Day 17. Less than 2 weeks to Day 30. More than half way. I must get stuff done today. Organise my party game. Sort out pension money. err that seems to be it. What's all that crap on my desk about then? Perhaps I should look and have a tidy / clear out, instead of worrying about it.
Hooray, Netflix is working again. So I fall asleep watching Designated Survivor S2 Ep4.
I seem a) to be being asked out a lot b) saying yes to everything c) getting slightly panicky. Very aware that overload leads to the old work (i.e going out and "enjoying" myself) / reward thing (i.e. getting hammered). And it's not really overload, just the unusual experience of trying to do at least one constructive / useful thing a day, and going out and enjoying myself more than once a fortnight. I'm basically out of condition as far as social life is concerned. So maybe the practice is a good idea.
As B said somewhere, don't expect perfection. Aim for it, be pleased if I get close or closer than usual, but don't beat myself up or start feeling self pity / contempt because I missed a meditation, or didn't have time for breakfast. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
Things to really try and avoid (or at least be aware of) - pointless time wasting e.g. hours of freecell that just end up leaving me feeling depressed and frustrated and thinking only alcohol will make this go away. If I'm going to do nothing, take a day off, make it a positive decision - I'm going to watch the whole box set, or go exploring some wood nearby, or read a good book. Something which adds to rather than subtracts. The other thing to avoid - behaving in a drunk way, even tho I'm not actually drinking. So, spending an evening with Johnny & Ingrid, drinking Becks Blue and cranberry & tonic, and smoking dope is, in a way, too much like the old normal. On the other hand helping them bring in and stack their logs, and hang the new gate, was good fun. And spending the day with the Fishers and Linleys and Pol in Southwold was completely not like the old normal - in fact the sort of thing I would need to escape from to get a proper drink and watch some mindless telly, asap - and yet I really enjoyed it.
I've just carefully removed '100-day challenge' as a label from my last few posts. Not because I'm not up for it, but until I've signed the pledge and committed myself to doing it (and started pen palling B) I don't think it's appropriate. And I sort of disagree with B in yesterday's email ("I regret it deeply") saying just do the 100-day challenge. For me the hook was the 7-day challenge (I can do that) and then the 30 day challenge (now, I think I can do that; it is only 30 days, it's not like it will kill me). Then, with some momentum, some confidence, 100 days looks do-able, instead of looking / feeling like forever, which never worked. And I'm still not even sure I want to do that, that is jump from 30 to 100 - why not say 60, and then maybe, 100. The only reason, right now, why I would make the 100-day pledge is that I've paid B to be my sober pen pal, but she won't do it until I make the pledge. I'm not bitter, but it is not what she said on the tin.
Smoking is just like drinking really. Constant craving, which is never really satisfied. So more and more fags, til they're not even nice any more, but keep going anyway because there seems to be no alternative. Just stop? Dope too, and in a way that's the worst, because if I'm just smoking weed, I'm physically fine, but weed seems to inflate this fierce but non-specific craving - which I then attempt to fill by drinking, cigarettes, more weed, and ridiculous amounts of snacks. The booze does the trick eventually by making me pass out. So any behaviour which resembles this pattern (endless Freecell definitely does) is to be avoided. And in a way it's all a fantastic device to stop me having to do anything, at all, apart from get wrecked.
And I realise that what I'm doing now (it's 10:26am) is a similar kind of behaviour. Fiddling about on the interweb, I've had breakfast, not yet dressed, a constant wanting / looking / craving for some new thing to look at on Facebook, or Gmail, or Medium, instead of just finishing my coffee, getting dressed, and meditating. erggh. (That's a sort of constipated noise, which is kind of it feels like).
I think this procrastination thing is a real issue (i.e. one of the bigger reasons why I drank, and still smoke, drink endless instant coffees, get stoned, play freecell). It creates a void, that I have to fill (or collapse into unconsciousness). Why don't I just get on with the stuff I want to get done (like finish Metanoia)? What am I afraid of? Is it not fear, but something else? If so, what could it be? If it is just alcohol (that makes me procrastinate) why am I not doing more now? Well I am, this for a start, but still not getting on with the book.
Hooray, Netflix is working again. So I fall asleep watching Designated Survivor S2 Ep4.
I seem a) to be being asked out a lot b) saying yes to everything c) getting slightly panicky. Very aware that overload leads to the old work (i.e going out and "enjoying" myself) / reward thing (i.e. getting hammered). And it's not really overload, just the unusual experience of trying to do at least one constructive / useful thing a day, and going out and enjoying myself more than once a fortnight. I'm basically out of condition as far as social life is concerned. So maybe the practice is a good idea.
As B said somewhere, don't expect perfection. Aim for it, be pleased if I get close or closer than usual, but don't beat myself up or start feeling self pity / contempt because I missed a meditation, or didn't have time for breakfast. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
Things to really try and avoid (or at least be aware of) - pointless time wasting e.g. hours of freecell that just end up leaving me feeling depressed and frustrated and thinking only alcohol will make this go away. If I'm going to do nothing, take a day off, make it a positive decision - I'm going to watch the whole box set, or go exploring some wood nearby, or read a good book. Something which adds to rather than subtracts. The other thing to avoid - behaving in a drunk way, even tho I'm not actually drinking. So, spending an evening with Johnny & Ingrid, drinking Becks Blue and cranberry & tonic, and smoking dope is, in a way, too much like the old normal. On the other hand helping them bring in and stack their logs, and hang the new gate, was good fun. And spending the day with the Fishers and Linleys and Pol in Southwold was completely not like the old normal - in fact the sort of thing I would need to escape from to get a proper drink and watch some mindless telly, asap - and yet I really enjoyed it.
I've just carefully removed '100-day challenge' as a label from my last few posts. Not because I'm not up for it, but until I've signed the pledge and committed myself to doing it (and started pen palling B) I don't think it's appropriate. And I sort of disagree with B in yesterday's email ("I regret it deeply") saying just do the 100-day challenge. For me the hook was the 7-day challenge (I can do that) and then the 30 day challenge (now, I think I can do that; it is only 30 days, it's not like it will kill me). Then, with some momentum, some confidence, 100 days looks do-able, instead of looking / feeling like forever, which never worked. And I'm still not even sure I want to do that, that is jump from 30 to 100 - why not say 60, and then maybe, 100. The only reason, right now, why I would make the 100-day pledge is that I've paid B to be my sober pen pal, but she won't do it until I make the pledge. I'm not bitter, but it is not what she said on the tin.
Smoking is just like drinking really. Constant craving, which is never really satisfied. So more and more fags, til they're not even nice any more, but keep going anyway because there seems to be no alternative. Just stop? Dope too, and in a way that's the worst, because if I'm just smoking weed, I'm physically fine, but weed seems to inflate this fierce but non-specific craving - which I then attempt to fill by drinking, cigarettes, more weed, and ridiculous amounts of snacks. The booze does the trick eventually by making me pass out. So any behaviour which resembles this pattern (endless Freecell definitely does) is to be avoided. And in a way it's all a fantastic device to stop me having to do anything, at all, apart from get wrecked.
And I realise that what I'm doing now (it's 10:26am) is a similar kind of behaviour. Fiddling about on the interweb, I've had breakfast, not yet dressed, a constant wanting / looking / craving for some new thing to look at on Facebook, or Gmail, or Medium, instead of just finishing my coffee, getting dressed, and meditating. erggh. (That's a sort of constipated noise, which is kind of it feels like).
I think this procrastination thing is a real issue (i.e. one of the bigger reasons why I drank, and still smoke, drink endless instant coffees, get stoned, play freecell). It creates a void, that I have to fill (or collapse into unconsciousness). Why don't I just get on with the stuff I want to get done (like finish Metanoia)? What am I afraid of? Is it not fear, but something else? If so, what could it be? If it is just alcohol (that makes me procrastinate) why am I not doing more now? Well I am, this for a start, but still not getting on with the book.
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