2 months--no drugs or alcohol

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ0Yn1fqugg[/youtube]

That’s funny, I was just watching that the other day.

Hehe. I should have known you would have seen it. I just stumbled on it after reading this thread so I thought it was appropriate.

Anyway, good luck with whatever you’re abstaining from. I’m not sure I get what you’re doing but you seem to be getting something out of it. :-k

I sense that you actually forget your own lack of self worth and think that disrespect is actually respect again. That applies to all the things worth disrespecting. Isn’t it great to have confidence fill you that you don’t deserve?

Definitely. When I first started this thread, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to quit the drugs or not. I knew that I wanted to experiment with 2 month stints of abstinence and see how I feel. Now I definitely know that I want to quit all caffeine, alcohol, and cannibinoids. I know I want to quit all drugs and alcohol for at least a year and more realistically a year and a half. ← This wasn’t inspired by the 2 month experiments (at least not totally) but by the reprogramming of my own values.

Ever since the separation and the change of career, I’ve been on this major self-improvement kick. So far it’s working.

That’s cool (I guess) but have you ever thought that you might actually need MORE drugs and alcohol? I like to use Occam’s Razor - the simplest solution is often the right solution, principle. If the drugs and alcohol are having a negative effect on your life, perhaps you need more drugs and alcohol, not less?

I’d keep away from all that ‘self-improvement’ garbage, too. It will only lead you to being addicted to exercise, neurotic calorie counting and hours and hours of reading labels in supermarkets… or worse… you may end up joining a gym cult or having your own nutrition guru which, we all know, is a gateway to veganism.

That makes absolutely no sense. :laughing:

I may need you to hold me back, Chakra. :wink:

OK, try this. Are the drugs the problem or are the drugs an attempt to mask the problem? If the drugs are used to mask the problem – and they’re not working – then a valid assumption may be that you need more drugs. Amirite? 8-[

I was obviously joking initially but realizing the drugs are not the original problem but a symptom is worth thinking about. A person I respect once said “If people asked themselves ‘What do I know that I really don’t want to know?’ and then listened to what came up, they could prevent so many games we play on ourselves.” I couldn’t quite get the purpose of abstaining then returning, abstaining, then returning but each to his own. Anyway, I’m glad to hear things are looking on the up and up. What’s the new career? Do you like it better?

Well, put it this way: The drugs are both masking the problem and causing the problem. They numb me from the symptoms but in turn make the source of the problem worse. It’s like a heroin addict who starts on heroin to get away from some pain, but thereby makes the pain so much worse when it comes time to withdraw. So I think more drugs would only worsen the problem.

Unless your talking about meds. Are you suggesting I seek out prescription medication? ← Not more drugs per se, but different drugs?

For me, these are preliminary experiments–giving myself real hands-on encounters with sobriety–in order to furnish myself with evidence of what a life without drugs is like. They’ve lead me to consider taking at least a year off all drugs and alcohol.

Yes, much better. I had a little over a year of experience working as a software contractor–ran my own business; my main client gave me an offer of employment which was reasonably competitive. They said I was the only one on the team who was preventing them from getting extra tax credits (apparently, if you have any full time contractors on the team, you’re not qualified for certain tax credits). Not wanting to be “that guy”, I took the offer (it does come with a lot of perks, including a very generous RRSP program). My business is now dormant. The way I figure it, I wouldn’t be doing anything differently anyhow–just working for my main client–and it gives me time to put together a solid business plan, maybe get a loan from a bank, and make it into a small business–but that’s at least a couple years down the road.

Cool. You seem to have handled two major upheavals pretty well? Most people would have gone off the rails big time. Congrats. It can’t have been easy. =D> :sunglasses:

Well, it’s been an interesting 3 weeks so far, interesting enough to write a little something about it.

Right before I started this stint, I experienced a turn of events that flipped my perspective on my own life and self on its head. Only briefly, however, and now I feel I’m back to my ordinary self. It did paint some interesting pictures for me during the first and second week, and shed some light on this whole drug issue. I won’t say what the turn of events were, but I will say that it had a lot to do with girls and love. As some of you probably know, I’ve been separated from my wife for about 2 years now, and up until the end of May, I’ve been thanking my lucky stars I’m single. Then things turned completely around and I started longing for love. A few days later, I started the current stint. The first week of caffeine abstinence is always the worst. It is utter boredom and exhaustion. You’ve become tolerant and now you have to suffer through withdrawal. This added to my longing for love a sense of despair that this is what it was going to be like, once I quit all drugs and alcohol in the summer of 2018, for the rest of my life.

Of course, I knew I just had to give it time. By the second week my natural body energy levels would come back. Well, my energy levels did pick up in the second week, but not to my satisfaction. It still wasn’t “fun” like my weekly caffeine days are. Still looked like boredom and dullness for the rest of my life. I’m used to the idea that it usually takes a good two weeks for my natural energy levels to kick in during a caffeine break, but I don’t remember ever reaching a level at which I feel anything remotely equivalent to a caffeine “buzz”–typically, I just feel “normal”.

This, to me, counts as a complete reversal on my life outlook: rather than being thankful for the things I have, I started longing for the things I lack. I lack love in my life, a girl, but there are definitely perks to being single–you are the master of your own destiny, your life is entirely yours to determine–and I absolutely love that–but nothing compares to being in love. Just a taste of it leaves you wanting more. It is literally like a drug–and no, this is not one of those misuses of the term “literally”–that experience of romantic love between a man and a woman is literally the release of chemicals in the brain putting you into an ecstatic frenzy; and I remember earlier in this thread telling Moreno that falling in love is one of the things I’d give up the drugs for. So after going through an experience like that, and then watching the bubble burst, leaves me feeling not so happy being single. I looked ahead to the rest of my life and saw a hole, a cold emptiness, thinking I will never experience that feeling again for anyone. That coupled with my impatience vis-a-vis my natural energy levels left me focusing on the things I lack in my life: love and natural energy.

As for the latter, there was so much I was looking forward to after the summer of 2018. I don’t expect to be fully charged up like the energizer bunny on June 1 2018–I expected to go through the same withdrawal symptoms–fatigue, boredom, some depression, general malaise–and given my past experiments with these caffeine deprivation stints, I know my natural energy levels will never match those of the caffeine buzzes I love so much on my Fridays–but I still figured the summer of 2018 would be the beginning of a period of great self-improvement and that getting through the initial withdrawal would give way to so many benefits worth looking forward to. I was excited for it. I wanted it. But at the end of May, beginning of June, I started looking forward not to these benefits or any self-improvement, but to the complete absence of fun, of meaning, of excitement. Never again will I experience the buzz of a good cup of coffee, the fuzzy warm feelings of alcohol, or the spiritual heights that a good joint can raise you to. And that to me, at the time, looked like a complete void.

I started reconsidering my whole goal–whether it was a good idea after all to give up all drugs and alcohol for a good year (most likely a year and a half), and caffeine, alcohol, and cannabinoids in particular forever–whether I was just allowing myself to be caught up in my own self-induced drug-free frenzy–and that the only reason I felt good about it, looked forward to it, is because it fueled me with a sense of dignity just to be able to say I was going to do it–but when push comes to shove, would I regret it? Would I give up, saying to myself: I only wanted to say I was going to do it, not actually do it.

But thank God that’s over. I’m a little bit passed my third week, and I actually feel really good. Part of that, I’m sure, must be my body’s energy still working its way up to higher levels (although I don’t expect that to go on indefinitely–otherwise by the end of my previous caffeine stints, I would have been crazier than the mad hatter), but part of it is also (I think) self-confidence (more on this below). I gave myself a good figurative slap a few days ago (maybe it was a week ago) about even thinking of giving up my goal: so you’re just going to let a few withdrawal symptoms, plus the dull boredom and feelings of nothingness (which you’ve always known will come), convince you to give up the goal you’ve been building up for years, the goal that will secure for you immeasurable benefits and forms of self-improvement? What were you nuts?! So yeah, I’m back in the saddle now. Happy to be single and generally enjoying life (not that I don’t want to be in love, but at least its absence isn’t making me depressed).

The confidence thing: one lesson I’m learning during this stint is to watch for the distinction between feeling good and being good. I’ve learned that just because I don’t feel a “buzz” doesn’t mean I can’t be on fire. In the past week in particular, I’ve been far more extroverted at work, and a lot more playful with my kids, than I thought I could be sans caffeine. This is not something I observed during my past stints–not that it wasn’t there, but I never really posed the question to myself: can you still be on fire without feeling the caffeine buzz? And I find it comes out when it needs to, when my brain and body sense that now’s the time to start churning out idea, expressing thoughts in a professional and intelligent way, to show people what you’ve got–and it’s there, it comes out when the occasion calls for it. I don’t necessarily have to feel it subjective, on the inside, for it to be there in reality. Whereas outside these stints, I’d derive the satisfaction of feeling like I was so frickin’ awesome, that I could be on fire anytime I wanted, through the drugs, but most likely, in the eyes of others, I was annoying and irritating (I actually got this kind of feedback a few times while drunk and caffeinated at the bar–despite how I thought I was coming across), and the lesson here is that this is to be contrasted with not feeling so awesome and on fire subjectively but it nevertheless comes out that way anyway when performing in front of others. And I get to have my cake and eat it too: once I start noticing this about myself, I do feel good about myself–so it’s more of an “earned” good feeling–I get off the drugs, I perform significantly better, people see this, I feel more confident in myself, I earn the right to feel good about myself–as opposed to a “cheat” feel good where I bypass that whole process by injecting a drug into my brain directly to give myself the illusion of being awesome and on fire (and maybe I am–drugs can be a performance enhancer–but I’m definitely of no sound mind to judge my own performance objectively, so you can bet the distortions are there in my self-perception). ← Summer of 2018 would definitely be a good career move.

As for the cannabinoids, they’ve been doing some good for me. Without the caffeine and alcohol, I feel like I’m in a bit more control of my trips than otherwise. They’ve also been good for reminding me of how I should be looking at all this. It’s like once the cannabinoids enter my brain, they shift my head and force me to look in a different direction, as if saying: “no, no, no, you’re looking at this all wrong–you’re looking over there–where you should be looking is over here.” ← Sort of being a kind of symbiotic coach, adjusting my thoughts and ways of looking at things such as to remind me of the more positive visors through which to be looking. For example, I was reminded on a few stoned occasions what one of the original goals to these exercises was: that of “letting go,” of learning the skill of detachment. It’s inspired by Eastern/Buddhist ideas that say that the happiest life is that of utter detachment from the material things of this world, of cravings and desires. While I’m not going the route of the devout Buddhist monk, these exercises have always been about letting go of the attachments in my life which aren’t doing me any good, which are holding me back, and could one day lead to my own self-destruction. Ever since I got excited about the prospect of taking at least a year off (maybe one and a half) starting summer 2018, I’ve been planning all the things I want to do once that starts–like taking my little contracting business and turning it into a small business, taking a Dale Carnegie course, getting a tattoo, and so on. But it’s not easy making all these plans for my life without them turning into just more attachments. Albeit, I would consider them healthy attachments, which is what distinguishes this path from that of the Buddhist monk, but attachments can be very tricky nonetheless, and one must be careful. In all this, I had forgotten for a good while that the whole point of this exercise was to free myself of attachments, at least the unhealthy ones, and the drugs helped me to remember that. I’m not rethinking my goals for post-summer 2018, but I need to be ready to apply one of the most valuable lessons these past few years have taught me: how to detach (if necessary)–otherwise I’d have to put myself through another 5 year plan like this one.

And more to the point, it’s reminded me that a lack of excitement, of meaning, of deep significance to my life–those things the drugs helped me feel–can be as much a peaceful quiet as it can an agonizing deprivation. That thought brought me some solace. It brought me a perspective that worked (at least temporarily), a perspective according to which this emptiness I felt, this nothingness, wasn’t a negative, it wasn’t some trial of agony, but just nothingness–neither good nor bad–just an empty neutrality. There was nothing to cry woe over. It was a peaceful calm. I didn’t have to worry about whether I was going to amount to anything, whether I’d find love, whether my life would be nearly as exciting as it is while high on drugs–just things the way they are, even if that’s just blah, is nothing over which to worry. It’s a platform from which to begin your life. Things can only go up from there.

That perspective lasted until the next day when my brain returned to sober reality and my usual thought patterns took hold again (old habits die hard), but at least from that point on I tried to look at things from that perspective. And I think that’s probably when things started turning around for me. That was about a week ago. And with all the ego-boosting performances I’ve displayed to others (at work, with my kids, at the bar, drinking virgin caesars) in the last week, and with my body’s natural energy levels returning (even to the point where, in the last couple days, I’ve felt the butterflies-in-the-stomach typical of a caffeine overdose), this stint has turned around and I’m liking the results. I do want to feel this way all the time.

Now what about the alcohol? ← Not much to say there over and above any of my past stints. The usual still applies: save on money, no hangovers means more gets done, it helps keep the weight off during my dieting months, and with my natural body energy levels returning, making me a bit more extroverted, I don’t need booz as much to socialize and be talkative. But definitely, caffeine is the main culprit in my life, holding me back physically, psychologically, and spiritually. The alcohol, of course, ain’t good for me either, and it’s gotta go too, but there’s a reason I call myself a conditional alcoholic: my alcoholism depends on caffeine–I really only get the urge to drink when I’m jacked. So, with the caffeine will go the alcohol. The cannabinoids, on the other hand, are a different matter. I’m not entirely convinced they’re harming me. They are, nonetheless, one out of the three I plan on quitting for good come the summer of 2018, but during my first two weeks of the current stint, and their tendency to shift my head in a more positive direction (at least when not drunk or jacked up), had me thinking that at the end of the 1 year stint of no drugs or alcohol (most likely a year and a half), maybe I should take up the cannabinoids again. But I’ve since tossed that idea and returned to the original plan–part of the figurative slap I gave myself. Nevertheless, I don’t think that would be such a bad idea as I do believe the cannabinoids are the least of my problems out of the three drug categories.

So why am I making such a drama out of these last three weeks? It’s not just the short period of feeling the pain of deprivation, not just my feelings of self-doubt and questioning what I’ll amount to, but in a weird way I sort of believe in what Terrance McKenna called “resonance”–that is, the theory that patterns in time repeat on lower and higher scales, like patterns in a fractal–and that these two months, starting on June 1st, are representative of my full year (most likely a year and a half), also starting on June 1st. It’s raised the dreading question: is this what it’s going to feel like? I can only hope, if this is resonance, that the first two weeks remains the first two weeks–that is to say, the representation is not to scale. I’d hate to think that the first two weeks of depression and deprivation of this stint is going to translate into several months of depression and deprivation starting June 1 of 2018. It’s really made me think about what I’m getting myself into, whether I really want this or not. And I know that no matter what I happens, the total lack of fun times on drugs and the addictive buzz I get from them will be the first thing to sink in, and it will probably hit hard. But this third week has really paid off, and I’m glad I pushed through it. If this continues on the upward path, then I also hope, assuming the representation really is to scale, that so too will be the rewards.

It’s been a little over a month now, and I thought I’d jot down some more notes.

On June 24 when I last posted, I was feeling pretty good. In the last week that’s waned a little. Not much, just a little. It comes and goes. Nothing to get all worked up over. My energy levels (and thus my emotional state) still depend on a lot of things, three of which are: sleep, confidence levels, and life stuff. IIRC the night before the 24th, I was flirting with a cute bar tender at a local Moxie’s, and she was responding favorably, boosted my ego.

There’s also the drudgery of Mondays. I swear sleeping on weekends is what causes Mondays to be sluggish. It’s still way better than when I do caffeine though. Then I stayed up late on a Tuesday and a Wednesday, which made the days following a little sluggish, falling asleep at my desk more than once.

Not much to report in the way of life stuff–life carries on as usual–but you obvious get why this can be a factor.

I’ve definitely plateaued. Beyond three weeks, natural body levels of energy don’t seem to keeping going up–they simply begin to fluctuate around a higher mean–which overall is a good experience. But I can’t say the words “I wish I could feel like this everyday,” not like on the 24th ← Those moments remain rare. But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing–it just marks ground zero–the point at which I’d have to say I’m at my lowest. From there, it’s up to me to find ways to give myself little boosts–flirt with cute girls, get more sleep, whatever it takes–real life, not drugs, right?

Well, keep going. You’re bound to get somewhere with it. Stumbles happen.

Well, as long as I can make my life somewhat interesting. Anything’s better than dull repetitive drudgery. I don’t want my life story to consist only of: he got up, went to work, slaved away for the man, came home, ate supper, watched TV, went to sleep, then repeated again every day of his life. I think even if the experience of total sobriety is crushingly disappointing, at least its a more interesting story to tell than: he just did drugs all his life.

Well, you can expect them to say this at the least: ‘He tried to quit drugs, but his mother never told him not to be a quitter and so he tried and tried, but never quite made it. Just gave up and went back to drugs thinking he was a double loser instead of thinking of ways around the problem.’

Monday was my last day. Was too busy Tuesday to post anything. Had a coke in the morning, then half a coffee in the afternoon, and finally a couple glasses of wine in the evening. Only so much you can do on a Tuesday. This Saturday though, getting caffeinated, drunk, stoned, and listening to my latest music mix (it’s a tradition).

So since last time I posted, not too much has changed. July continued to fluctuate around a higher mean of energy, alertness, and mood. A pattern that I noticed is that Mondays are usually rough and gradually get better as Friday approach. As I said, the days when I really feel good enough to say: “I could live with this,” or “I wanna feel like this all the time,” are far and few between but the three (maybe four) times they occurred since the beginning of June were on Fridays. Then I allow myself to sleep in a bit on weekends, and I think that’s what does me in on Monday. So if I truly want high energy, good feelings, etc., I need to cut out sleeping in (or significantly reduce it). shudder

As usual, with fewer hangovers and less caffeine withdrawal, I get more work done, and even with the cannabinoids, I don’t lose much productivity (although the cannabinoids do cause me to lose sleep when I want to smoke up before I go to bed; stimulates the creative centers of my brain and makes me want to stay up). I need afternoon naps far less than I do when I’m on my usual routine (though fatigue does come over me once in a while). The only thing missing is the buzz. So I don’t feel good per se, just normal, but I have to remind myself that this is a real plus when compared to fatigue and drudgery I have to wade through on other occasions.

I found that I post way less idle chit-chat at ILP during these past couple months. This isn’t to say I’ve been avoiding ILP, just that when I come here, I don’t feel like chatting much, just working on my major projects (Rick and Morty and Gabriel’s Space Odyssey). Chit-chat at ILP is something I do for fun, and it’s only really fun if I’m jacked or drunk (stoned too by I’ve learned my lesson there). Working on my projects becomes more fun when I’m not.

This time around was different from all the other stints. For the first time, I was not looking forward to 2018. Why now? Maybe June 1 represents the 1 year mark? Maybe knowing that it’s less than a year away fills me with a sense of loss already? I mean, like I said, there was only the occasional Friday when I felt good enough to be satisfied with this as a way of life, so the prospect that the rest of the time was pretty representative of the way my life is going to be after the summer of 2018 starts to feel disappointing. I do have to remind myself, however, that many of the perks of a drug free life don’t come in the form of subjective good feelings–ex. more productivity, sharper mind, just a lack of fatigue and moodiness, benefits to my children, things I’m able to say about myself, etc. But still, for the first time, I feel myself having doubts.

I abhor the dullness of a drug free life, and I’ve been starting to think that this affects my self-image–if my life is dull, then I’m dull. Who would take an interest in me? Of course, I don’t think the alternative is that promising either. Who would take an interest in an alcoholic and druggy? But what comes to mind are the occasions in the past when I went out to the bar with a mix of caffeine and alcohol in my blood and was able to make an impression on people with my wit, my sense of humor, my creativity, and sharp thinking–and overall I get a kick out of these moments (mind you, I’m also aware that this is probably in part a self-imposed imagine of what I think is the impression I’m giving other people–like I said earlier, there was more than one occasion when the person I was talking to said I was more annoying than anything else). But this is why this whole path I’m on is going to require a lot of self-reminding. First and foremost, it will require reminding myself that the time in my life has begun for working at building excitement and meaning into my life–no more quick fixes, no more magic wand. The lowering of inhibition and heightening of sociability that I get with alcohol is a matter of self-confidence and learning to not hesitate. The quick and creative thinking that I get with caffeine is a matter of energy and sharp thinking. The energy will be challenging, might have to seek the advice of specialists. The sharp thinking will be even more of a challenge as that, if anything, is most likely to be genetically hardwired (I’m reminded of myelinated sheaths covering the axons of neurons, the function of which is to speed up the signal going down the axon). Quick thinking on my feet has never been a strong point for me–I’m more of a reflector, I need to digest what I read and what other people say before I can give a meaningful response–unlike how I am when I’m caffeinated. ← How can these things be exercised naturally? Well, I’m open minded to the possibility of change–the brain is very malleable, and I know my brain is capable of entering the states I want, just that so far it’s required drugs. So it’s not that my brain is incapable of achieving these states, just that I have to find another way.

Anyway, here’s the chart:

drug chart - June 1 2017 - July 31 2017.png

One more of these to go!

From Jan 1 to Feb 28 2018, I will be consuming no drugs or caffeine, only alcohol.

I expect this round to be a little awkward. Usually I’m not that much of an alcoholic without my caffeine (though I wouldn’t say I’m not an alcoholic without my caffeine), and I want to play this out naturally–that is, according to whim. Which means not drinking as much as a I usually do. But this throws off the experiment. I want to see what life is like with only alcohol in the picture, and to the same degree, not a lesser degree. So I might try to stick to my usual routine, at least on Fridays/Saturdays. ← But that seems a little odd… to force myself to drink when I don’t really feel like it, or at least as much? As I said, a bit awkward, but I’ll figure it out.

Anyway, this will be the last stint before July 1 2018 when I quit all drugs and alcohol for at least a year, probably more like 2 years. It’s fast approaching.

Hello ILP club, did you miss me? Well, I didn’t miss you.

I have a lot to report, but not today. Got no time, and don’t have the energy. But today is March 1 and just wanted to say I did it (again). Will have more to say on Saturday.

Peace motherfuckers. :obscene-birdiedoublered: :banana-fingers:

:laughing:

Look forward to it; )

I can always count on you, MagsJ. :wink: