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Old 11-18-2017, 04:08 PM #1161
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YAY! You can do it SC!

Merry Gobble Gobble to you too!
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Old 11-19-2017, 09:35 AM #1162
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I see on the news this morning that David Cassidy of the Partridge family is near death from organ failure due to his struggles with alcoholism. I feel bad as I would for any alcoholic but he was one of my first childhood crushes. It serves as a constant reminder that this disease is a killer and will take us down if we let it.

There has been a steady flow of family and friends around and the fun is just beginning. I feel very loved and happy yet I am struggling with the drink. I guess my joy is an unfamiliar emotion and so I am craving a buzz. I drank because of loneliness, depression and anxiety and now I want to drink because of happiness? Go figure.

Take good care my friends.
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Old 11-19-2017, 09:58 AM #1163
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SecondChances View Post
I drank because of loneliness, depression and anxiety and now I want to drink because of happiness? Go figure.
Important: it's how our addiction works. For what it is worth, my most difficult moments in the first year were the happy moments. Less pain in PN, or having lost 30kg of bodyfat, or or... "Hey, that needs to be celebrated, right? Where's the whisk.... oh, damn!"

I've used the visual before: inside our brain there is a reptile part that is still active. We evolved, and added other brain parts that made us a bit smarter, or nicer, or able to play chess against a computer (but we still need a part that makes it easier to understand remote controls ). But the reptile brain is still there, still active, still needed for fight or flight. And it will use all its power to get you to drink again. It waits for weak moments, when your rational part of the brain is distracted with celebration, grief, pain. It is patient, very very patient.

But we can beat it. You are beating it. Just be aware it's there, don't feel guilty when it rears its ugly head, it's normal at first, just tell it to take a hike, that you have better things to do. In the end it will learn, and don't bother you anymore, or very seldom. That's when being sober becomes a lot easier.
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Old 11-19-2017, 03:11 PM #1164
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SC, I think that Wide-O has offered you some excellent thoughts.

They pretty much fit with my experience.
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Old 11-23-2017, 05:53 AM #1165
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OK, anger can be a pain killer too.

They are putting new asphalt on the streets here, so I have to park the car about 2 miles away from the house to be sure I can go to shops etc.

Yesterday, I did just that. Walked 2 miles to my car. Bought all I needed, put it in 3 different bags, so that I only needed to take one with the ingredients for tonight's meal. Clever! Organized! I would then go to my car the next day to drive it here and unload the rest.

My feet were hurting a bit from all the work lately, but OK, it's 2 miles (well, 4, walking back), I'll survive.

I get home, unpack, and notice... wait.... I didn't really....?

I had left the most important ingredient in the car boot. Wrong bag. I started swearing like a sailor, put my shoes back on, walked the 2 miles to my car still swearing, took the remaining heavy bags, and walked back (swearing) home. Somehow, my feet hurt much less that second trip - I think it's the swearing that did it. The guys who were working on the roads looked at me a bit funny - heheh. They only saw this tall guy swearing and running around a few times with bags of groceries.
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Old 11-23-2017, 10:20 AM #1166
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Wide-O, two miles? I would need starve. That is crazy.
Well smoking def makes my neuropathy worse. I was suspicious but now I am convinced. I only smoke outside as of late and first thing in the morning I go out for my first smoke. I walk out pretty good but need stumble back due to the weakness in my legs. Unfortunately I am stuck at 10 per day and can't seem to wean down farther. I will charge my e-cig and see if that can bring me closer to a quit.
For whatever reason that intense burning has improved greatly though that rapid firing of the nerves continues and that horrible leg weakness is ever present though I haven't needed my cane in over 3 weeks so that marks improvement. In the evening my feet feel like they are freezing yet they are warm to the touch so I am not sure what that is about but sure beats the painful burning. It is still too early to tell if this is progress or just a temporary reprieve. I have been here before only to have been deceived and the slide backwards is emotionally painful. Time will tell but I am feeling better than I have in a long time so I will keep the faith.
As always I thank you for all the support this lifeline offers. If I read back my posts I always sound so negative and whiny but this is the only place I can vent openly and honestly. A non-alcoholic could never understand why we chose the drink over our health and sobriety makes that a painful reality and a choice we cannot undo. I have known two alcoholics that continued to drink even though they were advised by their doctors that if they continued they would die. They died. One was on the transplant list only to get kicked off and the other was given a few months to live should he not quit and he seemingly didn't even try. He was only in his mid thirties. I think of them often.
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Old 11-23-2017, 10:29 AM #1167
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Oh and Wide-O, anger makes my neuropathy worse as does stress. Perhaps it was all the walking and blood circulation that was helpful? Do you exercise regularly? A while back I joined this gym with such good intentions but maybe I overdid but I felt worse and stopped going. I will need give the treadmill another go but this time go slower. Ha! Perhaps that is where the saying "Tread lightly" comes from.
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Old 11-23-2017, 11:54 AM #1168
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I hate to promote the solution as it is still sensitive for some, but for stopping smoking, an e-cig can be a life-saver. There are many varieties (way too many), and although I quickly found my way, it took me almost 4 years to find something that would completely work for my wife. Early days, but what I found was a) small b) elegant c) simple d) cheap e) really satisfying for a smoker.

I was so amazed I ordered one for myself as well. These smaller devices always existed, but were not very good, and many of us ended up with heavy, big, expensive contraptions. So I could not believe how good this particular one had become.

I was shortly involved with a movie called "A Billion Lives" - that's the number of people who will die early from smoking before 2100. And it can be fixed. If you are an adult, I see no reason not to try to find something that works for you - especially as it seems to have such a big effect on your pain. I got my wife down from 15 to 4 a day, but with this latest device, we both hope it's going to go down to 0. Fingers crossed.

Yes, I try to keep busy, I don't do gyms or anything, but I'm not a couch potato either. Gardening, DIY, house cleaning... My last "big" effort was to cut down 15 trees that had grown too big. With a hand saw. And then cut them into small pieces.

In this case, it was half joking, but it was the adrenaline and anger at myself that made me "forget" the pain. Sure, stress and anger normally make it worse, but the cursing somehow made it a) less painful and b) hilarious.

I may have said this before, but when I left rehab, the director said "Please think about quitting smoking too. I have seen too many people who got sober successfully, only to die not much later from lung disease related to smoking." He almost was in tears when he said that. I kept that firmly in the back of my mind, so 500 days after quitting alcohol I also quit smoking.

Given that I smoked 70 a day (yes ) I have saved so much money it's almost ridiculous. But more importantly: all the bad stuff you get with cigs is gone.

I'll say it again for completeness: if you can stop without any "tools", the more power to you. But quitting smoking is NOT easy (for some it is, for most it isn't). So if you can do it with a tool that is about 95% less harmful (and gives you an at least a 50,000 smaller chance of getting cancer from it) I would say: think about it.

In 10 years time books will be written about why the heck governments didn't do more to promote switching smokers to e-cigs. The UK is now finally leading the way, I hope the rest of the world will follow.

Anyway, don't worry about complaining too much, it's what we are here for, and we know exactly what you are going through.
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Old 11-24-2017, 01:24 PM #1169
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Hi
We are not supposed to have more than 100 pages per thread, as it can slow the database down.
So this discussion is now continuing on a new thread
https://www.neurotalk.org/alcoholism...ml#post1255112
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