CommunistBear [he/him]

This week has been a mixed bag for me. I had a few days where I didn’t drink at all. I also had a few days where I started drinking basically as soon as I woke up and didn’t stop until I fell asleep. Falling off the wagon is difficult because all of my worst habits feel like they got dialed up an extra notch or two. I’ve been entertaining the idea of smoking weed again to stop drinking but I can’t tell if I’m just deluding myself to start smoking weed again after ~8 months. On one hand, when I smoke I don’t drink anymore and I’m genuinely worried that I need the assistance. On the other hand, is this just falling off the wagon v2? I guess I’ll see how well I do this week to know if I need the help or not.

On a positive note: I’ve been lifting more. I often forget how strong I actually am. Turns out having a physically demanding job just naturally builds muscle over time. I weighed myself at 195 the other day, which is the most I’ve literally ever weighed. Most of my gains are probably liquor weight and cooking at home more. But I still have a 4 pack bordering on a 6? I still have cum gutters? I just need to get my shit together on the drinking and keep lifting and I’ll be my goal of a Communist himbo.

This week was pretty good. While not fully back on the wagon I was pretty limited with my drinking. No more starting at 7am and continuing on all day. I didn’t drink at all a few days and then only drank in social settings in the times I did drink.

I helped a friend of mine film a movie. The process was really interesting to see in person. I would love to do more stuff like that since interacting with so many new people was really good for my brain.

I also started lifting again this week. My legs are currently jello from squatting. On top of being bigger and stronger in a general sense, one of my goals is to have a thick, dump truck of an ass just to frustrate the various hetero women and gay men in my life. This is endlessly funny to me

Turns out getting back on the wagon when your heart isn’t in it is harder than I thought. I bought a fifth of rum and drank it in 2 days. Life is just kind of miserable and this little bit of escapism helps in a way I need it to. I need to make a whole bunch of changes before not drinking becomes a serious option for the long term and I fear those changes are harder than I can manage. Seeing the absolute depravity of the world and being completely helpless to do anything productive about it sure as fuck doesn’t help either. Shit is hard and I just wish I had a reasonable path towards a better future

Today is day one of not drinking again. I drank something like 3 liters in a week or so and my insides started hurting. I drank so much that in the maybe week and a half that I was drinking again I put on 9-10 lbs. I really need to figure out why I drink so hard when I do drink because if it’s not alcohol it’s something else. Or, as my 6 months of sobriety showed, eventually the same reason I drank to begin with reared it’s ugly head again and I’m into another bender.

The only thing I’ve managed to be consistent with is not missing a day riding my motorcycle. Through rain and shine, hot and now cold I keep riding. There’s something weirdly appealing about riding in shitty conditions. And now that it’s getting cold out, I’ve been getting a lot of cold rides in.

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted in one of these threads. After a sustained few weeks of increasingly worse mental health I fell off the wagon and fell off hard. I have been drunk every day for the past week and a half or so. I don’t even really feel that bad about it tbh. In total, I went just about 6 months without drinking. My fall back into drinking happened pretty quick. On a particularly shitty day I saw a bottle that was kept around and decided “fuck it” and had 3 shots in quick succession. From that point on I quickly fell back into my old drinking habits. I know I should get back on the wagon sooner than later but I’m probably gonna indulge myself a bit before drying out again. It feels like the only thing in my life that I get to decide is my own drinking and as a result, when I’m feeling increasingly hopeless and out of control of my own life, drinking feels like a way I can have agency for once. I know it’s a poor coping mechanism but it feels like the only one that I can have right now.

September has not been great for me. This is probably the worst my mental health has been in a while. I’m in my “I want to run away and start over somewhere new” phase that I know is an impossibility. I wish I had an actionable plan to get my shit together and improve my life but it feels like so many avenues are just cut off for me. I feel like I have no agency in my own life. I don’t get to do what I want on a day to day basis and, largely speaking, I don’t know what the fuck I want to do because I so rarely have any agency that it feels like that part of my brain is atrophying away.

Not much has changed for me in the two weeks since I’ve posted here. My stomach issues are gone and I am completely clueless on what the cause was. My assumption was a stomach bug of some kind.

I have maintained my sobriety streak and am closing in on 5 months now. I’ve recently gotten the urge to drink or smoke again, which is more of an urge than normal, and it’s likely due to being bored as shit at work right now.

I’m starting up a second DND group/campaign in the near future which is exciting. Although I’m cursed to forever DM, and thus never get to actually play what I want, it’s still fun to have the creativity juices flowing in my brain. My silly voices and accents have gotten much better now that I’m forcing myself to do them all the time.

Things have been rough the past few weeks. my stomach problems have largely gone away but I’m still unsure what the issue was in the first place. It could be something as simple as I caught a stomach bug but there are dozens of other potential things it could be. However since I don’t have insurance I guess I’ll never know.

My body is tired. I helped my in laws move a shitload of antique furniture on Sunday as well as having an outdoor event for work that included hauling ~50lbs of product on my motorcycle on Saturday and then standing in the sun/heat for ~6 hours. On top of my regular job consisting of moving heavy shit all the time. Suffice to say I’m impressed at my bodies strength at times considering I don’t lift weights outside of life. I really wish I had a home gym to lift because I am adamantly refusing to go to gyms anymore.

All that being said, I have maintained my sobriety streak still. I don’t really have any goals besides keep on keeping on. I wish I could pivot to a new job but I honestly feel trapped at this point. Getting out of this line of work feels insurmountable given my lack of education/credentials.

Chicks rock

I have been shidding out my doodoo ass for several days now. I am miserable. I have no idea what’s wrong but I’m really hoping my symptoms improve soon. No other updates besides more of the same

I really didn’t do shit this past week. I ate out pretty much every lunch and dinner. I did basically zero physical activity. I didn’t drink or smoke so I’ve maintained that but instead have been losing tremendous amounts of sleep because I have become obsessed with Baldur’s Gate 3. Other than that, I hit 1000 miles on my motorcycle and still love every second of it.

I’ve gone through a similar process and unironically it was harder than stopping smoking weed or stopping drinking. There was a point where I was drinking 2 or more energy drinks a day and taking caffeine pills. At this point I’m down to 1 tea in the morning and maybe a coke or a soda later in the day.

Weening yourself down is by far the best bet. Going cold turkey will inevitably make you irritable as fuck and give you intense headaches as well. On top of being more or less dead to the world from lethargy for a week+. Don’t be afraid to have a small maintenance dose to keep the headaches away if you’re weening too quickly. This was my experience on cutting back though, I’ve heard of people who don’t get the headaches

I believe in you comrade! Best of luck in your efforts

Rough week this past week. This was the closest I came to drinking again out of a sheer sense of despair. I’m tired of feeling like I’m stagnating in life. I’ve made improvements for sure but from time to time it all just feels meaningless and like I’m not really doing much. I wish I had a formal education. I wish I had a job that paid enough to actually afford real things. I wish my life was different. But some of that really isn’t possible to change and that feeling is what brought me low.

I didn’t end up drinking. Instead, I did some borderline reckless shit and took my motorcycle off-road for a bit. It was immensely fun and did help bring me out of my funk but I can’t help but think that I’ve replaced one borderline self-destructive coping mechanism for another. It was sweet as hell though and off-roading is absolutely something I will seek out more.

I need to find a physical outlet again since just doing body weight exercises is boring as hell to me. And I hate going to the gym because it’s always crowded as shit and a cesspool of breathing each others air. I want to rock climb again but the price is a huge disincentive for how regularly I would want to be going. Thankfully my job still keeps me active but I’d prefer something more recreational and not just moving 5000 lbs stacks of barrels.

Could be interesting. Finally getting a good version of Doom would be pretty cool

Gainz is no kidding. For the longest time I thought I was a “hardgainer” but no, more realistically it was probably just drinking far too much. It really is amazing the health problems that have just completely vanished once I stopped dumping half a liter of liquor into my body a day

Maintained my sobriety streak for another week. It gets easier and easier to not drink at this point. My partner has also gotten slightly jealous of how I’m feeling and how my body has been changing so she has decided to join me in not drinking.

I’m back up to a weight I’m happy with now that I’m consistently eating 3 meals a day and my digestive system isn’t constantly being fucked over with alcohol. I’m still not exercising enough but given that my job is quite physical I still get some physical activity day to day.

I rode 100+ miles on my motorcycle this weekend. I really want to start doing some off-road stuff soon. It’s a dual sport with knobby tires so it can handle it so it’s mostly just me learning how and gaining confidence with it. I took it on a gravel path and rode it around a grass field which was very tame but more fun that I thought it would be. Unfortunately there are no good places near me with any kind of dedicated off-roading but as long as I’m ok with ~an hour ride out there are some places I’ve found.

That’s literally the starting area ffs

Nothing really eventful happened this past week for me tbh. I maintained my sobriety streak. I’ve maintained my eating and did light exercise. I went on a 4 hour round trip motorcycle ride that left my butt and shoulders sore for like 4 days since my partner was on the back. I swam in a lake and had a beautiful day in the sun. For some reason or another I’m have zero issue with the heat despite everyone else in my life seemingly struggling hard with it.

The big thing I want to work on improving now is my employment. It’s not a great fit for me at this point and the pay is mediocre as best with zero benefits. I had put off finding a new job for a while now because my work commute is so short but the feeling that I’m wasting my life in this place is becoming overwhelming. I have no real education (associates degree gang) so my options are pretty limited. I have a shitload of experience but have no idea how well that would translate over to different fields

My sobriety streak continues, just shy of 3 months now. Some perks to not drinking/smoking all the time that I’ve noticed for any who might be on the fence:

• My digestive system is significantly better and my poops are genuinely fantastic.
• My libido and general sexual health have wildly improved to the point that I feel easily 10 years younger
• My sleep is fantastic and I’m able to fall asleep in <10 minutes every night and stay asleep the entire time
• My physique is changing in a noticable way and muscle seems to come on way easier and faster than I expected.
• My energy levels are consistent and much higher
• My sinuses have all but completely cleared up and my nose hasn’t been stuffy at all

I’m sure there is more but these are the easily noticeable ones. I want to thank this community in particular for being the supportive nudge in the right direction to get my shit a little bit more together. Seeing others here do better was a genuine inspiration for me and I’m so glad I decided to start. I wish you all the best in your journeys to do and be better than the day before.

My goals remain as before: maintain the good work I’ve put in and build from there. Do more fitness activities, be more social with friends, continue to eat well, and maybe start reading again.