Best Of

From another thread...

@marcitko said:

@how said:
The herd gathering of such reunions tends to re-link us to attitudes that we largely held and shared during those formative years of early socialized behavioral conditionings.

One of my best friends since high-school moved abroad three years ago. He was my drinking-buddy, but also spiritual friend, especially once we both mostly quit drinking. Yesterday he and his family came back home for the first time for holidays. When he said "I'll call you, let's go for a beer!", I experienced a surge of un-equanimity: desire (to have a few beers like in the "good old days", anxiety (that I will drink), pressure (to behave like we used to do)... Ay carumba, as our dearest @lobster would say!

Luckily, we did not meet yesterday, and will maybe go for a coffee today. That sounds much better

I'll still have one or two beers with him while he is in the country, but just once, and hope to be much calmer about it.

Well, that was a lousy idea. I've fallen, made a mistake. Had three beers with my friend - more than I had in ages. Of course, I felt and feel lousy as a result. I feel ashamed, fearful/anxious - but also committed to a new path.

The new path is that I just don't drink, at all. I did this for several years too and it was not at all a problem, in fact it was very pleasurable, simple, and easy. Easy because the decisions were easy - I just don't drink - simple. Discipline = freedom, as they say.

I drank because I felt anxious. My thinking is that I've got two better options, the first is not to go (then I often get ridiculed, but who cares), and the second is to go and just be anxious (again, who cares, if being anxious is "what is", then that's what is).

Sage advice and positive energy welcome

PS. Drinking is more damaging to me than others - firstly because of my anxiety/high-sensitivity and secondly because of the medication I take - so I'm not looking for advice that would condone drinking.

At the reunion I was at, I also drank significantly more than I had in years… I had four beers and a glass of wine that evening, while I usually drink no more than one beer every couple of months. I didn’t get drunk or anything, but I didn’t like the feeling, it was a good reminder why I usually don’t drink.

For me, not drinking comes down to having a good look at what is beneficial about drinking and what is unbeneficial. I dropped it because it affects my perceptions, it distorts my inner feeling of presence, it makes me sleep worse.

but was more suspicious of the levitation course where folks only seemed to learn how to hop a bit up and down from a meditation posture.

It would seem the only thing which actually levitates is the money being lifted from the bank account...Now that's real levitation practice and some so-called teachers are really good at that....

I made a half-of-year analysis of my exercise and weight:

Exercise (days I exercised):
January-June: 41.1%
January - March: 28.9%
April-June: 53.3%

The overall percentage is OKish, but my target is for it to be higher. However, the trend is increasing so I'm happy and will continue pushing for it to increase further.

Let's say that in exercising 41.1% of days I've accomplished my C goal - to have a consistent exercise regimen. The B goal would be to exercise in the 70-80% range - which is "every day except for some exceptions". The A goal would be to finally become someone who can "walk a straight line" which would mean exercising pretty much every day regardless of how I feel, what I'm doing, the weather, etc.

Since November 2022, which is 8 months, I lost 5.1kgs. This too could be better, but it's definitely a sizeable move in the right direction. I can and should look more into how I eat - which is the most important part of weight-loss. The problem is that I order lunch. I could cook more and/or look into eating less when I eat. I am not too keen on skipping meals, since it seems to impact my state of mind negatively. The other problem (which I cannot change currently, so it's not really a problem, just part of the scenery) is that I take some medication which increases appetite.

Both exercise and weight-loss could have been better, but I'm happy with the results so far and will continue pushing. I do believe it's a training and a process, so for starters this is good enough.

I also analyze my substance-intake:

With alcohol, I have continued doing what I've done for the past few (5? 7?) years - which is to mostly never drink except 1-2 beers on very rare occasions. During this time, I probably drank twice while at home and twice while travelling in London, so four times in 6 months. Since it does not really help me in any way any more, except for a VERY brief time period, and comes with a great cost even for 1-2 beers (being hungover), I don't know why I continue drinking even this small amount. I think I get tricked by the mind/old habits which says "do it, you will be happy". But it does not really work that way.

With the anti-anxiety medication, I've tapered down to 1/4 successfully and to 1/8th yesterday. I hope to ditch it for good at the weekend. This would be a motivating win, some measurable thing I've accomplished.

With smoking, I remain at 1 packet/day. Stopping smoking is my most important goal but I've not been able to move on this yet successfully. Even tapering down to a smaller amount would be a significant move in the right direction.

With coffee, I drink my morning coffee and sometimes another one in the day. The second coffee impacts me negatively so I'm often fighting the urge. Drinking the second coffee is an example of directly hurting myself - since it has no positive effect (alcohol at least has a bit of a positive effect for a while). Currently, I am not drinking the second coffee. I would like to quit coffee altogether - in order to have a clean and natural mind.

Yesterday I was active and productive with the post-travel chores but again did not manage the whole list (also because I did some things outside the list). For this reason, going forward I will rank and prioritise the activities for my daily task-lists. This way at least I will do the most important stuff and can move some less important items to the next day.

Today I will go to the library and work. I will not set a fixed time-limit, since it's my first day, and I think enough of a goal is to just show up. Afterwards I will go the gym and the shop. These are my priorities for today.