There and back again

I have treated my body as a thing, something that is here in this world with me. Sometimes I have been good to my body with exercise and good habits. But over the years when depression took hold, and alcohol became my go to for pain relief, and life turned from normal to difficult, I didn’t care about my body or myself. I feel strangely disjointed from my body. Me as in myself is something different that lives in my body somehow. The unlikely miracle of being born, is way less likely than to win the biggest money lottery in the world. For people that actually win the money lottery, there is no guarantee for happiness, and neither is winning the lottery of life. I would not treat my belongings as badly as I have treated my body. By drinking too much, not eating, not sleeping properly, not exercising and otherwise ignoring other warning signs and pain. I am actually very happy with my body, and lucky as I haven't done anything for it. Except I guess thinning hair, a bit flab here and...

So, as I have mentioned before in this blog, lots of my blogging comes from the “This Naked Mind” course I am doing. It is a year-long course, with daily tasks and online group calls. There is an online community, where we are encouraged to share our troubles and our wins. It is mostly directed towards alcohol use disorder, but it deals with life in general. One thing lot’s of us in this community are collecting is “Data Points”. In other circles, they are often referred to as relapse, laps, setback or bender. And they all refer to falling back into old ways and habits. I have had plenty of them all, and over time they have become more and more troublesome.  And harder and harder to control. I have now understood some of the reasons for this.  Instead of giving yourself compassion and self care, you give yourself harsh self-talk, on how useless, worthless, stupid, weak and how you actually deserve the punishment alcohol is.  The new way is to take it for what it is, your ...

Taken from  This Naked Mind "The ACT Technique is a process I’ve developed through many of my teachers (Dave Gray, Byron Katie, and many others) to harness and change your thoughts, your emotions and desire, and ultimately your behavior and habits. To make true and lasting change we have to change our feelings about the behavior we want to achieve. When you change your thoughts, your feelings, your behaviors, and your habits. You can change your entire life......"   Awareness:   I drink because I want to get away from the pain the withdrawals create. I drink because it has become a habit. I use alcohol to escape from feelings I don’t manage to deal with and to quiet my brain. I get drunk to make the rest of the day go away. I keep on drinking after the first drink, and I can not stop. Clearety: Alcohol relieves stress by slowing down your brain. Alcohol is a depressant, and our brain contra-act this by releasing adrenaline and cortisol. This is what gives us the feeling o...

We experience life through our senses. Alcohol will num these senses and make our experience less clear. The raw sensory data is being processed so fast, and very hard wired in the brain, and there is not much we can do about this. Think of it as burning your fingers or something hot, the reaction is almost instant. My guess is that our sensor data would be quite the same for all humans, up until we get into the brain part where our thinking is done. This is where we start to think about the feelings the input data has left us with. A burnt finger might result in a feeling of anger, annoyance or surprise maybe. Someone smiling at you could lead to a whole range of emotions depending on your previous experience and the current situation. We have little control over the first wave of feelings that comes to us. The pathways in our brain are formed over time, and automate much of the processing we need to do. The important thing to know is that these paths can be changed, just like paths i...

The little act that set us off. I think I have always been super sensitive to my own emotions. And not knowing how to talk about them, or in general how to process them, has been problematic for me. The way I have used to deal with it has changed over the years, as a young boy I would cry and be sad. And it would stay with me until the next morning, where I had a fresh start, yesterday's problems gone with the night. The unpleasant feeling of sitting with something not resolved, will take its toll. Having strong opinions and no outlet is another way of brewing resentment and disappointment. How I have ended up with this issue is still a bit of a mystery. I have identified one key thing that I think is relevant. I don’t ask to have my needs met. While being with my x-wife, who was very entitled and definitely knew how to get things her way, I became even more subdued and even less willing to say yes to things, or good forbids, to ask for anything. My best known technique from most c...

I judge others on what they say and do. So language plays a big part of my life. Not just spoken but written and spoken internally in my mind. And in your mind language can merge with images and feelings. The feelings I have can be difficult to express with words, and I often fail doing so. The feelings often just stay, simmering in my gut. Depression is the inability to imagine a positive future in your mind. And depression feeds on its own misery. My metaphor for this is when you are in a deep pit, and need to get out, you don’t, but instead you dig deeper. In the end you get confused and blinded. I spent a lot of time predicting the future, and looking back at the past. Nobody can predict the future or change the past. I have been stuck in predicting negative futures for myself, and by predicting it, I somehow make it come true. Today's gold nugget is this: When I can’t predict the future, and I am literally just making it up, why not tweak it a little bit, so it is a bit bright...

Well, it's my birthday today and that is not a day I would normally enjoy. When I was little I think I had so much anticipation, that when it was all over I ended in tears. Not because anything was wrong, just the scale of the release I guess. As I got older birthdays became more difficult, and I really stopped enjoying it. I often ended up drinking to cope with social stress and the urge for a euphoric feeling. I have pictures of me with the birthday party ending in my bed with guests surrounding me, and me passed out in the middle. Not really a celebration I am proud of, wanted or remember. But I am sure it was fun! And that is weird saying, "We must have had fun as I can't remember it". This pinpoint the seriousness about the drug. Turning 40 was a big scary moment, and I didn't want any celebration. I had started my slowly sinking into depression, but didn't realize at the moment. One thing I remember was that someone else wanted to celebrate me and canape...

Since the question is what kind of beliefs do you have about alcohol, I am happy to say that this has changed greatly from what I believed before. I have always known that alcohol was bad for me, and I still know that as a fact. But now I see it more clearly for what it actually is. It is an addictive substance that gives you a short lived euphoria, relaxation and pain relief. This change is pleasant and wanted, and that’s why I drink. To keep up with this altered reality, I have to keep the blood alcohol ratio increasing, and this is the first hint of something that is addictive, you need more. My beliefs around alcohol have been formed since I was a toddler. And in many ways it’s like a religion. You believe what your parents and society presents to you, and take it onboard as a fact. This is a bit like the movie “The Matrix”, when you see it you see it. Now, to the dark side. All the negative aspects of alcohol. The graph, from its peak, goes down with the feeling of sadness, emptin...

This post will start my open journaling, where I talk about myself and the people around me, what I think about, how I feel and whatever else I feel like putting down on paper. It is nothing more to it really. Hopefully I can keep it up, and since it is public I will have some sense of acountability. I have no expectation of anyone actually reading it, other then my parents maybe, and maybe my kids when they get older. So that is that from today, I wish myself good luck.