The First World Problem Thread...Voice Your Struggle

[LostTheTone]

Actually.... my plan B is to get some valium through my work healthcare because I know from experience that stuff works like a charm and there's like a 1% chance that I could actually get some if everything goes right because there's no chance in hell I get it from our glorious "free" healthcare since here in Finland all benzos are considered drugs of Satan (along weed) but we'll see how that goes... In the meantime, like you said I should start by trying to cut down on my daily beer dosage. Thanks for the advice anyway. Feels good to get this shit of my chest because there's literally no one irl that I can talk about this to.

The real problem with the real narcotics is they really do work. I never found valium to be much fun, but it definitely does its job.

I didn't see you were Finish man, the number of times my Swedish wife has told me how Finns are all drunk on home made moonshine, maybe I should have guessed

I don't get to talk about this stuff with real people either - I spend a weirdly large amount of my life talking with sex offenders, and yet I really can't go around telling people I've spent more of my life as an addict than a sober human. I have a career and a marriage and I need to stay that guy. And, well, my nerves are kinda fried because I haven't properly fixed up in a while and it helps to just throw thoughts out somewhere. It helps to not keep it inside my brain.

Just come yell if you need to man.

 

[Thaeon]

Sitting in my office, waiting to go home because my last appointment of the day is on a Zoom that's gone over by like 2 hours...

 

[wheresthefbomb]

Fuck alcohol and fuck addiction.

I've spent the last 5 days feeling like I was going to die if I didn't have a drink. But I am the same man who got over crippling depression through sheer willpower and spite. And with the way my brain works, cutting out drinking completely, that shit still controls you.

I've gone from the point where I was spending 1 paycheck a month on alcohol, to just the weekends, to just Friday, to today, where it was one of those days where you just have a drink or 2 to unwind after work, and I've had 4 and I would bareknuckle box Mike Tyson for drink number 5.

As someone who is presently sweating out the tail end of narcotics, I strongly endorse constant aggression as a healthy way to deal with the situation. I would like to add that the world is boring and easy and I have no idea how normal people live like this.

But give yourself a break man - It's ok to just not do something. If I told people I was still going to take a little morphine from time to time just to show it who was boss, they'd say I was fucking crazy.

As someone going through his own version of withdrawals, physical activity is a great edge-taker-offer. My particular poison is long-distance shit. Mostly bicycle, but walking and jogging too. Anything that gets the blood pumping works though. If I wear myself out to the point I'm too exhausted to imagine diving into my particular itch, it makes it a little easier to face things.

But yeah, the world without the fog is a real fuckin' bitch sometimes. It's easy to see why so many of us opt for the addiction. What a shit-show reality without a filter is.

Been there and being there. To be honest, last time I went 24 hours without a drink was October.... 2020. I sure as hell would want to quit but I want to do it alone, no rehab, and that's pretty close to impossible.

Just wanted to say good for all of you, seriously. I'm right there with you, I'm two years sober this time around but a relapse wouldn't be my first this far into sobriety. It's not easy but it's so worth it. Even when everything else around me seems like garbage, I'm still so happy everyday not have that on my back.

I also like to have a bourbon drink about once a year just a remind it who's boss. I definitely get it. The bourbon I had when I graduated from university last spring was the first guilt free alcoholic beverage I'd had since like 19.

 

[LostTheTone]

Just wanted to say good for all of you, seriously. I'm right there with you, I'm two years sober this time around but a relapse wouldn't be my first this far into sobriety. It's not easy but it's so worth it. Even when everything else around me seems like garbage, I'm still so happy everyday not have that on my back.

I also like to have a bourbon drink about once a year just a remind it who's boss. I definitely get it. The bourbon I had when I graduated from university last spring was the first guilt free alcoholic beverage I'd had since like 19.

I'll give you a pass because you're from the South, and you're being nice about my temporary return to addiction, but... Bourbon? Really?

 

[wheresthefbomb]

I'll give you a pass because you're from the South, and you're being nice about my temporary return to addiction, but... Bourbon? Really?

I have literally never been to the south. One good turn deserves another, so I will also give you a pass. AK=Alaska

 

[NickS]

Just wanted to say good for all of you, seriously. I'm right there with you, I'm two years sober this time around but a relapse wouldn't be my first this far into sobriety. It's not easy but it's so worth it. Even when everything else around me seems like garbage, I'm still so happy everyday not have that on my back.

I also like to have a bourbon drink about once a year just a remind it who's boss. I definitely get it. The bourbon I had when I graduated from university last spring was the first guilt free alcoholic beverage I'd had since like 19.

Seems there's a lot of us around here. I'm about 5 years removed from alcohol, and like you said it sucks some times without it, but for me it's the only way. Alcohol brings on this soul crushing anxiety as soon as I touch it, that is, to me, much worse than learning to live without it. Each person has to find their own way out of it, but it is possible.

 

[High Plains Drifter]

I'm the kid of a mom who died of alcoholism so it all hits close to home. Been alcohol free for over ten years and even before that I was down to a couple beers just occasionally. I kinda miss it a little but it wasn't too hard to completely stop cause towars the end of my drinking days it was only like a handful of times a year... like a couple on a holiday kinda thing. I never really considered myself an alcoholic cause it wasn't exactly my DOC thankfully. But when I met my wife almost ten years ago, she was way against drinking due to her own family's dependency issues with drug addiction and alcoholism so I made a promise to her that I'd never touch alcohol as long as we were together... and I never have.

I dunno... watching my mom go thru it was pretty sobering ( literally and figuratively heh!). Had to forge her name on CC receipts at restaurants cause she'd be too drunk to match her sig to her sig on the card. I almost got clocked by a truck trying to tackle her as she was trying to run across a busy hwy... drunk af. She'd come pick me up from work when I was like 14-15 and she'd be blitzed... I had to keep grabbing the wheel so we wouldn't wreck... she'd be veering onto sidewalks and towards incoming traffic. And man... the time that she fell thru a floor to ceiling plate glass window and I found her on the bathroom floor... had to hold and press the flap of skin that was previously her forehead back onto her skull while she was bleeding out waiting for the ambulance... like 138 stitches and perma-scar from that one. She woulda died that night had I not found her when I did. Last year of her life they were transfusing her blood like flushing a toilet. Fucked up shit and that's only some of it.

And I mean... It never starts like that. It just slowly consumes everything good and healthy about you if you can't take control and/ or get it off your back completely. Like no one thinks they could ever get as bad as my mom was. And for a lotta ppl they don't. But it's some risky shit... like if you know you can't go without it and if you're progressing downhill... please get some help, dudes. I miss the fuck outta her... like so much. She died before I had some of my best moments... marriage, buying a home, etc. But shit... I wouldn't even want her alive in the mental condition that she was in back then. Physically... that wouldn't even be an option. That alcohol fucked up her insides bad... really bad. She was just too fucked up. And for whatever it's worth, she was a great lady.. such a kind soul... a very smart, and compassionate human being. Watching someone you love do that shit to themselves while hurting everyone around them in the process... fucking waste.

 

[NickS]

^Yeah, I never got to that point, not even close really. But I can see how that happens, to so many people, and I was one of those that had to stop completely. Like you said, it never starts out like that, but it slowly consumes everything.

@LostTheTone On another note though, I am not from the south either, but bourbon is delicious

 

[BornToLooze]

As someone going through his own version of withdrawals, physical activity is a great edge-taker-offer. My particular poison is long-distance shit. Mostly bicycle, but walking and jogging too. Anything that gets the blood pumping works though. If I wear myself out to the point I'm too exhausted to imagine diving into my particular itch, it makes it a little easier to face things.

But yeah, the world without the fog is a real fuckin' bitch sometimes. It's easy to see why so many of us opt for the addiction. What a shit-show reality without a filter is.

My particular poison is working full time and going to school to learn a trade. After a couple of days of being gone from 5-6 in the morning to around 10 at night...the other night, was one of those days, I was so damn tired I realized on my second or third drink I was just pouring coke in a rocks glass, forgot about the damn whiskey.

But I miss back in the day when I could just sip on a nice glass of whiskey and smoke a cigar with my buddies and solve all of the worlds problems. That's what I'm trying to get back to.

 

[MFB]

Restrung my EC1000 with the standard 10-52 set, so on the one hand it feels great to have a fresh set on there, but on the other? New string clang/having to stretch out a fresh set and keep tune.

 

[DestroyMankind]

My last alcoholic drink was Halloween of 2018. I come from a family of alcoholics and I never got to being a full blown alcoholic..but I think it could've evolved into that. Now I spend money on guitar pedals, CDs and movies. When I hit a year sober I bought myself a new guitar to celebrate. It's a struggle every day..but it's definitely for the better.

 

[nightflameauto]

Fucking alcohol.

My usual is whiskey/whisky. I knew I needed to cut it out a while ago, but I was also a "drink every night" type dude. I took a week and change off of it. Had a little one weekend. Thought I was fine. Then collapsed last Thursday with way too much.

I swore off. Fuck this shit. It's sapped enough of my time and energy.

Over the course of the weekend I got permission from the accounting committee (wife) to purchase a new lawnmower and chainsaw, both battery powered since apparently I'm an enviro-nerd now, and spent the entire two days out working in the yard. I haven't done a whole weekend of yardwork in. . . twenty years? At least fifteen. So, I was too tired to bother drinking either night. And woke up feeling like I might actually live this morning, which is unusual for a Monday.

Aside from the sunburn, I think I did alright. Now to see if I can make it another week sober. Worknights are the worst. I'll probably try cutting some time out to work outside and get in some bike rides to beat me down physically enough I can sleep.

 

[CanserDYI]

I have literally never been to the south. One good turn deserves another, so I will also give you a pass. AK=Alaska

I was gonna say you're about as north as you can get here haha

 

[Seabeast2000]

Bunch of flights canceled around NE regions....?

 

[BlackMastodon]

I had my pool opened up for the season this past Friday. Skimming it today I close to a dozen dead honey bees in it, and saved a couple more from dying. Stop drowning in my pool and go pollinate, you idiots! Gonna have to become an urban bee keeper at this rate to make up for it.

 

[BornToLooze]

So I'm going to trade school, and my teacher got fired because he was a racist piece of shit and "somebody" called in a complaint. Now class is on hold until they find a new teacher, and I can't get promoted at work until I finish this class.

As shit as my teacher was, I could have soared through class. It's one of those times where it eats you up on do the right thing, or do what's best for you.

 

[wheresthefbomb]

So I'm going to trade school, and my teacher got fired because he was a racist piece of shit and "somebody" called in a complaint. Now class is on hold until they find a new teacher, and I can't get promoted at work until I finish this class.

As shit as my teacher was, I could have soared through class. It's one of those times where it eats you up on do the right thing, or do what's best for you.

You made the right call.

 

[BornToLooze]

You made the right call.

Are you sure thought? Because this class is the difference between low $30k a year and damn near 6 figures. I might be one of the few people that still has a code they live by, but an extra $60k a year, you're lying if you say that doesn't make you question your morals.

 

[KnightBrolaire]

Are you sure thought? Because this class is the difference between low $30k a year and damn near 6 figures. I might be one of the few people that still has a code they live by, but an extra $60k a year, you're lying if you say that doesn't make you question your morals.

should have reported them AFTER finishing the class

 

[p0ke]

I really miss getting drunk.

It's the opposite of what people were previously saying. I used to drink a lot but never got addicted to it, and now that I'm a responsible parent™, I don't even feel like it when I get the chance. The main problem is that I don't get that total "reboot" at all, so I'm just in constant mental fatigue. Even my wife keeps saying I need to do a full factory reset someday soon. Of course the healthy choice would be to replace it with something else, but tbh I'm just not interested.

Yeah, I have a beer or two every now and then, but it's just not the same thing as hitting the road with some friends and drinking all day or even several days and finding yourself in weird situations Hopefully the summer festival season will fix that.