can therefore cause cancer cells to grow. Also, lacking Iodine causes fybrocystic breasts and breast cancer. I never knew what that was but I looking at the online photo’s I have that. No wonder my breast (yes back to the subject) are going south now I eat kelp pills and a cell salt that includes Iodine. The video doctor also said that we need at least a 100 times more Iodine than is advised so I’ll up intake of seaweed (brown rice with seaweed and fried egg – that’s an ok lunch) and see where it gets me.

Yes, yes, I’ll also check out what the effects of too much Iodine are. Iodine eats Selenium in the process so I’ll check out if this is included in the seaweed or that I need to add that. I would LOVE to get rid of the lumps in my breast that make every doctors eyes open up wide in a da-fuck-I-hope-this-is-not-cancer kind of way when I check in. My mother died of breast-cancer. It has been controlling our family since I was 11 years old. Hence the fascination. And I was bottle fed ;-).

And, in case you have read my blog a little longer you are starting to learn why NOBODY in my life actually thinks it is weird that I quit drinking. It is just another flavor of the season health thing.  Gheghegheghe…. they go like: ‘What is it you are not having  or not having this time?’

There comes a day that I will not be needing to create so much fog around me when it comes to health. I hope there will be a day that I can maybe finally trust my body will not give in ‘all of a sudden’ like it did with my mother. 🙂 In between I will learn to focus my energy on HEALTH instead of being afraid that I get unhealthy. 🙂

HA! Check this out!!! I wanted to add in a photo on swelling of the neck but instead found this: a swollen tongue! I have that but did not know what caused it. Works out to be caused by Iodine deficiency. Tadaaaa! Seaweed! Here I come!

Look and you shall find. Ask and you shall be given. Knock and you shall be opened.

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.

Yeah! Blood pressure lower than WITH medicine…

Yeah, just visited the GP and had my blood pressure measured and it is 10 points lower!!! That would be 10 points lower than WITH the 50mg of beta blockers I was taking. According to my plan I am down to 2 times 1/2 a 25mg a day but yesterday I only did 1 times and today I have not taken any yet. My blood pressure is still down 10 points from what it was before I started tapering (is that the word?) / ‘moderating’ the beta blockers.

Hurray for the Schussler salts, hurray for not drinking alcohol, hurray for getting fresh air and walking outside for at least half an hour but mostly an hour a day.

The beta blockers actually, on long term, stimulate the high blood pressure because the side effects are that you sleep bad, put on weight, are just less motivated to do stuff and retain water. And I have slept well-ish for a few nights now. I still wake up a lot of times but in between I have really slept. And that’s new since the first Schussler salt I took.

Kewl stuff. Check here the boring, medical, (a little too detailed but)  precise data on Schussler cell salts, just google anything else for more readable stuff. Also funny is googling on facial features that go with the lack of the minerals. And if you do that in Dutch and look at the pictures you get this.

Happy that I quit. Proud too. I have this ‘I AM A WARRIOR!!’ feeling over me now this blood pressure is going down too. Kewl.

What I want: is for things to be easy. ‘Like that’s gonna ever happen….’ But maybe, maybe this is like I did the happy about drinking too? Maybe I should not be focussing on the unhappy / difficult because that is a mindset that attracts unhappy and difficult. Maybe I should do a little brainwash and see things as easy. I mean, quitting drinking worked out to be easy when I just did it AND brainwashed my to feel happy about it. Hmmmm, let’s see if that road can lead to stuff.

What I need is: food because I have not eaten yet and it is 13:00 hours.

Have a nice day! 🙂

Additional physical and mental changes

I did posts on the physical and mental changes of sobriety before, then added and added a little more in an other post  and here are again some additions.

PHYSICAL

– My saliva has changed. Not sure if you care to know…. true, true. But I am going to note it down and digress… My saliva used to be rather thick and leave a white film on my tongue and in the morning I would not even swallow but have a shower and spit and clear my throat. Yes, yes, this could be put in my CV when I apply for docker. Now it has changed to what I, well, can’t recall actually, but is has gone back to normal (magic, magic word). It is thin and feels healthy. Not sure how that happened but I would not be afraid to kiss in the morning and the cat is not stearing away from me anymore either.

Did I tell you I changed to fluor free toothpaste? Fluor is bad, toxic, look it up and it seems to block out our intuition. Can’t have that! So I got the salty, fluor free sort. I do need to rinse very thoroughly afterwards otherwise I think the residue dries out my tongue over night. But maybe that is just a leftover of years of drinking.

My tongue still has the indents and it still scares me but tomorrow I will FINALLY get together with the nutrition friend on this.

– I am still slowly losing weight, I do not pay attention to it anymore because all the paying attention to everything worked out a bit too stressful. But tomorrow I will speak with the nutritionist and see where we go.

– I would like to improve the function of my bowels first. I feel they have been hurt by years of alcohol abuse. (If you are not into dirty details now is the time to skip to the next paragraph, no, the one after that actually.) I still have diarrhea practically every day. Not good. I am afraid it lessens the ability to take up nutrients.

It is not so bad that it bothers me in my movements or is embarrassing but it is there. I think my bowels are still irritated and want to throw everything out. But it could also be that I drink too much tea, or the wrong herbs, or because of cold feet, or that I am allergic to something or should not eat ginger or, don’t know. I would really appreciate if somebody who knows how this should work and when, could comment on this. Is it going to change in time?

– My ability to focus is still improving, I noticed that because peeing takes twice as long (at the same speed). It is now 3 times as long. Did you want to know that? Not?

– I still have a big ‘dislike’ (?) against physical labour but when I do it, it is really nice.

– My hair is feeling better, less dry, less damaged. I have about 4-5cm of gray now. I quit dying when I decided I wanted become clear, quit drinking and do that by myself. IMMEDIATELY the urge to dye my hair left me. 🙂

MENTAL

– Unlike you might think from my posts that go up and down like a rollercoaster I do feel that there is something stabilizing. And I do guess that my idea of ‘normal’ has a way higher level of excitement than most people.

– A while ago I thought I could start working again, right now. But by now I know I really need to take it easy. Situations like meeting ‘the elderly blond god’ catch me off guard and make me realise that I am too extreme still in my emotions to be doing a lot of other things than practising my sober legs.

– I noticed a while ago that I have these ‘stories’ in my head. They are either very bad and this and that and everything bad will happen – or they are fairytale like and I am a Cinderella or succesful business manager or…. Well, the Cinderella in recovery, but everything will be all right in a sec. I got the impression that this is part of addictive thinking and paid more attention to it and found them not functional. Funny how these stories too, lose their attraction with thinking ‘well, I am not there yet.’ and ‘we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.’ Those are my variations on ‘one day at the time.’

– I sleep even better. I still wake up about 3 times at night but I turn over and continue sleeping. Some times I don’t even notice that the cat works makes her nest on top of me.

– My dreams are boring, boring, boring, that is a bit of a bummer because when getting sober I thought I was going to have beautiful dreams and all (would be ok, blablabla, Cinderella).

– I like myself better. 🙂 And I have found a handle somewhere when it comes to berating and punishing myself mentally. I found that it NEVER EVER gets me to do the stuff that I need to do. Saying: ‘You can do it, just give it a try.’ works 10 times better than ‘stupid b. get your lazy fat ass away from the computer and do your admin!’ Not there yet because I still use the change in voice to get me to do what I think I need to do and I still, somehow, feel that I should be punished for not being what I was supposed to be. There is a thought I need to look into. Not now. Done too much soul-searching lately, getting out of balance. Cleaning the house is good.

Maybe there is a hint of general shame here too that says that it is ‘not done’ to like yourself. Specifically not if you are failing as a human. I actually just deleted 3 sentences about why I like me. Again: I like me because I think I am funny. My head comes up with all these funny, weird thoughts that give all kinds of insights into matters from different angles and make me laugh and that helps with nasty shit :-). I do claim the right to laugh at my own jokes. That is not working yet, but I think it should be a right. Like being ugly. Also not very accepted. Not that I am ugly. G! Can’t let it go, still need to add that. 🙂

And now I need to start doing stuff because friends are coming over for diner tonight and the house needs cleaning badly. 🙂

Funny, I think writing is not doing stuff. While it helps me BIG TIME in becoming clear. Hmmm.

Celebrate but don’t drink wine

Yesterday I decided I would order some extra supplements. But…. I keep on wondering: don’t I replace drinking with nutrients? Everybody needs nutrients and specifically with a history of alcohol abuse adding some supplements to my life would be a smart thing. However…. I don’t like the faith I put in it. I am fine I just still don’t believe that I am fine. This whole thing of getting sober was supposed to be so hard that I did not dare to walk the sober grounds for years. It scared me to death. And now I am here and it is not scary. It is a good thing to do, or drinking is a good thing not to do. Never knew that NOT doing something could be more important than DOING something.

So I wanted to get another opinion on the nutrients and find out what is behind this continuous I-need-this-stuff-no-I-do-not-need-this-stuff thinking. Obviously I do not ask anybody else, which would be a logic thing to do. No I ask the I-Tjing oracle. And the oracle says:

You have reached your goal and feel emptiness, psycho-analytically this would compare to fearing death. Make a new start. No matter what age you have, no matter what went wrong, live always gives you new chances at living.

A new time has come, celebrate, you are free now. But don’t drink wine.

No I won’t. 🙂

Happy that I quit! Strange it is sometimes.

Still reading

Today I’ve spent reading and checking out running techniques on YouTube. Loooooove YouTube. So much info ready at hand. Fan of my laptop clogged up with dust? YouTube tells me how to unscrew everything and fix it. Want to know how to cook something? YouTube. Want to know about nutrients? YouTube. And you can also find loads of video’s there stating that drinking alcohol is not at all bad. 😦

I am still with the book Addictive Thinking. After my first clash with the book I continued when I thought my mind was open again. And I am almost finished but up to now I find it a little disappointing. It is more of a list of aspects of addictive thinking, a useful list, yes, but I was hoping for more Aha Erlebnis / Aha effect. And of course I am hoping for extra special effects because I want things to be fantastic and normal is not good enough – which is of course listed as being an aspect of addictive thinking. 🙂

What I appreciate, and what makes me breathe a little easier (did I say I had this open mind?) is where he says: people who practise addictive thinking do not know that they do and it is of no use to pressure them into admitting things. That will only make them strengthen their walls. I agree with that from my own experience. I think GP1 saved me by saying: ‘Whatever you want and when you want it.’ That gave me the  possibility to drop my walls at that moment.

My plan for the on-coming week is to follow The Plan in detail, to be exact and concise about it. No lingering, no ‘I’ll do that tonight.’ Order memory repair nutrients and thyroid and bile nutrients. And that’s it. I am trying to stop thinking that repair needs to come from the outside – very addicty conviction. Nutrients are good, but how can I insist on these if all my blood tests come out ok? I am trying to let go, but it is difficult because I also thought I have saved my health all these years by taking supplements. I don’t know. I’m not going to risk my sobriety over a few vitamin B-complex and Omega 3 pills but maybe I don’t need the full 2000 Euro deal ;-). Don’t have the money for that anyhow.

I also want to get back to loosing weight because due to the 4 meals a day to get my blood sugar level stable I have gained a kilo. Halfway through the week I’ll be going on a little trip with a friend, biking and walking in the homeland. Actually fearing a lack of private time. Should manage that.

All in all a boringly normal Sunday. 🙂 Happy that I quit. Through the blogosphere I was made aware of this article that says it all on being happy that I quit. She says; don’t give up drinking. And I agree. Be happy that you quit! I am happy that I quit. Slowly becoming aware that there still is a shitload of work to be done. But not now. Now it is autumn salad time: raw beet, carrot, apple, orange, celery, loads of parsley, chopped walnuts and grated fresh ginger. 🙂

Extensive blood test ok!

And another one in the series of ‘good news’; the extra ultra extensive blood test that has been done has is OK. Just a little high on the bad cholesterol and the potassium but nothing to worry about. They say the high Potassium could also come from the fact that I had to sit with this band around my arm for a long long time to get all the blood out. But I blame it on the Celtic salt I use which contains a lot of Potassium. Also; the real Potassium level of a body is difficult to determine in blood because the bandwidth is so small that the body will deplete every stock in the body in order to keep the blood level good. Bad Potassium levels influence the heart rhythm immediately. People with a longstanding history of drinking alcohol and not eating (their veggies or Celtic salt) typically have a low level of Potassium.

And… I would not be surprised that the standard for ‘good Potassium levels’ have been set AFTER the worldwide introduction of table salt which does not contain any Potassium at all (and is therefore bad, bad, bad).

I’m not going to worry about the cholesterol, that will work itself out. Need to read up on it because the whole ‘saturated fat is bad, it makes you fat and gives you heart diseases’ is not true. Sugar causes inflammation in the arteries and that causes heart diseases.  So I am confident that it will work itself out in a little while since I don’t drink alcohol and do not eat sugar anymore.  And excercise…

And now, will I be finishing of my stop-drinking-alcohol-the-nutrients-approach with taking extra nutrients? currently I am only taking multivitamin, omega 3 and kelp every second or third day. The kelp is because the Celtic salt contains little Iodine. Right now think I will take a half or a quarter of the dose of everything of the alcohol detox mix and then to continue with the anxiety/stress, memory and hypoglycemia mix. There is this thing where I don’t feel safe if I don’t do this. While actually I don’t have alcohol cravings and very few alcohol thoughts. I do have sugar cravings, even though I was very low on sugar anyhow. Today I ate 7 raisins. I feel like I cheated, it is like taking 7 drops of alcohol because of the alcohol…

Can hear my brother say in my head now: ‘You don’t need pills for hypoglycemia, you need them for insanity. 7 Raisins, yeah, ooooooooh, BAD!!!’

What I am curious about is how the part of ‘addiction is searching the solution from the outside’ comes up in here. I am guessing that my not really feeling ‘safe’ while I actually have no cravings has to do with the thought that quitting alcohol should be really difficult and hard and almost impossible. It has not been that way for me. But… they say quitting is not the hard part, staying quit is the difficulty. I would not know, I am not there.

Why is it that I lose trust in me now things work out to be easy and even in the extensive blood test there is no damage to be found? I guess it is because I actually feel like a phony. The mess I was in when I drank and now finding out how easy it finally was. It wasn’t about heroically fighting a dragon for days on end, hanging on to life and then finally winning in a last act of heroism. It was about letting go of a fake idea of good. I scare me a little because I keep on thinking that I must go flat on my face because this can’t be true. Well, got the time to proof me if The Plan is going to lead to A Job (or not?!).

And on the other hand, I did a lot of the quitting work before hand. Most of the goodbyes have been said before I actually quit. I think that really helped. I copied that method from Allan Carr’s book on quitting with smoking. He ‘allows’ the reader to smoke while reading the book so the anxiety of quitting does not interfere with their intelligence. I did that with reading up on alcohol AND starting with the home googled nutrient approach I developed for myself and the no sugar, no smoking, eating healthy part.

And….. being happy. Being happy is the strongest anti-dote to being unhappy. Which is a load of BS, but if works, it works. Happy that I quit. Do feel like I need to get a move on. Proud is out of the picture. Content is not happening because I have been writing here instead of doing yoga.

Have a nice day / evening!

Slowing down

Noticing that I am slowing down in my process. Not sure why. I’m sort of getting bored with deep thinking and problems. Want to go do stuff. And then I don’t, well, I don’t do what is in The Plan. And then I turn to the oracle site and after ‘throwing’ the coins it starts rambling on nourishment…. Ghegheghe. Read it, it is amazing. It actually mentions ‘frugality’ – had to look that up but it means ‘sobriety’. :-). Guess I’m gonna need to practise on the modesty…

I / Providing Nourishment

Beneath the immobile Mountain the arousing Thunder stirs: The Superior Person preserves his freedom under oppressive conditions by watching what comes out of his mouth, as well as what goes in.

Endure and good fortune will come. Nurture others in need, as if you were feeding yourself. Take care not to provide sustenance for those who feed off others.
Stay as high as possible on the food chain.

SITUATION ANALYSIS:

You are a conduit in this instance, able to provide the sustenance needed by others. Position yourself to nourish the truly needy and worthy. Avoid situations where you might be coerced into supporting the parasites and vermin who deprive your true charges.
Your own nourishment is an issue here, too.
Remember Lao Tzu’s three Great Treasures:
Only the person possessed of Compassion, Modesty and Frugality can remain fit enough to stay free of desperation and keep control of the situation.

I had 2 ‘changing lines’ and this is what they say:

Climbing to the summit to obtain nourishment for others, you are as alert as a tiger ready to spring. This is the correct path.

And:

Unspeakable delights tempt maddeningly from the far bank.
You must not cross this stream.

I can’t place the last sentence, I am guessing it is meant for a person that I have been in (written) contact with this morning. We shall see, she ‘ll know. 🙂 Message from me to you: Don’t cross, see the maddeningly for what it is.

And so much for the vagueness of a Monday morning. I’d better get back to The Plan. It is calling me and yes, I am trying not to hear it, want to do the addictive things, live in the computer, catch up on some episodes of Mastercheff. But live wants to live and there is this call of action in me. Better use it otherwise it dies in me and I want to get back into living. 🙂

Thank you for reading, hope it makes sense. 🙂

I am happy to be alive, happy that I took the time to listen to my real self, not the addict part of me. Happy that I met GP1 who kept her cool and has this very, as I call it ‘polite but determined no’ to booze and it made me think  ‘I want that too!!!!!!’  🙂 🙂 🙂 THANK YOU!!!

Pride has changed into something like ‘contentment’. I am guessing pride is an emotion in relation to others, contentment is more within. Aah, contentment AND the pull of doing things and the judging of the fact that it is 11:11 now and I am not doing what I should be doing. And that is another funny thing because look up 11:11 on the net and it says that people who are on their Path see the figures 11:11 often on the clock.

Away with the fairies. The Plan is calling.

I thought I could have just 1

One piece of carrot cake that is. And here I am, 5 o’ clock in the morning, been awake for an hour during which I wondered why the f@ck I drank last night. I did not! I FELT like I did though. Shit am I happy that I am sitting here sober (again?). Not sure what to write. Confused. Crying. Shit this is bad.

Yesterday I wrote about the concept of enough and I obviously jinxed myself because I finished of the day with 3 pieces of carrot cake and no dinner. Never in my adult life have I eaten 3 pieces of cake, ever. I don’t even like cake, well, this was good cake. I hate anything that tastes like sugar. But it was well disguised with nuts and carrots and tasting very well and It made me happy so I thought it could not be THAT bad… Isn’t that amazing, I am just reading a book saying that I have wasted 30 years of my life on booze because I get addicted easily due to my hypoglycemic constitution and I eat sugar and think it makes me happy. It did actually.

And then I went to bed and slept for 2 hours. Woke up, very irritated with I don’t know, everything. Slept again, woke up defeated. Slept again, woke up crying and thinking ‘Why did I drink? I will never drink again. I will stop tomorrow, for sure now.’

Images of everything I failed at in life, images of bills I have to pay, images of work I have to find but feel I still can’t. Images of my mother being soooo disappointed in me. Because I drank and because I started to drink again…

Images of knives circling around me ‘If I just make one cut it will be all over. Just one, don’t worry…. it might hurt but you are already hurting and then it will be all over, forever… No worries, no pain, ever, just one cut….’ Obviously nothing happened but shit, I thought that was behind me. I know it is in me but I don’t identify with it anymore, or so I thought. Finding out that thinking has little to do with free will. These thoughts stopped IMMEDIATELY with stopping with alcohol. And I eat sugar in large amounts and they are back.

I did not drink. It is 1 hour later now and I still can not believe that I did not drink. But I DID NOT DRINK! I ate 3 pieces of carrot cake – present from the guys that now take care of the foundling.

The cat was all upset all night, walking circles on the bed, trying to sniff me, trying to get me out of bed. I drank water, did not get me out of my, I was going to say ‘alcohol infused state of mind’ but I did not drink alcohol. I still can’t believe what the fuck I have done to myself all these years and now WHILE I AM READING A BOOK FOR GODS SAKE ABOUT SUGAR AND HOW ALCOHOL ADDICTION COMES EASY TO THOSE WITH HYPOGLECEMIA. I KNOW I AM HYPOGLECEMIC!!!

I just did not believe that it would influence me that bad, that I would come to this. I thought I could handle it. Sounds familiar. I only had one bite because it would be impolite to chuck them away immediately – which is what I do with any sugary gifts. There are 4 sugary things I might eat, 4 times a year at most and I had written down a paragraph of the brand, content and price of the chocolate that I do eat but I deleted it. Noticed that I talk about chocolate as an addict speaks of ‘excellent wine’. Pfffffff.

I DON’T WANT ANY OF THIS!!! I don’t want the booze, I don’t want the addiction, I don’t want the sugar issues. I just want to be normal. Not sitting here in the middle of the night typing and crying and trying to work out what the fuck I am doing in this world where 80% of the calories of this Western world are poison to me. Well to anybody, but anybody does not care (yet).  I do understand my mood swings way better now. This Jekyll and Hyde in me. I just did not think it would be that bad… I don’t know, I don’t know what I thought. I guess I just did not think. I don’t trust my thinking anymore. Da fack. Need to solve that one quickly.

I am going to trust myself when I am happy and lively because that is a natural state of being. If I am not I need to check what I ate, no poisons, enough calories, well spread out through the day, enough nutrients, enough sleep, enough contact with nice people and nature. If that is ok I need to check if there are external factors. Well, I guess this will pass too.

During ayahuasca sessions I have been raving mad about visions of little play towns build of sugar that popped up in my head. I felt violated by the images that came up in my mind and I discarded them as ‘brain snot’; the stuff that needs to get out-of-the-way before you can get into an ayahuasca session. Like parts of a dream that consist of not so important things that you saw during the day. Also because I would have thought that it would show me that alcohol is bad, not sugar, I knew that sugar is bad. It works out it that I did not know.

It took some time to write this and I am ok now I guess. Relieved that I did not drink. Sad that it really is true; the thought that I did not want to think about because I knew it would upset me: I can never ever drink again. Not that I want to, but it is very final for forever. Not just final for now. I can deal with final for now. Final for forever is a bit too big to handle. Don’t wanna go there. If I am fine with final for now that is fine. That’s all I need. And I can not eat sugar anymore. Back to the 100% rule.

I think I set myself up yesterday morning already with my vegetable shake: I had run out of celery so I added 3 apples to the mix. I was wondering if that would not be too much sugar. So it was. Apples are ok, when I eat them, juicing is a different thing because it only leaves me with the sugary juice. I would never eat 2 apples, but I can drink up to 3 apples in no-time. Not good.

Pfffffff. 8 o ‘clock. Tired now. Sad. Sad that it is all true. Happy that I quit? Not sure. Yes. Yes, happy that I quit, in a tired sort of way. Just did not expect things to get difficult after a month of having the wind in my sails. Happy that my mom studied nutrition and passed some of the curiosity on towards me. Happy with my freaking book! Hurray! This might as well have saved my life.

Not happy that it is all true. This is going to take years. Well, I don’t have to stop my life for that. Just feels that way. Funny that again I notice that the thought of having to go 100% non sugar scares more than having to go 100% alcohol free while only about 1% of my calories in a week come from ‘unavoidable’ sugar. Apart from yesterday that is. Kicking of the sugar in the early ’90 has given my biggest withdrawal symptoms of all: worst than cold turkey from alcohol, worst than cold turkey from smoking, worst than cold turkey from 3 liters of diet coke and ‘all other caffeine and black and green tea’ with it – because that is how I roll – all or nothing. And that is very much how the hypoglycemic mind works.

Tired. Happy in a sad and tired way, which I guess is not happy. Not proud, shaken. Happy that I will see GP3 end of this week. Happy that I changed to a homeopathic one, makes stuff easier to explain. 🙂

Ha, I can breathe again. That is good. Tired now. Very tired. And I wish I had something physical that I could write without having to check the spelling every time.

And…. Music!!! I love ‘On the rocks’ but this is one of the worst numbers they did but with every detail of this performance they act out exactly the aggresive confusion that went on in my mind.

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.