Friendship and work in sober pandemic

[WCan]

I am (still) an addict.

This is kind of a burst of a realization I had today while working. It’s a big snow storm here today and I realize I was so happy to be able to just stay home and work on my papers all day without having to say anything to anyone. I realize this pandemic is helping my addiction to take over me. It started with alcool all over the place in the first wave, and now that I got sober i feel it’s getting through me under what we could call workaholism.

I realize I’m putting friends appart on behalf of the pandemic and lockdown, but really I feel like I am being selfish. And I rationalize myself by saying “it’s ok, I’m taking that time to work on what I truly want”, which is right, really. I am doing what I want (which is fully reflected and worked in therapy and stuff) and it’s functional and working toward some bigger goals for myself, my future and my couple. I guess I might be exaggerating this workaholic view of myself and it might be reductive. I am still talking to some friend and to my family everyday. It’s just that I don’t see anyone, and I don’t really care about talking for talking without anything new to report. Plus, a lot of my friends are still drinking and I don’t feel the need to just “chill” with someone for no purpose else than just chill.

This is the part where it gets tricky. For some people, it might look like I am neglecting friendship (this is what I feel) and on another side I think I could say that I am acting in consideration of my new needs as a sober person (they aren’t new, but they were hidden under a lot of booze and hangovers and induced mood fluctuations and anxiety).

I don’t know. Maybe it’s that I am still acting like an addict into my activities, which are now mostly related to work. And by acting addict I mean mostly being intense. But what’s the difference between intense, too much, addict and passionate? I would say I’m swimming in a bit of all those… And guess what… I like it. But the feeling of liking it, even if it’s something valuable for society and that is not killing my self (like drinking), well this feeling still make me feel guilty for some reason. I guess it’s because I associated the feeling of enjoying myself with the guilt because I was only enjoying myself through booze. Damn brain.

I guess it’s a process, and by continuing one day at the time to adjust to my needs, reflections, actions and results, I’ll get to a point that it gets easier - in the way that I might know myself better and therefore know better where I’d want to go and what I’d want to do with my life.

Wanted to know anyone thoughts about those kind of experience if you’d like to share I’d be curious and all hear.

Hope you all have a good and sober day ,

[siand]

The concept of addiction that most resonates with me is from Recovery Dharma,the idea of relying on a substance process to escape present time reality. For processes and things that are part of every day life, it is clearly a challenge to define what healthy looks like… And it will be different for all of us. Recovery Dharma, using a Buddhist approach, advocates a regular meditation practice to help uncover where those boundaries lie.

In terms of friendships, I found this to be something that worked itself out. Although the pandemic obviously changes things. But I noticed that there were people within my existing circles that I started connecting with more and they happened to be the people who either don’t drink,or drink less. I have used the pandemic as a bit of an excuse to isolate but it has also shown me who the people are that I really want to keep in touch with.

The most important thing for me has been to try and find some peace in my own company. The easier I find it to be with myself, the easier I find it to connect with others.

[Tomek]

I also struggle to see the difference between intense, too much, addict and passionate. Hard to differentiate because it is so subjective.

I think the fact, that your work is valuable for society doesn’t matter if it effects your life in a way that you use it for escaping. Addiction is a one-man show, society doesn’t care if a work is created by a workacholic or not, and unfortunately workacholism has a pretty good pr. It is you who have to be honest with yourself and check if it has a bad effect on your life and relationships or not.

My two methods are: being honest with myself and looking for patterns.

I’m a huge introvert, so isolating myself feels really good. But I have to be honest: do I isolate myself, because I need it for my healing and sobriety, or am I just being selfish or do I just need love and care do I just want to be found and saved (spoiler alert: nobody saves you in isolation).

About the patterns: I’m getting used to eat chocolate every evening. It’s really not a big deal, causes much less harm if any than booze. But my body doesn’t tolerate sweet well, so I get sick after a few bites. Even so I keep eating, then I feel sick, and promise myself, that I won’t do it next time. And the following evening I do it anyway. And this pattern (do it knowing that it’s bad for me – regret – promise to quit – do it again) is the same I had with booze.

Also almost invisibly we trade addictions. I used alcochol for almost every mood, including being uptight. I quitted booze, so started to hit the wall and hurt myself when I got pissed off. Then I had sex (also used for every mood), now I crave for cigarettes big time. I still haven’t developed any normal coping mechanism to deal with it. But at least realized the forcing power behind.

The same can happen to overthinking, reading, working, isolating.

There is a fine line between having pleasures (including isolation) and being lost in them. I guess the main question is: do you want to get lost? Do you enjoy these things or do you use them? How much of your desire to work is the work itself and how big part does being isolated from real life take? Is it about pros or about cons?

Addiction taught me that things that feel good can be really harmful and hurtful in the long term. I may overprotect myself, but I’m really afraid to slip back with any addiction. Addiction is a life-threatening experience, so it’s quite logical to fear it big time. On the other hand sobriety teaches us to notice warning signs and to track down hidden motivation in ourselves. Sometimes everyday pleasures makes life look like a minefield, but with a detector like sobriety there is a chance to get through it without bigger harm. Or at least I hope so.

[WCan]

Thanks for sharing your thought.
Maybe in the case that addiction is related to substance abuse, I meant that I am in recovery. I’m discovering that under the “addict to substance” pattern there is an underlying more obsessive and control-focused part of me. I am recovering from this too, aside from depressive states, anxiety, pessimistic, and some. I guess I just felt in the last couple of days I had the same feeling I had when I was relapsing on booze, and that make me think that there is a problem in a way I am using my work and planification for the future, that may be wrong or at least not the best for me.

You’re right though I haven’t been meditating in the last couple of week (or way much less than usual) and neglecting my workout. I had a good talk yesterday and I think I got to get back on point with my basics.
Hope you’d have a good day,

[WCan]

Thank you for your answers. Been awhile we haven’t chat.

I hear you with the trades of addictions… I struggled long with that before committing to get sober for real. Switching from benders to overtraining, to overworking to finish the semesters, to over party, over love. I’ve been neglecting , in the last couple of weeks, my personal self reflection time. I’ve been doing so good that I’ve stopped journaling, because I was more energized and more focus about what I am doing in life and stuff. And really I don’t think it was a bad thing that I stopped it. Instead of obligate myself a morning routine I’ve been trying to listen to my needs as they come. And I guess I kind of met a tricky point in the last two weeks after coming back from holidays. When I got back to work, my first lunch break I felt the need to go to drink. But I didn’t. Instead I went obsessively thinking about my future and I started to plan my academic process for the next 2-3-4 years into details while wasting almost all of my afternoon at work on it, plus having it constantly in mind. I was really a switch from wanting to drink to wanting to control something. I guess I wrote that first post and mixed up work with these obsessive thought, because I’ve been alternating between them, and also because both are in the same area in my head - like the “career” one and my professional path.

So for your method, I clearly see some patterns which I’ve identified awhile ago in my life and that I am continuing to work on actively. For being honest thought it is much harder. I am really asking myself these days what I want to do with my life, professionally wise. I’m finishing a long academic path right now just to realize that it’s not really what I’d want to do. So I’m considering 2-3 options, and not knowing if I’m making the right choice overwhelms me. This is where being honest is hard: am I trying to do something “better” just to comfort my ego? Am I putting aside what will and makes me feel happy for an objective that will only comfort my ego? And to those questions I can find a lot of answers why they ain’t true, but I can find a lot of doubt in those answers too. This is all relative to me in the end, and I am working on being able to accept the choice I make and being ok with changing idea along the way. What count is how I feel doing this. Will this path, in the very end, will be worth it? Is not the question I should be asking. It’s the one you said that resonates more with me: do I enjoy doing this or do I use it? In other words, being in this new path or process, is it enjoyable, or is it still an escape that I use to comfort some part of me who’s still not accepting life on life’s terms? I’d say it’s a mix of both. After that it’s in my hand. I can change my perspective and try to just be fine and enjoy the little thing along the way, or keep digging into some kind of control that I don’t control itself and feel that I am no more in recovery… the answer is clear.

Your words helped me walked another step into this. I’ll meditate on that. Hope you’d be fine and that you find some peace within the struggle you had these days.

[siand]

Yes that’s something I have found good about RD. I came to it after a decent spell alcohol free, as a non-drinker, but those thoughts, feelings and underlying behaviours (that desire to escape present time reality) are still there.

Finding the balance between healthy and unhealthy behaviours is a real challenge but being aware of this seems to be an important first step!

[Tomek]

It’s always a pleasure correspond with you.
Reading your words makes me sure that you are going to make a good decision, you are aware of the importance of the present and won’t get lost in the future.

Here are some of my thoughts that came to my mind reading your post.

I think one of the biggest challenge in sobriety is that the whole control system of our lives changed. From the point where we didn’t have any control over our lives to the point that we want/have to control our desires so much, that we tend to loose spontaneity and flexibility. Self-control and control in general is our main tool in sobriety, but it can be a double-edged sword.

It is impossible to figure out, if a decision is good for you on the long run, you can only decide from today’s perspective. ’Tomorrow you’ is a different person who has the experience that is ahead of you at the moment and that adds a constant unknown factor to the question. We have to make decisions not in terms of the outcome but of the starting point, because the outcome will be judged by a different person, the future you. But you know that well.

Also we cannot know ourselves for a 100 % and that also adds an unknown factor to every decision of ours. We have to accept it. We can always doubt the original driving force of our thoughts and feelings, it’s hard to know if they’re honest or not. We cheated ourselves so long with addict thoughts, that it’s hard to trust any thought of ours.

Finding answers to the questions you’re asking yourself is really difficult and after a point it’s easy to get lost, because you don’t do something out of one simple motivation, not only one characteristic of yours is the fuel for your goal, but you as a complex. Your ego and your addict part will always take part in your decisions, the question is: to what extent? And it is really difficult to know, because by asking it you focus on it, hence it’s importance can’t be measured objectively.

„…some part of me who’s still not accepting life on life’s terms”: this part is also part of your today’s personality, you cannot make a decision ignoring this part’s needs, because it makes you the person you are now. We cannot speed up sobriety and think ahead making decisions by a brain of a future someone who is more confident in his sobriety or who is less ego-driven. We can’t change ourselves by changing our path, but we can change ourselves and then our path will change too.

[WCan]

Thanks against for that kind and insightful response. Made me think a lot yesterday and still. I think you’re right on most past especially on working on the self I am right now and not the one I’d be in a certain future where I’d be less ego driven or more confident or so… it made me think about going back to basic of self care and what makes me feel good and be better now instead of trying to control the future…

[WCan]

Someone just liked a post here and it remade me read your messages.
Life is interesting, because I am in these kind of same reflection about future decisions these days. Your message is still on point.
I shall thank you again.