I did not fail. I discovered a 1000 ways that did not work.

Ha, I’m doing this writing standing again, moved my computer to the living room on a high table and remove the chair in order to (semi) naturally cut down my online time.

I’ve been eating rice, beans, vegetables, eggs and nuts for 2 days now. Diarrhea is back big time. Just going to let it be, see where it goes and how I feel in 2 weeks. I do feel loads better though, the difference is almost as big as quitting alcohol. Not sure if that is down to not eating sugar, wheat or dairy products. Don’t care yet. Feeling better. I cut out the wheat too because Doctor Mathews Larson (writer of the book ‘Seven weeks to sobriety’, she from the nutrients approach to addiction) says that a lot of people with an alcohol addiction have an (unknown) allergy to the product that their favorite booze was made off. That would be beer so there goes the wheat. Just see what happens, if I’m going to go strict I might as well exclude this category too. I’m having an interesting time looking at my cravings, but they are do-able. I make much more interesting meals now. Eating on the table away from distraction. Gooooood. 🙂 Ooh, it is not a loose weight diet, it is a ‘let’s get clean and see what happens diet’.

It helps me very much in leaving things out of my life and focus on my new project – not gonna tell more about that untill it lands and grows somewhere. Well, that’s it. The wanting to do the diet comes from wanting to exclude stimuli, wanting quiet in my body. Not being dragged from one strong cup of this and that perfect Yoga tea to the other eco raw chocolate bar to the next lovely breakfast with superfoods and various Schuessler salts in between. Pfffff. Away! Away! Too many impulses. Cutting down on watching whatever Netflix and Facebook because I don’t want to be able to handle that anymore.

Nothing of these decisions are mind made, all of the are impulse made. It has something to do with listening to the ‘bad’ feelings too. I got to this point by listening to the good feelings, urges that were ‘telling me’ to take good care of me. Now I have come to a point where I can listen to the parts that say ‘stop’ too. Funny thing is that my hippo works very well with that. She is on a prominent place in my rooms and whenever I look at her I somehow project what I am feeling on her. So now she is saying: weren’t you cutting down on online activities? The sun is shining a little, it is time to go out. 🙂

I will. There is SO much freedom in doing what is right. Damn! I never knew that. My favorite slogan has always been ‘Only dead fish go with the flow.’ Now I am perfectly happy not spending time kicking all the stop signs along the road. 🙂 Ghegheghe….

I am happy that I quit. Happy that I get the ability to finally live.

I want: to go out and move.

I need: to breathe more and keep on going on finding my path. It has sort of become a daily thing. And this  with ‘every day is a new chance’ which is an awful cliché – it is sort of becoming a truth. It includes that not everything goes right immediately. Which is also a very big truth. 🙂 Now it is becoming a part of living instead of something that tells me that I should be ashamed. Many thanks to the Mr Kurtz video of a few posts ago. 🙂

I did not fail. I discovered a 1000 ways that did not work.

I take: some Schuessler salts, not by reading text but by feeling them. There are those that confuse me and those that make me feel better. I choose the last.

Hope you have a nice day too! 🙂

The Plan

WHY

I need to start planning my life because it just does not happen and monnies are getting tight. I normally do a lot of planning and I get into a mode where I plan the whole world. It gives me endless possibilities, the sky is the limit. And I never follow up. This is the part for me where the going gets tough. Easy peasy to not drink when not doing stuff. Let’s see how I do while having A Plan. The Plan.

I need to learn to plan and work to plan otherwise I will reincarnate as, I don’t know, somebody that has no control over his/her life (very much like me actually). Ieeeeehks. Better fix it now. And I need the plan to working otherwise I might get demotivated, and I have no skills in the area of being demotivated. So might as well take care I do not go there.

I have a set of unproductive concepts in my mind. Neither of these is true but they shape my thoughts, intentions and actions:

– I can do anything.

– I am better than anybody at anything – if I set my mind to it.

– If I can’t do it immediately I am sure I can not do it at all.

– I have no skills in the area of being demotivated.

– I have never worked for something.

– Perfection is for the people, I can do better than perfection.

– I can’t do anything.

– I have no right to live or be happy.

– I have a tendency to always do exactly what I should NOT be doing. Like writing down exactly how I will corrupt The Plan with the above concepts.

LEARN

1 Plan realistically. Follow gut feeling. Plan less in stead of more, do not push it.

2 Do stuff, see what happens and try to see how the above concepts hinder me.

3 Set the alarm every 15 minutes to check state of mind, relax, watch out for demotivation and lack of happiness and see if I actually follow up on the plan. I am guessing this takes other skill than my organically grown laissez faire approach.

4 Have a non-drinking back-up plan because everybody seems to have one and it probably makes my GP3 happy. I would not want her to think that she’s my only back-up. That is not a good thing, it does not stimulate a good relation. I have put the AA hotline in all my phones. I guess GP3 and my therapist would like to see a better backup plan. I don’t feel like a bigger backup plan yet. I am not AA ready yet.

GOAL

The goal is a healthy mind, spirit and body. I would like to live responsibly, carry my own weight, add to the world, following my path, whatever that is. For now it is making A Plan. And all of this is obviously without alcohol or sugar.

In the plan I do not put everything (NEW) but just put what bugs me most and is in the way of my GOAL. In the plan are: BODY, MIND AND BOOKS TO READ, SPIRIT, DAILY LIFE, RELAXING, THE PLAN itself. Things listed are sort of ‘in order of relevance’, but not always.

BODY

I want to get the nutrients in to repair the damage done and also to kill the urges and cravings upfront to ensure sobriety. Also I need to restore my memory and my ability to focus. Deal with the nutrient side of depression, paranoia and axiety. I can not do a job with the brain I have now. And… my scalloped tongue seems to mean that I can not take in nutrients, that is dangerous.

1 Keeping clean, nutrients approach, make summery of book – speak with GP on tongue as well,

2 Restory memory and focus, nutrients approach and look for restoration techniques online.

3 Loose weight: no losing weight on purpose. Just eat healthy. Make stuff myself, low on the E-numbers, high on vegetables, NO sugar. NO hunger. 1 Meal at the table, no books, no computer, no television. Adjust below times in weeks to come to earlier. I need to eat often to keep my blood sugar level even.

9:00 Vegetable juice for breakfast

11:00 Brunch

15:30 Lunch

19:00 Dinner

21:00 Nuts, boiled egg or cheese

4 See GP every 2-3 weeks.

5 Run 2 times a week; 1 one Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday and once in the weekend.

6 Plan walks and bicycle rides with friends in the newly discovered wood.

7 Work with friend nutritionist on changing ‘Seven Weeks to sobriety’ into a diet for me.

8 Solve high blood pressure, get rid of blood pressure pills.

 

ON MIND / BOOKS TO READ

1 Be happy and proud.

2 Make an extract from ‘Seven weeks to sobriety’ for GP3

3 Do online Alcohol Top training every 2-3 days.

4 Set alarm clock every 15 minutes to check how the current activity fit into The Plan.

5 Google stuff I don’t know about like the ‘I can do anything syndrome’

6 Read ‘Get sober, stay sober’

7 Read AA book

8 Purchase and read ‘Addictive thinking’

9 Keep reading blogs you don’t like. Try to work out what your aversion is and if and how it links back to the AA book and the addictive thinking book.

10 Go to an AA meeting within 4 weeks from tomorrow. Call first to learn about different groups. Choose 3 groups.

 

SPIRIT

Dunno. Meditate? Read blogs? See therapist? Write blog?

1 Read dream, healing and Sjaman books

2 Connect with people. Hi!!!! Here you are! Between the books and the headbord (?) Pay special attention to starting a conversation.

3 Connect with nature.

4 Make headboard to bed so I can sit up and write dreams without getting out of bed.

5 Watch Gabor Maté on YouTube.

 

ON DAILY LIFE

1 Get into a cleaning mode, clean 15 minutes a day in one run, standard cooking cleaning is not included.

2 Start chucking out rubbish 15 minutes a day in one run. Choose from: clothes, books, paperwork, atelier, sock drawers, cellars, attick, kitchen cupboards, bathroom, rubbish cupboard, balconies.

3 On using your money skills: pick up training for new drawing programm. Make appointment for within 2 weeks with other students.

 

ON RELAXING

Relax when things do not go according to plan. Relax, breathe, drink water. In order to relax more I should: slow down, take more time to think during a day, think of spiritual things and personal learning, burning candles or incense works very well for me to realise that I should take it easy. Nature relaxes me. Reminding myself that I need to relax relaxes me. However, I do not realise that I get up-tight because I have not had more than 3 minutes of relaxation a month in the last years. Only now I stopped drinking I can relax just a little. Relaxing is a big issue. How do people do that? Running relaxes me. Yoga relaxes me. And I don’t do them. Hmmm….

I am guessing I will not be relaxed until I have a outlook at income again. But just that thought. There is a little place in my head that can think about work but I worry about my memory. The work that I am closest to requires a shitload of brainpower and precision. It is just not there. I think I read a book with attention and the next day I can read it again and it is all new. I think this because I have too little mental exercise but I know me, with this brain I can not even write an application letter, let alone do a job interview.

1 Drink vegetable juice in the sun on the balcony every morning

2 Set an alarm every half an hour and note how I feel right then. Try to relax when not relaxed.

3 Burn candles and incence 😀

4: 15 minutes Yoga in the afternoon every day, look to add more time

5: 1 Outing into nature every 2 weeks

6: Have 1 sauna outing at least every 3 weeks.

7: See therapist once every 2-3 weeks.

8: Plan walking and biking holiday with friends

9: Running.

10 Try 1 different recipe a week.

11 Plan bordgame evenings again, within now and 4 weeks.

12: Continue bio-snack outing, once every 2 week

13: Organise money stuff. 30 Minutes a week on Thursdays.

14: Find a job.

 

ON THE PLAN

Spend 5 minutes per day on the plan. Keep in mind either build, maintain or getting rid of stuff. Start to add timelines if this does not work. Report every day.

A Dream – The Book – The Plan

DREAM

Had a dream, can’t really remember but it was good AND: I had contact with people in the dream and they were separate people, not ‘the usual block against me’ and they said normal and nice things and did not close me out. NICE and NEW.

BOOK

Also, also, also on the book here another quote from page 270 of Seven weeks to sobriety by Joan Mathews Larson:

QUOTE: You should feel very proud and happy to have reached this point in your recovery program. Now it is time to think seriously of the future. UNQUOTE.

People that have read my blog will probably recognise the words Happy and Proud. And see! It’s time for THE PLAN.

THE PLAN

The plan is becomming an issue. I’m starting to think I should do something about it. So…. I went to bed too late yesterday and did not set my alarm. Why? I don’t know. I could not even think of a reason while doing it. Apart from that I did not want to go to bed and I did not want to set my alarm. I did get up on time but that was because my neighbour (who drinks a shitload) is always late for her work and slams the door on the way out. Well. At least she has a job.

The Plan for today is to go back to the draft version and make a paper out of it that I can actually look on on a daily base. Do what I wrote on it (15 minutes cleaning, 15 minutes excersise, 15 minutes unfucking my desk) And to finish the 7 Weeks to sobriety. (Done) and to work 2 hours on making a draft to present to my GP on Thursday. I think I need 4-6 hours for that in total so I’l better hurry.

I am happy that I quit in a worried kind of way (???) because I really need to get going with my life now. Proud, not so proud anymore, pride is de-wathevered by worry about doing stuff and not doing The Plan.

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.

Glutamine quenches alcohol cravings

I am reading the book; Seven week Sobriety from Joan Mathews Larson and while so I am blogging about what I find. Here the following quote on quenching alcohol cravings using glutamine.

Glutamine

This amino acid has a truly amazing ability to reduce cravings for alcohol. In a study reported in the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, the desire to drink was significantly diminished among alcoholics who took glutamine, while cravings continued unabated among a comparison group who received a placebo. The alcoholics who took glutamine also reported that they were less anxious and able to sleep better.

I have noticed that HRC clients complain of a return of cravings within forty-eight hours when they neglect to refill their glutamine supplies. You can quench a sudden desire for alcohol by opening a 500-milligram glutamine capsule and letting it dissolve in your mought. (Substances placed under the tongue are absorbed directly into the bloodstream and take effect immediately.) Glutamine is on of our clients’ favorite nutrients.

That would be page 107.

Glutamine is found in beef, pork, chicken, turkey but also in seafood, milk and milk products (remember that glass of milk after a heavy night?), eggs (remember the fried eggs in the morning?). Glutamine can also be found in cabbage, beets, spinach, kale, parsley and wheat grass. Quantities differ per food source of course.

I always wondered why I ate loads and loads of meat and eggs after a night of serious boozing. And why a glass of milk or two before going to bed lessened a hangover and food cravings in the morning. That’s actually what I did, drink and then eat to diminish the consequences in my body. As I said before, I wanted to be alive whenever I decided I would start living.

When looking up the book from doctor Mathews Larsons on e.g. Amazon you will find that there are loads of other books on the subject that are less ‘old’. This book is last revised in 1997. If anybody has read other books on the subject of a nutritional approach to alcohol addiction I am very interested to hear about that.

By the way. The writer claims that her approach will seriously diminish depression and anxiety as well because those are/can be worsened by lack of nutrients like zinc and magnesium.

Do read the book if you want to diminish cravings easily and restore your body so you have less depression, tiredness, anxiety and what have you. I am personally convinced that my attempt at a nutritional approach has helped me stop drinking and keeps my cravings to a minimum.

Don’t read the book if you are looking for a mental guidance. There is no solace here. 🙂 Well apart from the promise that quitting will be easy, there will be only a minimum of cravings and the chance that you stay of the booze is 3 times higher than any other non-nutricional treatment – so they say.

The book is almost, well I would say ‘obviously’ written by somebody that has had no addiction herself. Ghegheghe. She does not beat around the bush and has a ‘This is how you can stop drinking, we have 74% result so do as I say’ approach. ‘And by the way, stop smoking and eating and drinking caffeine products and also sugar because both those addictions will make it harder to quit alcohol.’ And for those with hypoglycemia (that would be most people addicted to alcohol) sugar will spark alcohol cravings. But don’t let that stop you, quitting anything WILL be easier if you have got your nutritions worked out.

Happy that I quit, happy that I quit sugar, smoking and caffeine before I did alcohol. Happy that I found this book. Trying to work out in my head how to do work this theory into my live.

28 Days and A Plan

28 Days today. Going to celebrate that with watching the movie 28 Days tonight. In this movie Sandra Bullock is a loose post-teen woman with a serious alcohol problem. She gets caught for drunk driving and has to go to rehab. She is very apprehensive but along the line you will see her change.

The first time I watched it must be 10 years ago, I had no idea what it the movie was about, just watched it but it did get me thinking. The whole movie is generally good fun but specifically the end stayed with me. I guess it set me on the path of selecting and letting go friends and acquaintances that I knew would get me in trouble if I would ever stop. It might have also showed me that drinking in public is not elegant.

When I look back it is actually strange that I drank for so long. Drinking stopped being ‘fun’ after I studied. By the age I was about 25 it already had a quality of something I needed to lift myself from below zero to zero. Well, that would exactly be addiction; not being able to stop.

And today? Hmmm, let me try to make a plan for the day.

– I’ll start of reading Seven weeks to sobriety.

– Then when I get cold I’ll shower and eat.

– Make a Bach remedy cocktail focussed on getting stuff done and moving away from the feeling that I am ‘still ill’ and ‘need to be carefull’.

– Get my vitamins in, have been neglecting that.

– Call girlfriends, make appointments for the week.

– Clean the kitchen, livingroom and bedroom.

– Do food shopping.

– Clean the communal garden and try to see if the cat dares to come out of the house when I’m out.

Those are 2 things too many. Ditch the communal garden.

– Add: planning a date to make the plan to present the GP.

– Add: enjoy what you are doing and relax.

I’ve gone all tense now when thinking of A Plan. Don’t want to be accountable (yet?) or ‘just’? Ha! I’m really getting stuck internally here. Hmmm. No wonder I never get stuff done. I go into panic mode only by thinking of a plan. Even a day plan. I have had this all my adult life as I remember but normally I would drink the uneasiness away and wait for deadlines to come closer so the stress of the deadline would outdo the stress of the plan.

Deadline surfer I am. Let’s look that up on the internet. Aaah, internet has the ‘attack it with your will and brainpower approach.’ That has not worked for me ever. I guess I’ll just have to ponder on what is keeping me. Perfect therapy subject. Guess what?!! I have that book from Covey, it says ‘Priorities’ on the back. Never read it. Might be good to get an inkling of what it takes to prioritize. Oooh, feeling some resistance here. 😀 Breathe, breathe…

Happy that I quit but not proud anymore because I’m getting to the part now where things start to matter and I feel I can’t deliver. Happy that I have given myself the opportunity to come to this stage and see where the barriers and traps are. Let’s see how this develops.

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.

Nutrients based approach to alcohol addiction

Very excited: started in the new book ‘Seven weeks to sobriety’ by Joan Mattews Larson she advocates to cure alcohol addiction by getting the right nutrients in your body so that your brain can function normal again. She says addiction to alcohol is very much a physical disease. Only in 19 pages in the book yet but loving it! Wish I had this before, I had to look up all the nutrient info myself on the internet. She claims an 80% recovery at the Health Recovery Center and promises ‘no cravings’. 80% Is very high compared to the maximum of, I believe, 22% that other methods claim. I am reading it because I want to learn more about addiction and because I have no cravings as opposed to ‘all’ the others in this sober blog world. I am assuming that there is a relation to the nutrients I have taken while prepping for detoxing and during detoxing. Very curious as to how it works exactly.

Also she says hypoglycemia and alcohol addiction are related. I have hypoglycemia myself, the effects are not as bad anymore as I used have  because I eat more regularly and used to not eat added sugar (except for the drinkable ones, yes hypocrite) and not even fruit because that set me off. Everybody I know that has hypoglycemia has a drinking problem. And, when reading all these sober blogs, everybody has an issue with sugar intake after they have stopped. And I am developing a sweet tooth myself, which is ridiculous. I, 100% convinced that sugar is poison, becoming a sugar addict now? Well actually in my life, I quit cold turkey from not eating a lot of sugar (10 biscuits in a week max), 25-40 cigarets a day, 3 liters of cola light and 12 units of alcohol a day. Quitting the sugar was the worst, tremendous headaches . I got back ‘on it’ 5 years later when I stopped smoking.

Also recognising what she says is ‘being over sensitive to chemicals’. I have that. Not sure anymore if I left it in the blog but a ‘fluoride poisoning’ and my approach to that was what lead me to believe I could quit.

Really looking forward to reading everything. Can’t wait. Have to get ready to leave now though.

‘Extreme mood swings’ is also one of the signs of a lack of nutrients. 😉

The trunk of the tree where the magic happens

New books are in. Bummer, just when I wanted to start doing things….. 😀

I got:

Seven weeks to sobriety – the proven program to fight alcoholism through nutrition. From Joan Larson. Hoping to find an answer to why I don’t have cravings while most other bloggers that I know do have these. Also they promise to repair the brain part that causes addiction. I am very, very curious. I think there might be some truth in a physical cause of addiction because e.g. the book of Nakken describes my addiction correctly word for word. I am wondering, how can this process be the same in everybody if there is not a physical cause (too)? Very curious.

And I do wonder, if I believe what she says, would I start drinking again and just eat healthy? No, but I’d love to try the recipe with a drinker that does not think he should stop. That would not be blind of course but still. Or, if possible, try it in an elderly home and see the effects. Or reverse the recipe, sell it to bars and get rich.

The postman also brought: Food of the Gods – the search for the original tree of knowledge, a radical history of plants, drugs and human evolution’ by Terence McKenna. It is about altered states of consciousness and our fascination for it. Also it speaks of a tree of knowledge -that I must Google-  and I once had a dream of a immensely large tree that was my life, my history, my family and I flew around it and through it and really wanted to be close to the trunk but I could not because there were 50 or more empty liquor bottles laying at the ground around the stem. They were keeping me from reaching the trunk of the tree where the family, the tribe, the magic, transformation, love, wisdom, understanding, peace, ‘the universe and all’ was.

Somebody I know said: it tells you that you need to quit drinking if you want to get there. I did believe that, but I did not want to. I explained it away in my head saying ‘I don’t drink liquor, I only drink beer, these bottles are not my bottles so the message is not for me.’ This must have been about 15 to 13 years ago. Should I draw up the tag ‘denial’? I could have done that before but I was in denial about the denial.