Vegasclimber
Trad climber
Las Vegas, NV.
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Jan 17, 2013 - 09:30am PT
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Jebus and John, thanks for that reminder. It's a really good point to bring up.
I also had a problem with this earlier in my recovery, and found out that all it does is add to the exact type of drama that I have to avoid to stay sober. I have a hard enough time working with my own problems to try and "fix" someone else. All I can do is be there and try to help if they ask.
My sponsor told me frequently that I need to keep my side of the street clean, and let others worry about their side.
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Plaidman
Trad climber
South Slope of Mt. Tabor, Portland, Oregon, USA
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Jan 17, 2013 - 09:33am PT
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^^^Words never been better said. I am done babysitting drunks and willing them sober. I am there with support and love. If advice is asked I GIVE IT. BUT MOSTLY JUST MIND MY OWN BUSINESS. Sometimes it is difficult.
I don't have to be right all the time.
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happiegrrrl
Trad climber
www.climbaddictdesigns.com
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Jan 17, 2013 - 12:11pm PT
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I'll drink(a glass of juice) to that, Largo.
To understand where another ends and I begin, and to stay on my side of that fence. Easier said than done, but incredibly interesting to do my best to try. Nonetheless, I find drama toxic to my self, and cannot tolerate much of it. I tend to keep a distance from people I find tick that tock on my clock.
Michelle - Best of luck to you, and glad to see you were in the thread!
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Michelle
Trad climber
Toshi's Station, picking up power converters.
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Jan 17, 2013 - 12:39pm PT
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Day 2 - this sucks balls. I forgot how much fun this is.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Jan 17, 2013 - 01:11pm PT
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SCseagoat
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Jan 17, 2013 - 01:18pm PT
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Yeah Michelle....sucking balls may be bad but sucking the chrome off a trailer hitch is worse...hang in there!
Susan
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notapplicable
Trad climber
richmond, VA
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Jan 17, 2013 - 01:53pm PT
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I find this thread very interesting. I am at this point, I suppose, off the wagon. At least technically. Between the ages of 15 and 24ish I would eat, drink, smoke and snort anything you put in front of me. Loved it all and I was no weekend warrior. All day everyday was my motto. Eventually it started making me feel worse than it did good. It was never a psychological thing or how it effected my life. It was purely physiological. It just didn't feel good to get f*#ked up most of the time. So I stopped. No meetings or anything, just stopped. Missed smoking pot some but never the rest.
8 years later I decided to get drunk over Thanksgiving and it felt good. I've pretty much been hammered since. Pharma and booze mostly but we'll see what else is out there. Most of the old connections are gone but drugs are a great social conduit. Not sure how long it lasts this time round. It's a fun hobby so I don't have plans one way or the other.
It's just interesting how and why different people put the poison down and why they pick it up again. Good luck folks - whichever side of the slope you're on!
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Jan 18, 2013 - 05:03pm PT
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Thank you. notaplicable. it's posts like your that help us stay sober and re assure us that we are on a a good path..
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Norwegian
Trad climber
Pollock Pines, California
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Jan 18, 2013 - 05:51pm PT
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go n.a.
go until you threshold,
then go a little further.
go well beyond where the cowards cave and criticize.
beyonds that beg of you to crawl back towards
two livings.
nothing wrong with stimulating the warrior within,
in this absurd fight for a beating heart.
stay freaky,
run a marathon in shoes untied.
life is a fluid that freezes now
and thaws then.
get gills.
they swerve us well.
i hate the preachers on the path of
some self-prescribed holiness.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Jan 18, 2013 - 05:55pm PT
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The weege is also a good reminder as to why i quit drinking. i still get pleanty freaky just do it without poisioning my soul....
Looking down while soloing....soloing nekid.. Ice baby ICE:)
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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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Jan 18, 2013 - 05:55pm PT
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Took me 5 1/2 years to stop taking the ex's inventory. My first step toward actually getting my life back.
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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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Jan 18, 2013 - 06:00pm PT
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Between the ages of 15 and 24ish I would eat, drink, smoke and snort anything you put in front of me
For me this was true from 13 to 54. Literally. All of the days. I used to snort coke at my desk when I worked for the navy, get hammered during lunch when I was running parks. And if you didn't put it in front of me, by God I'd go find it. I do not recommend this.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Jan 18, 2013 - 06:08pm PT
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Interestingly I quit doing most of the drugs in my teens. did some coke in the eightys but never as a habbit. Smoked some pot in the mid nintys but again not a habbit just ocasional recreation. an 8th of an ounce of good weed would last me about a year or so. Beer and whisky on the other hand had a short life expectancy in my presence right up untill 2006..
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B_E_S
climber
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Jan 18, 2013 - 06:58pm PT
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I might have a beer or 2. tomorrow since last April ive probably drank
less than a 6 pack.
If another marketing event is scheduled with your behalf or portion
thereof per_se in Orange at the bouldering factory let me know and
I may drink a few more with donations of course. Glad to read you
more clearly than in the short time past and I had no problem
kicking the morphine around week 4.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Jan 18, 2013 - 08:54pm PT
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I had a program friend over here today and was reflecting on my last few months of using, when I'd wake up three or four times in the night and would have to take a stiff one to fall back asleep and - I thank my lucky stars for sobriety. Drunkalogues are not my favorites but sometimes it is instructive to remember the dark nights.
JL
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Plaidman
Trad climber
South Slope of Mt. Tabor, Portland, Oregon, USA
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Jan 19, 2013 - 07:02am PT
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The blackouts were the scariest. I never knew where I would end up. It was just like adventure but frightening. I don't miss that part. In fact I don't miss much of the insanity.
It was really quit or die. I chose life. And what a life it has been.
I stayed alive long enough to learn to climb and meet the soul mate I thought I would never have. She is a rock climbin babe. I am a blessed man.
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Norwegian
Trad climber
Pollock Pines, California
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Jan 19, 2013 - 08:15am PT
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sweet plaidman,
you were post 1096
on the sobriety thread.
a special # among us freaks.
im glad to hear of anyone
with some wellness in their heart.
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joe boy
Trad climber
california
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Jan 19, 2013 - 11:35am PT
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I don't usually post up, but getting sober 13 years ago literally saved my life. Like Largo, it took several stiff ones to get me back to sleep at night. swallowing vomit and ending up in coma after going septic was not quite my bottom. Fell into a couple more until I found recovery.
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happiegrrrl
Trad climber
www.climbaddictdesigns.com
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Jan 19, 2013 - 12:29pm PT
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Speaking of using Al-Anon....
Last night I saw I had a phone message from one of my brothers. He'd called at 6pm my time - 8pm his. He was drunk, and began demanding me to call him back. "Call me back. Do you hear me? DO. YOU. HEAR. ME? CALL. ME. BACK. It's nearing the end of civilization, I ain't got much time...."
No, I did not call my brother back last night. I waited until this morning, when at least he had a chance of being sober.
My brother has brain damage. Whether it is directly from alcohol usage or from the head injuries he suffered when he ran a truck into a tree while drunk, I do not know. He has a dent the size of a quarter in his skull, and when it is raining, even the slightest bit, he likes to play a parlor trick where he tilts his head to collect the rain, and then tips it out.
So, I called. And when he didn't say much I said "well, I am calling in response to your demand I do so last night. What's going on?"
He said "I was wondering what your reaction would be. Well, what's your reaction?"
Not sure what to say, my pause was luckily long enough that he must have forgotten he'd asked a question, and began his ramblings of how difficult and painful his life is. I imagine it is painful, being that one of his calfs looks more like hamburger under skin, from when he accidentally shot himself with a sawed-off shotgun(shining deer in upstate Wisconsin, along with my other brother - 200 miles from the nearest hospital.)
Oh yes, talking with Al is always an experience.
Today I learned that my mother's family has it's fortune buried beneath Fort Ticonderoga, for example. And that he stupidly told an IRS person about the money and then not two days had gone by when the US government handed 45 million dollars to each and every state... He did the math, and said "Where do YOU think the government can come up with 2.5 billion dollars?"
I listened, and when the next pause came, I asked him how he felt about the potential new gun laws. I did this because he had said "I'm not as delusional as everyone thinks," and I didn't want to go there. Instead I gave him a topic which I knew he would have an opinion on.(Cold dead hands, gun grab, can make a gun with the materials in the basement)...
And when we hung up 15 minutes later, I let it go. There is really not much I can do for my brother.
He called me back just now, because he had remembered something and wanted to tell me. He apologized for waking me up. I have no idea why he thought he was waking me....
There is no turning back for my brother. He's passed the point of return, even if he never takes another drink so long as he lives. My family is lucky because he seems to find people willing to have him as a room mate - I guess his share of the rent, coming from disability, is attractive to them. But I do wonder when the time will come that my brothers and sisters and I will need to sit down and decide what is to become of him.
Though my life never took the turns that his has, how do I really know that my fate might not have been the same had I kept drinking?
I don't. There but for the grace, go I.
I love you, brother Al, and I am grateful I am not walking in your shoes.
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dirtbag
climber
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Jan 19, 2013 - 02:30pm PT
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The greatest advice I ever got in Alanon was from an old timer. I was complaining about not knowing what to do with an impossible significant other. He said, "Leave her alone." In other words: Let her work her own program. Or not. Anything else is playing God, and that doesn't work for sh#t.
I am learning that. It's a hard, hard truth. But I am going to try not to nag, scare, pester, or rub her nose in it.
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