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Achtane wrote:I haven't gotten a new piece of gear in 2 YEARS WHAT
I only really miss the Big Spider, though.

I was actually curious about this. I remember some of your crazy diy stuff you were doing to try and scratche the itch of that new gear gas. It was super cool stuff

Aww.
There's just no room for my music shit with our current living situation. Barely room for any of our non-hobby things as it is. My Peavey bass amp needs a recap and sounds like ass, and the Valve Junior is...somewhere? Probably in a box buroes under other boxes. Sigh.

One day I'll get back to it. Lately my lust for messing with music gear has been applied to lust for shitbox car fleet maintenance.

Achtane wrote:Aww.
There's just no room for my music shit with our current living situation. Barely room for any of our non-hobby things as it is. My Peavey bass amp needs a recap and sounds like ass, and the Valve Junior is...somewhere? Probably in a box buroes under other boxes. Sigh.

One day I'll get back to it. Lately my lust for messing with music gear has been applied to lust for shitbox car fleet maintenance.

That makes sense. Cars are expensive, and cramped spaces really suck the fun out of music making. I'm in a similar situation, so, my biggest gas is for a bigger place to live

I don't like talking about this at all and I know it's something that will be an ongoing issue in my life.

I feel as if I've failed myself once again. I'm coming up on 8 years sober from alcohol, but it's been destroyed by the fact that I haven't truly been sober for 8 years. I have not taken a drink, although for the last several months or longer, I've felt as if I'm on the verge of a relapse.

Over the last several years, I've allowed myself to get into that trap of "this is ok because it's not alcohol". I've been having issues with some drugs again for the last fuck, like 4 months? Something like that. I allowed myself to be fooled by another into believing that marijuana is not the same as a drug and used a few times. Then I found myself ordering kratom (which has great benefits when used right). Before I knew it, I was taking kratom every other day and not small doses because I can't feel it if it's small. No mega fucking doses. Then I wake up the next day, hazy, unsure of if I did something stupid or remembering something stupid I did the previous night. It hit me again and I realized something, I'm not just an alcoholic, I'm a fucking addict. I know I am and I've known forever, but I lie to myself. I lie all the time to make justifications for it. It's a sickness.

So the other day I asked my wife for help and to get that shit out of the house, it's still here because she forgot, but I'm not going to take it today and I'm going to force her to remove it tonight as I do not have the will power to do it myself.

I've abused several different drugs this last couple of years and I've been able to mask it as something I needed and said "I just want to escape, so that's not a big problem". It is however. It's a huge problem and I've allowed myself to piss away all my sobriety by lying about being sober to myself and others. I haven't been sober for 8 years. I been dry and abusing drugs off and on. It did take about 5 years before I took a drug, so I guess I was strong for awhile, but I feel like a fucking failure.

This has a lot to do with my depression issues and I know it. I know that's what's bringing me down. It sucks.

Today is a new day though and I'm going to stop it. I have no choice. I've done it before and I can do it again. If I have to lose every fucking relationship I have because people are toxic and cannot accept I'm an addict, so be it. I'm going to start going to meetings again as well. That's where I fucked up. I stopped. I never should have stopped, but I cannot dwell on the past. I have to move forward. There is no going back.

In a way I'm thankful for the troubles I've had. It's allowed me to learn that even after all these years, I can be weak and need to stay on point. I cannot allow people to persuade me or say things that will make me second guess my life decisions. I must be a rock and be able to process emotions in a healthy way.

Sorry if this is a Debbie Downer, but I needed to get this out. Thanks guys.

Addiction is sneaky as fuck. It will outsmart you if you let your guard down.

Sounds like you're being really firm with yourself, which is good. But also try being gentle with yourself. Too often we don't forgive ourselves in the ways that we would forgive others.

It's hard being human.

jwar wrote: Sorry if this is a Debbie Downer, but I needed to get this out. Thanks guys.

This is what ILF exists for.

Don't get too down on yourself man. Mistakes are one thing, everybody makes em. Being a failure is completely different. As you probably know, depression is an illness that clouds your judgement, making it really difficult to not let a couple of mistakes overshadow your mind. I'm currently on antabuse again, 3rd time since I was 17. I'm smoking weed daily again, after not smoking for a year, but I don't even like it. I just smoke to take the edge off, but then I wind up not getting shit done, which makes me even more on edge. Shit's weak.

Cannabis is healthy and if used with right mind set and with right people can open a better train of thought, just easy to want to ride that train all time...then the world passes you by...if someones forcing you like "oh, man your weak/lame" then fuck that and them....alcohol yeah if ya had your fun, stay firm..enough is enough....already went over this in depression thread...your kids...eating right, meditation big time..yoga breathing incorporated into workouts...spend more time in nature and ocupy your mind with your child's future...that should get your mind off wanting a fix cuz that's the ultimate fix.
Hear ya on having emotions drag you down....somtimes if I can't find a solution and I feel awful in a way I can't explain IL try to sleep it off, new days a new day.

Addiction is sneaky and will mess with you, but every single one of us, whatever our degree of addict-ness, circles around to whatever dumb behavior we gravitate toward.

It doesn't sound like you were out of your gourd the whole time, just that you ended up finding another substance that was problematic.

Good on you to kick it out of your life, but it sounds like you're beating yourself up a lot.

I'm a public defender in criminal court, and one of my clients, when I seemed stressed out (by his crazy mother, TBH) showed me a weird relaxation technique that he's developed where he sort of took a deep breath, and then flapped his arms around like a baby bird as he exhaled. He said it got him through 10 years in prison.

Anyway that helps. As does recognizing that falling prey to addictive behavior ain't nothing more than fucking up, so as you exhale while flapping your arms you just say, "I fucked up" and let the self-hatred go.

Ive never owned a car...and I've only drove down a naborhood street 2 or 3 times...and that was more than 10 yrs ago. .......had it all planned out to get a license this year....but I can't afford insurance...was just looking at the automotive thread and got bummed out...

comesect2.0 wrote:Ive never owned a car...and I've only drove down a naborhood street 2 or 3 times...and that was more than 10 yrs ago. .......had it all planned out to get a license this year....but I can't afford insurance...was just looking at the automotive thread and got bummed out...

I've never been behind the wheel of a car, nor do I intend to. Don't know if it might be worse in the US though - how is your collective transport?

We are exceptional at public transportation. Just like we are at everything else.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... sm/254534/

Jwar—

Don't beat yourself up, man. I know exactly how that feels—I went through a very similar thing recently. I hadn't had a drink in two years and was at a festival with my best friend—I wasn't tempted by anything in particular, but for some reason I was just like "I'm gonna have some beers." No warning, just snuck up on me. Didn't even feel like a big event, but nonetheless lost all that time I'd built up (since the last time I slipped) and caused a couple months of trouble.

I'm back to not drinking, and it irks me that I'm back to building days before months then years, but it's ok. We're human, and we fail—every single fucking person does this in some form or fashion. It wouldn't be normal if we didn't. Hope you're feeling better, man—of course feel free to shoot me a message anytime if you wanna chat.

I didn't get my license until I was like 23...but I drove anyway