Dry January (or "January" to Trag)

[Ello Sailor]

Strong work, Reido. Keep it up, bro!

[washing machine]

Strong work, Reido. Keep it up, bro!

Less time spent drinking is time given back to improve my eno score on chess dot com.

[Anders]

A dry month isn’t a problem at all.

[Ello Sailor]

Strong work, Reido. Keep it up, bro!

Less time spent drinking is time given back to improve my eno score on chess dot com.

You sonofabitch. But yes, the clarity will be great for your chessticles.

[Ello Sailor]

A dry month isn’t a problem at all.

Wow. WOW.

[Anders]

A dry month isn’t a problem at all.

Wow. WOW.

How many units do you drink per month?

[Ello Sailor]

None. I was just being a silly goose. But telling someone who is opening up about a tustle with alcohol that a dry month "isn't a problem at all" is kind of strange. Maybe it's a Norway thing.

[washing machine]

I think he was referring to a "dry month" in chess terms. In this context, a dry month might mean a month without a chess win.

By saying that it wouldn't be a problem at all, he's actually keeping it very real. Life is short, and chess wins aren't everything.

[Dev]

I'd like to slow down, but a life without wine seems "boring." Transcending boredom is a goal or a lever of sobriety from what I hear, and that interests me. It's easy to see on paper how boring this life with the same wines every night is, too. That irony is not lost on me. I understand that this is probably what an addiction looks like.

I think you gotta take this idea totally seriously. Not sure many people can even reason this.

[tree_]

i suck at chess.com but i keep playing.. at about 940 right now

[Dev]

Ah, gotcha and been there. Lately when I'm perfectly content with a day at the beach or going out on a run, I'll start thinking about how getting kinda stoned on a half dose of a gummy would just make the moment shine that much more. I'm not impaired or absent in these moments, but I'd like to get back to seeing the world through the same sober and awe-inspired eyes that my curious five-year old does. I see a lot of myself in him when he picks up a leaf and just totally gets lost in nature. I think he gets it from me, and it's helped me remember a default setting in my personality.

Rick Rubin's book The Creative Act has actually helped a lot with trying to return to whatever I've gotten away from, but you're right... it's just so easy/comfortable to just keep on escalating the moment with a buzz of some sort.

Yeah man. I relate. I have so much joy with my two young children. That must be natural for everyone. And in that way, I know I'm not too fucked up. It's just like you said, I often just have that thought that I could be feeing better right now, because pot and booze do work so very well at doing that. I just have one of those brains I guess. I feel like I'm a better person when I'm a bit altered, and people actually seem to agree. I get out of my shell. But I do know ultimately I should work on breaking through that shell without cheating, and that would be the best version of me. Again, it just seems so daunting, and so much easier to just keep doing what I'm doing.

People convinced me I was a better version of myself high too. No doubt numb Dev and tree_ are more palatable to unscrupulous types who don't want the best for us... Personally I want my tree_ at his most pronounced with all the color and nuance.

[Dev]

Been struggling again lately with wine and thc gummies. It's a compulsive evening routine at this point and it's noticeably affecting my mornings and by extension my responsibilities throughout the day.

Anyway, yesterday I decided to stop/take a break/whatever and that was tougher than I thought it would be. Feels okay this morning though. We'll see where this goes. I know myself well enough to understand that this is not the hard part. That's coming. Not sure if I want to be totally sober or try actual moderation. I don't think I want to give up life's intoxicating moments entirely, but yeah.

Wishing you the best. It's so easy to fall into a pattern and I know how difficult it can be to break it, especially when it's so casual and there's no real "rock bottom" to completely snap you out of it.

My message to anyone is don't wait for this moment. I had the good fortune of stumbling upon this day and I just wish I'd seen the truth of my directionless seemingly innocuous lifestyle without such a brutal consequence. You get one life. We aren't getting any of these days back.

[tragabigzanda]

There is a wolf in me . . . fangs pointed for tearing gashes . . . a red tongue for raw meat . . . and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fox in me . . . a silver-gray fox . . . I sniff and guess . . . I pick things out of the wind and air . . . I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers . . . I circle and loop and double-cross.

There is a hog in me . . . a snout and a belly . . . a machinery for eating and grunting . . . a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fish in me . . . I know I came from salt-blue water-gates . . . I scurried with shoals of herring . . . I blew waterspouts with porpoises . . . before land was . . . before the water went down . . . before Noah . . . before the first chapter of Genesis.

There is a baboon in me . . . clambering-clawed . . . dog-faced . . . yawping a galoot's hunger . . . hairy under the armpits . . . here are the hawk-eyed hankering men . . . here are the blonde and blue-eyed women . . . here they hide curled asleep waiting . . . ready to snarl and kill . . . ready to sing and give milk . . . waiting—I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.

There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird . . . and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want . . . and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.

O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart—and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where—For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.

[Dev]

New Dev is turning me on

Look at all the good things happening to me now that I'm sober.

[tragabigzanda]

There is a wolf in me . . . fangs pointed for tearing gashes . . . a red tongue for raw meat . . . and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fox in me . . . a silver-gray fox . . . I sniff and guess . . . I pick things out of the wind and air . . . I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers . . . I circle and loop and double-cross.

There is a hog in me . . . a snout and a belly . . . a machinery for eating and grunting . . . a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fish in me . . . I know I came from salt-blue water-gates . . . I scurried with shoals of herring . . . I blew waterspouts with porpoises . . . before land was . . . before the water went down . . . before Noah . . . before the first chapter of Genesis.

There is a baboon in me . . . clambering-clawed . . . dog-faced . . . yawping a galoot's hunger . . . hairy under the armpits . . . here are the hawk-eyed hankering men . . . here are the blonde and blue-eyed women . . . here they hide curled asleep waiting . . . ready to snarl and kill . . . ready to sing and give milk . . . waiting—I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.

There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird . . . and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want . . . and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.

O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart—and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where—For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.

[96583UP]

seems like a natural progression for young parents to inevitably give up / severely curtain regular drinking or marijuana

it just does not work when you have to deal with children

and as you get older your body can't shake it off as well the next day

and other things make your body feel happy instead with age

like high quality fiber

[spike]

seems like a natural progression for young parents to inevitably give up / severely curtain regular drinking or marijuana

it just does not work when you have to deal with children

and as you get older your body can't shake it off as well the next day

and other things make your body feel happy instead with age

like high quality fiber

Certainly true, but man, the pandemic made it real easy for some of us new/newish parents at the time to slip into some bad habits around booze and weed.

Then all of a sudden, the world is normal again and you have a two year old and some addictions to curtail.

[Dev]

New Dev is turning me on

Look at all the good things happening to me now that I'm sober.

One day at a time dawg

Kill me.

Why do I still crave getting high even though it hasn't really been fun for years? Also will I ever not crave it?

I bought a pack of cigarettes tonight just cause I "need" something and I instantly feel like a piece of shit and failure. I don't even like cigs but at least my mental state is not altered by them.

[spike]

New Dev is turning me on

Look at all the good things happening to me now that I'm sober.

One day at a time dawg

Kill me.

Why do I still crave getting high even though it hasn't really been fun for years? Also will I ever not crave it?

I bought a pack of cigarettes tonight just cause I "need" something and I instantly feel like a piece of shit and failure. I don't even like cigs but at least my mental state is not altered by them.

Careful, friend.

[Anders]

None. I was just being a silly goose. But telling someone who is opening up about a tustle with alcohol that a dry month "isn't a problem at all" is kind of strange. Maybe it's a Norway thing.

The whole concept of the thread seems to be a joking one, even with mentioning Trag in the thread title. A banter with friends type of situation. Like the dry november one, for masturbation.

I did not mean it as a dig at alcoholics. I respect the struggle they go through.